What Are You Reading Showing 5,001-5,050 of 6,935

[Barbara]

I started Go Set a Watchman which is for my book club that meets at the end of the month. I have it on kindle and I think it's going to go quickly.

[Susan]

I can't wait to read your review, Barbara.

[Seraphina]

I have purposely not read this book as I don't want to ruin TKAM

[Margo]

Emma wrote: "I'd be pretty much the same. Will be interesting to hear your thoughts on it Barbara."

It is so different to TKAM that I don't think it will impact on fond memories! Look forward to Barbaras review ;)

[Susan]

Seraphina wrote: "I have purposely not read this book as I don't want to ruin TKAM"

Me too.

[Paul]

I think with the book it helps to think of it as the book that leads to TKAM rather than the other way around. Its a stage in the development .

[Barbara]

Paul wrote: "I think with the book it helps to think of it as the book that leads to TKAM rather than the other way around. Its a stage in the development ."

Paul, that's definitely the approach I am taking. I read that her editor told her to write a different book focusing on Scout's childhood and sent her back to the drawing board. I will say I'm 35% through and not finding Scout as appealing as she was as a child.

[Barbara]

I finished and am looking forward to my book club at the end of the month. This is not a book to read without reading TKAM first. This book never would have made it at the time it was published. The quietness of TKAM pulls the reader into the story. This book hits the reader over the head with points of view.

[Seraphina]

Did you enjoy it Barbara?

[Barbara]

Seraphina wrote: "Did you enjoy it Barbara?"

I'd say I'm glad I read it....

[Sara]

I've had a bit of a recent slow down in my reading due to being under the weather. I have a cold and an absolutely dreadful lingering cough that won't go away! I've been spending lots of time propped up in bed, but I've found that I've been inclined to recuperate with t.v. shows rather than books.

I've found that Kalpa Imperial: The Greatest Empire That Never Was (my book for the South America challenge read) is best digested in small chunks. In contrast I've been speeding through through Lumberjanes, Vol. 1: Beware the Kitten Holy (and the subsequent volumes). Lumberjanes is a lovely graphic novel series about the friendship of 5 girls at a summer camp as they defeat mysterious monsters. After a bit of a hiatus, I'm also back to my listening/e-bookreading of The Complete Sherlock Holmes.

[Susan]

AJ, I think it is one of those books you had to read at that time. It was very popular when I was in college and really consider sort of daring to be reading it then. It fit with the rebellion at the time and spoke to our distrust of the government. I don't think I'd like it if I went back and read it now similar to my feelings about The Catcher in the Rye.

But I remember the times so well. The students taking over Columbia University, kids getting shot at Kent State and the demonstrations at Berkeley. It's a book of that time.

[Margo]

Aj wrote: "Catch-22

Just wondering what Irish readers thought of this book? I thought it was awful. Felt like the same thing repeated over and over. The odd funny line but then its forced down ..."

I read it in college in 1986 and still remember it quite vividly. I think that tells a lot! I found it a hard book to get into, but once I was in I was hooked. I think that a lot of what you read in your teens has a profound impact - Catch-22 certainly made a huge impression on me

[Barbara]

I got The Japanese Lover by Isabel Allende at the library. I should be getting more reading done with the blizzard but have been working, cooking and watched a 3 hour film:) Not sure about it yet...

[Susan]

Does anybody besides me get a little lonely after finishing a really good book? I find this is especially true for characters you're really invested in. I just miss them and wonder what's going on. I know it seems silly but there it is.

[Paul]

Theres even a term for that Susan. Its a book hangover.
Happens to me if a book has great characters that draw you in. you end up really missing them.

[Trelawn]

Yeah that has happened to me a few times. I think the worst was The Bronze Horseman when I was in college. My friend tried to ban me from reading the sequel I was that bad.

[Margo]

Trelawn wrote: "Yeah that has happened to me a few times. I think the worst was The Bronze Horseman when I was in college. My friend tried to ban me from reading the sequel I was that bad."

That's a great term for it! For me it takes a while to get over. I will discard perfectly good into my DNF pile simply because they don't measure up.

[Cathleen]

That happens to me, too, Susan. And there are a lot of characters that I think about years later because some situation reminds me of them. For some reason, Casaubon from Middlemarch comes up a lot.

[Cathleen]

Emma wrote: "A random one to stay with you Cathleen."

Indeed :).

[Donna]

I love that term - book hangover. Glad to know I'm not the only one who has them.

[Susan]

I love that term, Paul. I am an addict and now I know I have a hangover. What could be a better description?

[Paul]

I'd say it's a common problem here :-)

[Sara]

So here in the U.S., February is Black History Month. I've decided that during the month I'm going to read a linked trilogy of works by African-American author Toni Morrison .

From Goodreads,

"These three novels by Toni Morrison are linked not by shared characters or setting, but by a set of recurring themes, predominantly the exploration of African-American history from the mid-nineteenth to the late twentieth century. Morrison has stated that the books were intended to be read as a trilogy, but has never officially given the series a name."

First up is Beloved which intimidates me a bit because it's supposed to be her great masterpiece.

[Trelawn]

I tried to read Beloved in college and just couldn't get into it. Whether that was my fault or the book or timing I don't know

[Trelawn]

I had to read Beloved, Mansfield Park and Great Expectations but only answer questions on two of them. I'll let you figure out which two I chose to study in depth :-)

[Sara]

It's possible that Morrison's work resonates more with American audiences than with international ones, but that's just a guess. We read The Bluest Eye by her in my 11th grade Humanities class, and it ranks in my top 20 reads of all time. Beloved is supposed to be more complicated structurally though, so I'll see how I get in with it.

[Kevin]

I'll be reading Morrison's Song of Solomon for one of my courses this semester coincidentally. This particular lecturer is fond of her and usually I am quite trusting of his book choices.

I'm taking an American lit module (post 1890 era) and there are seven books in all on the course. First off is The Great Gatsby which I will be starting this weekend. I'm not sure whether to look forward to it or not.

[Seraphina]

Great gatsby is one I haven't read either Kevin, not sure why but be interesting to see what you make of it

[Kevin]

I should also mention that I started Wuthering Heights and I've enjoyed the 20 pages I've read so far. I haven't been fully introduce to the characters yet but I like the mixture of real and supernatural so far, very unexpected. I love the setting most of all.

Something tells me I will like it, Seraphina, but I'm trying my best to not have too many expectations.

[Trelawn]

The Great Gatsby is an odd one. I love the world depicted while despising many of the characters. I enjoyed but didn't love it.

[Cathleen]

Trelawn wrote: "The Great Gatsby is an odd one. I love the world depicted while despising many of the characters. I enjoyed but didn't love it."

I found it one of those novels that I appreciated more than I loved.

[Cathleen]

I'm rereading The Scarlet Letter. I read it as a high school student and enjoyed it, but then, I was really interested in interpreting all of the Biblical allusions, imagery, and the like. I had an excellent teacher who modeled how to read for symbols, not just for plot. All these years later, I have to say I'm completely bowled over by Hawthorne's insight into people's interior and emotional lives, and as much as I enjoyed it as a teenager--this reading is worlds away richer and more enjoyable.

[Susan]

On the other hand, I loved Great Gatsby but hated the movie.
What are the other books on your list, Kevin?

[Trelawn]

@ Emma I was only saying to Paul thay maybe I should reread Wuthering Heights. It's more than ten years since I read it and I'm wondering if my distaste for it is real or imagined after years of giving out about it. My need to see if my perspective has changed

[Trelawn]

Sounds good. I'd be more inclined to do it as a buddy read than on my own

[Trelawn]

Cool well we'll arrange a time to do that then. I'll have to pick up a copy as I disposed of my old one years ago :-)

[Kevin]

Susan wrote: "On the other hand, I loved Great Gatsby but hated the movie.
What are the other books on your list, Kevin?"

So far I know I will be reading or rereading the following in the next few weeks.
For American Lit:
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
White Noise by DeLillo, Don.
The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts. by Kingston, Maxine Hong.
Song of Solomon. by Morrison, Toni.
Shortcomings by Tomine, Adrian.
Terrorist. by Updike, John.

For Victorian Lit:
Emily Bronte Wuthering Heights
Charles Dickens Great Expectations
Robert Louis Stevenson Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde
Oscar Wilde The Picture of Dorian Gray

There's another half dozen of Middle Irish poetry and proses but I am far too unmotivated to list them :).

[Sara]

Oh I really dislike John Updike Kevin. I'll be interested to see how you get on with him. The rest of the list looks interesting...in particular the inclusion of Shortcomings since it's a graphic novel.

[Trelawn]

That's a dark selection for the Victorian Lit. But you have some of them read already don't you?

[Kevin]

Wuthering Heights is the only Victorian novel there that I haven't read. It pissed me off a bit as I studied Dorian Gray already a year ago with the same lecturer. I know it's a different focus but still, you need something fresh.

Sara, the course leader, who happens to be my favourite lecturer, is a major fan of graphic novels so it's no wonder he would sneak one in. Supposedly everyone who is helping to teach the course each chose a book for it. Questions of race being a major theme.

[Margo]

I'm possibly the only person in the world who dislikes Wuthering Heights. Maybe you will take my side Kevin ;-)

[Trelawn]

No Emma and I are with you Margo. We were just discussing doing a reread to see if our perspectives have changed. It's been quite a few years since the initial read. I hate Heathcliff and many of the other characters with a passion most charitably described as "unhealthy".

[Margo]

Trelawn wrote: "No Emma and I are with you Margo. We were just discussing doing a reread to see if our perspectives have changed. It's been quite a few years since the initial read. I hate Heathcliff and many of t..."

Oh that pleases me trelawn! People are always calling him "a great romantic hero" and I think he's a psychopath - Kevin, make up your own mind!

[Trelawn]

There is nothing heroic about Heathcliff IMO but I am willing to try it again and see if I can appreciate the story more this time. I don't know if you have ever read Jasper Fforde's Thursday Next series Margo, but in one of the books they have Heathcliff in compulsory anger management classes :-)

[Trelawn]

Hear hear :-)

[Margo]

Emma wrote: "Margo you should read the Thursday Next series if you haven't. They do some brilliant stuff with literary characters including Heathcliff and the rest of the Wuthering Heights cast.

Personally whi..."


LOL Emma you have given me a great laugh! I will definitely check out that series, thanks for the recommendation guys..

[Paul]

What Jasper Fforde does with Ms Havisham is beyond brilliant. And ol Uncle Mycroft

[Thomas, Moderator]

I received a NetGalley.com approval for Murder in an Irish Village It takes place in County Cork,land of my ancestors.

[Susan]

I just requested it. We'll see how that goes.