Readerville Veterans discussion
What are you reading?
Oh, my goodness, Nancy gives The Time Traveler's Wife five stars, Lauren gives it one star. Discuss, please.I'm reading Elizabeth Hardwick's Sleepless Nights which is beautiful and strange. Also still reading the Robert Altman bio on and off and a reread of A Room of One's Own.
Ha! I only realized the TTW was not on my book list when Lauren listed it, so I thought I should add it. YES, I loved it. It was a light, strange, fun story and I couldn't put it down. I think it was my favorite novel of 2004. I don't think Lauren and I have ever been this far apart in our ratings.
I gave it four stars, that's my story and I'm sticking to it.
It fit into a interesting niche for me. I don't really enjoy genre fiction (mysteries, sci fic, thrillers, etc.), read very little of it, and am fairly ignorant of its traditional conventions. So when a novel with an element of those conventions appeals to me, I become delighted by what are, to me, new ideas.I had the same experience with Harwood's The Ghost Writer. It was a mystery with some genre-mystery conventions, but was all new and exciting to me.
See, I was less thrilled with the Harwood giving it three stars.
That kind of proves my theory. You know a lot about mysteries, and read them. So you had a lot to compare it to.
See, I liked the Harwood a great deal but man, I hated TTW. I may have even thrown it acorss the room. But I still love Nancy!
I really enjoyed reading TTW - it just doesn't hold up to close inspection post-read (and I can't help but inspect).I gave up on the Harwood - far too much foreshadowing and angst.
I think of books like TTW as ephemeral reading. Delicious but fleeting.
TTW wife for me was like eating something way too sweet -- I gobbled it right up, it was so tasty at first, but as I neared the end I realized it wasn't sitting right -- left a bad after-taste. I decided I'm just too cynical or something but I just didn't give a rat's ass by the end of it and was glad to be done. But I have to admit it grabbed me at first. Still, I haven't had any desire to read her new novel.
I'm with Nancy on this one -- it struck me as kind of high-end fluff, and I just went with it and enjoyed it. I liked the Harwood too. Maybe I'm just easy to please.
That's right, Nancy; (0_0) we still love you. I am still reading Wolf Hall, and I love it !!!Hum... After Fear of Flying, I must say I like The Postmistress better; I am past mid-book, but let me finish it, before I post an opinion...
I'm reading When You Are Engulfed in Flames on my iPhone, The Little Stranger in print and listening to Lush Life when I walk the dog. I'm liking all three, and so far its working co-reading all three, but I can see that Lush Life could start demanding more attention. It's great in audio form. The narrator has a Brooklyn accent and he reads beautifully. Lush Life is my first Price, and I'm wallowing in it a bit . I suspect that the dog, even though he's pulling my arm off lately, will be getting more walks.
Are you liking The little Stranger? I wanted to like it but it left kind of a bad taste in my mouth.
So far. I'm only about 70 pages in. I'm just grateful that she's not layering on the foreshadowing. I really don't enjoy books that are all about the final reveal. But I know very little about the book, except that its a ghost story of sorts, which helps. Was it the ending that left the bad taste or did you feel that way throughout?
I can't quite articulate it - more that the sum of the parts didn't equal the whole. I've found her other books to end with more of a bang, this one was more of a huh? I'll be interested to know what you think.
"Huh?" seems apt for me. It just kind of fizzled out.
I am officially out of control. I have an enormous stack of newish books to read--more enormous than usual. Yesterday I broke down and bought online the new Ian McEwan (Solar), which was inevitable. But I also bought the new Jill Ciment novel, Heroic Measures. Several years ago I read a memoir by her. I remember that I loved it, but I don't remember anything else about it. Definitely an impulse buy.Then today we drove out to a real town and popped in to an indie bookstore. It's small, but they have a great fiction section. I bought the new Sue Miller, The Lake Shore Limited, which I didn't know had been released, and Norris Church Mailer's new memoir, A Ticket to the Circus, which looks to be filled with lots of great stories of my town and the world, and great gossip about the same. Also, photos. I am book-drunk.
> I am officially out of control. Atta girl!
Ooooo a new Sue Miller... gotta have. And I saw the McEwan at Costco when I was burying the Sarah Palin books underneath the the travel calendars. Books -- I keep buying 'em. I just can't seem to get them read!
"when I was burying the Sarah Palin books underneath the the travel calendars."Hah! Good girl, LuAnn. I once kicked an Ann Coulter book behind a vending machine in the grocery store.
The Girl in the Dragon Tattoo is fun.
>I saw the McEwan at CostcoThe world surely has changed.
Lisa wrote: "I want that Norris Church book."I read that as "Chuck Norris Church" - interesting association.
I'm really out of control too. eBooks combined with BB, here, and various remainder tables has turned my book buying into one extended click.
I'm 'reading' the 3 books (cause I haven't touched Ulysses in weeks) that are listed in my profile plus I started Open: An Autobiography.
Notice I totally sidestepped the "out of control" topic. I've officially filled up all our bookshelves and now we have a staging table with stacks of books and periodicals. I'm probably going to be leaving my office (if not my job) in a few months, so I've started ferrying home all the books I've bought over the years and shelved here, and oh my goodness. At least if I don't have a job and can't afford to buy books, I'll still have stuff to read. Like until I'm 80.Reading Sam Lipsyte's The Ask, and even though I'm halfway through, I'm still not sure how I feel about it. I'm thinking the comic novel just might not be my thing, although it's not so much the humor as the incredibly broad-based humor -- there's slapstick and sophisticated stuff, dry and silly and black and everything in between. So MUCH humor. But well done, no matter what. And certainly aimed at me and my people (NYC, academia, Jews, artists, parents, slackers).
And yeah, go Luann! And Karen.
Ha! LuAnn, my mind's image of you at Costco hiding Palin books makes me feel better about the world. Thanks.'tis the season for good new books.
Heh, I have a staging area on my night stand and also in my closet. And sometimes I keep books in my car for a while. I really like The three Weissmanns of Westport. A few quibbles but nothing major. Now I am reading Hidden in the Shadow of the Master about three artist's wives who served as models for their husbands (Monet, Cezanne, Rodin). Sadly, it's not very good.
>Ooooo a new Sue MillerI have this AND the new McEwan. Now just have to find time to read!
I read to for blurbs that have just come out, Tatjana Soli's The Lotus Eaters and Brenda Rickman Vantrease's The Heretic's Wife. Enthusiastically recommending both!
>"when I was burying the Sarah Palin books underneath the the travel calendars.">Hah! Good girl, LuAnn. I once kicked an Ann Coulter book behind a vending machine in the grocery store.
I love this gang.
Hi Meg. I'm reading SOLAR right now. Did anyone else laugh out loud at the grizzly yet hysterical scene on and just after the snowmobile ride?
Lauren wrote: "Heh, I have a staging area on my night stand and also in my closet. And sometimes I keep books in my car for a while.Heh. My staging area turned into bookshelves. Its handy haivng a cabinet making husband. He got tired of all the piles. That was my permission to start buying more of course . . .
I'm not reading Solar, so can't comment, but am reading
The Anthologist and liking it quite a bit.
I'd been out looking at flowers in the nurseries yesterday and thought of the opening scenes in Mrs. Dalloway and read a few pages. Now I can't stop.Both books I was waiting for at the library came in (The Privileges and Wolf Hall) but my branch is closed & I can't pick them up until tomorrow. I also have Cassandra at the Wedding coming up.
Lovely! Mrs Dalloway. The NYT review of Solar was so negative it was kind of unbelievable. What say you, Nance?
I have been reading a bunch - Richard Russo's That Old Cape Magic (Nancy, did you read that?) which was sweet but not exactly penetrating. And a terrible book on 3 artists wives in 19th c France and a kind of boring book on rock history and who slept with who. Sad when that's a snoozer.
I am glad the decks are clear.
Ha, Lauren when you said rock history I was thinking of geology until I remembered you posting about that over at BB. My goodness, you've read a lot recently. Well, I did have that almost 600 pager with Dragon Tattoo but I feel I'm treading water as usual.
"and who slept with you." Wow! So, Lauren, who was it?
Lauren wrote: "The NYT review of Solar was so negative it was kind of unbelievable. What say you, Nance?I have been reading a bunch - Richard Russo's That Old Cape Magic (Nancy, did you read that?)"
I have been holding that NYTBR aside until I finish SOLAR. So far, I'm liking it quite a bit and will keep you posted.
Richard Russo's novels have never held my attention for very long. They seem like novels that I should like, but I have not yet been grabbed by them. The same is true for me of TC Boyle--they always look delicious, but just don't work for me.
Just finished The Lacuna for my book club and aside from some minor quibbles enjoyed it very much. My very first Kingsolver, can you believe it? I just bought the new Sue Miller and may start that next as she's almost always a good read and even when she isn't great, she's easy (they used to say that about me years ago -- HA!)I have the Russo and have been kind of thinking I should read it at the beach -- I've only read one or two of his -- liked Straight Man -- funny enough. I find him entertaining but he doesn't wow me.
Ha, Luann. I loved Russo's The Risk Pool (eww on the ugly new cover, because the old one was nice) -- anyone else read it? It was an early one of his and I read it oh so many years ago and found it very wry, kind of sweet.
Right now I'm reading Tinkers, which won the Pulitzer for fiction. Really elegant and beautiful book, but it keeps putting me to sleep -- not because it's boring or badly written, actually the opposite. It's sooo dreamy, going off on reveries about old clocks and nature and weather, and I get into the rhythm and just drift off. Might have something to do with not sleeping enough too, but I'm still enjoying it a lot. And hey, it makes the book last longer, right?
I don't mean to make it sound boring because it's not at all. Reminds me a bit of William Maxwell's So Long, See You Tomorrow in its focus and very quiet, human scale.
My library has Tinkers, or is getting it, and I've put a hold on it. And I just put a request in for Risk Pool. I seem oddly fixated on family or small type/foible-filled drama, so it might be just right for right now. Sweet is good too.
I also have the new Sue Miller atop the unmanageable heap, and am looking forward to its engaging easiness.Oi, TINKERS. I got that several months ago from Powell's Indiespensible collection. It was a ltd edition, signed, HC with slipcase. I returned it. In a related story, last year I sold my 1st edition of Olive Kittridge just before it won the Pulitzer. I am an idiot.
I resisted Richard Russo for years but my mother forced Empire Falls on me and I was impressed. It's the best of the lot, in my opinion. If you like family dramas, he's your guy. And he's funny too. I started Mandrakes in the Promised Land which is an epistilary novel about a woman who is part of the Bloombury group and who goes to Palestine in 1906 to paint flowers mentioned in the Old Testament.Is that nutty enough for you? I simply have no idea where it's going to go.
You mean : Mandrakes from the Holy Land, by Aharon Megged, don't you ? I'm curious about this book too, so let me know how it goes...BTW, it has a beautiful cover ! 
Mandrakes from the Holy Land
Duh. That's right, Pumper. It's interesting so far. I love the idea and I'm hoping that I am interpreting the tone right - there are occasional comments by Beatrice's doctors which are critical of her behavior. I am reading them as examples of typical-f-the times misogyny and homophobia, but I could be wrong.
misogyny and homophobia : You unfortunately DID get lots of both in the beginning of Century XX... BUT I am VERY interested in everything relating to the Bloomsbury Group.I finished Disobedience
and really liked it, most of all Ronit's voice. I also liked the narrator's voice, but I think Ronit was more honest, deeper in a way, and more down-to-earth.
Alderman has a new book out in the UK called The Lessons.
Thanks, Lauren ! I'll have a look at it.
I didn't know about the new Alderman novel. I might have to take myself to bookdepository.
Has anyone heard the new CD by two-thirds of the Dixie Chicks? The two sisters, without Natalie Maines, are calling themselves the Court Yard Hounds. It's a really beautiful recording. They named the group after a book that was part of the story of the novel "City of Thieves" by David Benioff. I adored that novel, a very powerful story about the Siege of Leningrad. I feel like two-thirds of the Chicks made this just for me.
Oh yeah, and I'm reading The Irresistible Henry House and loving it. Thank you, SueR (and this time I'm SURE it was you).
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I'm grumpy this morning. I'm really just avoiding reading. I'm not particularly loving Exploding Mangoes, but because I need to read it for Monday's bookclub I'm trying to get it done. And I really want to be reading other books instead.