Litwit Lounge discussion
Lounge: OPEN, please come in...
>
What are you currently reading?
message 501:
by
Reggia
(new)
May 26, 2012 10:47PM
I'm now reading The Red Tent. I started this a few years ago but was, admittedly, put off by the creative liberties. I think now I can overlook that and just try to enjoy the story for what it seeks to tell, rather than any meanings behind the biblical account.
reply
|
flag
In our back-to-back reading of all four novels in the Inheritance series, by Christopher Paolini, Barb and I finished the third book yesterday. So, naturally we're going on with the fourth, concluding volume, Inheritance, which we started today.
Janelle wrote: "I'm with you Reggia. I find it very difficult to read anything with cruelty or violence. I'm glad to know I'm not the only one."On that note, I recently finished 2 Kindle ebooks: 'Empty Chairs' and (the sequel) 'Faint Echoes of Laughter' by Stacey Danson. If you've ever read so-called misery memoirs, this seems like them but has true moxie. Unlike other memoirs (because they are so purely depressing), I didn't regret reading these. I thought both were brilliant.
Janelle wrote: "Lunar, I don't think I could stand reading misery memoirs! Glad you enjoyed your books though."Yeah I try to limit myself to one or two a year, otherwise they're just too intense :(
Currently reading a lot of books about cycling on my Kindle, the latest of which is 'Obsessive Compulsive Cycling Disorder'.
Back when I was seven years old, I read James Fenimore Cooper's classic The Last of the Mohicans; but although I liked it, I'm sure there were aspects of it that went completely over my head! So, I've been wanting for years to reread it; and since this year I've been trying to tie up a few "loose ends" in my reading, I decided to make this one of them, and just started on it again this evening.
@Lunar - lol. Is that seriously a book? @ Werner - I can't believe you read The Last of The Mohicans as a 7 year old! Looking forward to hearing you compare the two experiences.
Janelle, I was sort of a precocious kid at that age. :-) I'll post a link to my review in our classics thread when I'm done with the read.
I'm really enjoying Death Comes to Pemberley as well as reading it on my Kindle. In fact, I'll go so far to say as it has broken my addiction (if only temporarily) to the Every Word game. :p
This weekend, I started reading Feckless, a collection of mostly supernatural and other speculative fiction by contemporary Christian authors, all or most of them part of the Treasure Line Publishing circle. One of my Goodreads friends, Ellen C. Maze, is the editor and major contributor, and my Goodreads friends Krisi Keley and Teric Darken are also represented. I'm very pleased with what I've read so far!
Earlier today, I started on Pro Luce Habere (To Have Before the Light) Volume 2, the second volume of Krisi Keley's prequel to her outstanding On the Soul of a Vampire. I'm a big fan of this series!
Reading Liver: A Fictional Organ With a Surface Anatomy of Four Lobes by Will Self, as well as Orlando by Virginia Woolf.
Though I've been reading novels for over 50 years, I'm always open to learning new insights that might help me read more perceptively. So, when I found a remaindered copy of How to Read a Novel: A User's Guide by John Sutherland on sale cheap at one of the local dollar stores a while back, I snapped it up. I've just started reading it this afternoon (I thought I'd read it before reading any more novels, to get the maximum benefit from it! :-) ).
The Sutherland book proved to be a pretty quick read (and not a particularly rewarding one). If anyone's interested, my review is here: http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/... .Now, I'm reading The Red Bridge Murder (L'Assassinat du Pont-Rouge): A Dual Language Story, a 19th-century French novella thought to have influenced Dostoevsky in the writing of Crime and Punishment. The author is Charles Barbara, and it's newly translated by my Goodreads friend Krisi Keley.
I'm reading Peter Pan for another group. It's a little different to what I expected, but after a slow start, I'm enjoying it.
Janelle, I'd say that Peter Pan would qualify as a (children's) classic, which adults can enjoy, too!
Thanks Werner. I haven't really read enough classics this year to have succeeded at a personal challenge, but I can add it to the group quota.
During the month of September, the Robert E. Howard fan group I belong to here on Goodreads will be doing a common read of Mark Finn's biography of Howard,
. To pass the time in the interim, I'm reading the fantasy anthology
. I won't finish it by September 1, most likely; but since it's made up of short stories, I can set it aside and come back to it later without leaving any storyline hanging in the middle. :-)
Last week, I started on the Robert E. Howard biography I mentioned above. I'm really liking it so far!
I started reading Best Ghost Stories of J. S. Le Fanu today; like many short story anthologies I read, it's filler until next month, when I start a simultaneous common read in two of my other groups. I'm a big fan of traditional ghost stories, and Le Fanu was one of the primary shapers of the classic tradition; so I'm anticipating that this will be a good read, and it hasn't disappointed so far!
Two of my other groups are doing a simultaneous common read of a Norah Lofts historical novel, Afternoon of an Autocrat (British title, The Devil in Clevely) for the month of October; I actually got started on Sept. 29. So far, I'm 60 pages in, and liking it very much --not very surprisingly, since I'm a Lofts fan!
Charly, after reading your review of I Hardly Ever... I have to say it reminds me of my current read, The Pleasure of My Company. It's funny but for some reason I feel tired when I think of it, lol. Guess because there is so much thought that goes behind every decision/gesture/action the protagonist (who seems to have OCD) makes which is very insightful for the reader. It's the first book I've read by Steve Martin.
My Goodreads friend Jackie and I are now started on a buddy read of The Skin Map by one of our mutually favorite authors, Stephen Lawhead. It's the opening volume of his current Bright Empires series, and has to do with interdimensional travel by means of ley lines.
Werner wrote: "My Goodreads friend Jackie and I are now started on a buddy read of The Skin Map by one of our mutually favorite authors, Stephen Lawhead. It's the opening volume of his current Bright Empires ser..."I'm looking forward to your review of this one, Werner. I just read a YA book, The Raven Boys, that revolved around the concept of ley lines, something I'd never heard of before, and I imagine The Skin Map would have a much more in-depth treatment of the subject.
I discovered a new mystery writer I like by the name of Chester D. Campbell. As I rarely read anything for kick-back fun, I am glad to be able to recommend both Designed to Kill and Secret of the Scroll, the latter which I am just beginning. I will also be starting Frank Zafiro novel, sooner or later, called Under a Raging Moon. I will let you know about that one.
Jackie and I liked The Skin Map well enough to decide to read the next two novels of the trilogy together as well! So, the next one up is The Bone House.
Though I claim to be a one-book-at-a-time reader, that's qualified by the fact that Barb and I usually also have a book going for reading aloud in the car. The one we've just started is
, the omnibus volume of an epic fantasy trilogy by Elizabeth Moon. So far, we've only read the prologue, but I have high expectations for this one, which comes very highly recommended by two of my top Goodreads friends!
Currently reading Terry Pratchett's Guards! Guards!, which has some fun twists on the idea of dragons and on some adventure story cliches (like desperate, last-ditch heroic efforts)...plus it has a guy raised by dwarves who had the terrible truth of his human heritage broken to him when he was sixteen years old...and 6 foot 6 inches tall. :)
Currently reading Macbeth and really enjoying it. Can I add it to the 250 reading challenge even though its a play and so short?@Callista read Guards Guards a few years ago. Lots of fun.
For whatever it's worth, I think so. :) In fact, I just started reading Breakfast at Tiffany's in the hope that I can get at least one more classic in (partly due to its 'shortness') before the end of the year. :p
It turns out that the Bright Empires series is NOT a trilogy; Lawhead is planning for it to include five books in all, with the next one (the fourth) planned for publication next year. But Jackie and I are going ahead and reading what's already in print, so we've started on the third installment, The Spirit Well.
Hey everyone! Newbie here.I read far too much at once, but the books I actively have open are Death At Intervals (Jose Saramago), Greenwitch (Susan Cooper), Madam, Will You Talk? (Mary Stewart), and a biography of Darwin.
I currently reading
Following Atticus: Forty-Eight High Peaks, One Little Dog, and an Extraordinary Friendship~~Tom RyanThe author decides to hike all forty-eight of New Hampshire's four thousand mountains. The book is as much about the authors growth as a person as it is about his trusty miniature schnauzer Atticus.
I'm about halfway done. So far it's good. :)
I just finished up with Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking, thought it was a wonderful book and I highly recommend it for anyone who lives with an introvert, or happens to be an introvert themselves. Listening to 1Q84 it’s really quite lengthy and the jury’s still out on that one.
Finally, just starting Kraken.
Charly wrote: "Just finished my annual read of A Christmas Carol however I am going to wait until Dec 31 to put it in so that we can have a year marker for the start of the new year."I am glad that you reminded me, Charly, because I traditionally like to read Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle for the season.
Do the books about introverts really celebrate introverts, or do they try to turn them into extroverts? (I've been told I should say I'm introspective instead of introverted...)I'm on a bit of a Fae spree--just finished Cold Days and now reading The Iron King--very different interpretations of similar legendary characters.
Callista, I hope the introvert books on my to read list aren't designed to turn me into an extrovert. I have enough trouble as it is with people expecting me to be extroverted.
Janelle wrote: "Callista, I hope the introvert books on my to read list aren't designed to turn me into an extrovert. I have enough trouble as it is with people expecting me to be extroverted."I can assure you, Callista that, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking will in no way turn you into an extrovert. It celebrates introverts, examines other culture's takes on introversion (it's celebrated in some countries). There are a few tips on being 'heard' in this loud world, but that's it. If the extroverts read this book- they'd be jealous of us introverts :)
On Jan. 1, another group I'm in will be starting a common read; in the meantime, having finished The Spirit Well, I'm going for short reads that I can complete in the interim. So, I'm now reading Life in the Iron Mills and Other Stories by 19th-centrury Realist author Rebecca Harding Davis. The title story, which I'd already read (there are only two others in the book) is a relatively recently re-discovered American classic; so this one will count towards our classics challenges!
Thanks for the feedback on the introvert book. Do you have a second job as a life coach, Charly, because you give good advice. :)
Just finished Save Me the Waltz in preparation for Tender Is the Night. I'm excited to learn more about the Fitzgeralds as a whole.
Books mentioned in this topic
Martin Chuzzlewit (other topics)Vanishing Fleece: Adventures in American Wool (other topics)
Light in August (other topics)
The Stones of Muncaster Cathedral (other topics)
Favorite Ghost Stories (other topics)
More...
Authors mentioned in this topic
Charles Dickens (other topics)Robert Westall (other topics)
Joi Copeland (other topics)
Otto Penzler (other topics)
Bess Streeter Aldrich (other topics)
More...



