Constant Reader discussion
Constant Reader
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What I Just Put Down, and what I just began
I've read it twice, Theresa. I read it on my own and then when CR did a paired reading with Classics reading The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas. I loved it obviously, or I wouldn't have done a reread.
I just finished reading Rhett Butler's People by Donald McCaig. I feel kind of so-so about that one.Just started reading Bryson City Tales by Walt Larimore, M.D. It's already hard to put that one down!
i've had a great reading week: infidel by ayaan hirsi ali, the interpreter of maladies by jhumpa lahiri and surfacing by margaret atwood. i enjoyed all of them.I just started The Story of A marriage by Andrew Sean greer. It's new - my library just got it in this month. I'm only a few pages in, but so far so good.
Sherry and theresa, if either of you are interested in Gertrude Stein and Alice B. toklas, I highly recommend a short non-fiction book by Janet Malcolm called Two Lives: Gertrude and Alice. Parts of it were excerpted last year in the New Yorker and I read the book either late last year or early this year and found it very interesting.
Sherry, that explains why I have Book of Salt - I must have picked it up when it was on our reading list. I have quite the backlog of bought-but-not-read books to catch up on.Al, I think I read that excerpt in The New Yorker - about how Gertrude and Alice basically ignored WWII? They came off as not very pleasant eccentrics, rather similar to how they are portrayed in Salt.
Theresa
I had put aside in despair the very wordy Casanova in Bolzano by Sandor Marai, when after 100 pages there was still no semblance whatever of dramatic tension. I have now picked it up again after a recommendation to keep on going, and have just read through a 60-page monologue. Sixty pages! But finally, with only 70 more pages to go, the climax has been reached and I am looking forward to reading how the conflict is resolved. This book has to now have the world record, for having 223 pages of wordy preamble before finally catching at least this reader's attention. It had better be good! :)
I just finished The Story of A Marriage by Andrew Sean Greer. I adored it. I had little expectations about the book and found it lyrical and deeply affecting - I haven't cried so hard while reading in a while.Next up for me is Plague of Doves by Louise Edrich. I haven't read her before either and am looking forward to it.
Theresa: I will have to check out The book of Salt. Two Lives delves further than the excerpt in the New Yorker so the portrayal is not quite as unsympathetic.
I finished DIVISADERO by Michael Ondaatje, and although the writing is wonderful, I don't quite understand the story. It starts out telling the tale of three people who were unrelated but who were raised by the same man: Anna, Claire, and Coop. A terrible thing happens that splits the three up, and the first part of the book follows the life of these three. The last part of the book follows the life of a French author that Anna is researching in France. I just didn't get why M.O. wrote that last part. Has anyone else read it?Jane
Jane:If I remember correctly, there were a ton of parallels between the life of the french author and that of anna, claire and coop. it was almost as though she was using the researched life to put her own life story in perspective.
Al,I don't see the parallels, to tell you the truth. The only thing they had in common was where they both lived and the fact that they knew the gypsy family.
Jane
Jane:I don't remember it so well and I know a lot of people felt the way you did that the last part didn't really fit, but I do recall both Anna and the french author had strong first loves that seem to haunt them as they grew older. And in general, i remember thinking their childhoods had a lot in common in terms of the way they dealth with other people. Sorry I can't be more helpful or insightful. His books can leave a lot of unanswered questions, for instance "coming through slaughter" told part of the legend of Billy bolden in new orleans, but also improvised a lot.
Al
I just put down Friday Night Knitting Club and started Pride & Prejudice. I love this book - I can't believe I've never read it before!
Just finished Surfacing by Margaret Atwood for the Classics Corner discussion starting in a few days. I've been skipping about in Robert Shelton's No Direction Home but probably won't read it all the way through, I prefer to pop in and out of that one.
I've been reading Water for Elephants. Of course, I am loving it. I can't believe I haven't picked it up until now. I is indeed a great read.
I also enjoyed the book.... learned a lot about circus life as well as nursisng homes!
I just finished The Plague of Doves by Louise Erdrich. Has anyone else here read it? I would love to discuss it with someone. I'd never read Erdrich before and her writing is tremendous, very poetic. Having just finished Surfacing by Margaret Atwood, I can see how she might have been an influence on Erdrich. It may be unfair to compare the two authors as I have only read one book by each and a later work by Erdrich and an early one by Atwood, but I'd be interested in hearing anyone else's opinion. The one thing about reading this book that was really odd for me was the fact that a couple of the later chapters in the book were short stories in The New Yorker over the past couple of years and I had read them both. It was very weird for me for some reason. Haven't we all read a short story and wondered more about the main character? Well this was a unique situation as I inadvertenly had learned all about her and never made teh connection that she was that person until I got to the part I had read before. It was so strange - I felt like a spy or a voyeur into her life in a bad way - I am not sure why I had such a strong reaction to it. I'm curious if anyone else has ever experienced this. I've experienced it before with short story writers and essayists like Jhumpa Lahiri, George Saunders, Ian Frazier and Nora Ephron - but somehow in those incidences I didn't have the same feeling - likely because the pieces were more intact.
Sorry to be so long-winded, but it is so great to have a forum to address these reading issues.
I'm just starting Pictures At A Revolution by Mark Harris. It's an in-depth look at the 5 movies that competed for Best Picture in 1967 and all about their impact on the movie industry, an epic battle between old and new hollywood. As a movie person, I am really excited about reading it.
Erdrich's Tracks reminds me of Surfacing, although it's been a long time since I read that one.
That's an interesting observation. Now that I think about it, there is a similar approach in both Atwood & Erdrich. Atwood, I think is more academic while Erdrich's characters & settings are more working class. I haven't read "The Plague of Doves" yet, tho I plan to. I have read all her other novels & a memoir "Books & Writing in Ojibwe Country." Actually, I read Atwood many years before i started reading Erdrich, perhaps that is why Erdrich seems more accessible.
I just put down Northanger Abbey (unfinished) and am now reading The Face of a Stranger by Anne Perry.
Al, that was an interesting reaction to finding short stories that you've read previously in a novel. I frequently have conflicting feelings about that too. Sometimes, the expanded character(s) in a novel are not what I would have predicted from the story.
Barbara:The thing that was particularly strange about The New Yorker stories that were incorporated into The Plague of Doves is that they didn't happen until very late chapters in the book, so it was very unexpected (for me) and what a rare thing to know all about a character and then realize they were actually someone you had met before and not realized it - almost like when movies play with time like in Pulp Fiction or Memento.
I'm still enjoying Pictures At the Revolution - a non-fiction book about the five movies that competed for Best Picture in 1967. The author is Tony Kushner's husband - I did not know that ahead of time - and it seems that has allowed him great access for really interesting interviews with a lot of the key players like Mike Nichols and Warren Beatty. For me the book reinforces what a genius Mike Nichols is - it is hard to believe his first Hollywood experience was making Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolf with Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton at the height of their "it couple"ness! It is also fascinating to read about the folks who were considered for the cast of Bonnie and Clyde and The Graduate.
I just picked up Edward Docx Pravda, and 62 pages in I can say that I absolute, completely recommend it..... esp. for any of you that adore adore adore gorgeous writing. (Plot and characters are amazing, too)
I've just put down Dean Koontz's The Husband, and have just picked up The Color of Magic by Terry Pratchett. From murder/mystery to colorful creativity. Looking forward to a change of pace...
Finished and loved Water for Elephant by Sara Gruen. Than I just finished We Remember by Jeanne Marie Laskas. This is a book of true stories of incredible women who are 100 or just a little OVER or under a century. I was a great read. The women are from every walk of life. I am about to start a little bit of fluff called What a Girl Wants by Liz Maverick. Should be a fast read.
I just picked up Choke by Chuck Palahnuik. Would this count as guy-lit? I'm reading it for a discussion group elsewhere. I was a little afraid of it, but I kind of like it so far.
Re New Yorker stories appearing in books, I was excited to see a new David Sedaris collection at the bookstore, and about to buy it, until I checked the facesheets and found that about 2/3 of the articles had already been in the New Yorker. As much as I love me some Sedaris, I'll wait for paperback - no sense paying for hardback when I've already read most of the book!Theresa
I just finished The Book of Salt by Michelle Truong. Some lovely writing and an interesting story, but it left me feeling unsatisfied and incomplete. This might have been the author's intention, since the book is about loss, and hidden beauty, and how some things don't ever resolve. I loved how she almost imperceptibly intertwined her narrator's self-chosen "endings" into various events in his life. Is the CR discussion saved somewhere? I'd love to read it.Not sure what's up next, perhaps Lost City Radio. Or perhaps not . . .
Theresa
Theresa, I've looked all over my computer and can't find our Book of Salt discussion. It must have happened in that period when Tonya stopped archiving and I hadn't started yet. Sorry.
Theresa, I've often not bought the latest Best Short Stories because so many of them were published in the NYer.
Theresa:I expect authors like David Sedaris, Ian Frazier, George Saunders, Nora Ephron, etc. to have their latest books filled with essays that originally appeared in the New Yorker. I was however, most surprised to read an author who writes novels and realize chapters had previously been published in the New Yorker.
I just started "Love Walked In" by Marisa de los Santos. So far, it is very enjoyable and I have every intention of loving it.
I'm in the middle of Leif Enger's new one, Young, Brave and Handsome.I'm faltering.
Put down, finally, as not readable for me right now, "Kon Tiki". Now reading Stegner's "Angle of Repose", which is very different from the idea I had of it. Good writing, kind of like Agee's "Death in the Family" in style only. I like it so far.
Hi Ruth,I read the new Enger book and was disappointed in it.
Jean K.
Me too, Jean. I did finish it, but only because I was stuck for 3 hours in a medical waiting room yesterday, and that's what I had with me.
I just finished Choke by Chuck Palahniuk and started The Road by Cormac McCarthy. I look forward to going back and reading the group's dicussion of The Road after I finish it. :)
Gail: Angle of Repose is very, very good - I'm jealous that you are reading it for the first time.I just finished The Names by Don Delillo - just in time for the CR discussion that starts tomorrow. There is a lot to talk about with that book!
I'm debating about what to start to next. I have a pile from the library of mostly new stuff - has anyone read Human Smoke or The Lazarus Project?
I am about 100 pages into The Book of Joby and I am really enjoying it. It's a retelling of the story of Job (always one of my favorite biblical stories) with and interesting twist having to do with King Arthur (another of my early favorites).I also need to read the Madonnas of Leningrad before my book club Thursday night. That means I'll have to set aside Joby and I'm not so sure I can do that. Do any of you struggle with the fact that the books are NOT going anywhere?
If your in-person book club was anything like the one I used to belong to, if you don't finish the book, you won't be alone. I just started Samantha Hunt's The Invention of Everything Else. So far it's wonderful.
I just finished Choke by Chuck Palahniuk for a book club.I just started The Names by Don DeLillo. A little late for the discussion, but I won't let that stop me. So far I like it a lot.
Yep Sherry- I have been guilty before. I'm not having any problem though. The Madonnas of Leningrad is turning out to be a very good read as well. It is about a woman who worked in the Hermitage Museum in Leningrad during WWII and worked to protect the art. Now elderly, she has dementia and her vivid memories are of that time- and the works of art that she memorized when she had to pack it all away. It is a first novel by a Seattle author, Debra Dean. It helps that it is pretty short too- only about 225 pages. I read half yesterday when I had told myself I would read 50 pages a day this week. I'll probably finish after work today.
Haven't finished DiLillo's The Names as of yet, but I started another one anyway - a light historical fiction/fantasy piece by Naomi Novik called His Majesty's Dragon. A good friend of mine who shares an interest in Patrick O'Brian's novels, and who knows how much time I'm spending sitting quietly in a chair reading these days, thought it would be a fun spin - and it is.
I just finished a book by the British Comedian, Stephen Fry, titled, Hippopotamus and really enjoyed it. I spent all of yesterday staying in avoiding the 105 degree heat and read the entire book. I've started another book by the same author titled, Liar.Jean K.
Marsha, 'The Madonnas of Leningrad' sounds very interesting and I've placed it on my tbr pile. Thanks for posting about it.
I just finished both The Crimes and Punishments of Miss Payne by Barry Jonsberg and Dracula by Bram Stoker. The Jonsberg's book went on way too long. It needed to be shortened by quite a bit. You just lost interest after awhile.
Dracula was so different than I expected. I very much enjoyed it, but it was very different. It had a real religious undertone and people I thought lived died and visa versa. Just goes to show don't assume.
I just started Cripple Creek Bonanza by Chet Cunningham; a history of the gold rush days of Cripple Creek, Colorado.
Also just started Gambit by Rex Stout; a Nero Wolfe mystery. I love Nero Wolfe, he's so sarcastic.
I'll have to check out Madonnas of Leningrad it does sound interesting.
Sherry, thanks for checking for the discussion of The Book of Salt. I seem to have settled on Russel Banks' The Darling as my next pick rather than Lost City Radio.I have a hankering to read some Thomas Hardy after that, though I may try to fit in one of our upcoming discussion selections in the interim. I have read most of Hardy's books, the only major works I have not read are Far from the Madding Crowd and The Woodlanders. I am leaning to reading the first, but welcome any advise or comments from those who have read either?
Theresa
Theresa, it's great to see you here more often! You and I have had discussions about what all the reading for the law does to your recreational reading. I'm glad you're able to get past some of that now. It still doesn't happen for my husband until we get on vacation.
Just finished BodySurfing by Anita Shreve and I am about to start Mercy by Jodi Picoult. I seem to be on a female writer kick lately :-)
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Last before Wao I finished Poor People by William Vollman. A bit of a rumination on poverty, what it means both objectively and subjectively. Vollman traveled the world and reports back his own impressions, and what the "poor people" he encountered had to say about their own condition. A bit heavy on the self-conscious self questioning at times, but always a pleasure to read Vollman's wonderful writing.
I just started The Book of Salt by Monique Truong; about a Vietnamese cook employed by Gertrude Stein in Paris in the 1930s. No idea if it is based on reality. The writing style is a bit toooo lyrical for me, but not so much that I want to put it down. Has anyone read this?
Theresa