What books are you reading now? (2020) Showing 651-700 of 2,222

[Judy]

I also love Edith Wharton and really loved The House of Mirth - also The Age of Innocence, which has a similar feel. I think for me those two are her greatest out of those I've read - I also loved Old New York: Four Novellas, which includes The Old Maid.

[Haaze]

Yes, I really need to catch up on the Wharton canon. Thanks for the encouragement, Judy and Chrissie . I have sorely neglected her. The writing is very enjoyable and it was much more psychological in terms of describing her characters that I expected.

I also (tonight) discovered that Terence Davies made a film of the novel starring Gillian Anderson (from 2000). Sounds like a good romp after finishing the novel, don't you think?

[Tania]

My favourite Wharton is a short story Xingu, which can be found online and read in half and hour, just so clever.
I've enjoyed others of hers and really should make the time to read more. Perhaps I'll pick up 'House of Mirth' soon.

[Haaze]

Tania wrote: "My favourite Wharton is a short story Xingu, which can be found online and read in half and hour, just so clever.
I've enjoyed others of hers and really should make the time to read ..."

Ah, Tania, you just reminded me that Wharton has tons of short stories as well. I was not at all familiar with Xingu .Hmm, this will last for a while. At least the social quarantine helps with reading habits.....

[Tania]

I found it here if you're interested, http://www.gutenberg.org/files/24131/.... I highly recommend it.

[Haaze]

Tania wrote: "I found it here if you're interested, http://www.gutenberg.org/files/24131/.... I highly recommend it."

Thank you ! :)

[Roman Clodia]

I'm also a Wharton fan and read her The Custom of the Country a few months back. It's different in tone from The House of Mirth which I love, but I'd recommend it highly.

[Chrissie]

Haaze wrote: "Tania wrote: "My favourite Wharton is a short story Xingu, which can be found online and read in half and hour, just so clever.
I've enjoyed others of hers and really should make the..."

You can get Xingu free on the net here: http://www.eastoftheweb.com/short-sto...

[Chrissie]

Roman Clodia wrote: "I'm also a Wharton fan and read her The Custom of the Country a few months back. It's different in tone from The House of Mirth which I love, but I'd recommend it highly."

How does Wharton succeed in making readers interested in a character that is SO unpleasant? I am worried I will get fed up.

[Judy]

Haaze wrote: "I also (tonight) discovered that Terence Davies made a film of the novel starring Gillian Anderson (from 2000). Sounds like a good romp after finishing the novel, don't you think? ..."

The film is excellent - I would like to see it again some time.

[Elizabeth (Alaska)]

I'm hard put to find a Wharton I didn't really like. The Age of Innocence makes my all time top-ten list, while Ethan Frome was also 5-stars. My least favorite of the other half dozen or so I've read was The House of Mirth. I comment in my review that Lily Bart is said to be a memorable character, but that I hope I forget her. On and on, nothing but does Lily look beautiful and is she admired because of that beauty. I have a hard time admiring brainless vanity.

[Roman Clodia]

Well, I'm not a reader who has to like characters to be interested in a book so it wasn't a problem for me. I'd say that Wharton is casting a prescient and disenchanted eye over American consumerist culture that is all about exteriority, social status, money and possessions - everything, it seems is available to be bought and sold, and Undine is the result. In that sense, even though it was written a hundred years ago, it feels very modern.

[Elizabeth (Alaska)]

Roman Clodia wrote: "Well, I'm not a reader who has to like characters to be interested in a book so it wasn't a problem for me. "

Neither do I have to like the characters to like the book. The problem for me in Mirth was that I failed to have any emotional response to the characters until the very end, by which time I almost didn't care.

I don't know if in the UK you have the phrase "keeping up with the Joneses". It means simply conspicuous consumption. Edith Wharton was born of the Jones family that was so wealthy it spawned that phrase. She knew the wealthy elite of New York well.

[Elizabeth (Alaska)]

Roman Clodia wrote: " ... everything, it seems is available to be bought and sold, and Undine is the result. "

I did like The Custom of the Country. The shallowness of Undine is presented differently, I think, than that of Lily Bart. I complain when authors give us only one-dimensional characters. In this case, it is because the character is truly one-dimensional and Wharton presents her perfectly.

[Chrissie]

Roman Clodia wrote: "Well, I'm not a reader who has to like characters to be interested in a book so it wasn't a problem for me. I'd say that Wharton is casting a prescient and disenchanted eye over American consumeris..."

I see your point. I don't usually need to like the characters in a story but it does help if there is a side figure that counteracts the negative ones. So you don't explode, I think Undine will irritate me tremendously.

[Roman Clodia]

Oh sorry for the confusion, my comment was in response to Chrissie #659 on Undine Spragg in The Custom of the Country.

I love Lily Bart and I certainly saw her as far more than ' brainless' - in fact, I saw that as her tragedy. If she had been stupid, she could have simply fallen in with the frivolous superficial values of her set. It's her cleverness and sense of something beyond the commercial that prevents her from doing that and from selling herself in marriage.

Yes, we do have 'keeping up with the Joneses- - I always thought it was English! Wharton may certainly have been of the wealthy elite but she doesn't endorse their values or way of life in her novels, in my view.

[Roman Clodia]

Chrissie wrote: "So you don't explode, I think Undine will irritate me tremendously."

Haha, Undine is breathtaking in her vanity, materialism and inability to understand why she's still not happy no matter how many husbands, pearl necklaces or designer dresses she has. I can see why a reader may find that irritating - but that's sort of the point of the book :)

[Chrissie]

Good, you understand how exasperating this can be.

[Elizabeth (Alaska)]

Roman Clodia wrote: "I love Lily Bart and I certainly saw her as far more than ' brainless' - in fact, I saw that as her tragedy. If she had been stupid, she could have simply fallen in with the frivolous superficial values of her set. "

I thought the whole point was that if she'd had any money that was exactly what she would have done. But she didn't have any money and she couldn't keep up. She was cut because of it.

[Elizabeth (Alaska)]

Chrissie wrote: "Good, you understand how exasperating this can be."

Not at all. The book was 4-stars for me.

[Roman Clodia]

Elizabeth (Alaska) wrote: "I thought the whole point was that if she'd had any money that was exactly what she would have done. But she didn't have any money and she couldn't keep up. She was cut because of it."

But she had men wanting to marry her despite her not being wealthy: the transaction, that she resists, is her beauty for their wealth.

She falls in love with the penniless man whose name I don't recall but they both agree they can't marry because neither has any money and it wasn't the done thing to go and get a job. Even though, at the end, that's exactly what Lily does - she goes out to work.

For me, the tension was that she'd been brought up to value wealth and all the lovely things that money can buy, and had been told that female beauty was currency, but that she's also smart enough to see through the traps that creates, especially for women. This schism in her soul is what the book was about for me.

[Elizabeth (Alaska)]

Obviously you liked it more than I did. I did not like Lily Bart, nor anything she stood for. I rail at people who want a different novel than the one written, but I seem to have fallen into that hole in this one.

[Barbara]

Joy D wrote: "Published in 1986, one of the most unusual and creative books I have ever read:

The Stone Raft by José Saramago - 4 stars - My Review"

Lovely review, Joy. I have put it on my TBR list. I have wanted to read Jose Saramago for a while.

[Barbara]

Haaze wrote: "I'm in the middle of The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton and find it quite delightful. I'm very much rooting for Ms. Lily Bart. Wharton's language is exquisite and it is such an inter..."

I was fortunate enough to tour her house and hear all those stories about her life, her marriage, and more. I think it adds a lot to the reading of her work.

[Lynaia]

I’ll add another 👍🏻👍🏻 for Xingu. I loved it!

[Tania]

I've finished The Caravaners by Elizabeth von Arnim a really funny story of a group of people on a tour of Kent in gypsy caravans. It's told from the perspective of an uptight German Baron. My review https://www.goodreads.com/review/show.... Von Arnim's first marriage was to a German Count, (The Man of Wrath from Elizabeth and Her German Garden). If this man is based on him, no wonder the marriage wasn't a success.

[Elizabeth (Alaska)]

I have been reading Pilgrim at Tinker Creek. I've had a physical copy on my shelf for over a year, and been wondering why I was so excited to pick it up at a library book sale. Well, now is exactly the right time when I am watching nature's renewal.

[Chrissie]

I have completed Palace Walk by Naguib Mahfouz. Mafouz won the Noble Prize for Literature in 1988. I don't necessarily like all Nobel Prize winners, but this author and this book I do. I liked it a lot. It is a group read here this month. (REVISED--to express myself more accurately.)

My review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

I have begun a book about Celts--The Ancient Celts by Barry W. Cunliffe. Where I live many names are written in Celtic. I am curious to learn more about the civilization and its people.

[Elizabeth (Alaska)]

Naguib Mahfouz was awarded the Nobel Prize as stated by the committee: "who, through works rich in nuance - now clear-sightedly realistic, now evocatively ambiguous - has formed an Arabian narrative art that applies to all mankind". It was not awarded for Palace Walk.

All of the major prizes (and many of the minor and vanity prizes) are listed on individual Goodreads book pages. Awards that are given for an author's achievement are not listed, and that is why you won't see a listing for the Nobel on any book page.

There are several listopia that list books by Nobel laureates. This is one of them.

https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/9...

[Chrissie]

Elizabeth (Alaska) wrote: "I have been reading Pilgrim at Tinker Creek. I've had a physical copy on my shelf for over a year, and been wondering why I was so excited to pick it up at a library book sale. Well, n..."

Dillard is such a good author. Are you enjoying it?

[Elizabeth (Alaska)]

Chrissie wrote: "Dillard is such a good author. Are you enjoying it?."

Very much. I think it unlikely that I'll try any of her others though, more due to subject than for writing.

[Joy D]

Just finished this depression-era historical fiction, set in Philadephia and New York, which, unfortunately, seems more like a modern novel set in a historic time:

Sold on a Monday by Kristina McMorris - 3 stars - My Review

[Chrissie]

Elizabeth (Alaska) wrote: "Naguib Mahfouz was awarded the Nobel Prize as stated by the committee: "who, through works rich in nuance - now clear-sightedly realistic, now evocatively ambiguous - has formed an Arabian narrativ..."

Yeah, you are right, he won it, NOT for this book---BUT the reason for why he got the award does fit the book. That is what I meant but expressed myself poorly.

To make you happy, I have gone up and fixed my original message.

[Chrissie]

Susan wrote: "I am really engrossed by Inge's War: A German Woman's Story of Family, Secrets, and Survival Under Hitler [bookcover:Inge's War: A German Woman's Story of Family, Secrets, and Survi..."

How is this book going? Please share your thought:s.

[Chrissie]

Having read one third of The Ancient Celts by Barry W. Cunliffe, I have given up. I explain why in my review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

I will soon begin The Yellow House by Patricia Falvey.

[Annabel]

I am halfway through Make Me A City by Jonathan Carr, about the building of Chicago.

I am finding it amazing, which in a way is surprising because it is effectively a series of linked short stories - and I just finished reading another book structured in this way, Victoria Hislop's Carte Postales From Greece, which I didn't enjoy at all.

Neither book is my usual cup of tea at all but I guess the lockdown is making us all start to work through our To Be Read piles a bit more briskly than we expected and in my case there are a lot of books I bought from charity shops as experiments.

The writing quality of Make Me A City amazes me, especially for a debut writer. Although some if it is quite sad, I keep turning the pages addictively. I am struggling to think what it reminds me of most - in its ironic use of multiple third-person narrators, most unconscious of their own defects, perhaps The Moonstone. With a dash of English Passengers.

[Roman Clodia]

Thanks Annabel, I have this to read and you've inspired me to get to it!

[Joy D]

Published in 1993 and (obviously) set in 1948, this book is a literary gem. It deserves to be more widely known:

Montana 1948 by Larry Watson - 5 stars - My Review

[Pam]

Joy - I agree! I heard about Montana 1948 on the What Should I Read Next? podcast. It’s short with not one word wasted! Great story.

I just started The Glass Bead Game by Herman Hesse. It was first published in 1943 in German. In 1946, Hesse won the Nobel Prize for Literature. I’ve barely started it but think I will like it! I just finished Green Island by Shawna Yang Ryan, which I thought was amazing. So, I was having a hard time finding something equally interesting!

[Elizabeth (Alaska)]

Joy D wrote: "Published in 1993 and (obviously) set in 1948, this book is a literary gem. It deserves to be more widely known:

Montana 1948 by Larry Watson - 5 stars - My Review"

Thanks for this. (Not that I need to be adding any more books to my already over-burdened wish list.)

[Brian E]

Joy D wrote: "Published in 1993 and (obviously) set in 1948, this book is a literary gem. It deserves to be more widely known:
Montana 1948 by Larry Watson - 5 stars - My Review"

I think I read this book back in about 1995. It was borrowed and returned after a train ride and I'd forgotten the plot details, exact title and author but thought it had Montana in the title. I remembered it as well written and capable of being read during a 3 1/2 hour train ride.
I'll have to read it to see if it triggers any memories, so I've ordered a copy. No matter what, it sounds like I will have read a good book.

[Roman Clodia]

I'm not reading this (yet) but wondered if anyone has read The Bridge over the Drina or Bosnian Chronicle both by Nobel winner Ivo Andrić?

[Chrissie]

Roman Clodia wrote: "I'm not reading this (yet) but wondered if anyone has read The Bridge over the Drina or [book:Bosnian C..."

I've read the first. It's amazing. It's beautiful. It is about a bridge but actually about people. And of course the Balkans. I gave it five stars.

[Pamela]

Roman Clodia wrote: "I'm not reading this (yet) but wondered if anyone has read The Bridge over the Drina or ..."

I've read The Bridge over the Drina, I liked it a lot. My review .

[Brian E]

Chrissie wrote: "Roman Clodia wrote: "I'm not reading this (yet) but wondered if anyone has read The Bridge over the Drina ...
It's amazing. It's beautiful. It is about a bridge but actually about people. And of course the Balkans. "

I too have read The Bridge over the Drina. While I agree that the book is amazing, there were descriptions of events in the book that I would certainly not call beautiful, though. l did learn a lot from the book and it certainly piqued my interest to learn more about the Balkans.
I gave it 4 stars.

[Elizabeth (Alaska)]

I did not especially care for it. There is no story, no characters you can hang your hat on. I gave it 2 stars, yet I remember clearly bits and pieces of it, so maybe it was better than that. My review.

[Roman Clodia]

Thanks Chrissie, Pamela and Bryan for your thoughts on Drina - sounds like a book for me based on what you've all said.

Were none of you tempted to go on to Bosnian Chronicle? My understanding is that they're books 1 and 2 in what is loosely a trilogy.

Sadly, they're not on Kindle so difficult to get hold of till bookshops re-open.

[Roman Clodia]

Elizabeth (Alaska) wrote: "I did not especially care for it. There is no story, no characters you can hang your hat on. I gave it 2 stars, yet I remember clearly bits and pieces of it, so maybe it was better than that."

Ah thanks Elizabeth - our posts crossed. Just popping over to read your review now.

[Kirsten]

I'm reading Rogue Male by Geoffrey Household

[Nigeyb]

Kirsten wrote: "I'm reading Rogue Male by Geoffrey Household"


I enjoyed Rogue Male

I hope you do too