*** What Are You Reading? AUGUST

I've finished and reviewed The Moldavian Pimp, a delightfully written and yet sobering novella that provides insight into a little known period of Argentinian Jewish history.

Sorry, R, I forgot again...

I spent the entire month of July working through The Faerie Queene. I'm reading about a canto a day, and I'm not quite half way through. There were a few other books I was reading, but I got obsessed with FQ and put them all aside, and found myself reading critical essays from Edmund Spenser's Poetry (Second Edition) : Authoritative Texts, Criticism (Norton Critical Edition), edited by Hugh Maclean , and also The Faerie Queene : Educating the Reader by Russell J. Meyer. Then, today the library gave me Shakespeare and Spenser : Attractive Opposites, which is a series of essays, edited by J. B. Lethbridge.

The one book that broke through the Spenser obsession was The Songlines by Bruce Chatwin, which is, so far, a wonderful exploration of the Australian aboriginal mythologies. I adore Chatwin at the moment.

Also picking through Horoscopes for the Dead, a new poetry collection by Billy Collins, from the library.

And I still can't seem to read a novel...

I'm 2/3 of the way through The Stranger's Child by Alan Hollinghurst, the first of this year's Booker Prize longlisted novels that I'll read. I'll finish it today, and then start Life A User's Manual by Georges Perec, for my group read that begins this week. I'm also reading London: The Biography by Peter Ackroyd.

I'm currently reading The Most Human Human by Brian Christian, an interesting examination of the things that make us similar to and different from computers, and why we should strive to be as human as we possibly can. Next up, I think, will be Jim Butcher's Ghost Story, the latest in his Harry Dresden series. I've been waiting for that one for a while.

Only did it because I had a book I wanted to post about and realized it was August, Dan. Otherwise, I would have waited for you or someone else to start it.

I got a bit stuck in my July reading, a 800+ rather depressing tome of Great Short Works of Dostoevsky, and hefty volume of Orhan Pamuk's latest novel, The Museum of Innocence, which is interesting, but reads slowly.

Today, I started Any human heart by William Boyd which I find a very enjoyable, easy read. It helps to pull my out of my sluggish reading the former two.

I didn't get anything worth mentioning read in July like I hoped. Still making slow and steady progress through The Oxford Book of Modern Science Writing and Red Mars, having trouble following the math sections in the Oxford book and I can't seem to sty motivated to long enough to finish up John Boone section in Mars.

Decided to try a couple of other books to get back into the others: started the excellent so far Storm Rider by Akira Yoshimura and I Shall not Hate that Detailmuse was kind enough to send my way.

I am finishing up Atlantis by David Gibbins for the Reading Globally theme read The Sea. After that, who knows? Definitely a return to Wolf Hall, my Orange read for July that I've neglected terribly.

I've just finished Hemingway: The Paris Years, a volume of Michael S. Reynolds' comprehensive biography of Ernest Hemingway.

I've paused my reading of The Faerie Queene to concentrate on some reading I have to do for my Honours course, notably Lord Byron's Childe Harold's Pilgrimage which is, ironically, in Spenserian stanzas. Also reading The Cambridge Companion to Byron.

I've finished and reviewed another wonderfully perceptive novel by Barbara Comyns, The Skin Chairs.

On the last day of July I finished The secret life of the natural history museum which was excellent. I then read Something Missing which was a great book too. Now I'm into The last dragonslayer which is also excellent... it's begining to feel like a long time since I last read a dud...

I'm juggling a lot of books right now: Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel, Death by Darjeeling by Laura Childs, Slave by Sheri Hayes, and London: A Brief History by Charles River

I finished Ann Patchett’s State of Wonder, and the half which is set in the Amazon prompted me to (finally) get to Joseph Conrad’s Congo in Heart of Darkness.

I’m also reading Rural Free by Rachel Peden (a farm wife and Phi Beta Kappa) -- reflections on mid-20th-century farm life, organized by month. Much of August deals with county fairs, which prompted me to read David Foster Wallace’s coverage of the 1993 Illinois State Fair, published in Harper’s and in his A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again.

I've read and reviewed Manhattan Noir 2: The Classics; they're classics for a reason and I liked this collection much more than the earlier volume.

I'm reading Close to Shore by Michael Capuzzo, which is about a series of shark attacks off the coast of New Jersey in 1916. I picked it up at an independent book store in Buxton in the Outer Banks.

I've read and reviewed two more novels by Hilary Mantel: A Change of Climate, which explores secrets and the meaning of evil and forgiveness, and An Experiment in Love, a somewhat harrowing coming-of-age story.

I've finally turned my attention to Bellefleur by JCO, which has lingered in my literary peripheral vision most of the summer. I do plan to finish African Psycho and I'm also dipping into The Influencing Machine by NPR's Brooke Gladstone. It's a graphic nonfiction book about the media, written for American readers but with broader applications. Thus far it's been both thoughtful and entertaining.

I've finally managed to read The Oxford Book of Modern Science Writing by richard Dawkins, which shouldn't have taken me so long. feels like all my reading lately are long term projects.

I'm reading A.D. Miller's Snowdrops, a "crime novel" set in Russia. So far it isn't really about much (no crime that I can see?), but the writing is very vivid - I feel as though I am in cold, corrupt Moscow.

I'm reading What is Mine, a crime novel by Norwegian writer Anne Holt. I haven't read anything by her before, but she was mentioned in an article on Nordic women writers in an issue of Belletrista.

I'm also reading a new collection of short stories by Roddy Doyle called Bullfighting.

Just finished the powerful but raw I shall Not Hate thanks to Detailmuse who generously sent me this one, can't see it not being on my favorites list at the end of the year.

Now Reading:
Red Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson (entering its third month now)
Taiko by Eiji Yoshikawa (Just wanted to crack this one, but can't seem to stop reading it now)
Storm Rider by Akira Yoshimure (about half way through)

I've now started Buzz Aldrin, What Happened to You in all the Confusion? by Johan Harstad, which I got through ER last month. And I'm really hoping it gets better. So far it's been fifty-four pages of some guy trying hard to convince me that he's an extremely boring person and succeeding very, very well.

22 -

Ah yes! Taiko is fantastic! You really can't stop reading it as you say. And as soon as I was finished I wanted to read it again. Such a fantastic read. I have his Musashi to read but I don't want to crack it open yet 'cause I know I'll get hooked and I can't afford the distraction right now.

Looking forward to your thoughts on the Yoshimura as well.

Started New Atlantis: Musicians Battle for the Survival of New Orleans by John Swenson this morning. Really is quite awesome having a friend working at Oxford U Press.

I've read four books so far this month: two books from this year's Booker Prize longlist, The Stranger's Child by Alan Hollinghurst, and Pigeon English by Steve Kelman; and two LibraryThing Early Reviewer books, Pao by Kerry Young, and The Wandering Falcon by Jamil Ahmad.

I'm still reading the massive London: The Biography by Peter Ackroyd, and Life A User's Manual by Georges Perec, and I'll probably start From the Observatory by Julio Cortázar later today.

I finished Snowdrops, and have moved on to The Sisters Brothers by Patrick deWitt.

I just finished and reviewed Classic Crimes, by William Roughead, a collection of true crime stories written in the early 20th century by a Scottish lawyer who was a connoisseur of murder trials.

I am about to start The Thousand Autumns of Jacob De Zoet by David Mitchell.

I am still reading The faerie Queene by Edmund Spenser and Suspended judgements: essays on Books by John Cowper Powys. I also hope to do some selective re-reading of Porius

>21 RidgewayGirl: I read the very same book a couple of weeks ago after reading the most recent one (and liking it). I like her duo, it's a bit less run of the mill. The 2nd one is available through ABE, and it looks like Corvis (?) in the UK might be republishing all of them as I saw all of the titles pictured, with matching covers, in the latest (however, they do not seem to be available now). Let me know if you like it!

I am deeper into Bellefleur now and really settling in and enjoying it. It skips around the generations of the Bellefleur family and once you get accustomed to that (and you stop checking the family tree in the front of the book so often), you can relax and enjoy the story.

I just finished and reviewed the compellingly readable sprawling saga of They Were Counted by Miklós Bánffy, the first volume in his trilogy about pre-World War I Hungary.

Still inspired by Woody Allen's "Midnight in Paris", I moved from The Paris Wife to A Moveable Feast to The Great Gatsby. Possibly done with that theme, so I am resting by reading Blue Shoes and Happiness.

Just finished Josh Ritter's very promising debut, Bright's Passage. Now I am on to the case of Jarndyce and Jarndyce - yes, Bleak House.

#32 - for the same reason I have A Moveable Feast sitting on desk...also a biography of Zelda. Haven't opened either yet, though.

krazy4katz, I loved Midnight in Paris. What a gorgeous fantasy.

I'm reading All She Was Worth by Miyuki Miyabe, which is shaping up to be an excellent noir, as well as Doc by Mary Doria Russell. I've never been too interested in the whole wild west thing, but Doc is tremendously good.

I just read The Lake by Banana Yoshimoto and am still composing my thoughts on it.

I've just read and reviewed The Mangan Inheritance by Brian Moore, an excellently written, if melodramatic, story of a man's search for his identity in a remote Irish village.

Carrying on with my Graham Greene reading The confidential agent

I have abandoned my reading of Pamuk's The Museum of Innocence and Dostoyevski's short works, which were really clogging me down. This last week of the summer holiday, I am reading a lot, various medium-length novels, such as I have just finished Day by A.L. Kennedy, Quarantine by Jim Crace and This side of brightness by Colum McCann. Novels I have started reading but haven't finished are Remembering Babylon by the Australian author David Malouf and The lost garden, and short novel by Helen Humphreys, and the biggest of all, The pale king by David Foster Wallace.

And now I've finished and reviewed The Bride from Odessa, a collection of stories by Edgardo Cozarinksy whose novel, The Moldavian Pimp, I enjoyed so much earlier this month.

I've just finished All She Was Worth by Miyuki Miyabe, a satisfying crime novel that examined how the Japanese regard credit and financial problems.

I'm beginning Foreign Bodies, having never read any Cynthia Ozick beyond a few short stories, and I'm continuing with Dating Jesus, Susan Campbell's account of growing up in a fundamentalist environment.

Moved to September thread!