What are you reading right now?

[Roy Janik]

Right now, I'm just a few pages into this month's selection: Ken Follett's Pillars of the Earth

I just downloaded this yesterday on Audible. The only thing I'm not looking forward to is the narrator, John Lee, who almost ruined the last Song of Ice and Fire book for me. But now I think I'm used to him, so it'll be okay. As soon as I'm done listening to the abridged Hero With a Thousand Faces, I'm on it.

[Miggy]

I don't know where you find the time to do all the things you do Roy - I must learn your secrets of time management.

Also, this statement probably came out wrong:

The women in my book club really like Phillipa Gregory

I should point out that all the other members in my book club are women - I broke the glass book case when I joined five or so years ago. The main organizer originally called it the Austin Bood Godesses (which no one ever used) and when I joined they changed the name to Austin Book Godesses + Titan (which no one still uses).

[spantell]

Has anyone read The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar
Wao by Junot Diaz? It won some big award for fiction this year, I can't remember which one. Just wondering what someone else thought of it.

[arthursimone]

I'm midway through the third Dark Tower book
pretty swell

[improvstitute]

Has anyone read The Revolution Will Not Be Funded? I am considering picking up a copy, but want to get some opinions first. Ultimately I am probably going to get it anyway, but I thought I would ask on the off chance that some of you have read it and thought it wasn't worth reading.

[Rev. Jordan T. Maxwell]

Has anyone read The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar
Wao by Junot Diaz? It won some big award for fiction this year, I can't remember which one. Just wondering what someone else thought of it.

just a little thing called the Pulitzer. psh. that's not even a real word. i've been wanting to read it for a few months now since an ex girlfriend recommended it to me, but i can't find it anywhere. le sigh...

[spantell]

I'd like to know what you think when you read it. (I got mine in the library, no wait list or anything.)

[Rev. Jordan T. Maxwell]

I'd like to know what you think when you read it. (I got mine in the library, no wait list or anything.)

sure thing. i'm very strange like that...i fully support libraries and think they're marvelous underappreciated things, but i have this personal need to own a book when i'm reading it.

i'm very strange in other ways as well.

[NoahV]

Just finished Palahniuk's new book Snuff. It is comparable to his other books. Now I am going to get started on All Quiet on the Western Front.

[valetoile]

I've had Thomas Pynchon's Against the Day checked out for 7 weeks, and I'm 4/5 of the way through. I will finish it! It's slow in a sense because so much happens, there are so many characters, and things change so quickly without a seemingly strong imperative. Promises I feel I was made in the beginning have been unfulfilled. But there are just enough moments of little delight and subtle but wonderful jokes and strange mind-swimmingly fascinating ideas that I keep reading. I hope for a fantastic payoff.

Also, the names are spectacular.

[Rev. Jordan T. Maxwell]

currently reading Sebastian O by Grant Morrison and Steve Yeowell...the story of a rogue dandy in a steampunk Victorian England. some things are just destined to be made of awesome.

[KathyRose]

... i have this personal need to own a book when i'm reading it.

I do, too, because I tend to highlight passages, write notes in the margins, and dog-ear pages - not to keep my place, but for reference. Even when reading fiction. Case in point: I'm currently re-reading (for the 3rd or 4th time) "The Game of Kings" by Dorothy Dunnett, book one of six in her historical fiction series the "Lymond Chronicles," which takes place in mid-sixteenth century Europe. Her Scottish hero, Francis Crawford of Lymond, is a true Renaissance man who constantly makes witty remarks and references in French, old English, Latin and Spanish. And Dunnett herself makes such full use of the English language that I often had to underline a word and dog-ear the page to look up later, for example (in just the first 63 pages): oriflamme, dislimned, cluricane, palimpsest, concupiscent, acidulous, paraph, excoriated, & purfle.

Some people might find this annoying, but I found it to be delightful - my own little Renaissance education. I also enjoyed reading "The Dorothy Dunnet Companion" by Elspeth Morrison, which provides background information on the historical characters and events featured in the series, as well as explaining many of the classical and literary references.

Lymond (so called because of the custom of referring to a man by the name of his estate) is one of my favorite fictional characters - severely flawed despite his brilliance and one who is veritably put through Hell and back - agonizingly, deliciously so. With lots of heart-stopping moments, the books are action-packed, intelligent and intensely romantic without a gratuitous bodice-ripping page in the bunch.

Note: of the books in the series, "kings" is the most "poorly" written, being Dunnett's first novel, but that is easily forgiven, given the mastery of the series overall.

[Frank]

Predictably Irrational
Outliers

[spantell]

When you are engulfed in flames. David Sedaris.
More dark than humor.

Ayn Rand

Recently finished Julia Glass, Three Junes and The Whole World Over. Definitely recommended if you like interesting characters but not much plot.