What Are You Reading Now? Showing 2,251-2,300 of 2,435

[Luís]

I'm currently reading A Noiva do Tradutor

[RJ - Slayer of Trolls]

Lynn wrote: "For those who like Science Fiction I have been reading The Best of Cordwainer Smith this year. It is a short story/novella collection. You can read one selection then pick it up again ..."

Nice! I've been reading more classic Science-Fiction over the last couple years, and Smith is an author who captured my attention. I picked up the massive The Rediscovery of Man: The Complete Short Science Fiction of Cordwainer Smith and I hope to get started on it in the next few months. I'm glad to hear that you are enjoying his works too.

[RJ - Slayer of Trolls]

I finished the whimsical fantasy novel


Howl's Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones
Rating: 3 stars
Review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

and I started reading the dark suspense novel


A Dark-Adapted Eye by Ruth Rendell writing as Barbara Vine

[Pharmacdon]

I finished The Plantagenets: The Warrior Kings and Queens Who Made England by Dan Jones. It is nice to get background history. I am currently reading The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz

[Janice]

1 Peter (Bible #60), ESV, Genesis, Sanditon: & Other Stories by Jane Austen and Anxious People by Fredrik Backman

[Lynn, New School Classics]

RJ - Slayer of Trolls wrote: "Lynn wrote: "For those who like Science Fiction I have been reading The Best of Cordwainer Smith this year. It is a short story/novella collection. You can read one selection then pick..."

They are the same volume, just different names and yours will have a few more stories. I hope you like it too.

[Wreade1872]

Started a very long book published in the 40's, but i think it was written long before and published posthumously. Also maybe never finished. I'm avoiding looking up much until i've finished :P .

Its Islandia by Austin Tappan Wright (1014 pages).

Seems to be something of a Ruritanian romance type.

Also accidentally reading something superficially similar, Cast Away At The Pole. But the latter is a pulp and definitely a serial. Four chapters in and everyone has ended in a cliffhanger so far :lol .

[Luís]

Não Percas a Rosa by Natália Correia
Uma Conjura de Saltimbancos by Albert Cossery

[Anchali]

Water for Elephants.

[RJ - Slayer of Trolls]

I finished Mark Twain's account of his various adventures in the American Wild West


Roughing It by Mark Twain
Rating: 3 stars
Review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

and I started reading the fourth Kingbridge novel (a prequel to The Pillars of the Earth)


The Evening and the Morning by Ken Follett

[Luís]

Viva o povo brasileiro by João Ubaldo Ribeiro
Genesis by Bernard Beckett

[Lynn, New School Classics]

I recently finished Whose Body? by Dorothy L. Sayers. It took me six weeks to read this book. I almost abandoned it. In the end the book took a turn and the characters were fleshed out, but there was a dry spell in the middle. I gave it 4 stars but it required considerable effort for me to read.

I mention Whose Body? so that I can contrast it with my reading experience of Slaughterhouse-Five. I first read this book in the mid 1980s. I listed it as Jan 1985 - close enough. I can't exactly remember the first date. I reread the book this morning. It was a five hour, one sitting, reading experience. The last time I did that with a book was Flowers for Algernon which I read in April of 2019.

I gave Vonnegut's book 5*. It was creative, insightful, ingenious, full of Literary devices, and powerful in its understated way of making huge statements about the human condition.

[Darya Silman]

I'm reading Хиросима (Hiroshima) by John Hersey. It's a classical nonfiction book.

On the 31st of August, 1946, a whole edition of The New Yorker was dedicated to John Hersey's reportage about 6 survivors of the Hiroshima bombing. It's been the only (as far) case in history when a magazine/newspaper's edition contained one topic by one journalist. The material became a sensation and quickly disappeared from shelves. It was published as a book with 4 chapters that fall. 40 years later John Hersey wrote 'Hiroshima: Consequences,' tracing the fate of the 6 survivors afterward. In later editions, it was included as the 5th chapter of the book.

[Jacqueline]

I am reading 📖 Maeve Fly by CJ Leede and I am also reading The Southern Book club’s guide to slaying vampires by Grady Hendrix

[Luís]

Genesis by Bernard Beckett
Viva o povo brasileiro by João Ubaldo Ribeiro

[RJ - Slayer of Trolls]

I finished the fourth installment in the Tales from the Flat Earth fantasy series


Delirium's Mistress by Tanith Lee
Rating: 3 stars
Review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

and I started reading the fourth installment in the Earthsea fantasy series


Tehanu by Ursula K. Le Guin

[Teri-K]

I'm enjoying some ECR Lots mysteries. I just started These Names Make Clues - murder at a scavenger hunt!

[RJ - Slayer of Trolls]

And finally, to cap off my backlog of unwritten reviews, I finished two short story collections, both of which contain (but are not fully devoted to) stories which could be classified as classics of the Weird and/or Horror genres:


The Lottery and Other Stories by Shirley Jackson
Rating: 3 stars
Review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...


The King in Yellow by Robert W. Chambers
Rating: 3 stars (that is: 4 stars for the King in Yellow stories, and 2-3 stars for the rest)
Review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

and I started reading Clive Barker's second full-length novel


Weaveworld by Clive Barker

[BookishDramas]

The Land Below

3 star
Short book. Creature feature. Adventure. Lost world inspiration.
Inspired by German legends of wyrm, a German dragon legend.
1-2 hour read.


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

[Lady]

Less than Angels by Barbara Pym

[Pharmacdon]

Finished The Caine Mutiny by Herman Wouk

[Teri-K]

Matt wrote: "I recently finished The Mysterious Island by Jules Verne.

It got me in the mood for more South Pacific adventure so I’m starting [book:Kon-Tiki: Across the Pacific ..."

Kon Tiki and South Pacific were two of my Dad's favorite books; I should reread them, it's been ages. And my daughter loved Mysterious Island. So you've brought back some happy memories for me! I hope you enjoy all your reading.

[BookishDramas]

The Black Cloud

4 stars
Classic science fiction, thriller, aliens,

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

Barnstormers (Comixology Originals) #2
4 stars
Bonny meets Clyde style adventure

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

[Jacqueline]

I am currently reading Holly by Stephen King and inkheart by Cornelia Funke

[Janice]

I am rereading: Sanditon: & Other Stories by Jane Austen, 1 Peter (Bible #60), ESV, and Genesis

[Luffy Sempai]

I've started Joseph Heller's Catch-22.

I gave Vonnegut's book 5*. It was creative, insightful, ingenious, full of Literary devices, and powerful in its understated way of making huge statements about the human condition.

Your description is on point.

[Darya Silman]

I'm reading Кто виноват? (Kto vinovat?): Russian edition (Who Is to Blame?) by Alexander Herzen

[Rora]

Three Men on a Boat by Jerome K. Jerome and A Murder Is Announced by Agatha Christie

[Sonja]

Currently reading Phantom by Greer Rivers

[Luís]

A Ciociara by Alberto Moravia

[Darya Silman]

I'm re-reading Penguin English Library Dracula by Stoker, Bram (2012) Paperback by Bram Stoker. My edition is in Russian

[BookishDramas]

My Sister's Downfall

⭐⭐⭐
Published September 17, 2024
Read as a #ReviewCopy. #Booksirens
#femaleauthor #femaleprotagonist
#sisters

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

[Luís]

Olhai os Lírios do Campo by Erico Verissimo

[Gulli]

I'm currently reading The Blind Assassin and The Letters of Shirley Jackson.

[BookishDramas]

The Secret That Killed You

Published April 30, 2024
3.5 stars
Read as a review copy.
Nazis, Hitler, American Presidents, the Oval office, conspiracy theories and more.

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

[Teri-K]

I was surprised to find two of Christopher Stasheff's Gramarye books at my local used bookstore. I read these when they came out - about 40 years ago. Man how time flies!

I'm reading The Warlock is Missing right now, and having fun with it. A nice trip down memory lane.

[BookishDramas]

The Body in the Library

3.5 Stars
The infallible, Queen of Crime. Miss Marple. Re-read.

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

[Terry]

Forty Autumns: A Family’s Story of Courage and Survival on Both Sides of the Berlin Wall by Nina Willner. At about 25% in, it’s a very interesting story! I am listening to it.

[Luís]

Lovers of Philosophy by Warren Ward

[RJ - Slayer of Trolls]

I finished my re-read of a classic anti-war novel


Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
Rating: 5 stars
Review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

and I started reading


Notes from Underground by Fyodor Dostoevsky

(which I have actually already finished reading but I haven't yet posted a review)

[Luís]

3 books. Among them:

A Cidade de Deus, Vol. II: Livros IX a XV
Confissões de Uma Liberal
A Funda: 4º volume

[Rora]

The Rector's Daughter by F.M. Mayor and Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver

[Teri-K]

I'm slipping in The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett. I haven't read it in ages, and it's so good!

I just finished The Feminine Middlebrow Novel, 1920s to 1950s: Class, Domesticity, and Bohemianism by Nicola Humble. It's a study of social change in England during the wars and how novels of the time reflected or resisted that change. It was interesting, and I got a long list of authors and books to try.

And I'm slowly moving through The Spiritual Poems of Rumi by Jalal ad-Din Muhammad ar-Rumi. I've not read much of his poetry before, so I'm enjoying diving into more.

[Patrick]

Just finished the first of six volumes of George Bernard Shaw’s Complete Plays with Prefaces (Dodd, Mead, 1963), including Pygmalion, Major Barbara, Heartbreak House, The Doctor’s Dilemma, Captain Brassbound’s Conversion, The Man of Destiny, and Buoyant Billions.

One’s chances of seeing even Shaw’s most famous plays in adequate stage productions these days is slight. Heartbreak House, for example, requires 10 top-notch actors: Not cheap or easy to assemble.

So reading is the way to go, but even among confirmed readers of the classics, plays (outside of Shakespeare) don’t seem to get the attention they merit. It is too bad. Shaw is hardly just dialogue - his stage directions are exquisite and enable one to readily visualize a production.

The same thought occurs to me as I read each of these Shaw plays, and indeed when I read almost ANY classic play: Where would the audience for this be found today? Because the demands on the audience are pretty intense: A rapt level of attention, an intense sensitivity to verbal nuance, a high level of cultural literacy and sophistication, the willingness to work for the art instead of just letting it wash over you. 

[Patrick]

Because I read a lot of books “at once”, I can make fun juxtapositions. For example, at the moment I am reading both the first volume of Anaïs Nin’s Diaries (the 1966 edition) and Henry Miller’s Tropic of Cancer. I’m only just started on the Miller, but well into the Nin, which is impressing me greatly. I put off trying Nin for years because I thought she wouldn’t appeal to me, but I was flat wrong. Terrific writer. Admittedly, the l’amour fou angle in the Anaïs-Henry-June triangle kind of sails past me because it is foreign to my sensibility and life experiences - I have never been into big old passion * - but that is only one strand of the Diaries.

* I recently read a chapter of John Cowper Powys’ A Glastonbury Romance that is all mystically revelatory sex - the earth moved, the mystery of life was revealed, etc - and as with the similar passages in D.H. Lawrence, I felt way outside the text. From my POV, orgasm is nice and all, and that’s about it. I have never thought to freight it with such significance.

[Patrick]

I am making my way though Paul Mariani’s gargantuan biography of William Carlos Williams, A New World Naked.

I like WCW’s work very much, and he is an especially meaningful figure for me because he lived right across the Passaic River from my boyhood home. My mom the nurse worked under Dr. Williams at Passaic General Hospital in the Fifties, and my pediatrician, Dr. Albert Hagofsky, was a colleague of his; their offices were only a few blocks apart. Hence I am well-disposed towards Williams, and always thought of him as a nice guy.

But the biography, perhaps unsurprisingly, undercuts that. I was frankly horrified by an incident in Williams’ late 30s when, frustrated by his lack of recognition at that point, he wrote and published a big old hatchet piece in which he attacked basically every other poet and critic in America, including many close friends, as lacking in talent and principles. Many colleagues took a long time to forgive him, and some never did. He was not a kid; he was a medical doctor, for goodness sake (“Do no harm”); he was bitter and angling for attention. The incident puts him in a terrible light.

On the more amusing side, it is fun to read of Williams’ uneasy rapprochement with Wallace Stevens, whom he reasonably enough considered as his chief rival; and his unwillingness for a long time to engage with the alarmingly talented upstart Hart Crane. Aficionados of choice literary gossip will find a lot here.

[Darren]

one book I am part way through but am not reading atm is Ironweed, due to Internet Archive's website being currently incapacitated by a DDOS attack :o(

[Luís]

Anfitrião: Uma Comédia Segundo Molière
Homem de Palavra s

[Patrick]

One of Ours turned out to be, by a considerable margin, the least satisfactory of Willa Cather’s novels that I’ve read. I had to laugh when I came across one Goodreads review that characterized the protagonist Claude Wheeler as “a mopey, discontented bore”. Up to a point, I sympathized with his vague desires to escape the Nebraska farm life he was born into, but that vagueness and indirection wear on one after a while. Make up your mind, Claude! Like Vance Weston in Edith Wharton’s Hudson River Bracketed, Claude doesn’t make any good decisions, and again like Vance, his marriage decision is the worst - although at least Vance was starry-eyed for his bride; Claude drifts indifferently into wedding a frigid young religious woman who won’t allow him to touch her. Those chapters were painful. I seem to be reading about a lot of hasty bad marriages lately. 🤔

Anyway, I perfectly well know that Claude’s hundreds of pages of dissatisfaction and frustration are a set-up for his eventually finding meaning when he packs off to World War I. But imagining war was simply not in Cather’s wheelhouse. She undertook to do it because she was wrestling with the death in battle of her cousin Grosvenor Cather, who “could never escape from the misery of being himself, except in action”, and who was the model for Claude Wheeler. I accept that this was material she felt impelled to work on, but I don’t think she pulled off what she was trying for. Writing a long novel about a consistently miserable character is maybe not the best way to engage the reader, and capping it off with an account of wartime that seems distant and unreal and completely outside the author’s experience (because it was) makes matters worse. Hemingway HATED those chapters, and I can’t say he was wrong to do so.

So while I am glad I read the book, as a completist and a Catherite, it was rather a let-down. And guess what? This is the novel she won the Pulitzer for. Go figure.

[Patrick]

The Landlord at Lion’s Head is one of the least-known novels ever published in the Signet Classics series, not even among the most recognizable William Dean Howells titles (The Rise of Silas Lapham, A Hazard of New Fortunes, A Modern Instance). It is a powerful study of a young “alpha male” type, Jeff Durgin – amoral, practical, shrewd, but not born into name or money, and not possessed of any striking intellectual gifts that would enable him to become a successful lawyer, doctor, or such. He is therefore powerfully handicapped in the 19th Century world, despite being handsome and self-possessed. But this doesn’t anger him; he is always confident that he will “find a way”. I was reminded of Trollope’s similarly situated Phineas Finn, and both men angle forward by playing off their sexual magnetism, not giving a second thought if this involves “making love” to several women in the same time-frame.

Howells contrasts Durgin with a fastidious older artist, Westover (often taken to be a Howells self-portrait). I can’t say as I’d be friends with either man – Durgin is too shallow and brutish, Westover a passive priss. But their relationship fuels the novel effectively. The settings in rural New Hampshire (where the Durgin family inn is located, hence the book’s title) and urban Boston (especially Harvard, which Jeff uneasily attends) are also tellingly contrasted. A sharp and compelling novel overall. I am a big Howells fan.