What Are You Reading Now?

[Northwestcoug]

we went to a David Sedaris reading (tip: only go to a David Sedaris reading if you’re comfortable laughing out loud at unbelievably inappropriate limericks) and he recommended ‘Small Things Like These”, by Claire Keegan. I just finished “Tress of the Emerald Seas” by Sanderson (recommended) and was ready for a fantasy break.

anyways it’s a super quick read; I finished it on 2 flights. Very well written, concise and sometimes beautiful prose. It’s a story related to the Magdalene laundries scandal of Ireland. If you have 3 hours to kill and you’re looking to fill up the time you could do a lot worse than read this book.

[BigPiney]

Currently reading: The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley. Enjoying the premise so far. Time travel plot.

Read this over the weekend. It was very good. Literary Sci fi.

I also read The God of the Woods by Liz Moore last week. Good as well. This is mystery set in the Adirondacks that jumps between 1975 and the early 1960s . Not sure why I liked the setting or mood so much, but for me it was worked.

[SteelBlue]

I've been reading a lot more this year. Trying to step away from socials and use my down time more productively.

I finally got around to reading Paul Auster. Read City of Glass and Ghosts. Fantastic. Next up The Locked Room then 4,3,2,1 is on deck.
Re-read Donna Tartt's The Secret History. I know you're supposed to hate everyone in their smarmy little clique, but regardless they annoyed me more this time than on my last read 12 years ago.
The Books of Jacob by Olga Tokarczuk. I've been working on this behemoth for 2 years as a side read. Finally finished. Interesting read, tons of similarities between the titular Jacob Frank and Joseph Smith imo.

[BigPiney]

I tried to read 4,3,2,1 but only made it through 4 and 3. Kind of got bored. May need to try again.

[SteelBlue]

I tried to read 4,3,2,1 but only made it through 4 and 3. Kind of got bored. May need to try again.

I’m guessing that was 500 pages so you gave it due diligence.

[SteelBlue]

Currently halfway through two interesting novels. One is The Hearing Trumpet by Leonora Carrington. Originally written in the 1950s, published in English in the 70s, went out of print and then brought back a few years ago by the NYRB. Carrington was a surrealist painter and all around interesting woman and the book is exactly what I'd expect. A nonagenarian sent to live in a nursing home has an experience that I'd describe as The Da Vinci Code meets Don Quixote meets the Golden Girls. One of my favorite recent discoveries.

The other is Remember You Will Die by Eden Robins. This one is brand new and I am enjoying the risks she took with structure and with the breadth and depth of knowledge and philosophy she's attempted to cover. The entire novel is told in obituaries only. The further you read the more interconnections you find. She takes on AI, consciousness, ethics, time travel and much more and I feel like she's pulled off something pretty impressive so far.

[SteelBlue]

Finished An Episode in the Life of a Landscape Painter by Cesar Aira. Interesting novella.

Most recently read The Waitress Was New by Dominique Fabre. I really liked this one. It takes place in a Paris bar and is narrated by a 56 year old bartender very much in the style and tone of The Remains of the Day by Ishiguro, an all-time favorite of mine (long list, but still).

Currently reading The Covenant of Water by Abraham Verghese.

[Donuthole]

Finished An Episode in the Life of a Landscape Painter by Cesar Aira. Interesting novella.

Most recently read The Waitress Was New by Dominique Fabre. I really liked this one. It takes place in a Paris bar and is narrated by a 56 year old bartender very much in the style and tone of The Remains of the Day by Ishiguro, an all-time favorite of mine (long list, but still).

Currently reading The Covenant of Water by Abraham Verghese.

I started this one in December and stalled out about 1/3 of the way in. I'll wait your return and report as to whether I need to resume.

[SteelBlue]

I started this one in December and stalled out about 1/3 of the way in. I'll wait your return and report as to whether I need to resume.

The Covenant of Water is good but in a different way than I'm used to. This one is more of a matter of fact, multi-generational story. I don't feel like I have to do any of the lifting as a reader, and that's made this reading experience feel a bit passive, so when you say you stalled out, I understand. Lots of trauma but overall a positive outlook on existence. I like that he's a practicing physician and plants little medical mysteries throughout the novel. I've been reading the hell out of this thing but still have 150 pages to go.

[BigPiney]

Most recently read The Waitress Was New by Dominique Fabre. I really liked this one. It takes place in a Paris bar and is narrated by a 56 year old bartender very much in the style and tone of The Remains of the Day by Ishiguro, an all-time favorite of mine (long list, but still).

I'm tempted to get this in French. I loved the remains of the day

[SteelBlue]

I'm tempted to get this in French. I loved the remains of the day

You absolutely should. I looked for more of his work but apparently this is his only book that’s been translated into English.

[SteelBlue]

Reading Austerlitz by W.G .Sebald. Fiction about a man named Austerlitz who was raised in Wales from the age of 4, by a pastor and his wife, and he (Austerlitz) cannot remember much of anything about how he came to be in Wales or where his family went only that it was just before the war. It's told almost in the style of a memoir but instead told to another character who narrates. Throughout his youth he gets very few clues about his previous existence, except that he learns he has a different name he must use in boarding school when he turns in his papers and it is Jacques Austerlitz. One day while watching a documentary about children's ships during WWII he hears the surname Austerlitz and begins to have the stirrings of memories and this sparks research and a trip back home (Czechoslovakia) where he tries to find his people. It's been an interesting take on a holocaust novel, with the horrors and sadness not dawning on the protagonist until the 1970s. Reading experience is similar to Proust which is a check in the plus column for me but I know some readers have little tolerance for never ending sentences etc... One interesting thing he does is uses haunting photographs throughout the novel which you get to use how you will. They are not captioned and of course the story is fiction so you are left to wonder what to do with the extra information. I've found them unsettling because they are different than my usual reading experience and that's another check in the plus column for me. Perhaps their placement with minimal explanation is meant to help the reader feel like Austerlitz with his fragmented memories?

The opening scene takes place in Antwerpen, Belgium and his memories of the train ride in, Central Station and the descriptions of the city pair very well with my own recollections of my own first day there, and my 7 months of walking the same streets of which he speaks. All this to say, I was drawn to the novel immediately in a way that others may not be. I'm 2/3 through and it feels like this may be an all-timer for me. One of those 100 or so novels that I call my "10 favorite books."

[Donuthole]

If CS ever does a book club (old timers might remember we did that on CG), To Rise Again at a Decent Hour might be the most appropriate fiction selection ever. Mainly composed of the inner musings of successful, but increasingly miserable Paul O'Rourke a NYC dentist, and avowed athiest, the book's dark humor takes on many of the theological and faith related questions that CS and its predecessors have been debating for years. The plot is unique and strange, but so fitting for a gathering of progmos.

NPR had my favorite review on this novel, and if you're interested in the plot it's summarized here:
http://www.npr.org/2014/06/26/325529...-to-rise-again



I loved it, and hope at least a few of you will read it, as I'd love to hear your opinions.

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I read this one over the last few weeks. Weird barely begins to describe it. But I enjoyed it quite a bit. The characters were fun. I loved the long, one-sided dialogues between Paul C. O'Rourke and his hygienist.

[Green Monstah]

The Let Them Theory, by Mel Robbins. If you have someone in your life who is hyper-sensitive or easily offended (that's me), I highly recommend.

[MartyFunkhouser]

I read this one over the last few weeks. Weird barely begins to describe it. But I enjoyed it quite a bit. The characters were fun. I loved the long, one-sided dialogues between Paul C. O'Rourke and his hygienist.

I really enjoyed Then We Came to the End, so I think that I will give this one a read.