What Are You Reading Now? Showing 101-150 of 2,435

[Janice]

I have just started reading and I try to read my Bible daily. :)

[PinkieBrown]

I think someone mentioned a sci-fi anthology which includes Larry Niven’s Inconstant Moon so I tracked down his short story collection “All The Myriad Ways” which includes Inconstant Moon, a great end of the world story in 20 pages. It also includes Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenex; a title to conjure with. You know when you realise you’ve never read a book you assumed you read years ago?

Generally, the authors I read when I was a teenager aren’t favourites now (Stephen King/ Chandler) but Niven is still so packed with interesting takes on science that was new at the time ; the sf writer closest to my heart.

[Lynn, New School Classics]

PinkieBrown wrote: "I think someone mentioned a sci-fi anthology which includes Larry Niven’s Inconstant Moon so I tracked down his short story collection “All The Myriad Ways” which includes Inconstant Moon, a great ..."

I have set up some challenges for myself - decade and century - using science fiction short stories. You know how you buy an anthology and just don't finish all the stories. We currently have five anthologies here that I can work with. "Inconstant Moon" is on one of my challenge lists. Good to know you like it so much.

[Cynda]

I am getting a start on February reads.

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey. Just starting tonight.

The Gulf: The Making of An American Sea by Jack E. Davis. Halfway through.

[Katy, Quarterly Long Reads]

Cynda wrote: "I am getting a start on February reads.

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey. Just starting tonight.

The Gulf: The Making of An American Sea by..."

I loved The Gulf: The Making of An American Sea . Hope it is a good one for you also.

[Cynda]

Katy wrote: "Cynda wrote: "I am getting a start on February reads.

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey. Just starting tonight.

[book:The Gulf: The Making of An American Se..."

Thanks Katy. It is very good. I will go look for your review.
The Gulf is the first in my nonfiction challenge called 21 All About Texas in 2021. Good Start.

[PattyMacDotComma]

I've not read any of Jeffery Deaver's work before, so his short story Turning Point was my introduction. Loved it! Finding RDK, the Russian Doll Killer, was cleverly done.
4.5★ Link to my Turning Point review

[PattyMacDotComma]

Shuggie Bain, the autobiographical novel by Scottish-born author Douglas Stuart, tells of a loving, queer, little boy who adores his beautiful, alcoholic mum. It is heart-breakingly wonderful! Well-deserved winner of the 2020 Booker Prize.
5★+ Link to my Shuggie Bain review

[PattyMacDotComma]

This is designed for little kids, but adults will enjoy seeing how Charles Darwin made the scientific discoveries that changed our understanding of the world. Need I add that every school should have this one?
5★ Link to my review of Charles Darwin with several illustrations from the book

[PattyMacDotComma]

So much to choose from! Buzz Books 2021: Spring/Summer is full of sample chapters of upcoming books, some by established authors and some by those who are also up-and-coming.
5★ Link to my Buzz Books review with some of my picks

[Wreade1872]

Finished We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson [5/5] review which was even better than Hill House.
Also the prehistoric tale In the Morning of Time by Charles G.D. Roberts [3/5] review which careens wildly between caveman docudrama and pulp adventure.

[Terry]

I finished My Man, Jeeves by P. G. Wodehouse and I have started So Big by Edna Ferber.

[Nente]

I started The General of the Dead Army by Ismail Kadare.

[RJ - Slayer of Trolls]

I finished:


Big Trouble by Dave Barry
Rating: 3 stars
Review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

and I started reading:


Pirate Latitudes by Michael Crichton

[Terry]

So Big has been finished (5⭐️s from me) and I have just started Lost Horizon by James Hilton. I am only 20 pages in and I have to say, I am hooked. I frequently find that I enjoy a story that is framed by the narrator recounting a story told to him. This story then impels the action of the novel. That is what I think the Prologue to Lost Horizon will do. I can hardly wait to read the rest.

[PattyMacDotComma]

February is Black History Month, and I found James Baldwin's long story/novella Letter from a region in my mind online from 'The New Yorker Magazine'. Still relevant and worth remembering.

5★ Link to my review of Letter From a Region...

[PattyMacDotComma]

February is Black History Month.
Alexander McCall Smith is a white author who created the wonderful Mma Ramotswe in Botswana and The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency. She features in The Cleverness of Ladies, a lovely little novella.
3★ Link to my Cleverness of Ladies

[Lynn, New School Classics]

Wreade1872 wrote: "Finished We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson [5/5] review which was even better than Hill House.
Also the prehistoric tale [bookcover:..."

I agree! My favorite Shirley Jackson book or short story that I have read so far is We Have Always Lived in the Castle. Merricat is quite a character.

[Janice]

I have just started The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society

[PattyMacDotComma]

Gopher Golf: A Wordless Picture Book by Karl Beckstrand is exactly that - many pages of pictures. There are enough varied scenes for a little kid to follow as a story and then be encouraged to "tell" a story themselves. Lots of laughs!
3.5★ Link to my Gopher Golf review with several illustrations to give you the idea

[PattyMacDotComma]

Mick Herron, when interviewed about his latest spy thriller, Slough House, recently said "I look at Jackson Lamb and think: My God, did I write that? My mother reads this stuff!" Well, on behalf of mothers and grandmothers everywhere, I say - Keep up the good work!
5★ Link to my Slough House" review (with a link to the article quoted)

[J_BlueFlower]

Finished Our Final Warning: Six Degrees of Climate Emergency

6 degrees does not sound like a lot. Here summer can be 40C and winter -22C. A difference of 6 degrees is nothing. This book does an excellent job of showing how faulty and dangerous this way of thinking is. Just the difference between 1.5C and 2C is huge.

Another reviewer puts it this way "We all need to read this, listen to this and take action from this. This is our Ghost of Christmas Future."

[Lilly]

J_BlueFlower wrote: "Finished Our Final Warning: Six Degrees of Climate Emergency

6 degrees does not sound like a lot. Here summer can be 40C and winter -22C. A difference of 6 degrees is nothing. This..."

Thanks for sharing this with us. 'Our Final Warning' sounds really interesting - and books about climate change and environment mostly do not get enough attention, so that new publications and classic must reads most often bypass the everage consumer ...

[J_BlueFlower]

The best books I have read about climate change are than one and The Uninhabitable Earth: Life After Warming

[Lilly]

Thanks again!
I'm not quite sure what to make of this. Is it part narration of a worst case vision of the future, half research? The description is somewhat unclear to the form of the book ...

[J_BlueFlower]

They are both well researched and have 30+ pages of references. I checked a few of those references while reading "this does not sound right" - but it was.

One of those surprises was how much colder the last ice age was. Take a guess before you click. We are talking about the average temperature on Earth: (view spoiler)[Just 4 degrees C! An example of how completely transforming 4 degrees average temperature can be. (hide spoiler)]

[Lilly]

J_BlueFlower wrote: "They are both well researched and have 30+ pages of references. I checked a few of those references while reading "this does not sound right" - but it was.

One of those surprises was how much col..."

Sorry, I did not want to doubt the solidity of their background research - I was more wondering on levels of presentation and style. 'Uninhabitable Earth' did somewhat sound as if it might have narrative/descriptive passages depicting some of the worst case scenarios; so I was wondering. But it, too, keeps an academic style? The synopsis was probably just missleading, so I could not say what to expect ...

[Lilly]

J_BlueFlower wrote: "One of those surprises was how much colder the last ice age was. "

A real ice age or just the 'little ice age' in the early modern times?

[J_BlueFlower]

Lilly wrote: "J_BlueFlower wrote: "One of those surprises was how much colder the last ice age was. "

A real ice age or just the 'little ice age' in the early modern times?"

The real one.
Wikipeadia has a graph:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geologi...

[J_BlueFlower]

Lilly wrote: "I was more wondering on levels of presentation and style. 'Uninhabitable Earth' did somewhat sound as if it might have narrative/descriptive passages depicting some of the worst case scenarios; so I was wondering. But it, too, keeps an academic style? The synopsis was probably just missleading, so I could not say what to expect ...."

”keeps an academic style?” No, more like: Imagine a researcher telling her/his real opinion about how scary something is.

“It is worse, much worse, than you think. If your anxiety about global warming is dominated by fears of sea-level rise, you are barely scratching the surface of what terrors are possible. ”

One point both books make is that large parts of the earth may become uninhabitable, and at some temperature levels it is virtually certain. (Numbers are given for both temperature and certainty). If land gets over 60 degrees C it is sterilised. There will be no plants or animals left.

”keeps an academic style?” Yes, on the other hand Our Final Warning: Six Degrees of Climate Emergency often uses the probabilities in % rather than “may”, “will likely”,.... (I don't remember if 'Uninhabitable Earth' did that).

If you want to get a taste, try here:
A opinion-article in New-York Times by David Wallace-Wells
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/16/op...

[J_BlueFlower]

BTW 2020 was the first year ever on record in Denmark without a day of sub-zero temperature at any part of the year. Source: https://www.dmi.dk/nyheder/2021/sadan... (in Danish).

[Lilly]

Thank you again for sharing your impressions :)

I'm positive we must have had days and nights below 0° here in 2020, but then we are basically still in sight of the Alps - not close enough to get all the snow, but still close enough to get a good deal of it. Right now, at midday, we have -6° with snow and sunshine, nights go down to around -14°. It's supposed to get warmer next week, up to 3° at day.
I suppose Denmark would get a lot of the maritime influence ...
Our present winter is more like what I remember of winters about ten years back, but a lot less snow. I also remember that last winter was very mild, as you said, we only had snow after new year's eve ...

In antiquity and the middle ages Europe was a bit warmer than now, the climate in Germany was probably closer to what they have in the mediterranean now. So, in theory, as long as temperatures only rise to that level, we simply go back to the middle ages (climate wise). But, theory put aside, I would say the problem is that a) certain areas that are now in danger were simply not inhabited at that time, the population was a lot smaller, and b) temperature might rise more than that.

[Luke]

Since I last posted, I've started:

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings - Maya Angelou
The Sellout - Paul Beatty
Meditations - Marcus Aurelius

[Darren]

so I thought I would read a romance for Valentine's Day,
so last night started Marie Corelli's A Romance of Two Worlds,
and er... it's not quite what I was expecting...

interesting though...
:oD

[Leni]

Lilly wrote: "I accidentally came across this children's book, didn't even know it existed, but saw a movie version a while back.
Tom's Midnight Garden by Philippa Pearce.
I think..."

I read it a few years back with my older child. I'm trying to convince my younger child to read it now, but he is hesitant even though I have assured him it's not scary or sad. It's not sad is it? I must admit I don't completely recall. A bit melancholy, perhaps. Which I must admit is not his thing, so I shouldn't push it.

I didn't grow up in the UK, so like Lilly, I am discovering a lot of British children's books for the first time as an adult. Arthur Ransome is another one. (And he is perfect for my younger child. Personally I found Swallows and Amazons to be a bit too preoccupied with the minutia of sailing and camping, but my kid loved the whole slow paced adventure so much I've had to buy him the whole series.

[Leni]

Heather L wrote: "The narrator of the audiobook, which I found on YouTube, is pretty good, except for his pronunciation of “Trondheim.” I looked up a print copy at Project Gutenberg and confirmed my suspicions that the alternate spelling, “Trondhjem,” was used. He pronounces it like ‘Tronjem’ and it drives me nuts, lol."

Norwegian here. That's how most people pronounce it. Including the people who are from Trondheim. It's a strange thing. lol

[Leni]

Currently reading:
Hyperion oder Der Eremit in Griechenland - which is really stretching my ability to read German. It's also sublime in its descriptions of nature, and hilariously melodramatic. The narrator's emotions are up and down like a yo-yo, sometimes in the same sentence.

Infinite Jest - which I have been reading forever, and I love it and will miss the characters when I'm finally finished but I also can't wait to be finally done with it (200 or so pages to go).

The Warden - which is like a soothing balm next to the other books. Amusing and accessible whilst still being well-written in a way that just wraps me in a lovely Victorian cocoon.

[Nente]

I'm trapped in The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay. I keep hoping that the story will turn out to be worth it, but boy do I hate the writing style!

I think I'll also reread The Warden to cope with this.

[Wreade1872]

Started Ulysses by James Joyce.
I heard this was a hard read but havn't seen why yet. The style is a bit conversational is all, so it can be a tad hard to know which character is talking but apart from that and some period/location slang seems pretty easy.

[Terry]

Nente, I will be interested to know what you think about The Amazing Adventures... I tried to read it back when it was first published, but abandoned the effort after one or two chapters. Yet, it is frequently recommended, so I have wondered if I should re-try.

[Leni]

I loved Kavalier & Clay! But I had it as an audiobook with a very good narrator. I don't know if my experience of it would have been less favourable if I read it myself.

Ulysses on the other hand was agony, but just interesting enough that I didn't want to give up on it. That and I guess I'm a sucker for a challenge and like to suffer.

[Wreade1872]

Leni wrote: "I loved Kavalier & Clay! But I had it as an audiobook with a very good narrator. I don't know if my experience of it would have been less favourable if I read it myself.

Ulysses on the other hand ..."

Well despite a lot of good ideas, i really disliked K&C. Incredibly disappointing. So if our tastes are opposite i should end up really liking Ulysses :) :) :P .

[Leni]

Wreade, I don't think our tastes are all that divergent, but I do hope you like Ulysses. It will certainly be easier to get through if you enjoy the journey. XD

[Wreade1872]

Leni wrote: "Wreade, I don't think our tastes are all that divergent, but I do hope you like Ulysses. It will certainly be easier to get through if you enjoy the journey. XD"

I should mention i am from dublin but not 1920s dublin ;) . Still it presumably should help a bit :) .

[Nente]

Kavalier and Clay certainly seems to be a polarizing book, thank you everyone for chiming in. Haven't progressed much in it yet.

[PattyMacDotComma]

I always love Kate Atkinson's complex stories that ex-detective Jackson Brodie has to untangle while generally making more of a tangle of his own life. Big Sky is the 5th in the series and is terrific!
5★ Link to my Big Sky review

[PattyMacDotComma]

Fluffles: The Brave Koala Who Held Strong Through A Bushfire is a very cute Vita Murrow picture book about the unbelievable 2019 Australian bushfires. Fluffles was rescued in South Australia.
4.5★ Link to my review of Fluffles with several illustrations

[Idit]

Hi guys - I fell of the face of Goodreads (and reading in general) when covid started, and slowly picking up reading again...

I have a book club but they choose awful books, and I need something that won't stop my reading again...
my favourite books to read of the last few years were probably Ragtime, Lives of Girls and Women and Nights at the Circus... If there's anyone who loves these books very much - I'd love to hear what other books are dear to you...

[Lynn, New School Classics]

Idit wrote: "Hi guys - I fell of the face of Goodreads (and reading in general) when covid started, and slowly picking up reading again...

I have a book club but they choose awful books, and I need something t..."

Welcome back Idit!

[Luke]

Since I last posted, I've started:

Candide - Voltaire
Maud Martha - Gwendolyn Brooks
The Dud Avocado - Elaine Dundy