[Misc] What Book are you Currently Reading?

[Skaville]

To Kill a Mockingbird. Never read it, thought I should. Only 20 pages in but already loving it.

 

[Skaville]

Oh, just finished the Wasp Factory by Ian Banks. An incredible, dark piece of work. A little disjointed but immense all the same

 

[highway61]

The Black Death FS Philip Ziegler

 

[Bombadier Botty]

To Kill a Mockingbird. Never read it, thought I should. Only 20 pages in but already loving it.

One of the long list of 'classic' novels that I did a chapter or so of and thought 'Too many books out there to be wasting my time ploughing through something I'm not enjoying for the sake of it'

 

[Stat Brother]

As well as reading the latest John Ronson book, which is excellent, I've also just finished listening to my first ever audio book:-



Obviously I have no other reference point but it seemed pretty good.
The story was well written, and red.
It certainly helped that the 3 main characters were voiced by different people.

Certainly one for the summer, that isn't in anyway taxing.

 

[jimbob5]

To Kill a Mockingbird. Never read it, thought I should. Only 20 pages in but already loving it.

I have not read that but I've read all her other books but the latest.

 

[Bombadier Botty]

You'll Never Guess Who I Just Saw in the Woolwich Building Society - The life and times of Tim 'HB&B' Hodges

I'm a Sad Palace Tw@t by Little Al

 

[footychick]

Fabrice Muamba - I'm still standing, brilliant book.

 

[Don Quixote]

Ilium by Dan Simmons. Quality sci-fi.

 

[KingKev]

Laurie Lee's As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning.

Read Cider With Rosie for the first time whilst on hols and the plan is to now re-read "As I..." Then "A moment of War" and finally "A Rose in Winter". All beautifully written and set around subjects of deep interest to me - Life in Spain and the Spanish Civil War. Heartily recommend al 4 books.

 

[Buzzer]

Coming to the end of my Man Booker Prize longlist 13 book challenge and am just starting Sunjeev Sahora's 'The Year of The Runaways'. Reading all the nominated books has been hard-going at times with this year having a lot of lacklustre nominations. The 13 books have also been shortened to the 12 book challenge seeing as Bill Clegg's book isn't even out yet! How rubbish is that - a book nominated for best novel of the year and it's not even been published.

Here's my reviews of the latest 5 books:

Anne Tyler 'A Spool of Blue Thread'. A book about an average family in Baltimore written with a lot of humour and intelligence. Tyler doesn't need to make her characters super-successful to make them interesting, her attention to detail turns the mundane into the sublime. She writes in a style that will please Garrison Keiller or Bill Bryson fans, I enjoyed this book a lot. An easy read but still some very clever moments.

Marilynne Robinson 'Lila'. Excruciatingly dull.

Anna Smaill - 'The Chimes'. Dystopian tale set in London where memories are wiped daily by the repeated playing of music by the authorities. A very clever concept, written cleverly but let down by being yet another dull story and so many obscure music notation references. Long, long paragraphs of not much happening keep the story from flowing.

Anne Enright - 'The Green Road'. More a study in family relationships rather than a plot-driven story. This book focuses around 2 brothers and 2 sisters returning to the family home in Ireland for Christmas. Enright has a sardonic wit that she displays often and it's a fun read. Not my favourite but certainly one of the better ones.

Anuradha Roy - 'Sleeping on Jupiter' By far the shortest Indian novel I've ever read and one with a fairly tight plot too which is unusual for Indian writers. Another book dealing with sexual abuse but written in a far better way than the other Booker Prize candidate 'A Little Life' it's also very colourfully described with the main protagonists having three dimensional characters. I liked this book a lot.

 

[dingodan]

This is a very fun read if you're into this sort of thing:

 

[Silk]

Wyatt Earp - A vigilante life by Andrew C Isenberg

 

[CorgiRegisteredFriend]

Just finishing Engel's England by Matthew Engel which is an account of his three year journey visiting all the counties of England. Best bits are his encounters and stories from locals. Lots of references to football and cricket teams too.

 

[Buzzer]

Finished reading Sunjeev Sahota's 'The Year of the Runaways' this morning on the train and it looks like I unwittingly saved the best till last. It's an excellent read telling the stories of 3 Indian migrants in the UK. There's clearly a lot of controversial subject matter in it but unlike Laila Lalami's book, it's not quite so black and white (no pun intended) and the real story is about the people and not the politics.

That's me done for the Man Booker Prize this year, I won't bother reading the last nominated book by literary agent Bill Clegg as it isn't even out yet. I've a sneaky feeling that will win and if it does then it shows how insular, back-slapping and out of touch the prize has become. The change of the rules in the last couple of years to include US novels hasn't been a great success either IMO. The cynic in me suspects that it was a decision made with dollars in mind and the inclusion this year of the Hanya Yanagihara novel was purely on the back of the commercial success of the book in the US. The book is utter toilet. Grief porn for victim mentality junkies and an insult to what the Man Booker Prize should stand for: excelllence in the modern English language novel. For what it's worth here are my shortlist with my winner being Sahota and the runner-up McCarthy

Sunjeev Sahota (UK) - The Year of the Runaways
Tom McCarthy (UK) - Satin Island
Laila Lalami (US) - The Moor's Account
Anne Enright (Ireland) - The Green Road
Chigozie Obioma (Nigeria) - The Fishermen
Anne Tyler (US) - A Spool of Blue Thread

 

[Bold Seagull]

Just finished Station Eleven by Emily St.John Mandel. Brilliantly written, simple, but completely absorbing. Very original take on the post apocalyptic genre.

 

[Bold Seagull]

Anne Tyler 'A Spool of Blue Thread'. A book about an average family in Baltimore written with a lot of humour and intelligence. Tyler doesn't need to make her characters super-successful to make them interesting, her attention to detail turns the mundane into the sublime. She writes in a style that will please Garrison Keiller or Bill Bryson fans, I enjoyed this book a lot. An easy read but still some very clever moments.

Haven't read anything of hers since A Patchwork Planet, so may have to give this one a go.

 

[mune ni kamome]

Just finished Station Eleven by Emily St.John Mandel. Brilliantly written, simple, but completely absorbing. Very original take on the post apocalyptic genre.

Looks interesting and will make this my next read. Can't beat a good post apocalypse scenario. Just finished Margaret Atwood's Oryx and Crake and the parallel follow up Year of the Flood. Very good after a slow start. Madd Adam being the third in this trilogy.

 

[KZNSeagull]

Halfway through I am Malala. Very interesting and must read for some regulars on this site

 

[Biscuit]

Coming to the end of my Man Booker Prize longlist 13 book challenge and am just starting Sunjeev Sahora's 'The Year of The Runaways'. Reading all the nominated books has been hard-going at times with this year having a lot of lacklustre nominations. The 13 books have also been shortened to the 12 book challenge seeing as Bill Clegg's book isn't even out yet! How rubbish is that - a book nominated for best novel of the year and it's not even been published.

Here's my reviews of the latest 5 books:

Anne Tyler 'A Spool of Blue Thread'. A book about an average family in Baltimore written with a lot of humour and intelligence. Tyler doesn't need to make her characters super-successful to make them interesting, her attention to detail turns the mundane into the sublime. She writes in a style that will please Garrison Keiller or Bill Bryson fans, I enjoyed this book a lot. An easy read but still some very clever moments.

Marilynne Robinson 'Lila'. Excruciatingly dull.

Anna Smaill - 'The Chimes'. Dystopian tale set in London where memories are wiped daily by the repeated playing of music by the authorities. A very clever concept, written cleverly but let down by being yet another dull story and so many obscure music notation references. Long, long paragraphs of not much happening keep the story from flowing.

Anne Enright - 'The Green Road'. More a study in family relationships rather than a plot-driven story. This book focuses around 2 brothers and 2 sisters returning to the family home in Ireland for Christmas. Enright has a sardonic wit that she displays often and it's a fun read. Not my favourite but certainly one of the better ones.

Anuradha Roy - 'Sleeping on Jupiter' By far the shortest Indian novel I've ever read and one with a fairly tight plot too which is unusual for Indian writers. Another book dealing with sexual abuse but written in a far better way than the other Booker Prize candidate 'A Little Life' it's also very colourfully described with the main protagonists having three dimensional characters. I liked this book a lot.

'Lila' is part of a trilogy isn't it? Was going to give it a try but will avoid now. Will stick with The Poisenwood Bible instead, cheers