**What Are You Reading Now? -- September 2012

September already (ok, still 16.5 hours away in my time zone.) Let us know what you're reading, reviewing or anything else you might be doing along the themes of books and literature and reading (or music or movies or...)

Going to Vermont for two weeks on Labour Day. Vermont has an excellent independent booksellers' network and I can't wait to take full advantage of it. Did this in September last year too and found some great books, coming home with twenty-seven of them. I also managed to read books by Elsa Morante, Russell Banks and Kenneth J Harvey as well as a couple of the obligatory holiday mysteries and spy novels while I was there. Hoping I do as well this year. One of the things I will be looking for is books which do not yet have Canadian publication rights.

Can't wait and would welcome any suggestions.

SL - Sounds very nice. What have you read by Morante?

Well, I'll still be plugging away with Citizens by Simon Schama, although I made a big dent in it when we were up in the mountains for four days and finally reached the start of the revolution (some 300+ pages in). Not sure what I'll accomplish with it over the weekend, since we're having out of town guests, and I also need to decide what shorter book to read next for my "subway read."

My current reading consists of Nathan Englander's The Ministry of Special Cases, Ry Cooder's Los Angeles Stories, The Penguin Book of Gaslight Crime, and Terry Eagleton's Why Marx Was Right. For some reason, I can't just settle down and read through one book from cover to cover at present.

>3 dchaikin: History: A Novel which I found incredibly moving and got completely wrapped up in, despite its length. I will certainly read other books by her when I find them.

I'm now reading The Living Dead 2, an anthology of zombie stories. Because I'm still not tired of zombies, I don't care what anybody says.

I'm reading a nonfiction book, Planet in a Pebble, by Jan Zalasiewicz.

I am struggling to finish the Norton Critical Edition of Heart of Darkness. I skimmed several of the selections at the back last night thinking that they were loosely collected uses of tenure building neologisms. I will read the selections about Apocalypse Now and be done with it.

I still have started, by my bed The Cambridge Companion to the Stoics.

Robert

But Robert, you also need to see Apocalypse Now! (presumably again). And also read King Leopold's Ghost, at least the chapter on HoD.

#7 bragan, for the record I haven't said anything.

#6 Sassy - I read History just last year, along with a biography of Morante (which was fascinating). I found History to be an angry book, strikingly angry. I'm hoping to read more of her works at some point.

I am struggling to finish the Norton Critical Edition of Heart of Darkness. I skimmed several of the selections at the back last night thinking that they were loosely collected uses of tenure building neologisms. I will read the selections about Apocalypse Now and be done with it.

and

But Robert, you also need to see Apocalypse Now! (presumably again). And also read King Leopold's Ghost, at least the chapter on HoD.

Ha ha ha ha. I feel your pain. However, you may not proceed until you've also read the essay on anti-colonialism and racism by Chinua Achebe. I had to write an essay about it and Heart of Darkness for university, and while we won't require an essay from you, you're not off the hook until you have that one under your belt.

I've finished and reviewed the thought-provoking The Devil in Silver by Victor LaValle.

>11 Nickelini: - Joyce, I recently read that essay (again), and although I think Achebe certainly has good intentions (such as speaking against colonialism and racism), I think that he is a bit wrong-headed in attacking Conrad. I personally do not think that Conrad is an egregious colonialist or racist. Depending on which Norton Critical Edition you have, I would advise anyone to also read the counter-arguments.

I've finished Cry, the Beloved Country, which I found very disturbing, and am now going to focus on Mr Weston's Good Wine by T.F. Powys.

#13 - Dewald - It's been a while since I read it (and the counter-arguments), but I'm pretty sure that was my reaction too.

I've finished Middlemarch by George Eliot and have settled into the Icelandic crime novel, Jar City, for a change of pace.

Dewald - hoping you'll post thoughts on Cry, The Beloved Country. Not everyone likes it, but I thought it was terrifically done...and I think Conrad was racist, even if he didn't fully approve of everything he saw in Belgian Congo. Haven't read Achebe.

...and I think Conrad was racist, even if he didn't fully approve of everything he saw in Belgian Congo.

16 - I actually got the impression from The Heart of Darkness that Conrad hated everyone in the novel--Africans, women, Europeans. Terrifically gifted writer, but I don't enjoy him.

I'm reading The Empty Family, a collection of short stories by Colm Tóibín.

I've finished Cities of Salt by Abdelrahman Munif, which I found compelling. Have started The Harp and the Shadow by Alejo Carpentier, written in his usual rich style and which I'm enjoying every bit of. Also dipping in and out of Simon Schama's The Power of Art. Wonderful stuff there.

Reading and enjoying Molly Ringwald's When It Happens to You. Finished Winter Journal Sunday - recommend!

I finished Nicholas Fraser's biography, Evita: The Real Life of Eva Peron last night, Now I'm trying to choose between Rocket Boys, the book the movie October Sky is based on or Carrying the Fire by Michael Collins, a book that ended up on my wishlist after reading bragan's review of it. The section devoted to space exploration books at our city library is pretty small so I was very happy to have found both books there.

>20 alphaorder: Molly Ringwald wrote a book?!?! I'll have to check that out.

Just finished The Color Purple. Now I'm reading The Red and the Black by Stendahl.

I just finished and reviewed Vlad by Carlos Fuentes, in which he explores what would happen if Vlad the Impaler/Count Dracula moved to contemporary Mexico City.

>16 dchaikin: - Dan, I will certainly try to put down my thoughts on Cry, the Beloved Country. I'm unfortunately a bit busy with RL projects at the moment, so might take some time.

On Conrad, I think that one should take into account his milieu and the time-period, and then think how much more racist most other writers were at this time. Not an actual excuse for Conrad's use of terms like the n-word, etc. but a historical awareness is important. Also consider this quote from HoD. It comes just after Marlow arrives in the Congo, when a Zanzibari guard aims his gun at Marlow:

This was simple prudence, white men being so much alike at a distance that he could not tell who I might be.

Now, if that isn't ironic awareness of racial prejudice, I don't know what is.

>21 avidmom:: Ooh, space books! Rocket Boys is on my wishlist, too. And if you end up reading Carrying the Fire, I hope you like it as much as I did.

Me, I've now finished with the zombies and turned to a book about something they usually lack, The Language Instinct by Steven Pinker, a book I've been meaning to get around to forever. I'm also dipping in and out of the Lost Encyclopedia, but I don't actually expect that that will help me make any more sense out of the show.

#24 Dewald - I think my thoughts come from what I read in King Leopold's Ghost, but it was a while ago I read it. I seem to recall that book left me with the impression that Conrad was very aware of the racism, but that he actually approved of the basic concept of activity in Africa - i.e. of European control for European interests.

This morning I finished The David Story by Robert Alter. That is #50 for me this year, in my strange counting. Only the second year I've managed that.

Recently finished and reviewed The Letter Killers Club by Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky. Finished and need to review Memoirs of Hector Berlioz and Just Kids by Patti Smith.

I'm currently reading White Bread: A Social History of the Store-Bought Loaf and Children in Reindeer Woods.

I took four books with me on a business trip, but was kept so busy (and watched "Iron Lady" on the inflight entertainment program), that I merely read 80 pages into Uncommon danger by Eric Ambler.

Making my way through Destiny Disrupted, Thinking Fast and Slow, and Flatland

This afternoon while scraping paint off the side of my house, I started listening to The White Tiger. The reader is excellent and so far it's very enjoyable. Good blend of humour and seriousness.

I am dividing my time between George, Nicholas and Wilhelm: Three Royal Cousins and the Road to World War I by Miranda Carter, Beauty and Sadness by Yasunari Kawabata, and The Marsh Arabs by Wilfred Thesiger.

I'm listening to audio of Wait: The Art and Science of Delay, which advocates delay in decision-making; and reading D.T. Max's Every Love Story is a Ghost Story, a biography of David Foster Wallace.

I'm 63 pages into To a Mountain in Tibet by Colin Thubron. So far, so humdrum.

Robert

The Marsh Arabs is a classic of travel writing Linda - enjoy

This Case Is Gonna Kill Me. So far, not bad.

Just finished and reviewed the thought-provoking Deep River by Shusako Endo.

I've just finished the fantastic Blankets by Craig Thompson and am happily immersed in fairy tales with My Mother She Killed Me, My Father He Ate Me.

I stayed up past my bedtime last night & finished Rocket Boys and hope to start Carrying the Fire sometime today.

I just finished The Harp and the Shadow by Alejo Carpentier which busts the myth of Christopher Columbus and exposes the hypocritical con man that he was. Intriguing and enjoyable. Now reading Goncharov's Oblomov, a character whose slothful ways seem to be almost charming.

I finished The Language Instinct, finally, and have now started a thriller called The 13th Hour by Richard Doetsch. It's not very well-written, but it has a really terrific premise. So far, those two things are still duking it out in an attempt to determine whether I'll enjoy the book as a whole or not. Next up, I think, will be Bertrand Russell's The ABC of Relativity. That one has sat on the TBR pile for way, way too long.

Realised I had to return Mr Weston's Good Wine to the library, so I began reading Teju Cole's Open City instead. Well-written, interesting, yet meandering, meandering...

>41 dmsteyn: Well-written, interesting, yet meandering, meandering...

Yep. That about sums it up.

I'll finish The Same Sea by Amos Oz shortly, then start two books I purchased earlier today: The Lighthouse by Alison Moore, one of this year's Booker Prize longlisted books, and Circulation: William Harvey, a Man in Motion by Thomas Wright, a biography of the 17th century English physician who was the first to accurately describe the mammalian circulatory system; it was selected for the Wellcome Trust Book Prize longlist earlier this month.

#39 deebee, I definitely have to check out The Harp and the Shadow as I'm a big Carpentier fan.

#39 deebee I loved Oblomov, but I read it an awful long time ago.

>43 rebeccanyc: It doesn't have the scale of The Lost Steps but it's still very good.

I just finished and reviewed Nana, Zola's novel about a beautiful and wily kept woman and the excesses of the Second Empire.

I continue to trudge through The Cambridge Companion to the Stoics, a very technical work. Last night I also got a scant start on The Rise and Fall of Communism by Archie Brown; it seems to be readable.

Robert

I plan to start 1 Kings sometime soon. In the meantime I reading this and that. The list includes Team of Rivals, The 75th anniversary issue of Poetry Magazine (October-November 1987), The Cartoon History of the Universe and God Knows by Joseph Heller.

Finished and reviewed Open City. Decided to go for some historical fiction, so I'm reading The Last Witchfinder by James Morrow. It's interesting and well-written, but I'm not sure about where it's going.

I just finished and reviewed the wonderfully complex Nervous Conditions by Tsitsi Dangarembga about a girl struggling with questions of colonialism and autonomy in 1960s Rhodesia (not yet Zimbabwe), and also The Old Man and the Medal by Ferdinand Oyono, a satiric look at French colonialism in Cameroon, but not up to his Houseboy.

Rebecca - Where do you keep your thread these days, or do you?

Dan: My Club Read thread.

Sorry - very strange, but I had somehow hit ignore - which made your thread simply disappear - by mistake. I don't even use ignore.

I am reading Danse Macabre: Francois Villon Poetry and Murder in Medieval France by Aubrey Burl. This feels like a cobbled together biography of the poet Francois Villon using secondary source material.

It is good on providing descriptions of life in Medieval Paris and it is making me re-read some of Villon's poetry.

I am in debut novels world: finished This Case Is Gonna Kill Me by Phillipa Bornikova (good, with some problems but readable) and Clean: A Mindspace Investigations Novel by Alex Hughes (had me gritting my teeth a few times but not bad overall).

In the meantime reading Oscar and Lucinda in paper form and as I am traveling quite a lot lately, it ends up more "not reading it" than "reading it".

I've been nursing a bad cold, so I've had a little extra time to read this week while I lie on the sofa trying to recover. Today I finished Sharp Teeth by Toby Barlow, a novel, written in free verse, about werewolf gangs in LA, which works way better than anything with that description possibly should. And I've now started Long for This World by Jonathan Weiner, about the scientific search for immortality.

Just picked up Thinking Fast and Slow.

I'm about half way through The Beggar Maid by Alice Munro, and then I'm planning a reread of My Antonia by Willa Cather which I remember liking but remember almost nothing about.

I'm spending a lazy Saturday morning (when I should be cleaning my apartment) reading Margaret Atwood's first novel, The Edible Woman. I normally don't like her early fiction, but this one is quite enjoyable, if a bit outdated. Certainly it is so far much less harsh than Surfacing, which I didn't enjoy.

>57 danmoran: Looking forward to your comments as I want to read the book too!

Starting an ARC of Linda Olsson's next novel, The Memory of Love, to be published in the US next March. Good so far!

Recently finished White Bread: A Social History of the Store-Bought Loaf - need to review it.

Right now I'm reading Young Stalin by Simon Sebag Montefiore and The Case of Comrade Tulayev by Victor Serge. I might need to start a non-depressing book for contrast.

As a random questions for #52, 53 - how do you un-ignore a thread? I accidentally ignored one - not one that I cared about but it made me wonder how to see it again in case of an accident.

To find an ignored thread, click on "More options" on the left sidebar where you can choose how you view talk. "Ignored topics" should show up and you can click on that.

If I ever get through Citizens, I'm going to start Young Stalin.

I've finished, reviewed, and had mixed feelings about Battleborn, a collection of stories, largely about the vast and bleak expanses of the west, by Claire Vaye Watkins.

I finished and reviewed Foucault's Pendulum by Umberto Eco last night (in between struggles with my internet service going on and off all day). Today I hope to finish White Teeth by Zadie Smith.

I finished Atwood's The Edible Woman last night, and moved on to David Bezmozgis' The Free World, which was shortlisted for last year's Giller Prize. So far it is excellent!

I just finished off Neal Stephenson's REAMDE and have delved into Yiddishkeit: Jewish Vernacular and the New Land. A couple of books have been loaned to me, and I'll try to read those after - I don't like keeping other people's books for too long...

I'm reading Troubles by J G Farrell. I'm not quite sure about it. The quotes on the back cover suggests that it's funny. I haven't laughed yet.

I'm reading The Demolished Man by Alfred Bester. This is way out of my comfort zone.

I've spent the better part of the past three days nursing a bad cold and a moderate asthma attack, and I managed to finish six books of various lengths. The most substantial were two books from this year's Booker Prize longlist, The Lighthouse by Alison Moore, which also made the shortlist, and Philida by André Brink, which did not. I also read Circulation: William Harvey, a Man in Motion by Thomas Wright, a biography of the 17th century British anatomist who was the first to correctly describe the mammalian circulatory system; The Guardians by Sarah Manguso, a macabre elegy to her close friend after he committed suicide hours after he checked out of a mental hospital; London's Overthrow by China Miéville, a superb essay in book form about the underbelly of life in London underneath the glowing facade portrayed during the Olympic Games; and Another London: International Photographers Capture City Life 1930-1980, the museum catalogue from the photography exhibition I saw at the Tate Britain last week.

Today I'll start two Archipelago books, In the Presence of Absence by Mahmoud Darwish, and As Though She Were Sleeping by Elias Khoury.

I'm reading The Polish Boxer by Guatemalan author Eduardo Halfon. Thus far, it's an engaging, self-referential novel—more a collection of encounters—about literature. I am smitten.

Oscar and Lucinda is slow going - I love the language but I am not in the right mood for it - so I am slowly working on it together with other books.

Picked up The Space Merchants by Frederik Pohl and C. M. Kornbluth over the weekend (the LOA volume "American Science Fiction: Four Classic Novels 1953–1956" just made it here). I like the SF of the 50s but I also admit that it has a lot of weaknesses. This one surprised me -- not that it does not have its issues but it has less issues than expected (and the decision of LOA to print the additional ending in the Notes added something to the history (although I like the novel more without that ending).

And Delusion in Death is what you would expect from the series (although the crime here is really gross and might get a lot of the usual readers disturbed...)

And I had been reading Prejudices: first series - Mencken is amusing and interesting and even if these are written almost a century ago, they don't sound old. And some of his views on authors that became very popular later make me stop and think. In any way - pretty interesting - and not only as historical reading (which is how I started reading it).

So much for the nice weekend - now back to work....

I have finished and posted a review of Patrick Leigh Fermor's short but fascinating A Time to Keep Silence. I have also finished Beauty and Sadness by Yasunari Kawabata, which now joins a short list of books that I have yet to review. But rather than settling down to that task, I have begun reading Scandal, by Shusaku Endo.

I read all of The Future of Us by Jay Asher & Carloyn Macker, an all right but not terribly memorable YA novel, on a dull night shift last night, and am now about to start The Case for Mars by Robert Zubin, about why we should colonize Mars.

I finished The Last Witchfinder last night, which I enjoyed immensely despite its length. I'll review it later, but for now I'm focusing on God's Eyes A'Twinkle, a short story collection by T.F. Powys.

I have finished Ivan Goncharov's Oblomov. I'm reading Peter Hoeg's The History of Danish Dreams, a book I've owned for years but which never beckoned to me from the shelves -- one of those books which I had little expectation of, not having read Hoeg before or heard of it being talked about. The book is a family saga referencing Danish cultural history in an elaborate mix of gothic, magic realism -- very fun and engaging so far. Hoeg's imagination here reminds me of One Hundred Years of Solitude, though the writing is much more straightforward (and without the crazy duplication of names).

>75 deebee1: You remind me that I think I have a newish Peter Hoeg here somewhere. Found it! It's called Elephant Keepers and it's in the TBR pile.

I finished Carrying the Fire today & will start In Dubious Battle for the Steinbeckathon later this evening.

Returning home after a trip to see the wonderful David Hockney exhibition at the Guggenheim museum at Bilbao I have plunged straight into A Bigger Message: Conversations with David Hockney

>62 rebeccanyc: - Thanks, Rebecca - fixed that.

Finished The Case of Comrade Tulayev but still reading Young Stalin. Also started The Sociopath Next Door.

I like the pairing of Young Stalin with The Sociopath Next Door!

I am quite completely buried in work, and therefore only making minimal progress with two novels which I'm reading concurrently: in German Faserland by Christian Kracht and What I Talk About When I Talk About Running by Haruki Murakami .

I've finally (after nearly two months) finished and reviewed the fascinating Citizens: A Chronicle of the French Revolution by Simon Schama, and I've also finished and reviewed the horrifying but compelling second novel in Zola's Rougon-Macquart cycle, The Kill.

I am reading The letters of Machiavelli and discovering that I have already read many extracts from my other reading about Machiavelli.

I am also about to start Black Cherry Blues by James Lee Burke - It's my book club choice.

Thank goodness I finished The Demolished Man-- I am missing the gene that makes one enjoy science fiction. Now on to something completely different! Don't know what, but anything else.

Also listening to Empire Falls, by Richard Russo, on my iPhone.

I'm nearly halfway through Joseph Anton: A Memoir by Salman Rushdie, which describes the years he was condemned to death by Ayatollah Khomeini after he wrote The Satanic Verses. I'm also reading Umbrella by Will Self, the only Booker shortlisted book that I haven't read yet.

I have finally finished The Case for Mars and am now reading Ian McEwan's On Chesil Beach. Next up is Jesus, Interrupted by Bart. D. Ehrman.

On the Kindle: Finished A Discovery of Witches in Friday (which made me pick up Shadow of Night immediately and ended up reading it the whole weekend). Great literature they might not be but they are enjoyable (and the fact that the second is in Elizabethan England does not hurt)

On paper: And finished Oscar and Lucinda. Still deciding what I think about the book. Nice language (that managed to really get on my nerves a few times despite that), a bit weird style, a very slow beginning which picks up somewhat after that and an end that was somewhat unexpected although a different one would not have really fit.

Next will be The Odyssey - for https://www.coursera.org/#course/mythology
And some readings for https://www.coursera.org/#course/wh1300

And I am still deciding what's next on the Kindle.

What to Listen for in Music by Aaron Copland arrived in the post today - I started reading at once.

On my iPhone I'm listening to Empire Falls by Richard Russo, which is an enjoyable story to hear as I go about my day. For non-fiction I have To Serve God and Wal-Mart, which I will speed read because only so much of it touches on my interests, and finally, in honour of Banned Book Week (Sept 30-Oct 6), I'm starting The Perks of Being a Wallflower.

I've seen the trailer for the movie The Perks of Being a Wallflower enough times to decide not to see it, although at first I thought I might go if they changed the title to The Perquisites of Being a Wallflower.

I am curious about why it would be banned. There are no drugs and there is no homosexuality in the trailer, but they are mentioned in the reviews of the book here at LibraryThing. Could they be the reasons? I'm looking forward to your take on it.

Robert

Robert - if you look at the reasons books are banned at a site like the American Library Association, there are some pretty lame and silly reasons. Like racism in To Kill a Mockingbird--uhm, isn't racial injustice the point of that book? Anyway, my teenage daughter, who is the one urging me to read Perks of Being a Wallflower, says there is a lot of drugs and sex. I hear the film is not good, but the book has been very popular.

I finished Death and the Penguin by Andrey Kurkov, and now reading The Day of the Owl by Leonardo Sciascia. I realise just now that they have both to do with the mafia underworld -- purely a coincidence, as I picked up the latter only because the book was slim. I'm also in the last pages of A Peace to End All Peace by David Fromkin about the creation of the Modern Middle East. I don't know if I'm in the mood for another novel on dispossession as I've read a few disturbing ones in succession recently, but the first pages of Patrick Chamoiseau's Texaco are brilliant so I might just continue on.

92I realise just now that they have both to do with the mafia underworld

Deebee, I guess this shows the silly mood I must be in, but after I tread "I realize just now they have both," I thought you were going to say "have birds in their titles"!

I'll be interested in what you think of Texaco because I've looked at in bookstores and decided not to buy it for years now.

I finished Steinbeck's In Dubious Battle today and will start reading the very short Evita: In My Own Words later.

>93 rebeccanyc: I didn't actually notice it until you said so! A double coincidence it is then, though in the first instance, it refers to a pet while on the second, it refers to a symbolism. Chamoiseau's writing is wonderful and I'm enjoying Texaco despite the heavy themes.

I've finished and reviewed Big Machine, another thought-provoking novel by Victor Lavalle.

Finished Evita: In My Own Words and picked up Shusaku Endo's Silence this morning from the library. I've been wanting to read Silence for quite a while now but the on-line library system (my county library card gives me access to all the branches in two counties) kept telling me requests were not allowed for that title (there's only one copy). But I kept pushing the request button over and over again & voila! the powers that be let me have it. HA!

II've read, reviewed, and been disappointed by The Forgetting River: A Modern Tale of Survival, Identity, and the Inquisition by Doreen Carvajal, the story of a journalist's search (sort of) for her family's Jewish roots.

This week I read Mortality, Read This! and Pelt.

Planning on reading an ARC of Linda Olsson's next novel The Memory of Love and The Light Between Oceans this weekend.

I have been lent Dorian by Will Self, which is described as an imitation of The Picture of Dorian Grey.

New thread is here: http://www.librarything.com/topic/142885