What are you reading in 2017?

[Jo]

About to start My Brilliant Friend.

[Lisa]

I am over halfway through We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves, which I've been meaning to read for ages so of course I've missed all the buzz about it when it was first out.

Not really sure what to think about it really; I'm quite enjoying it but it's not blowing me away yet. I find it surprising that it was in a Booker shortlist.

[Lisa]

Paul wrote: "Just started Dadland: A Journey into Uncharted Territory, good so far though it does feel a little disjointed"

Wow, the reviews on GR are very good. The title seems weirdly flippant to me, from that I thought it was a Hurrah for Gin-type book!

[Joy]

Sally wrote: "Joy wrote: "I've just started Be My Enemy, the first I've read by Christopher Brookmyre. And possibly the last. Good grief the man is long-winded! A character's phone vibrates at the ..."

I've finished it now and did like it much more in the second half, where I felt the pace was better and the tension certainly built up.

[Wendy]

Just starting The Sellout by Paul Beatty

[Paul]

Just starting Why the Dutch are Different: A Journey into the Hidden Heart of the Netherlands

[Paul]

Almost finished Summer: An Anthology for the Changing Seasons, another great selection of nature writng for the season

[Jo]

I am reading My Brilliant Friend, listening to Someone Else's Skin and also the R4 dramatisation of The Cazalets which is utterly addictive.

[Jan]

Just finished Watership Down. Now reading Gilgamesh.

[Kim]

Just finished The Bazaar of Bad Dreams - a great collection of short stories by Stephen King. Also reading Man of Iron - Thomas Telford and the Building of Britain by Julian Glover. About to start Behind Her Eyes by Sarah Pinborough.

[Patricia]

Watership Down is one of my all-time favorites! I don't know how many times I've read it. It's the literary equivalent of comfort food for me.

[Paul]

Jan has just recommended it to me; I have never read it

[Mike]

Patricia wrote: "Watership Down is one of my all-time favorites! I don't know how many times I've read it. It's the literary equivalent of comfort food for me."

It is indeed good, though mention of comfort food reminds me of the spoof poster for it that read "You've read the book! You've seen the film! Now try the soup!"

I've also read Adams's other two, Shardik and The Plague Dogs, and would rate the latter as his best.

[Paul]

I had always heard that as: you've read the book, you've seen the film, now eat the pie...

[Jason]

Hmmmmm Dog pie, sounds scrumptious.

[Jessica]

I have just started reading The Diviners by Libba Bray. Not a difficult read as it is young adult fiction but I am enjoying it so far.

[Joy]

I've read the first few chapters of Floating: A Life Regained , but so far it lacks the joyful atmosphere of Waterlog (which, whenever I reread it makes me want to dash down to the sea or river and plunge in!)

[Patricia]

Mike wrote: "Patricia wrote: "Watership Down is one of my all-time favorites! I don't know how many times I've read it. It's the literary equivalent of comfort food for me."

It is indeed good, though mention o..."
I've not seen the movie version of this because I'm certain that the movie in my head is much better! I think I have Shardik on a bookshelf somewhere, but I haven't read it.

[Lisa]

I have started Murakami's Men Without Women today. It's lovely to be back in his world.

[Ree]

I'm currently reading 3 books
Winter - Marissa Meyer
The Lake House - Kate Morton
A court of thorns and roses - Sarah J Maas

Just finished reading Maybe Someday - Colleen Hoover

[Jo]

I started today - Nomad Punchy!

[Wendy]

Just started The Essex Serpent for the monthly read, really enjoying it so far and it also fits into my bookbuster challenge which is an added bonus!

[Julie]

'Where'd You Go, Bernadette?' Freakin' 😂 hilarious!!!

[Paul]

Started Linescapes: Fragmentation and Connection in the Natural World yesterday. Good so far

[Jessica]

Going to start reading My Enemy's Cradle by Sara Young.

[Joy]

I'm about one fifth of the way through The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle and I don't quite know what to make of it. It seems to be another book (like The Essex Serpent) with no real plot. Characters wander into the narrator's life and tell him their life stories - and I'm finding these mostly compelling while I'm reading them, but also feel uneasy that there seems to be no real thread linking it all together.

[Paul]

I quite like that one Joy, mostly because of the picture he paints of a future world. Just started Gods of the Morning: A Bird's Eye View of a Highland Year

[Nikki]

Joy, I started but abandoned the The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle. I liked much of it but it was taking me ages and I lost focus. I would like to go back to it though

[Nikki]

I am reading Waterland.

Just over halfway and will be finished tonight. I mostly like the writing and am enjoying the plot but as finding the eels a bit much.

[Lisa]

I just finished reading Beneath a Scarlet Sky which was a giveaway for me. I gave this WWII book about a 17 year old boy in Milan Italy 5 stars. My review:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

I also finished The Unseen World which took me awhile to review. I enjoyed the book and have it 3 1/2 stars but I apparently expected more than others.
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...


Now I am reading Insane Clown President: Dispatches from the 2016 Circus which is just reminding me of how much the last election was like a Jerry Springer show.


Last night I started Forty Rooms which looks promising. The book is broken up into very small segments each one a room from a young girls life...and then into adulthood. Right now she is 4 1/2-6 and she sees ghosts along with imaginary friends but I don't think they stay with her into adulthood. Anyway it is very descriptive writing.

[Paul]

Just started Walking Home From Mongolia

[Pat]

How do you do half a star?

[Nikki]

I don't think you can do half a star, people give the full star and then make a comment in their review

[Pat]

Oh. Ta. I wondered how some got half stars

[Pat]

You feeling ok btw Nicki?

[Joy]

Nikki wrote: "Joy, I started but abandoned the The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle. I liked much of it but it was taking me ages and I lost focus. I would like to go back to it though"

I'm halfway through but think I have decided to give it up. I've been drawn into the stories of the characters who come into (can't remember his name!) the main character's life and feel engaged but then nothing develops. For me, reading is for pleasure and this book's just not got it.

[Wendy]

I like the way that people react so differently - I loved The Wind-up Bird Chronicle, couldn't put it down

[Nikki]

I am great Pat, just home from a rather wet camping holiday in Norfolk. Surgery went well and as far as we know the cancer has gone

[Pat]

Yippee

[Pat]

Apart from the camping trip. I think our summer is gone. Although my light summer reading wants to continue

[Paul]

Most of the way through London Map of Days and From Source to Sea, just about to start Around the Coast in Eighty Waves and He Said/She Said

[Nancy]

Just finished The Supreme Court By Ruadhan Mac Cormaic
This is a best seller (2016) that takes the reader behind closed doors of the Irish Supreme Court! It is very readable.
Reading The Slow Natives by Thea Astley. She is a classic Australian author that not many people have on their reading lists!

[Paul]

Halfway through I Found My Tribe. Good so far

[Nancy]

Reading about the writer Dorothy Parker.
Dorothy Parker: What Fresh Hell Is This? by Marion Meade

[Ruby]

Reading The Heartless (Mujong) by Yi Kwang Su. Originally written in Korean in 1917, but I am reading the English translation. A decent read so far.

[Paul]

About 25% of the way through Molotov's Magic Lantern: A Journey In Russian History so far. It is quite dense so far and full of ancient communists

[Joy]

My current library books are proving a bit of a let-down. I chose one by Karin Slaughter, none of whose books I’ve read before, but I’m giving it up - too American, too much effort to make the characters quirky and emotionally weather-beaten. I’ve also given up on Billionaire by Peter James. I’ve enjoyed his Roy Grace series, but this is a stand-alone written in the 80s and it feels very dated and formulaic.

I think I’ll reread Northern Lights.

[Paul]

Just started An Odyssey: A Father, a Son, and an Epic, it is one of the shortlist for the Baillie Gifford prize.. Took a little while to get going, but is not bad so far

[Mike]

Ploughing through Alison Weir's life of Elizabeth I. A little too much detail sometimes, especially on the multiple marriage negotiations; after all, they went nowhere. Some charming moments though, and having just read Starkey's account of her early life, I feel I'm getting to know her rather well!

[Jo]

Joy wrote: "I think I’ll reread Northern Lights."

I am really tempted to do that as well!

Just got the audiobook today of The Ruby in the Smoke, the first in his Sally Lockhart series.

And of course, I am dying to read La Belle Sauvage

About to start Emergency Sex (And Other Desperate Measures): True Stories from a War Zone for my Book Club.