***What Are Your Reading in AUGUST 2012?

I'm starting this thread, since I need it!

I've finished and reviewed Globalectics: Theory and the Politics of Knowing by Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o, based on a series of lectures he gave about world literature and orature ("oral literature"), along with a lot of theory.

It's hard to say what I'm reading now. Tonight at church our book group will discuss The Heart of Darkness; I've finished the novel but read only a little of the ancillary readings in the Norton Critical Edition. I had hoped to finish The Cambridge Companion to the Stoics before I started that. I haven't because I also started dipping into Secret Ingredients. But...I've been playing Bejewelled on my Nook before going to sleep; I played a game for over 160 minutes last night and set a personal record -- then it was too late to read.

Robert

I've finally started The Night Circus, which has been sitting on the TBR pile calling, "Read me, read me!" for a little while now.

I have started on Music from the Earliest Notations to the Sixteenth Century by Richard Taruskin. This is in the Oxford History of Western Music series. My knowledge of musical theory is fairly sketchy and so I am anticipating that this will be a long read.

I'm reading The New Jim Crow and A Mind of Winter, an ER book that I've been putting off. I'm always excited to win an ER book until I have to make room in my reading plans to actually read it! Also plugging away at the very dry but sometimes very interesting A History of the Vikings.

I am reading Invitation to the Waltz by Rosamond Lehmann which I had hoped to finish last week for the Virago group read, but my work continues to be very busy, so all group reads (The Grapes of Wrath and East of Eden, Angel by Elizabeth Taylor, etc) are lagging behind. I am also still 12 books behind with reviews on my thread.

I'm focusing on Journey to the West by Wu Ch'eng-en (just passed page 2000 today) and A Mind at Peace by Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar.

I've just started Palace of Desire by Naguib Mahfouz, the second novel in The Cairo Trilogy.

I'm reading Bring Up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel, which is as good as Wolf Hall, so far. I'm also reading The Portrait of a Lady by Henry James to have something to read on my kindle. I picked up a copy of Caitlin Moran's book, How to be a Woman today and may have to begin that soon.

My apologies for the typo in the title of this thread. Apparently, there's no way I can go back and change it!

I'm reading Pyg by Russell Potter and Spartan Women by Sarah Pomeroy. Both are excellent so far.

I'm trying to stick with The Adventures of Augie March. I'm about 120 pages in and considering bailing. I never abandon books. Anyone care to convince me to stay the course?

Other than that I'm mostly plowing through some short stories and magazines. Having trouble focusing on anything long and involved.

Day two of August and I am having trouble settling down to any of the books I started yesterday and I had nothing really in progress when July ended. This seems like a very strange dilemma when surrounded by mountains of books.

> Jane, I sympathize! I too never abandon books. I may have a trial separation for a while and the book will sit abandoned for a greater or lesser period of time, but I always go back. I always feel what I have invested in reading time to date would otherwise be wasted. I know there are schools of people who would say move on and don't waste any more time, but I can't leave it unfinished. Maybe this is why it is so hard to decide on a new book to read.

#12 - This may be the most lukewarm of all endorsements: I've read several of Bellow's novels, mostly because of the recognition they've received as he is far from being a favorite of mine. Of those I've read, The Adventures of Augie March was easily the one I enjoyed most and gave the highest rating, but it's been long enough that I wouldn't be able to cite any particulars about it. I do recall, however, that it takes you to some interesting places.

>12 janemarieprice:

Leave it for a while, read something else and get back to it. If you are in short stories/magazines mood, no novel will work.

Making my way through East of Eden and started When I Left Home: My Story by Buddy Guy which arrived in the mail today.

Just finished and reviewed Robert Massie's fascinating biography of a remarkable woman, Catherine the Great: Portrait of a Woman.

Finally finished Journey to the West by Wu Cheng'en. I'm still reading A Mind at Peace by Ahmet Tanpinar, but the next book I finish will probably be The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien. I also started Agnes Grey by Anne Brontë because I had a long wait at the dentist Thursday and it was on my iPhone.

I’m in love! With David Rees and his How to Sharpen Pencils. I can’t remember where I heard of it but when I looked at reviews, I couldn’t decide whether it was serious or reviewers were all going along, too. So I borrowed it from the library and, halfway through now, I'm still not sure if it's satire; he’s actually an artisanal sharpener of pencils. He’s also terrifically quirky and hilarious.

Currently, I am reading The house of the uneasy dead (1950) by Sydney Horler, a largely forgotten author of crime and adventure novels.

Well, I finished The Night Circus (which was thin on plot but awesome on atmosphere) and am about to start White Queen by Gwyneth Jones. (Many thanks to avaland for that one!) After that will be Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers by Robert Sapolsky, which is about stress and its effects on the body.

I've finished The New Annotated Dracula by Bram Stoker, as edited by Leslie S. Klinger, and will review it shortly. Began reading Richard Tarnas's Passion of the Western Mind, and will also be re-reading a few Discworld novels.

I'll post about the rest in a bit but I just have to complain.

I really hate books. They make you want to read more books. :)

Had been reading The Daughter of Time over the weekend which lead to three things:
- I realized that I really had not read anything about Richard III lately - I read almost anything that gets published about the Tudors and Richard usually falls under the line... as the last one before Henry VII
- I need to read something about Richard III(and not Shakespeare which I love but...) and see what historians think these days and what the sources contain
- I thought I am done with topics that just get my attention and kick everything out. Guess not.

So... Richard III it is. I have the usual suspects (both biographies and novels). Anyone with any recommendations?

Oh - and Tey's book is worth reading IF you like history :)

I finished two books on Sunday, Palace of Desire, the second novel in The Cairo Trilogy by Naguib Mahfouz, and Head Off & Split by Nikky Finney, which won the National Book Award for Poetry last year. I'm currently reading Narcopolis by Jeet Thayil, which was selected for this year's Booker Prize longlist, a novel set in Bombay during the 1970s and 1980s about the relatively benign opium culture, which transforms into a much more violent and harsh environment once heroin becomes the drug of choice. The author was an opium and heroin addict in Bombay for ~20 years, so he knows these cultures well.

#24 - Narcopolis went on my wish list after I saw it on the Booker longlist. I'll be interested in what you think of it.

I finished Agnes Grey yesterday. The next I finish will probably be Deep River by Shusaku Endo. (I'm treating myself to a few short novels after reading several in a row that were quite long.)

I'll be interested in your review of Narcopolis too; as you know, Darryl, I read it after I heard the author interviewed on NPR.

I am enjoying Tarzan of the Apes right now, which I expect to finish reading today or tomorrow.

I have finished read The Big Burn: teddy Roosevelt and the Fire that saved America by Timothy Egan, then proceeded to vomit a thousand plus word summary of it. Now onto The Wisdom of John Muir an LT ER biography of sorts about John Muir.

I'm more than halfway through The Devil in Silver by Victor LaValle, an LT Early Reviewer which I received earlier this week, which is very good so far. I'll finish it this afternoon.

I'm reading my annual Henry James. This year it's The Aspern Papers. Enjoying it so far.

Finished Bring Up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel, which was brilliant. I've begun Middlemarch and Mission to Paris by Alan Furst.

29 - I read an interesting interview with Victor LaValle recently and has put him work on my radar. Will be interested to see what you think when you're done.

>32 janemarieprice: I enjoyed The Devil in Silver and gave it 4 stars, Jane; I'll review it this weekend. I have two of his earlier novels, Big Machine and The Ecstatic, but I haven't read either one yet. Where did you find the interview with LaValle?

Today I made a very good start of about 100 pages into The Water Theatre by Lindsay Clarke.

Very well-written and engaging, reminiscent of Iris Murdoch and E.M. Forster.

It requires slow, careful reading, but very enjoyable so far!

33 - The Believer, here's the intro. If I can track down the magazine in my pile. I'd be happy to send it to you. Just PM me your address.

I've been reading Byatt's Bable Tower, the 3rd in her Frederica series, but it's not grabbing me as the first two did. Maybe I'm just not in the right mood -- I think I'm going to set it aside for awhile and try something else for the last few days before I have to go back to work.

I am in the middle of Leo Africanus by Amin Maalouf and quite enjoying it.

As I plod through The Cambridge Companion to the Stoics and The Norton Critical Edition of Heart of Darkness and cruise through Secret Ingredients I am also now reading, barely started, Why Does the World Exist?

Robert

>35 janemarieprice: Thanks, Jane!

>37 torontoc: I'm glad that you're enjoying Leo Africanus, Cyrel. I look forward to your review of it.

Richard the Third by Paul Murray Kendall.

So far, good.

I meant to mention that I'm reading Swimming Home by Deborah Levy, as I work my way through this year's Booker Prize longlist.

Finished Popular Hits of the Showa Era by Ryu Murakami. Now reading Half of Man Is Woman by Zhang Xianliang, Voss by Patrick White, and Midaq Alley by Naguib Mahfouz.

I've just finished and reviewed the exciting and thought-provoking Germinal by Émile Zola and Dorothy B. Hughes's psychological thriller, In a Lonely Place, which kept me on the edge of my seat.

I've momentarily put aside the obscure Natives and Exotics (by Jane Alison) to read Roma Tearne's latest, the even more obscure Road to Urbino. I'm about a third of the way through and finding it very, very different from Roma's earlier novels. The story is interesting, but I'm having problems getting comfortable with the voice. Oh well, it's good to see an author stretch and try new things.

I'm still reading the thought-provoking The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander and trying my first Georgette Heyer, Faro's Daughter.

I've just started my latest ER book, Me, Who Dove Into the Heart of the World by Sabina Berman, which is good so far. I think next up it'll be back into my old stash of SF paperbacks with Reunion on Neverend by John Stith.

I finished Sugar Street, the last book in The Cairo Trilogy, early this morning, and I've started The Yips by Nicola Barker and Silence by Shusaku Endo.

I'm about four chapters into Jailbird by Kurt Vonnegut.

I have posted my review of the Hungarian writer and Nobel Laureate, Imre Kertesz's Fatelessness, a novel of survival in the Nazi concentration camps that is very different than others I have read. Two more reviews and I will be momentarily caught up!

In the meantime, since I have been neglecting my nonfiction reading this year, I have begun George, Nicholas and Wilhelm: Three Royal Cousins and the Road to World War I by Miranda Carter.

I am reading Lost in Translation, Eva Hoffman which was a selection by my book club.

I read Lost in Translation long ago (probably when it first came out since I have it in hardcover) and I really really loved it. It's one of those books that I'm hesitant to go back to in case I don't love it as much. Will be interested in what you think. I've read other books by Hoffman too (and have others on the TBR), but that was my favorite.

The New Jim Crow sounds fascinating, although I probably won't read it. I have to stop myself from getting too emotionally involved in things that are going wrong in the US and focus on my own country instead!

I just finished the excellent Road to Urbino, which is Roma Tearne's latest book. It's different from her earlier books. Now I'm reading the equally obscure Natives and Exotics.

I just finished reading the mind-boggling Evita by Evita by Eva Peron and am picking and choosing my way through the essays in The Labyrinth of Solitude: The Other Mexico / Return to the Labyrinth of Solitude by Octavio Paz.

Last night when I finished Why Does the World Exist? rather than return to works in progress I picked up Physics on the Fringe by Margaret Wertheim and got enough into it to know that I'll be reading it.

Robert

I've just finished and reviewed the thought-provoking Silence by Shūsaku Endō, about which I had extremely mixed feelings.

Just started Four New Messages by Josua Cohen. Great reading so far.

I just finished Death in Rome, a 1952 novel by Wolfgang Koeppen which is a very compelling read about a German Nazi family and how they dealt with the consequences of their convictions and actions after the war. Now reading The Sot-Weed Factor by John Barth which I'm enjoying so far. I also have started Lisbon: War in the Shadows of the City of Light, 1939-45 by Neill Lochery. Dry writing though the account is quite fascinating. I'm also a few chapters into A Peace to End All Peace: The Fall of the Ottoman Empire and the Creation of the Modern Middle East by David Fromkin which requires slow and careful reading.

When you are away from LT for a couple weeks, this is a nice thread to begin the catch-up.

I've recently finished People on the Street : A Writer's View of Israel by Linda Grant, The Bible Unearthed : Archaeology's New Visions of Ancient Israel and the Origin of Its Sacred Texts by Israel Finkelstein & Neil Asher Silberman and The Love Story of Paul Collins by Donigan Merritt.

Currently reading:
The David Story by Robert Alter - A carry-over from last month, this is 1 & 2 Samuel. I haven't actually picked it up this month yet.
Stalking the Florida Panther by Enid Shomer - terrific terrific poetry
The Art of Biblical Narrative by Robert Alter
Closing the Sea by Judith Katzir - Four short stories, wonderful stuff so far. If all Israeli literature is like this...
Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln by Doris Kearns Goodwin - started this on the plane home when I ran out of "easy" books to read. It was sitting on the I-pad.

I am just starting Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte it's a book club read.

I finished Silence by Shusaku Endo early this morning, and will now start To the End of the Land by David Grossman.

Just finished Half of Man Is Woman by Zhang Xianliang

Still reading Voss by Patrick White and recently started Green Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson.

I'm reading Middlemarch, which is fabulous. Except I keep imagining Casaubon as looking exactly like Abraham Lincoln with grey hair, which is making me like him more than he deserves.

Just starting to read The Good Soldier by Ford Madox Ford and 100 pages from the end of A History of the Vikings (finally).

I've just finished and reviewed the bleak and complex The Colonel by Mahmoud Dowlatabadi and The Blackbirder, an enjoyable and exciting war thriller by Dorothy B. Hughes.

I've put aside To the End of the Land until next month, and I'm now halfway through The Garden of Evening Mists by Tan Twan Eng, the fifth book I've read from this year's Booker Prize longlist.

I'm reading the so-far delightful Border Songs by Jim Lynch. It's a novel about an odd young man who gets a job patrolling the Canada - US border between Washington state and BC. My daughters and I are quite enamored with Zero Avenue, which runs along the border for about 40 km. In parts there is a parallel road, Boundary Rd, running on the Washington side, and there is just a small drainage ditch dividing them. The novel is about the goings on along these two roads (lots of drug smuggling, for example). Here is a picture taken in winter:

I am reading Dracula. Hope to finish it soon.

>66 Nickelini: Nice picture!

After finishing Pigeon English by Stephen Kelman earlier this month, I've just recently started Reamde by Neal Stephenson. Though it is eminently readable, clocking in at over 1000 pages and with dwindling free time (i.e., less energy and general wherewithal), I imagine this will also be the answer to a September, and quite possibly October, 'what are you reading in...' thread.

That said, I may toss in a couple quicker reads along the way for some variety...

My next book is Baiae by Giovanni Gioviano Pontano, which is a book of renaissance poetry translated by Rodney G Dennis in the very smart looking "I Tatti Renaissance Library" series.

I've just finished and reviewed the playful and perceptive Moving Parts by Magdalena Tulli. I also plugging away with Citizens by Simon Schama, which I'm likely to be reading for another month or two as I can only read it at home, due to its being a true tome), and I've started another Zola, L'assomoir.

I've been re-reading a few Discworld books, which is always fun, but I don't feel like I have to review them. Will now be starting with Something Wicked This Way Comes, in honour of the recent passing of Ray Bradbury.

I've started Friendly Fire by Israeli author A.B. Yehoshua, for the Reading Globally Middle Eastern literature theme.

I've started Cities of Salt by Abdelrahman Munif, part of a quintet, which is about the evolution of the Arabian peninsula as its traditional bedouin culture is transformed by the oil boom. The book is still banned in several Middle East countries. Also reading Juan Carlos Onetti's existential novel The Shipyard, and Harry Mulisch's The Procedure about two men who try to create life but fail.

#69 I just checked them out and they are intriguing, and alas, I have many on my wish list now.

>73 deebee1: I'm very interested to find out what you think of Cities of Salt and The Shipyard, deebee.

I've looked at Cities of Salt for years, so I'll definitely be interested in what you think of it.

I am starting Small Island by Andrea Levy which won the Orange Prize in, I think, 2004. Just finished and reviewed The Good Soldier.

#73 - I'm also interested in Cities of Salt. I have the first volume but haven't read it or decided if I should seek out the rest of the series.

#77 - I really enjoyed Small Island and think it was quite deserving of the recognition it received.

For the Author Theme Reads group's Ryu Murakami marathon I just finished In the Miso Soup. I have one more Murakami to read, but I'm going to take a break first and finish Naguib Mahfouz's Midaq Alley.

Thanks to Nickelini's review, I pounced when I saw The Aspern Papers and The Turn of the Screw in a used bookstore last week. Read The Aspern Letters yesterday and started The Turn of the Screw today.

It's back to Mach

Discourses on Livy by Niccolo Machiavelli has just arrived in the post and so I will read this next. It looks fairly chunky and so I may be some time..........

My reading is going much more slowly this month than I'd like. I keep getting distracted by shiny objects on DVDs and/or the internet. But I did finally finish Confederates in the Attic, which was well worthwhile, and am now about to start A Visit from the Goon Squad, which I've been meaning to get to for ages. Well, maybe after a quick break to catch up on some magazine reading first...

I miscalculated; I neglected September's coming before October and started a book pertinent to our church book group's October discussion, namely The Perpetual Orgy by Mario Vargas Llosa about Madame Bovary. Having started it I will continue in it and later rush to get through The Cat's Table for September.

Robert

Finished Dracula early this morning so now am going to start The Limpopo Academy of Private Detection. I am looking forward to a lighthearted read.

I've just finished and reviewed my second Zola, L'Assommoir, a portrait of the rise and fall of one woman, and of the working class slums in which she lives.

>75 kidzdoc:, 76, 78 I'm about a third into Cities of Salt, and it's drawing me in much more than I thought it would. It's looking to be the kind of book that will stay with me for a long time. Hope to post a review on my thread once done.

Just finished the dark but beautifully written In the Shadow of the Banyan by Vaddy Ratner. For purely stats purposes I'm struggling with the idea of a native Cambodian author who immigrated to the United States, writing about Cambodia, but in English and published so far only in U.S., is she be counted as a U.S. author or a Cambodian author?

Anyway to finish Destiny Disrupted and perhaps start one of the ER's that are long over due for a review.

Finished the excellent Midaq Alley by Naguib Mahfouz, then read two short plays by Euripides, Hecuba (good) and Andromache (bad), to finish out a collection of his works.

After finishing Jailbird, I am now reading The Ottomans: Dissolving Images by Andrew Wheatcroft. I decided to mix it up and go with some nonfiction.

3/4 through Midnight's Children in book form; 1/3 through The Sunne in Splendour on the Kindle at the moment.

Both are technically historical fiction (Rushdie's may be credited as a lot of other things but the historical fiction is there) but they are probably on both ends of what would be considered in the genre. Both are very good though.

I finished Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury today, and will review it shortly. A very good speculative offering, with something for both adults and younger readers.

Going to start reading Cry, the Beloved Country tonight. A classic, I know, but one that I've avoided until now.

I have finished and posted a review of Doris Lessing's devastating and powerful novel, The Grass Is Singing.

I'm finished Unbowed: A Memoir by Wangari Maathai..

I've read most of The Cat's Table.

Robert

I've just finished Working in a Very Small Place: The Making of a Neurosurgeon by Mark Shelton, which has been on my TBR pile since approximately the dawn of time, and am now just about to finish up Scott Westerfeld's Leviathan trilogy with Goliath.

I think I'm going to focus on A Writer's Diary by Virginia Woolf. I've had this going for many months and I'm just over half way through it. Although I've loved her novels, short stories and essays, I am not loving this. At all. I'm blaming it on Leonard (her husband who edited it after she died). I've given myself permission to skim. I do want to read the end though.

I am now reading A perfect execution by Tim Binding.

I'm reading a lot of Club Read (as I try to catch up)

Ok, also I finished Stalking the Florida Panther by Enid Shomer (recommended), Closing the Sea by Judith Katzir (recommended) and a 1993 issue of Poet Lore, a magazine I had not read before.

I'm in the midst of The David Story by Robert Alter

And I'm in the beginning of The Art of Biblical Narrative by Robert Alter & the 75th Anniversary issue of Poetry magazine - from 1987 - (over 200 pages, and many names I actually recognize)

I finished reading Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet and will begin Evita: The Real Life of Eva Peron today.

I have started Utopia, Sir Thomas More Written in the early 16th century, it will be interesting to compare it with Machiavelli's Discourses on Livy which I have just ploughed through.

I will also start Patrick White's The Solid Mandala

The September thread is here: http://www.librarything.com/topic/141607

The last day of August and I am only part way through Palace of Desire, so will not get it finished this month, meaning next month I will have to catch up. Trying to finish some other books as well, among them The Tigress of Forli, a biography of a very determined woman.

I know the September thread is up, but I finished and reviewed this in August: The Fortune of the Rougons, the first in Zola's Rougon-Macquart series, which sets the stage thematically and historically for the novels to come.