Books

[shapinglight]

I keep thinking I should make a post about the books I'm reading, if only so I can use this icon. I used to be a voracious reader, now a lot less so.

Not really sure why, but it's probably a combination of factors.



1) My eyes get tired more easily.
2) I don't have as much time for reading as I did, or rather didn't while the girls were at home and now they're gone, haven't got back in the habit.
3) There are other distractions occupying the place reading once took up - ie. fic writing, blogging, obsessively watching stuff on TV, going walking/birdwatching. This is bad in one way, I suppose, since I'm not nearly as well read as I should be for an Eng Lang/Lit graduate, and all those classics I meant to read seem too difficult to attempt these days. On the other hand, I'm probably healthier.

Anyway, as a rule, I like to have two books on the go, one non-fiction and the other fiction. It used to be three - one non-fiction, one literary fiction, one 'easy' fiction. However, the literary fiction has fallen by the wayside for the most part.

That said, I am currently reading Sarah Waters' The Little Stranger, which I suppose counts as literary fiction. I am struggling with it a little because I've never been a fan of ghost stories and it's creeping me out. Made the mistake of reading one very creepy chapter very late at night and couldn't sleep afterwards. Have told S to stop me if he sees me doing that again (though of course he would have to be awake himself to do so).

As a break from the scariness (and I appreciate that as ghost stories go, it's probably not that scary), I'm also reading a book about extinction. Yay? Can't say much about it yet as I've only read the first chapter.

Previous to these, I was reading a book about birds and how they affect our imaginations and a succession of sci-fi/fantasy/historical novels - Ursual Le Guin/Terry Pratchett/Lindsey Davis - which my guilty conscience consigns to the 'easy' pile, even though the first one at least isn't really.

How about you? What are you reading, if anything?

Comments

[missus-grace.livejournal.com]

My friend loaned me a copy of The Bronze Horseman. It's a stupid yet intriguing romance set in Russia beginning the day Hitler invaded them. I can't get into the main characters because the female protaganist is an inept 17-year-old girl who was probably an ancestor of Bella.

But the history buff inside me loves the setting. I'm so curious about communism and life under Stalin. The love story and its characater can go take a leap - I'm just there for the scenery.

[shapinglight]

I can't get into the main characters because the female protaganist is an inept 17-year-old girl who was probably an ancestor of Bella.

Oh dear! I suspect there are a lot of them out there. I know what you mean about the setting, though. It seems weird to me to think of stories set in WW2 as 'history', because I grew up with the war very much only just over (in my parents' minds anyway), but it is a very intriguing period and we know so much more about it now than we did back in the 60s/70s, or rather talk about it in a different way.

I'd love the setting too, in other words.

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

Recently?

"The Fault in Our Stars" - excellent. (Snarky teens with terminal cancer. Sounds maudlin but isn't. It's funny, heartrending, and lovely.)

"Gone Girl" - mystery/thriller. Nick and Amy are an 'it couple" in NYC until the great recession when they move back to Missouri, their marriage falters, then Amy goes missing under mysterious circumstances. Some interesting twists, although one is obvious. Unfortunately, the characters are all terrible people, and the ending is quite dark. Interesting, but...eh... not my usual taste.


"Redshirts" -- funny spoof with some neat dissection of protagonist priviledge in fiction.. A bunch of ensigns on a tour of duty on the spaceship "Intrepid" realize that whenever one of them goes on an away mission with one of the first shift deck crew, they have a way of dying in some fairly implausible ways. Then they slowly figure out that they're tertiary characters on a 21st Century television show. They are the "redshirts". They decide to go off book and make their own narrative.

"The Lost Wife" : a Jewish couple meets and falls in love in pre-WWII Prague. The husband attempts to escape to the U.S. before the Nazis invade but the wife refuses to leave her family, promising that he can send for her later. And, yes, that becomes as impossible as you might imagine. I enjoyed this one, though the parts in the concentration camp are incredibly sad.

[shapinglight]

The Redshirts one sounds very funny. I love the idea of the characters going 'off book.' Who is it by?

[dalmeny]

Currently:
- Death in Venice, Thomas Mann, on my phone
- True Grit, Charles Portis, in paperback
- Just Kids, Patti Smith, in audio
- Rhetorics of Fantasy, Farah Mendelsohn, which I left back home while I'm on holiday

In the meantime, while reading these, I also read some comics:
- Are You My Mother?, Alison Bechdel
- League of Extraordinary Gentlemen Century 1969, Alan Moore
- League of Extraordinary Gentlemen Century 2009, Alan Moore
- High Soft Lisp, Gilbert Hernandez

Will probably read Delany's Trouble on Triton and/or Morrison's Doom Patrol next.

[dalmeny]

Knew I forgot something: South African sff novel, Zoo City by Lauren Beukes.

[rahirah]

I read that one recently! Very interesting worldbuilding, though it meandered a bit.

[shapinglight]

:(

See, this is the sort of list that makes me feel really inadequate. I've never managed to get through anything by Thomas Mann.

Also, how on earth do you keep so many on the go all at once without getting them mixed up?

Re: the Hernandez brothers, I missed out on Love & Rockets originally and am only just catching up with it now. Enjoying it a lot.

[lyr]

I read a lot less of books I choose for myself these days, but that's grad school for you. I think my fic consumption also cuts down on my book-time. Over the quieter time of the summer, I finally got to the end of the latest GRR Martin book, but other than that I've been working my way through books I know I'll need for next semester, like Middlemarch. (Which I can't say I'm warming up to so far.)

[shapinglight]

I think my fic consumption also cuts down on my book-time.

That certainly happened with me back when I first started reading fic, but these days I don't read much so it's not that that's keeping me from reading more books. I suppose if I read fic anywhere else except the Buffyverse, it might still be the case, but I very rarely do.

I do hope you warm up to Middlemarch in the end. I love that book. In fact, I ought to re-read it.

[spikereader.livejournal.com]

I'm just about to embark on a series re-read of Kelley Armstrong's urban fantasy 'Women of the Otherworld' and the last book is just about to be published (number 13!) but how far I'll get I don't know.

I've got Deborah Moggach's 'Best Exotic Marigold Hotel' on the go on my iPhone - though as I tend to read on my phone when I'm waiting at the bus stop for the school bus it might be some weeks before I get back to it.

And in the TBR pile are the latest Jasper Fforde and the follow up to Deborah Harkness' 'A Discovery of Witches'.

[shapinglight]

I've got Deborah Moggach's 'Best Exotic Marigold Hotel' on the go on my iPhone - though as I tend to read on my phone when I'm waiting at the bus stop for the school bus it might be some weeks before I get back to it.

I watched the film of that on the way to California. Unfortunately, though, the sound was so bad that I couldn't tell you whether or not it was any good. ;)

Maybe I'd get more read if I had my own Kindle. Not sure.

[yourlibrarian]

About the time I encountered online fic archives my book reading went by the wayside and never returned. Which is not to say I haven't read any books since, though it coincided with my going back to school and thus having lots of non-fiction reading taking my time. And I continue reading a lot of news articles every week but despite continuing to have tons of fic available my reading of it is more irregular now. If I didn't have an eReader I suspect I'd hardly be reading any because I'm trying to get away from the computer.

My eyes aren't so much tired as their reading capacity keeps changing (I wear glasses most of the day now) and one thing I love about the eReader is the ability to read without the glasses. During a visit with a friend earlier this year her mother was very intrigued by my reader because she said she'd almost stopped reading because text was so small to her that it reading at long stretches had become too tiring. Whereas she noticed what giant text I had on it and liked the idea of being able to customize her reading.

[shapinglight]

If I didn't have an eReader I suspect I'd hardly be reading any because I'm trying to get away from the computer.

I don't actually read much fic any more, so I'm not sure an eReader would help. I would like one, though. I thought I was going to acquire S's by default (he was given one as a retirement present and didn't seem keen on it at all), but one thing led to another and K ended up with that one. S has bought himself another one and seems finally to have taken to it. He's reading John Muir's diary.

I do think that staring at a screen all day is the root of my tired eyes, but I can't do much about it, as it's my job. No wonder really, I suppose, that I don't read as much any more.

[yourlibrarian]

Haha, S's story sounds familiar. I recently heard from a friend who said she and her husband also got an eReader as a gift in the past year and at first had no use for it but they've begun to read on it. If you do get your own, just be sure to get an e-Ink version. It won't be like reading on a screen and should give your eyes a break.

[shapinglight]

Yes, I think S's is e-ink. Another thing with him, of course, is that he outright refuses to pay for e-books. It took discovering that Amazon has a huge stock of out of copywright free books to download to bring him around.

[yourlibrarian]

The good thing about Amazon downloads are all the accompanying reviews. The problem with the tons of free reads elsewhere is that there's no telling how good the content is. Of course, the plus is that there's no need to commit to a free read. If it doesn't hold your interest -- next!

[shapinglight]

So far, he's been sticking to the classics. I've made him d/l a lot of F Scott Fitzgerald as I have no idea where my old FSG paperbacks are. Also, neither of us have ever read any Steinbeck, and after visiting California, we should.

[ex_peasant441]

I've forgotten, do you wear varifocals? Cos my eyes started getting very tired, and as promised by my optician (as he drained my bank account dry) varifocals have completely cured it.

Anyway, I'm currently nominally reading a book about Plantagenet England, which I have barely looked at for weeks stretching into months, and the latest Pratchett, Snuff. Annoyingly, I'm not enjoying Snuff as much as I usually enjoy Pratchett. It feels like ground he has already gone over several times and it is a bit cliche ridden so far. The goblins are representing the tragically misunderstood ethnic minority who everyone picks on because they are too stupid to do anything else, except for the few sterling noble heroes who can see how wonderful they are, while the villains are all stupid without any motivation so far beyond 'they are upper class and therefore obviously selfish and evil' which is really getting my back up. It is annoying because it is about Vimes who is normally one of my favourite characters, and this time his prejudices (and Pratchett's) are starting to bug me.

I hope it improves, I would hate to dislike a Pratchett :(

[shapinglight]

I wear varifocals already. I may possibly need a stronger prescription, but I'll wait till my annual eye test to find out, I think. It's probably having to stare at the screen all day that makes my eyes tired, but I can't do much about it, since it's my job.

Re: the Pratchett, what you describe doesn't really sound any different to the way he's depicted things like that before to me.

[ex_peasant441]

doesn't really sound any different to the way he's depicted things like that before

Exactly. And it really worries me that he is loosing his inventiveness so he is just becoming a cliche of himself. Saying something once about one person who happens to be a particular type is legitimate story telling. Repeatedly saying the same slur is prejudice, and if he means what he is saying then he is really straying over the line into prejudice now.

Of course I may be wrong. I am really hoping there will be a decent plot twist that turns things on their head, but I am getting less confident by the page that that is going to happen. And the cliches are just getting silly now (won't spoil you by going into more details, but very, very silly.)

[shapinglight]

So, how did that go? Have you finished the book yet?

I've had to stop reading my ghost story because S is going away for a few days and I daren't read it when I'm alone in the house.

[kazzy-cee.livejournal.com]

I'm re-reading the Steig Larsson trilogy. I'm half way through The Girl Who Played with Fire (book 2). This was to stop me buying any more Kindle books as I ended up buying £45-worth when I was out of work between jobs!!

[shapinglight]

Eee!

S won't actually buy any Kindle books. He flat out refuses. He'll only acquire books that are out of copywright and hence free. ;)

However, I feel I ought to read some Steinbeck now I've been to California, so I shall soon be fighting him for the Kindle.

[hello-spikey.livejournal.com]

I promised myself I'd read all the books I owned and hadn't read yet before I started any new ones, and so I'm now stuck reading Don Quixote in Spanish, which I obviously bought with the intention of reading, but I'm terrible at Spanish and slightly resentful of my past-self's ambition.

That said, it has made me LOL several times already and I've already picked up speed from learning those important words like "Squire" "Spur" "helm" and "shield" but I don't suspect I'll be reading anything else for the rest of the year.

[shapinglight]

I promised myself I'd read all the books I owned and hadn't read yet before I started any new ones

S keeps telling me to do this, which, fine, I understand. But people will keep writing/publishing stuff I want to read. There's just no way to keep up really. :(

I sympathise with feeling you'll be stuck on one book for the whole year. I felt like that with A Game of Thrones. I thought I was never going to finish it.

[kathyh]

I've had the same problem with my eyes getting tired but since I've had my Kindle things have been better and I've got back in the reading habit, not just on the Kindle but actual books.

I struggled with "The Little Stranger" as well and I didn't enjoy it as much as I expected to. I recently read "Wolf Hall" which I absolutely loved but that is rather long. Other than that I've been reading "easy" things and I'm currently in the middle of "Shadow Gate" by Kate Elliott which is also very long!

[shapinglight]

I struggled with "The Little Stranger" as well and I didn't enjoy it as much as I expected to.

That's interesting. Why did you struggle? I've always thought that Sarah Waters was a wonderful stylist (not in Alan Hollinghurst's class perhaps, but pretty good), and I've not been disappointed there. I just find the story a bit too creepy for my taste.

I keep meaning to get around to Wolf Hall, or indeed anything else by Hilary Mantel. I've only read A Place of Greater Safety, which I love. Have you read that one?

[kathyh]

That's interesting. Why did you struggle?

I thought the story sagged a bit in the middle and my attention started to wander until I made myself get back to it. It was beautifully written so I may just not have been in the right mood for it.

I've only read A Place of Greater Safety, which I love. Have you read that one?

No, I haven't. "Wolf Hall" was the first book by Hilary Mantel that I've read but "A Place of Greater Safety" is sitting on my TBR pile and I'm really looking forward to reading it now.

[shapinglight]

It was beautifully written so I may just not have been in the right mood for it.

Getting back to this a week later, I suspect I may never be in the right mood for it. It really creeps me out. Am near the end now and will have to stop reading for a while, as S is away and I can't possibly carry on with it while I'm alone in the house.

[kitmarlowescot2.livejournal.com]

I am reading the three books on gay history and Aids and Harvey Milk by Randy Shilts.
The Mayor of Castro Street: The Life and Times of Harvey Milk
And the Band Played On: Politics, People, and the AIDS Epidemic
Conduct Unbecoming: Gays and Lesbians in the US Military from Vietnam to the Persian Gulf
I was surprised to learn that the British military also outlawed gays from serving too.

[shapinglight]

I was surprised to learn that the British military also outlawed gays from serving too

Yes, I think a lot of militaries did. If it helps that ruling's been repealed now.

[kitmarlowescot2.livejournal.com]

Was the repeal as controversial in the UK as it was in the USA last year when Don't Ask Don't Tell was repealed ?

[shapinglight]

To be honest, I can't remember, but no. I don't think so.

[kseenaa.livejournal.com]

I am currently reading the BRILLIANT book Phantom by Susan Kay. I've read it in swedish before, but I got the original not that long from my best friend. I freaking love that book. And recommend it with much love.

After that I'll read The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern that I got as a birthday gift from two friends. :-)

I do kinda like Young Adult books, for older teens. This blogg about books as such is quite hilarious, if you haven't seen it. Who said you had to stop reading YA books just because you grow up? *lol* Forever Young Adult.Com

[shapinglight]

Thanks for all the links. :)

I still read children's books, let alone YA books. :)

Will definitely give the Susan Kay one a look.

[kseenaa.livejournal.com]

Oh, that Phantom-book is absolutly wonderful. :-) I hope you'll find it and enjoy it.

Just started reading The Night Circus, and it has proved to be just as good. :-D I've read about a third of it now, and I am totally hooked! A wonderful victorian/magic/fantasy-story. :-) I do recommend that one to!

[shapinglight]

It sounds great.

[whichclothes.livejournal.com]

I just finished reading Rivers of London--which is retitled Midnight Riot here. Thanks for the rec--I really enjoyed! Now I'm starting on the sequel/

[shapinglight]

Hello! Sorry to be so slow answering comments. I'm glad you enjoyed Rivers of London. I adore that series. I have the third one now and am holding off reading it because if I get through it too soon there'll be ages to wait for the next one.