What are you reading in January 2013?

Happy new year everyone!

I'm reading some children's books now for a volunteer project I do, although I believe they are all written by women -- Out of the Way! Out of the Way!, A Dickens of a Tale, and Tar Beach.

What is everyone else reading?

Just finished JCO's latest collection, Black Dahlia and White Rose, another great collection but perhaps not my favorite.

2/3 of the way through Caroline Graham's The Killings at Badger's Drift--good one so far.

I've just wolfed down Poison Study and am 2/3 through Magic Study. After that is Fire Study which I expect to be equally entertaining. Strong female character in fantasy with very light romance. Fun stuff!

>4 HunyBadger: My daughter and I liked all the Study books - good world building. Right now I'm reading 3 books by men, how'd that happen?

Reading The Colour by Rose Tremain. It's my first book by her and I'm finding the writing lovely.

I'm reading Daniel Deronda - an amazing book that I should have read before now; somehow, perhaps because I love Middlemarch so much, I have never read any of her other ones. This is already my best book of 2013 and I suspect it will remain so!

# 6 I couldn't get into The Colour, but I've loved all Rose Tremain's other books.
So far this year I've read The Prince and the Pauper, When Will There Be Good News?, Started Early, Took My Dog, and another Kate Atkinson book. Yes, I'm having a binge. Her wordplay is so clever.
I'm about to start Room for something different.

Christmas break reading Stephen King's The Stand led me to Albert Camus's The Plague. May go on a French jag and go back to all the Colette and Beauvoir I still haven't read.

The One I Left Behind. I've read everything else by Jennifer McMahon except for her YA lesbian coming-of-age, My Tiki Girl, which I've had in one of my Mount TBRs since it first came out. So far, The One I Left Behind seems to be one of McMahon's better ones (though nothing she writes is ever bad).

I keep forgetting that I am reading a book by a woman after all. For the past month I've been reading Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell while I'm at the gym, but since I go only 3 days a week, I forget about it in between. I'm a little more than half way through, so I should finish it this month. This is a very well written story about magicians, you really believe it because they act just as real people would act, they just use magic.

11> I especially like her use of footnoting. It reminds me of the footnoting (though nowhere near as humorous) in the Bartimaeus trilogy.

I couldn't get into The Colour, but I've loved all Rose Tremain's other books.

The first two times I tried The Colour I couldn't get past the first paragraph, but this time it clicked right away. I'm looking forward to reading more from Rose Tremain.

Today I started A Plague of Doves by Louise Erdrich. It is so easy to get involved in her stries, she has a knack of drawing you right in. This is a multi-generational story & already it is hard to put down.

Marian, when you finish A Plague of Doves you must read Round House. It's set in the same community but stays in the present. I liked it even more.
I'm just about to start Mrs. Woolf and the Servants: An Intimate History of Domestic Life in Bloomsbury which I've heard good things about.

I just finished Jerusalem Maiden, by Talia Carner and enjoyed it (albeit rather disliking the ending parts in some ways) -- very descriptive and immersive, and a quick read. Not sure what will be next although Temple Grandin's Thinking in Pictures: My Life with Autism is still sitting on my shelf, needing to be read.

I read Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell last year (slowly) and found it delightful. :)

(Edited to fix a typo.)

To "Citizen Joyce" thank you for the tip. The last Louise Erdrich book I read was The Master Butchers Singing Club
That was very, very good. Her non-fiction book Books and Islands in Ojibwe Country c.2003 is also good reading!

Finished Notes from a Sick Room by Virginia Woolf's mother, Julia Stephens, is really an extended essay--about 75 pages--about her skills and attitudes toward nursing, which was usually done by neighbors and at home.

I wish I had read this when I was helping to care for my dad at home on hospice. I certainly would have felt I had a "friend" in Mrs. Stephens!

Now I'm reading the Barsetshire Chronicles by Trollope straight through, so may not surface until spring ...

I've just started reading Some tame gazelle, for the first of the Virago group's year of Barbara Pym group reads. I had a hard time stopping reading when the time came to get off my train this morning!

I'm following along with SqueakyChu's tutored read of The Trail of the Serpent by M. E. Braddon, which I'm enjoying very much - book and tutoring. I've also started Some Tame Gazelle and one of my Secret Santa books - Coming Home. I'm surprised at how much I like the Rosamunde Pilcher as I had her down as a fluffy romance writer. This certainly isn't a romance as in Mills & Boon, although it has characters falling in (and out) of love. (Of course, since it's about human beings.)

just finished alice sebold's lovely bones...and am still in the process of recovering from the story.

Well now you know, Riida, that you you've read her fiction account of rape, you have to read her non fiction, Lucky: A Memoir. The recovery will be even longer.

i know...i googled her in the middle of my reading and found out her non-fiction account of what happened to her, and it made lovely bones all the more intense for me. i have to get me a copy of lucky: a memoir...but not yet. need to catch my breathe first.

Whoops, don't seem to have posted here yet this year! Happy 2013 everyone!

I finished - and loved - Out of Africa and Shadows on the Grass. Her love of Africa is quite infectious; I'd love to read a biography of her now.

And finished a couple of books I was reading with the kids - Curse of the Thirteenth Fey: The True Tale of Sleeping Beauty by Jane Yolen was delightful, if a bit scatter-brained at times (or that could have been because I was reading it to a scatter brained 7.5 year old, and chapters out of order as sometimes her dad had read a chapter to her unbeknownst to me); and The Silver Door by Emily Rodda was a good solid adventure that Mr Bear (10 years old) enjoyed, even though even he could see some plot holes. ;)

I'm still reading The Chamber of Secrets to Miss Boo (yep, we had two books going for a while there, no wonder I feel scatter brained with her reading!), but the end is nigh. I hope she wants to read on, I am a big fan of the Harry Potter books.

I'm reading Anna Karenina to myself (surely it counts somewhat towards being a "girly" book, even when written by a man?); and when it's all too much, a silly little frippery called Mr Darcy's Undoing.

I LOVED Some tame gazelle and am now looking forward to more Pym this year.

Now I seem to be in a spate of reading books by men, which is unusual for me.

I'm about halfway through Laura Lamont's Life in Pictures by Emma Straub, and very much enjoying it so far.

I am in the middle of Fingersmith by Waters and Fasting, Feasting by Desai.

After taking a detour to read a bunch of guy books about Indians and crime for my RL book club tomorrow I'm back to Mrs. Woolf and the Servants. It's great the way Alison Light shows the similarity between what is expected of a servant and what is expected of women at the time - that they provide for a stress free, comfortable home by being efficient, opinionless, invisible and always ready for any request.

just finished the girl who played with fire. i know its by a male author, but lisbeth salander is one heck of a heroine!!

Hi - New to this group. LT told me that many of the books that I've read are discussed in this group. I just started The Invisible Bridge. Love it so far, it reminds me somehow of the old Russian classics. I finished Cheryl Strayed's Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail and found it to be quite disappointing. I posted a short review on the book's page.

This morning started The Seduction of Water by Carol Goodman, my second book by her. I love her brand of up-market mystery that has an eerie, gothic feel to it.

> Hello & welcome! Nice to have a new member. :)

Thanks!

Just finished another girly book (still cringing when I say that name): In the Forest, by Edna O'Brien. It's based on a serial killing in Ireland in the 1990s, so not every reader's thing, but I really liked it and look forward to reading more O'Brien. I haven't read much Irish literature, but I always like it when I get to it.

I seem to have been reading a lot of books by men recently, but am partially breaking that streak with The mother of dreams, a collection of Japanese short stories about women. Authors are male and female, all post-war, and the stories examine women as they fit (or not) into 5 traditional roles in society - maiden, wife, mistress, mother and working woman. I'm enjoying the book so far.

>30 vwinsloe:: Welcome! The invisible bridge is on my tbr pile, I hope to get to it soon. Good to hear you are liking it so far.

>34 Nickelini:. Speaking of Irish literature, have you read My Dream of You? I liked it a lot.

#36 - I've never heard of the book or the author, so I'll keep my eyes open for it.

I'm reading Homecoming by Cynthia Voigt
A really good book in the beginning but i kinda drags torwards the end

>34 Nickelini: that just sounds good i'd love to have a dream so good that i could write about it
(-; *smiles and winks*
fyi i have no idea why im winking

I love Nuala O'Faolain, who died just a few years ago, and especially My Dream of You. Her aim was not to write for Irish-Americans particularly, but I think the book helps explain some things about the social and political circumstances that got some of us Over Here.

Also enjoyed--maybe not "enjoyed," but found salubrious--her autobiography, Are You Somebody?. Ah, the dissembling, the dysfunction, the drinking!

I read Almost There: The Onward Journey of a Dublin Woman by Nuala O'Faolain some years ago, which is the follow-up to Are You Somebody?. I quite enjoyed it and meant to backtrack to Are You Somebody? eventually but haven't gotten there yet.

i started trudi canavan's the magician's apprentice, mostly cause i needed a kind of break from strong female characters that go the susie-salmon or lisbeth-salander way (apprentice is not, so far anyway)

looks like i have to get me a copy of nuala o'faolain's my dream of you :)