*** What are you reading now? - Part 1

Happy new 2017 (yeah, not yet but setting up)! Have a wonderful reading year.

What are you reading in the first days of 2017? Is it what you expected to read? And just for fun - at what time (and date if it was not on Jan 1) did you start to read for the first time in 2017?

I am on a skiing vacation in Austria and brought some easy to read Dutch novels. I started De ruiter by Jan van Mersbergen a few hours after the new year started, just before I went to sleep!

I read a few pages on the morning of Jan 1 - probably around 7:30.

I'm reading a nonfiction book A Train in Winter about the women who were integral to the French Resistance during WWII.

For fiction I've started In Search of Lost Time with Swann's Way. So far I love it.

Like >2 Simone2: I read a couple of pages of a Dutch novel - Contrapunt - before going to sleep. Inspired by that, I started the new year properly this morning by listening to the Goldberg Variations in bed.

I'm about three quarters through Red Rising by Pierce Brown. Enjoying this SF about class and change.

I've started the new year with three novels underway.

Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi is almost finished and is a series of connected short stories following the offspring of two Ghanian women, one who married a British soldier and one who was sold into slavery and sent to the US.

The Lesser Bohemians by Eimear McBride is about an Irish drama student in London in 1994. The book has me utterly sucked into it's odd style.

And I've barely begun To the Bright Edge of the World by Eowyn Ivey.

I'm thoroughly enjoying The Little Red Chairs by Edna O'Brien. I even managed to sneak in a few pages when I made it to bed at about two o'clock this morning, after our New Year's Eve guests had left.

My other carry-over from 2016 is Ghana Must Go by Taiye Selasi, but I've not picked that up today.

I'm loving Great Expectations, have just met Miss Havisham, what a chapter, he seems very acute psychologically, well, in every way. We started reading it at school and everyone (?) else hated it and I didn't dare protest, but never got back to it, explains a lot.

I'm also reading Blake by Peter Ackroyd, wonderful so far.

As I said on my thread I've got through my block with tales of the German imagination so intend to continue with those too occasionally too.

I'm also in my reread of Zen Mind, beginner's mind a section at a time, every few days and i began a calendar of wisdom by Tolstoy, alongside the version I read last year wise thoughts for every day (taken daily I hope).

I'm reading Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel and 1493 by Charles Mann.

I'm reading Phineas Finn by Anthony Trollope, and listening to Resurrection Men by Ian Rankin.

Just about to start Lullabies for Little Criminals, which came via many 2015 and 2016 CR book bullets.

>4 thorold: What a beautiful (and heavy) combination, reading Contrapunt while listening to the Goldberg Variations.

Starting the year with Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky which is also the only book I carried through New Year's Eve as started. Somehow ended up reading less than an hour after midnight :)

Sounds like some good reading going on here with Wolf Hall. I recently bought Homegoing and Zen Mind, beginner's mind sounds interesting.

I decided to start off the new year with some lighter reading but so far am not particularly caught up in Truly Madly Guilty. Very slow going and I have a feeling I am going to be disappointed in the "big event" after it is finally revealed.

I'm going to kick off my 2017 reading with Good Morning, Midnight, a debut novel by Lily Brooks-Dalton, about "a lonely scientist in the Arctic and an astronaut trying to return to Earth". Can't wait to get into it!

Finished Red Rising by Pierce Brown 5 stars

I started A Long Shadow, the next Ian Rutledge by Charles Todd (touchstone isn't working for them) in December. I'm also reading Black Hole Blues by Janna Levin, a gift.

My first book started in 2017 will be The Spider and the Fly by John Heywood - it is a play published in 1556.

I am reading Baumgartner's Bombay by Anita Desai.

I'm reading Family Album by Penelope Lively and Tales of Literacy for the 21st Century (apparently no touchstone) by Maryanne Wolf for work, which is actually more engaging than Lively's book. A first.

I'm in the middle of Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi. Also reading Farewell to the East End (one of the memoirs that inspired Call the Midwife), and The Wiregrass. My bookclub won a set of the last book, and I'm having issues with the author's sometimes wonky use of punctuation.

Started Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay - Neapoltian book 3 - by Elena Ferrante

On audio I have Hillbilly Elegy waiting, but I haven't actually tried listening to it yet.

>22 dchaikin: Things really get exciting now, Dan. Looking forward to your thoughts, but I guess I won't have to wait too long!

I am starting The Bone Clocks by David Mitchell at the moment and have no idea what to expect.

I'm starting the year off with Hag-Seed by Margaret Atwood, which I got through Early Reviewers and am definitely enjoying. And after staring at my TBR shelves in brain-locked indecision for far, far too long, I've finally decided my next read after that will be The Country of Ice Cream Star by Sandra Newman.

My first book in 2017 is The Old Man and the Sea.

I finished Nutshell by Ian McEwan after work on New Year's Day, which was a carryover from last year. Last night I started reading Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City by Matthew Desmond, along with A Question of Power by Bessie Head.

I gave up on Truly Madly Guilty at about the 35% point. Blah!! Onto The Pearl That Broke Its Shell which I hope will have a better written and intriguing story.

I just finished A Train in Winter, excellent nonfiction about French women active in the Resistance against German occupiers in WWII.

I'm currently reading Swann's Way and just started Deerbrook by Harriet Martineau.

I am (still!) reading In the First Circle.

Finished Children of Time last night and it ended up being even better than I expected - not perfect but still a 5 stars read for me. Great start of the year :)

Now reading Jackson, 1964: And Other Dispatches from Fifty Years of Reporting on Race in America by Calvin Trillin and a few different magazines.

Finished Good Morning, Midnight by Lily Brooks-Dalton which was amazing, and now I'm a couple chapters into Sun Moon Earth, a so far fascinating book on the history of solar eclipses and author Tyler Nordgren's personal experiences with them.

I finished Baumgartner's Bombay by Anita Desai and started Corker's Freedom by John Berger, which was on my list of potential reads for January but moved to the top after the death last week of Berger

I'm enjoying Eileen by Ottessa Moshfegh. I'm also reading Ghana Must Go by Taiye Selasi, which I keep thinking of giving up on, but which keeps drawing me back. When I'm reading it I don't really like it, but I keep thinking about it.

I finished the very unsatisfactory The Santa Klaus Murder to get it out the way (may have to keep it for its decorative seasonal cover) and am starting The Essex Serpent which was a Christmas present.

I've been distracted in my other reading by American Housewife, a book of short stories by Helen Ellis that reads a bit like John Cheever and George Sanders, but as written by Mallory Ortberg. I'm enjoying it enormously.

Really loved Homegoing, disliked The Wiregrass (though I'm sure it will make for a rousing book club meeting).

Now I've started It Didn't Start With You, about family trauma and epigenetics.

Finished the excellent Jackson, 1964: And Other Dispatches from Fifty Years of Reporting on Race in America by Calvin Trillin last night. Review is up. Not sure what is next this evening. :)

So what I ended up starting is Pietr the Latvian - the new translation of the first of the Simenon Maigret novels (also known as "Maigret And The Enigmatic Lett", "The Case of Peter the Lett" and
"The Strange Case of Peter the Lett"). 1930s Paris is very similar to LA from the same time (From the Perry Mason novels)

>38 AnnieMod: I loved some of the details in that. I think I've given my copy away but I seem to recall that in the first chapter Maigret looks at the clock and thinks that the train from Belgium (?) would be steaming across the border at 60mph! And instructions on how to identify someone by the shape of their ears.

I finished The Bone Clocks with mixed feelings (loved the first part, skimmed the second) and move on now to The Buried Giant.

I want to read more fiction this year. Finished reading Fer-de-Lance, by Rex Stout. Review in my thread. Others readings are on the way...

I finished reading The Old Man and the Sea and started Far From True.

I started Sons and Daughters of Ease and Plenty by Ramona Ausubel with the expectation of not liking it (I have a low tolerance toward novels about how the rich struggle for meaning in their lives) and this one - about a wealthy family who suddenly discovers the money is gone, should be something I dislike. So help me, though, it has sucked me in.

I'm nearing the end of Before We Visit the Goddess by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, which I'm enjoying.

Feeling a bit stunned after Lullabies for Little Criminals (thanks Kay for the book bullet on that one). Back to Book 3 of Knausgaard now that I've reclaimed it from my office.

I am reading Water Tossing Boulders: How a Family of Chinese Immigrants Led the First Fight To Desegregate Schools in the Jim Crow South by Adrienne Berard. It is pretty good so far. There are a few stylistic things that I would change, but it is good other than that.

A week in and I finally finished my first book of 2017, A Piece of the World. It is a novel based on the Andrew Wyeth painting, Christina's World and written by the author of Orphan Train. I have long been fascinated by the Wyeths and enjoyed Orphan Train. I highly recommend this engaging novel, which will be published on February 21.

Well, I finished The Country of Ice Cream Star, which hit the spot for me almost as well as actual ice cream does, even if it did end a bit abruptly. I'm now reading What Philosophy Can Tell You About Your Cat, edited by Steven D. Hales, but so far it hasn't been telling me much of anything worth hearing.

I have fallen behind schedule with my reading, as I did some post-holiday traveling this past week. My initial plan was to finish The Pearl That Broke Its Shell but somehow that didn't happen. Anyway, I have been back for a few days and am finally getting back in the reading groove and catching up on CR messages. :-)

Edited: Also hope to read The Atomic Weight of Love which just became available through the library.

I've started Robert Massie's Catherine the Great: Portrait of a Woman, My Khyber Marriage for a book club, and Miss Bianca in the Salt Mines (a children's book) as a bit of an emotional tonic.

Just finished Sun Moon Earth by Tyler Nordgren, which got me all kinds of excited for the solar eclipse that's happening on August 21st in the US. I am now working on finally finishing Last Train to Memphis: The Rise of Elvis Presley, and I just started Little Women, which I'm slightly embarrassed to admit I have never read before.

I made a start with Swann's Way and am reading The Story of the Lost Child, de fourth and last Ferrante.

Yesterday I finished Hillbilly Elegy and this morning I finished Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay (and I'm still recovering).

On audio I'm trying The Unwinding based on some recent chatter here in CR. And in text I'll start The Story of the Lost Child soon.

Managed to finish books this Sunday - the first Maigret Pietr the Latvian (which was good if flawed a bit), the pretty good graphic novel Mooncop which was melancholic and nice exploration of changed realities in one's hometown (being on the Moon in this case does make for different pictures but not a different story) and The Mistletoe Murder and Other Stories by P. D. James. Reviews for the first 2 are already in, working on the one for the third one.

Reading Infomocracy by Malka Older now and something is not working very well for now but will give it a bit more of a chance.

I'm starting off 2017 as I always start a new year of reading, by reading everything all at once as though I need to complete all my 2017 reading in January.

So I'm reading book one of In Search of Lost Time, Swann's Way; Commonwealth, Ann Patchett's latest book; Deerbrook by Harriet Martineu with a Virago group read; and I'm doing a reread through audio of Middlemarch read by Juliet Stevenson who is as fantastic as everyone around here says she is.

I really don't like reading more than two books at once. What am I doing???

Oh, and I'm off to the newly renovated local library that just reopened this weekend.

>55 japaul22: "I really don't like reading more than two books at once. What am I doing???"

: ) I think it's an expression of optimism. You can read everything!

I finished Corker's Freedom by John Berger and have started Travels in Siberia by Ian Frazier, which is very engaging so far.

>39 Oandthegang: That's some very good memory.

Meanwhile, I gave up on Infomocracy after 64 pages. It is a great idea but the execution is just bad. I am not sure if it is my mood or the book so I may decide to try it again but at this point, I am done with it.

So to get my mind off it, I read How to Talk to Girls at Parties - the Ba and Moon graphic novel based on Gaiman's short story. Enjoyed that a lot. Need to write a review.

Just finished The Sentimental Agents of the Volyen Empire by Doris Lessing and like Doris I am pleased to be finished with her science fiction series.

I am going to read a history book next Edward VI: the lost King of England subtitled the struggle for the soul of England after the death of Henry VIII by Chris Skidmore.

Trying to decide which novel to read next:
1. Heat & Light
2. The Fortunes
3. This Must Be the Place
Thoughts?

Having finished my other shorter reads, I've started Fire and Air by Erik Vlaminck, which I bought last year to appease a Belgian friend who noticed the country was absent on my reading map (and it had to be a Flemish Belgian). It's good though the writing is spare on detail and emotion.

I'm also starting My Grandfather Would Have Shot Me: A Black Woman Discovers Her Family's Nazi Past and continuing with the lengthy Catherine the Great: Portrait of a Woman.

Having finished my first book of the year, I am on to Tortilla Flat by John Steinbeck. This is part of a collection of short novels by Steinbeck. I've read a few of them already, so I will skip those and read the ones that I haven't. It's a library book, so I want to finish it in a timely manner.

Decided to go with This Must Be the Place. About 30 pages in, and so far so good.

Although I began reading it on a whim, I am enjoying The Atomic Weight of Love. Somehow the incorporation of historical events and science into an otherwise traditional girl meets guy story, makes it far more interesting.

I've just finished Terry Pratchett's Guards! Guards!, the latest installment in my Discworld re-reading project, and am now starting Good as Gone by Amy Gentry.

Still plugging away at Het verdriet van België - which I find I'm enjoying, despite its rather self-indulgently slow pace - and since I realised that I still have a backlog of audiobook credits to use up with Scribd, I'm also listening to The view from Castle Rock. More Munro is definitely a Good Thing, but now I can't help thinking of it as Het verdriet van Schotland/Canada...

Its chilly and rainy, and its a three day weekend. A perfect time to be reading Moonglow,

After two crime novels in two of the long series I am reading - the 8th Spenser (A Savage Place) and the 30th Perry Mason (The Case of the Lazy Lover), now reading The Pianist by Władysław Szpilman - a memoir of Warsaw and music during WWII.

I'm reading Sinners and Shrouds, a hard-boiled but humorous crime novel from the fifties.

Also reading Swann's Way. Making good progress now, after a short halt. Couldn't read anything because I thought I should be reading Swann's Way but didn't feel like it.

ETA Wrong thread! Hi everyone in Club Read. I've starred this thread.

>69 pamelad: :-)

Currently reading Cure: A Journey into the Science of Mind Over Body
by Jo Marchant, then onto 84 Charing Cross Road before the end of January.

Szpilman's The Pianist was very good and heartbreaking. Review in my thread and in the book. Not sure what I am starting next - I need something less heartbreaking though.

I just read the short but very worthwhile We Should All Be Feminists by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and am now (as it seems large numbers of people are lately) reading Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi.

After tearing through (and loving) The Mothers and Two Across, I think I might be 3 for 3 in the new year, having just started reading The Sellout!

I am reading three books at a time, something I don't usually do. Swann's Way, which is actually much more readable than I expected, The Stand because is has been on my shelves for ages and everyone says it is the best Stephen King ever and Lieve, a Dutch novel by Ronald Giphart.

I finally, finally finished In the First Circle and have started Eline Vere, which, so far, is as different as can be from the former.

Finished The Last Death of Jack Harbin which was a nice entry in a series that needs to be a lot more popular than it is. Of to Port Eternity - the next in my Cherryh read through.

And at the same time reading Legends of Australian Fantasy during lunch (because of the Go Review This Book group. If you do not know about this group or you wonder what to start next, come and see us: http://www.librarything.com/groups/goreviewthatbook - you pick what the last poster in the current thread to read and review next and tell the next poster which tag/collection to select a book for you from; you read, review and come back to the thread to report the review and repeat the exercise) :)

Finished Ferrante's Neapoltian series. Next novel has no chance to live up to these. Instead I'm reading nonfiction. Trying to prep for the Aeneid with The Last Trojan Hero: A Cultural History of Virgil's Aeneid. So far it's just really difficult.

Johnannes Cabal The Necromancer Someone on LT recommended this to me and I will be forever thankful!!

I'm halfway through My Mother's Sabbath Days, a memoir by Chaim Grade, and just started two novels, The Readers of Broken Wheel Recommend by Katarina Bivald and Savushun by Simin Daneshvar.

I've begun too many books. I'm reading Mister Monkey by Francine Prose, which is on the Tournament of Books roster, The Fall Guy by James Lasdun and The Lesser Bohemians by Eimear McBride, which are on the longlist for the same prize, but also The Public Prosecutor by Jef Geeraerts, for the Benelux theme in the Reading Globally group and Difficult Women, a collection of short stories by Roxane Gay.

I did finish Grief is the Thing with Feathers by Max Porter.

I have finished Tortilla Flat by John Steinbeck, and I have moved on to Steinbeck's The Red Pony. I am also nearly finished with The After Party: Poems by Jana Prikryl.

>81 RidgewayGirl:. Thoughts on Grief? Was one of my best of 2016...

Needed something different last night so ended up reading another graphic novel - Agatha: The Real Life of Agatha Christie - a biography in graphic format. Pretty good one - (and surprisingly, originally written in French).

Back to Port Eternity tonight :)

>83 alphaorder: Definitely. I checked it out of the library, but will now look to buy a physical copy.

One chapter in to The Small House At Allington just to get through to the end of Barsetshire. It's looking promising but I've just got The Evenings and feel I really should get that read while it's still looking twinkly new rather than part of the furniture.

Finished reading The Murder at the Vicarage, by Agatha Christie. First book of Miss Marple serie. Review in my thread.

I'm now revisiting my childhood with The Time Quartet, an omnibus volume containing Madeline L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time and its sequels.

>88 bragan: I was just thinking about getting back to these the other day.

>88 bragan: I'm a little nervous about it, to be honest. Sometimes revisiting your childhood favorites is warmly nostalgic and wonderful, and sometimes it's just disappointing. I haven't actually properly started the book yet, so I'm not sure which it's going to be.

I was able to read We Should All Be Feminists, The Grownup, Little Women, Their Eyes Were Watching God, The Wild Robot Lucky You: A Novel for my readathon this weekend. Reviews to come soon! I'm now halfway through Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler, which is great so far.

>91 kaylaraeintheway: I love Adichie's fiction, and have heard lots of good things about feminist. Need to read that soon.

I seem to have a lot of reading balls in the air, but I'm enjoying them all, and so far not getting lost. I'm re-reading Swann's Way in preparation for making my way through the whole series this year (I hope); I also borrowed Tove Jansson's The Woman who Borrowed Memories from the library -- some really great stories there. And finally, I'm reading the second volume of Knausgard's My Struggle.

Life is good.

Finished My Mother's Sabbath Days by Chaim Grade (very good) and The Readers of Broken Wheel Recommend (not good).

Still working on Savushun, and I started the devastating Stammered Songbook: A Mother's Book of Hours, a memoir about the author's mother's Alzheimer's, which is partly characterized by a loss of language use. It's extremely beautifully written, in short scenes and musings. This is the book on Alzheimer's that my dissatisfaction with Still Alice made me want.

I'm still reading The Lesser Bohemians by Eimear McBride; I'm finding it to be an atmospheric and immersive read, but it needs stretches of uninterrupted time, which is in short supply.

I've finished The Fall Guy by James Lasdun, which was a lot of fun, and Difficult Women by Roxane Gay, which was, like most collections of short stories, uneven, and I'm almost finished with the Belgian thriller The Public Prosecutor by Jef Geeraerts, which has no sympathetic characters whatsoever, but it's interesting seeing them all try to destroy each other.

I've begun Version Control by Colin Dexter. It's one of the books slated for the Tournament of Books and not the kind of book I'd pick up on my own.

I've finished Eline Vere and moved on to Gösta Berling's Saga.

>91 kaylaraeintheway: that's quite a weekend!!

Port Eternity was good - not her best but not bad either.
And somewhere along the lines, managed to read one more graphic novel: Pushwagner's Soft City. Which was a bit weird.

At the moment, slowly making my way through The Beautiful Country and the Middle Kingdom: America and China, 1776 to the Present which is very good so far, Stout's The Rubber Band (#3 in the Nero Wolfe novels) and a huge stack of magazines - both paper and digital ones.

I've finished up Swann's Way, Breakfast at Tiffany's, and Summer by Edith Wharton recently.

Now I'm starting Casting Off, the 4th book in Elizabeth Jane Howard's Cazalet Chronicles. I'm also going to start L'Assomoir by Zola soon.

Finished Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler last night; a very good read (if a little scary, considering the current political climate).

I'm now diving into Lauren Graham's Talking As Fast As I Can for a nice change of pace.

I am reading Beasts and Superbeasts by Saki

I've started Reading Like a Writer by Francine Prose, and The Dressmaker of Khair Khana by Gayle Tzemach Lemmon.

Currently reading three books:
Fiction: The Fortunes
Nonfiction: The Death and Life of the Great Lakes
Poetry: Commotion of the Birds

finished a very boring book on the Aeneid - but haven't really been able to focus on reading, even when reading. I'm thinking of trying Lost in the City, a short story collection by Edward P. Jones that has been collecting too much dust.

Having finally finished with Madeleine L'Engle, I've just spent a short while revisiting my favorite video game with the Undertale Art Book and am now reading My Name Is Lucy Barton by Elizabeth Strout.

I finished Persuasion by Austen and may continue on with some of the Brontes that I have missed. I am in the middle of The Night Watch by Waters and A Boy's Own Story by White.

I'm still reading The Lesser Bohemians by Eimear McBride, which is to say, I'm waiting until I have an hour that will not be interrupted in order to finish it.

I'm also reading The Long and Faraway Gone by Lou Berney, which is a crime novel set in Oklahoma City and concerns events that took place in 1986. I'm also reading All the Birds in the Sky by Charlie Jane Anders, which is set in the near future and is one of the books slated to compete in the Tournament of Books.

>95 RidgewayGirl: Ive finished The Fall Guy by James Lasdun, which was a lot of fun,

Oh, interesting. I loved his The Horned Man but then didn't like Seven Lies at all. I'll keep an eye out for this one.

I just finished China Rich Girlfriend which was a boring slog that took me weeks to get through. There is a short scathing review on the book's page and on my thread.

Yesterday I finished an ER book, The Health of Nations by Karen Bartlett, about attempts to eradicate various contagious diseases around the world. I'm now reading Version Control by Dexter Palmer, and having trouble deciding exactly what I think of it, but am mostly enjoying it, anyway.

Having trouble reading, but Lost in the City is quite wonderful when I allow by brain to block everything out and settle on it. Maybe even a bit cathartic in some odd way. Finished on audio The Unwinding, which was very hard to listen to now. And I have started listening to Lafayette in the Somewhat United States, which is a pleasingly distracting book to spend time on.

A little over halfway through Middlemarch and absolutely loving it.

I've got too many books on the go right now, but the most interesting one to me is Karl Ove Knausgaard's A Time for Everything. It's impossible to characterize--research of the author's into angels with fascinating fictionalizations of mankind's encounters as told in the Bible?? This doesn't do it justice. The description of Antinous Bellori's encounter with a couple of terrifying angels when he is lost in the woods in the mid 1500s is a wonderful set up for what follows. I'm not too far in yet -- but I hope my initial appreciation holds.

>113 ipsoivan: hoping to read that at some point this year.

>113 ipsoivan: It's quite different from My Struggle, but really rewarding, with some beautiful passages and interesting ideas. It's a slow read for me, because I keep going back and rereading bits, but well worth the effort.

I'm reading The Blue Fox, a novella from Iceland.

I'm reading Trump Revealed: An American Journey of Ambition, Ego, Money, and Power by Michael Kranish and Heaven and Hell by Jón Kalman Stefánsson.

>117 Trifolia: Oh, I loved Heaven and Hell. Looking forward to your review. To your review of the trump book as well, by the way.

Diane Athill Alive Alive Oh

I'm reading The Complete Stories by Franz Kafka.

I'm slowly work on The Wounded Knee Massacre by James H. McGregor.

I'm also reading Buried by C J Carmichael and trying Loose Screw by Rae Davies.

finished Lost in the City. I plan to start The Aeneid next.

Finished Middlemarch, which felt like it went so quickly. Starting The File on H by Ismail Kadare, Medusa's Gaze by Marina Belozerskaya, and a re-read via audiobook of Whose Body? by Dorothy L. Sayers.

Just finished The National Parks: An Illustrated History, review up on my page. I'm continuing with a few books at once: Postcards from the Edge by Carrie Fisher, The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster (a re-read), and Hidden Figures by Margot Lee Shetterly. All excellent so far!

Finished Kader Abdolah's Spijkerschrift (excellent, like everything of his I've read so far) and almost finished Het verdriet van België (which has taken longer than I expected...). Still listening to The way we live now, but I'm in no hurry with that - it's always a pleasure to come back to Trollope.

Over the past few days I've also drifted into having another go at Milton, after accidentally clicking on a Yale lecture course on YouTube. Don't know how long that enthusiasm will last, but it's a while since I looked at the 17th century...

Decided to get out of this country and take a trip to Finland with six-year-old Sophia and her grandmother in Tove Jansson's THE SUMMER BOOK. Good decision.

>124 kaylaraeintheway: I actually got my sci fi book group to read Phantom Tollbooth next month. Can't wait. Ive read it so often I can probably recite it, so no need to bring the book

I'm reading L'Assomoir by Zola and Good Wives: Image and Reality in the Lives of Women in Northern New England 1650-1750 by Laurel Thatcher Ulrich.

I finished my first book of the new year and my first book since May! Feels nice to be able to join this thread again. :P

I can officially check The Narrow Road to the Deep North off my TBR list.

I've just read Janet Evanovich's Plum Lovin' and am now in the middle of Lafayette in the Somewhat United States by Sarah Vowell.

>130 bragan: That Vowell is my audiobook of the moment. I'm enjoying it.

>131 dchaikin: I don't really do audiobooks, but I keep thinking that that one might actually be better in audio. At least if Vowell reads it, which I'm assuming she does?

I find her reading an acquired taste of sorts. She doesn't read the way you might expect a sentence to go, which for me means I have to pay extra attention. But she does have a quirky charm. She also has actors read all quotes - which is a bit distracting.

>131 dchaikin:, >132 bragan: I recommend Vowell on audio; she's fabulous and that dry humor....
Reading three books:

The latest Rebus book, title escapes me at the moment. Poor Rebus, he's coping with COPD these days, although on the up side he's getting a regular shag.

Also, an SF dystopia and retelling of the Joan of Arc story, The Book of Joan by Lidia Yuknavitch and....

New England Bound: Slavery and Colonization in Early America by Wendy Warren, which is very good, but I'm having some trouble reading nonfiction these days what with all the current events to keep up with.

>128 japaul22: Hope you are "enjoying L'Assommoir and looking forward to hearing about the Ulrich book.

I'm currently reading Black Lamb and Grey Falcon, which I am enjoying but which will take forever, and The Evenings.

>133 dchaikin:, >134 avaland: Yeah, I've heard Vowell reading some of her shorter stuff on, I think, This American Life, and my reaction to her voice is that it's weird until you get used to it, and then, once you do, it's endearing.

Having other people pop in to read the quotes does sound distracting, though. Especially as there are a lot of quotes in that book.

I'm reading Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier

Finally back in the game - finished the third Knausgaard book. Might have a crack at The Grass is Singing next. A bit out of my reading groove.

Finished reading American Gods, by Neil Gaiman. Review in my thread.

On Audio, finished Lafayette in the Somewhat United States. I have Born to Run waiting for me tomorrow, but, at 18 hours, I'll only get through half of it before my library loan is up.

Finished Under the Net and am currently reading At Swim, Two Boys.

Finished a couple more Dutch novels last week, and am now taking a short break from the Benelux thread with Robert Walser's early novel Der Gehülfe (The Assistant).

>141 ELiz_M: At swim, two boys seems to be one of those gloriously divisive books - people seem to love it or dismiss it as a cheap parody of Irish Lit 101 in roughly equal numbers (I came down on the "love it" side when I read it)

Having finished my previous stack of books, I'm on to We Love You, Charlie Freeman by Kaitlyn Greenidge and Moonglow by Michael Chabon for the upcoming Tournament of Books which begins on March 8th.

For fun, I'm reading My Lover's Lover by Maggie O'Farrell and Night School by Lee Child.

And I've just gotten my hands on copies of Rachel Cusk's Transit, Viet Thanh Nguyen"s The Refugees and Joyce Carol Oates's A Book of American Martyrs, which is quite a substantial tome. Not sure which one to dive into first.

I'm deep into The Spiral Staircase, Karen Armstrong's memoir about her life after leaving a convent, which I need to finish for a book club meeting tomorrow.

Also starting Station Eleven for my book club that meets next week.

>144 mabith: My book club is reading Station 11 in April. At the rate I'm reading, I probably should start it now. But it doesn't interest me, so that's hard.

>145 Nickelini: Joyce, I'm semi-excited to read it, it's been on my list for a while. On the other hand I suggested it to the book club so I feel a lot of pressure there.

I've recently read The Vegetarian by Han Kang, which is one of those interesting books that I thought was extremely good, but can't actually say I liked that much. I'm now reading The Traitor Baru Cormorant, which is interesting, but is going kind of slowly for various reasons.

>145 Nickelini: I didn't think Station Eleven was going to be my type of book, but I ended up really getting into it.

I am enjoying Ali Smith's Autumn.

I've finished the latest Rebus novel (it got my through the waking hours of a stomach bug) and am now pushing myself to finish up the other two books mentioned in >134 avaland:. Then I hope to return to Joyce Carol Oates's Book of American Martyrs, which I got halfway through before the election sidetracked me.

Finished and loved Station Eleven. Now I'm back to Reading Lolita in Tehran, A Muslim Woman in Tito's Yugoslavia, and probably starting Yes, Chef, Marcus Samuelsson's memoir, as my kitchen audiobook.

>151 avaland: I just got a copy of Book of American Martyrs and I'm eager to dive in. There are a few books I need to finish first, though.

>153 RidgewayGirl: I'll let you know if I finish it. Did you hear the short interview with her on NPR?

No, I will have to find it. I follow her on twitter and she's an interesting person.

Currently devouring Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders.

I don't normally go for audiobooks, but after hearing who all lent their voices to it (and seeing the interesting way Saunders has formatted the book), I may have to give it a try...

I finished some big ones, The Stand by Stephen King and Swann's Way by Proust.
Now on to something light and thin! My kids have a holiday from school this week and we'll go a long weekend to the coast on Thursday. It will probably be cold, wet and stormy there, so - beside walking on the beach and drinking red wine in the local cafe - plenty of time for reading. I'll take some 1001 books and some recommendations I read about in this group, starting with The Nobodies Album by Carolyn Parkhurst.

Finished Trópicos Utópicos: Uma perspectiva brasileira da crise civilizatória, by Eduardo Giannetti, portuguese edition. Review in my thread.

Finished The Aeneid, using Robert Fagles translation. I can understand the attraction of books 1-4, and 6. But the rest was work for me. I came across a Seamus Heany translation of book 6, and I've started that.

A note on Born to Run, my current audio read by Bruce Springsteen. I'm absolutely loving it, completely enthralled with his experiences with his various early bands.

Thumbs down on Virgil, up on Springsteen. Not sure what that all says about me.

I've just started Furiously Happy by Jenny Lawson, who is hilarious as ever. Next up is The Mothers by Brit Bennett, the last of the Tournament of Books selections I happened to already have and wanted to get read before the Tournament stats.

Finished Virgil and needed a random short book, so off the shelf comes Stones of Ibarra by Harriet Doerr.

I've just finished A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway for my reading group. I ended up enjoying it more than expected, but predict some members of the group won't have liked it (the meeting's tonight).

I'm halfway through Eileen by Ottessa Moshfegh, which I like so far, although after reading some lukewarm reviews I'm tempering my expectations.

I've recently finished Seal Woman, a random library find by a local author, and Good Wives, nonfiction by Laurel Thatcher Ulrich.

Now I'm half way through All Quiet on the Western Front and I've just begun The Heart is a Lonely Hunter.

>160 bragan: I keep buying copies for gifts! Love that book.

>164 MsNick: It seems like it would be a terrific gift book for the right people.

>165 bragan: My next door neighbor has had a rough time of things lately, so I gave her a copy. She came to me the next day and hugged me with tears in her eyes because she couldn't remember the last time she had laughed so hard for so long. It made my heart happy. :)

I've finished We Love You, Charlie Freeman by Kaitlyn Greenidge, which was uneven but had a really effective sense of rising dread through the middle portion of the book.

I'm now reading A Book of American Martyrs by Joyce Carol Oates, which is gripping in that uncomfortable way that JCO does so well. And I'm reading Transit by Rachel Cusk, which is lovely and perfect so far. I've started Black Wave by Michelle Tea, but I'm not far enough in to have any thoughts about it.

I've just started reading my latest ER win, Oola, but it's not really doing anything for me as of yet. I'll give it to 100 pages, I suppose.

Getting ready for spring migration by reading a little gem of a book, The Warbler Road.

I've now finished Eileen, which I continued to enjoy, and have started three books at once: They Were Divided by Miklós Bánffy, When We Were Bad by Charlotte Mendelson and The BFG by Roald Dahl, which I'm reading with my son. I think it'll be a while before I finish another book!

Just finished Defiance by Nechama Tec and just starting volume one of The Gulag Archipelago.

Finished Stones for Ibarra. Leaving Mexico now, but to where? I'm eyeing Mason & Dixon, the 1997 Pynchon doorstop.

I am spending wonderful days (and nights) in NYC with Insomniac City. Highly recommend.

I keep getting distracted, so I'm not making much headway with Robert Walser at the moment, but Project Milton is doing a bit better. 'Comus' and 'Lycidas' last week, Areopagitica this weekend, and I've just got started on re-reading Paradise Lost. Fun to see that the first thing the demons do after escaping from the burning lake is to build a conference centre and hold a meeting. Out of the frying pan...

I've finished The Red Queen by Margaret Drabble which I really liked. Now I'm half way through The Heart is a Lonely Hunter and about to start Katharine Graham: The Leadership Journey of an American Icon by Robin Gerber. I read her autobiography years ago and LOVED it, so I'm interested to read a book about her.

>174 thorold: : ) Look forward to anything you post on PL

Read the ~70 page Holy the Firm by Annie Dillard today. Openned Lion's Honey : The Myth of Sampson by David Grossman...and discovered it's nonfiction.

I finished Rebecca and am now reading 2 books: 1 NF: Overload by Joyce Meyers & 1 fiction: the latest in the No. 1 Ladies Detetive Agency series: Precious and Grace by Alexander McCall Smith.

I'm enjoying The Portable Veblen.

>173 alphaorder: I just finished that; what a wonderful tribute to NYC and to Sachs. BTW read Sachs memoir On the Move, about his early days living in San Fransisco. Lots of great motocycle stories as well as some fabulous photos!

>179 cindydavid4: I wish I could read it over again for the first time. I loved On the Move when I read it last year. Gratitude too.

I think this On Point interview is worth your time, although it took place in 2013: http://www.wbur.org/onpoint/2015/09/01/listening-back-to-our-conversation-with-o...

Finished At Swim, Two Boys before vacation, read The Torso on the plane and just finished Poison, Shadow, and Farewell this morning. Next up is Penguin Lost.

>180 alphaorder:, thanks for that link; can't listen to it now but definitely have it marked!

I finished Pnin by Nabokov and was not disappointed (I had high expectations after Lolita) and will now start simultaneously Wolf Hall (I remember your review, Monica, but I have also read so many good ones, I want to know what it is about, knowing nothing about the Tudors...), the second Proust and Mr Bridge (the husband of the great Mrs Bridge, a book published ten years afterwards).

The library having wrenched Born to Run away from me, 80% through, and left me 29th on the renewal list, I've started a new audiobook: Another Brooklyn by Jacqueline Woodson, read, unfortunately, by someone else.

I just finished Knausgaard's A Time for Everything, as well as Kent Haruf's Benediction, Plainsong, and Eventide. All brilliant. I'm currently reading the much less satisfying Mr. Penumbra's 24 Hour Bookstore. I may not finish it, and instead reread William Trevor's Two Lives.

Looking forward to starting All Grown Up if I get some time in my busy week. Otherwise, it will be my Saturday morning read.

I am in the middle of Unconsoled by Ishiguro and despite it being confusing as hell, I rather like it. I am also reading Under Fire by Barbusse and listening to The Nix by Hill during my commute. All are good in different ways.

And time to move to a new thread - March somehow arrived fast on us and 1/6th of 2017 (in months anyway) is gone...

For the new thread - follow the link at the bottom of this thread :)

>166 MsNick: Aww. I've been so far behind on keeping up on LT posts that I didn't see this until now, but I find that story rather heart-warming. And can so very easily see how that book could have that effect.

>174 thorold: Fun to see that the first thing the demons do after escaping from the burning lake is to build a conference centre and hold a meeting. Out of the frying pan...

Speaking of things that can cheer you up by making you laugh... I think this statement did it for me. :)