What book are you reading?

[[deleted user]]

As of right now, I am reading Little Women. I have another book checked out from the library, but am not really reading it yet.

[Catamorandi]

I am reading The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy at the moment. It is hysterical. I think it would make a good group read.

[Tabetha]

Oh, I adored reading Hitchhiker's Guide... unfortunately that was a few years ago, so I'm not sure I remember much of it. =/ I am myself currently reading Rhapsody, first book of the Symphony of Ages series.

[[deleted user]]

Perpendicularandi wrote: "I am reading The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy at the moment. It is hysterical. I think it would make a good group read."

Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is one that is on my TBR list that I plan on reading very soon.

[[deleted user]]

Tabetha wrote: "Oh, I adored reading Hitchhiker's Guide... unfortunately that was a few years ago, so I'm not sure I remember much of it. =/ I am myself currently reading Rhapsody, first book of the Symphony of Ag..."


How do you like Rhapsody so far? It looks good to me, but I haven't read it yet.

[[deleted user]]

I'm reading Maximum ride: the final warning right now!

[Tabetha]

Oh, I adore the entire Symphony of Ages series - this is my third time reading the series. I would highly suggest you read it at some point. ^^

[[deleted user]]

Tabetha, I will definitely add it to my TBR list! Thanks for the recommendation! :)

[Kristen]

I'm reading Iron Kissed, The Curse of Addy McMahon and Paper Towns.

[Fiona (Titch)]

Well I have the followin on the go:

The Swallow and the Dark - Andrew Matthews
Puberty Blues - Kathy Lette & Gabrielle Carey
The Amazing Story of Adolphus Tips - Michael Morpurgo

[[deleted user]]

Fiona, which one do you like the best so far?

[Fiona (Titch)]

Not started neither yet. But have read Michael Morpurgo books which I like.

[[deleted user]]

Awesome... let us know what you think of the others when you get into them.

[[deleted user]]

I just picked up our 2 group read books for May today. I haven't read either of them, so I look forward to finally reading both.

[Fiona (Titch)]

Linda, I started The Swallow and the Dark - Andrew Matthews last nite, its a quick book (as long as your not too tired and been walking loads in the day with a nice warm sun).

[[deleted user]]

Sounds good. :)

[Fiona (Titch)]

Sam is sixteen - and fighting a war with his own body. Sam has been diagnosed with an incurable illness that gives him only months to live, meaning that now he has so little left, time has suddenly become very important to him. And nearly a hundred years ago, another Sam - a lieutenant in the British Army - is off to fight a different kind of war, on the Western Front. He knows that he may not survive. Linking the two is a girl named Marion. But is Marion just a figment of Sam's imagination - a hallucination caused by his medication - or something far more extraordinary? Could she somehow be...a bridge across time itself?

[[deleted user]]

Oh! That sounds really good actually. Eventually I will read all the books I want, but the list just keeps growing! :) I love it though...

[Fiona (Titch)]

Puberty Blues - Kathy Lette:

Kathy Lette's first novel, written with her surfie chick friend Gabrielle Carey, when they were eighteen. Written twenty years ago, PUBERTY BLUES is the bestselling account of growing up in the 1970s that took Australia by storm and spawned an eponymous cult movie. PUBERTY BLUES is about 'top chicks' and 'surfie spunks' and the kids who don't quite make the cut: it recreates with fascinating honesty a world where only the gang and the surf count. It's a hilarious and horrifying account of the way many teenagers live...and some of them die. Kathy Lette and Gabrielle Carey's insightful novel is as painfully true today as it ever was.

[Fiona (Titch)]

The Amazing Story of Adolphus Tips - Michael Morpurgo:

A heart-warming tale of courage and warmth, set against the backdrop of the Second World War, about an abandoned village, a lifelong friendship and one very adventurous cat! 'Classic Morpurgo brilliance' - Publishing News. "Something's up. Something big too, very big. At school, in the village, whoever you meet, it's all anyone talks about. It's like a sudden curse has come down on us all. It makes me wonder if we'll ever see the sun again." It's 1943, and Lily Tregenze lives on a farm, in the idyllic seaside village of Slapton. Apart from her father being away, and the 'townie' evacuees at school, her life is scarcely touched by the war. Until one day, Lily and her family, along with 3000 other villagers, are told to move out of their homes - lock, stock and barrel. Soon, the whole area is out of bounds, as the Allied forces practise their landings for D-day, preparing to invade France. But Tips, Lily's adored cat, has other ideas - barbed wire and keep-out signs mean nothing to her, nor does the danger of guns and bombs. Frantic to find her, Lily makes friends with two young American soldiers, who promise to help her. But will she ever see her cat again?Lily decides to cross the wire into the danger zone to look for Tips herself! Now, many years later, as Michael is reading his Grandma Lily's diary, he learns about 'The Amazing Story of Adolphus Tips' - and wonders how one adventurous cat could still affect their lives sixty years later.

[Catamorandi]

I am reading 1776 by David McCullough. I just started it. I just finished The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and can't wait for the discussion on it. It is a fantastic book! I am waiting for I Capture the Castle to come in the mail, so I can be a part of that discussion also.

[[deleted user]]

Sounds good! I will be starting I Capture the Castle as soon as I finish Good in Bed. Can't wait!! :)

[Fiona (Titch)]

I have I Capture The Castle on my TBR list, so I will try and join in the convo as well lol.

[Jamie]

I've just finished up the Percy Jackson series, and I'm now waiting for the last book to come out (May 5th). I've also just started another YA series, The 39 Clues, which shouldn't take too long to get through. The first one is really good so far and they're very short books. I will move on to People of the Book next.

I just read ICTC last month (I'm not a fan, but I think I'm in the minority on that), so I won't be reading it again. I will join your discussion, though.

[[deleted user]]

Sounds good Jamie. I look forward to hearing another side of the ICTC group. :)

[Kristen]

Jamie, I've read the first three Percy Jackson and need to read the fourth next week to gear up for #5. I love the 39 Clues! Read all three so far. I also didn't fall in love with ICTC, but it was lovely writing so I struggled through it.

[Jamie]

Kristen - Regarding ICTC, I agree that the writing was really good. For me, it wasn't fun to read, though, it just made me uncomfortable. Not my kind of story. I felt the same way about A Great and Terrible Beauty, too, which everyone seems to love.

[Kristen]

For me, I think it was the lack of action more than the kind of story. I do enjoy some romances and some fiction that is along the same lines, but I think I got frustrated waiting for the narrator to get to the "juicier" parts. My interest waned about halfway through, but I was determined to finish it. I did love A Great and Terrible Beauty because it had a mix of magic and was a little more involving.

[Jamie]

Kristen - That was part of the reason I didn't really enjoy ICTC - it felt like the story just dragged along. With AGATB, I didn't like any of the characters; it felt like a retelling of Mean Girls with magic. I really prefer uplifting stories, and I didn't get that vibe from either book, although other people may have a different take on that.

[Kristen]

Ahhh.. yeah, I don't like uplifting stories all of the time. I can see where AGATB really isn't uplifting.. that was part of the appeal to me. And I like that time period.

[Fiona (Titch)]

I have finished The Swallow and the Dark - Andrew Matthews . I have also read Respect - Michaela Morgan.

Will carry on readin some library books.

[Jamie]

I finished the first two 39 Clues books. I enjoyed the first one a lot, and the second one is okay, but I can see how the series is going to be pretty formulaic. Anyway, I couldn't get People of the Book from the library yesterday, so I tried starting Three Cups of Tea. I found it to be pretty intolerable, actually. While the general story had promise, the writing just wasn't good. Mortenson sure could use a dose of humility.

[Kristen]

I heard bad things about that book from my aunt. Maybe if you tried the young adult version, you might get a different style of writing with the same story.. only toned down. I'm currently listening to Paper Towns and LOVING it. I'm reading The Curse of Addy McMahon and Adverbs A Novel.

[Fiona (Titch)]

Decided to read Dying Light - Stuart MacBride (early), but will dip into library books as they are mostly short in between the books I am reading as well.

[Jamie]

As I'm waiting to get to the library to grab People of the Book, I started a re-read of Pride and Prejudice. I can't explain how much I love that book - it just never gets tiring. I've also been listening to Notes from a Small Island in the car, but I can't seem to make much progress that way. I have to finish it this month for the Pick-a-Shelf group, so I'm also waiting for the book to come in to the library from ILL.

[Fiona (Titch)]

Jaime, I won my copy of People of the Book off ebay yesterday. So I am awaiting that to arrive lol.

[Jamie]

Fiona - I got to the library this morning as it opened and I picked up People of the Book. (I wish our library was open during the weekend.) Can't wait to start it!

[Fiona (Titch)]

Jaime, my local library is only open Monday - Saturday. My copy has been sent today, so that should arrive with me soon.

[Priscilla]

I'm reading The savage garden...After i'll read the lord of the rings

[Karencilla]

I'm reading The Shack... it's AMAZING so far.

[Fiona (Titch)]

Dying Light - Stuart MacBride

This is a new Logan McRae thriller from the author of "Cold Granite". It's summertime in the Granite city: the sun is shining, the sky is blue, and people are dying! It starts with a prostitute, stripped naked and beaten to death down by the docks - the heart of Aberdeen's red light district. For DS Logan MacRae, it's a bad start to another bad day. Only a few short months ago, he was the golden boy of Grampian police. But one botched raid later, he's palmed off on a DI everyone knows is a jinx, waiting for the axe to fall with all the other rejects in the 'Screw-up Squad'. Logan's not going to take it lying down. He's determined to escape DI Steel and her unconventional methods, and the best way to do that is to crack the case in double-quick time. But Rosie Williams won't be the only one making an unscheduled trip to the morgue. Across the city, six people are burning to death in a petrol-soaked squat, the doors and windows screwed shut from the outside. And despite Logan's best efforts, it's not long before another prostitute turns up on the slab! Stuart MacBride's characteristic grittiness, gallows humour and lively characerization are to the fore in his unputdownable second novel, confirming his status as the rising star of crime fiction.

[Fiona (Titch)]

I have read The Night Bus - Anthony Horowitz & Scared - Anthony Horowitz. Will now read Getting Rid of Karenna - Helena Pietichaty.

[[deleted user]]

I started reading I capture the castle. So far it's a little slow moving.

[Fiona (Titch)]

Just finished Dying Light - Stuart MacBride. I am now gonna read Lucky - Alice Sebold.

Enormously visceral, emotionally gripping, and imbued with the belief that justice is possible even after the most horrific of crimes, Alice Sebold's compelling memoir of her rape at the age of eighteen is a story that takes hold of you and won't let go.

Sebold fulfills a promise that she made to herself in the very tunnel where she was raped: someday she would write a book about her experience. With Lucky she delivers on that promise with mordant wit and an eye for life's absurdities, as she describes what she was like both as a young girl before the rape and how that rape changed but did not sink the woman she later became.

It is Alice's indomitable spirit that we come to know in these pages. The same young woman who sets her sights on becoming an Ethel Merman-style diva one day (despite her braces, bad complexion, and extra weight) encounters what is still thought of today as the crime from which no woman can ever really recover. In an account that is at once heartrending and hilarious, we see Alice's spirit prevail as she struggles to have a normal college experience in the aftermath of this harrowing, life-changing event.

No less gripping is the almost unbelievable role that coincidence plays in the unfolding of Sebold's narrative. Her case, placed in the inactive file, is miraculously opened again six months later when she sees her rapist on the street. This begins the long road to what dominates these pages: the struggle for triumph and understanding -- in the courtroom and outside in the world.

Lucky is, quite simply, a real-life thriller. In its literary style and narrative tension we never lose sight of why this life story is worth reading. At the end we are left standing in the wake of devastating violence, and, like the writer, we have come to know what it means to survive.

[Jamie]

I loved Lucky, Fiona. I hope you enjoy it, too.

[Fiona (Titch)]

Jamie, I have been meaning to read this for a while.

[Fiona (Titch)]

Gave up on Alice Sebold's Lucky. I will go and read Broken Skin - Stuart MacBride.

[Jamie]

What was it you didn't like about Lucky, Fiona?

[Fiona (Titch)]

Just the way it was written and I think its also bought back about my near rape from my step-father.

Sorry, I am going back 20 yrs.

[Jamie]

I'm so sorry, Fiona. This could be a very difficult book to read if one has experienced that kind of trauma. I guess I sort of identified with Alice, too, and it was interesting to see how she dealt with what happened.