Well, that's all as maybe, but ...

...what are you reading?
     There's much talk of Booker-related reading here and there, with some hardy folk doing 'Booker marathons' of one sort or another. But if that's of no interest or relevance to your reading life then please do tell us what you are reading just now.
     I've asked this question a few times before and I'm always interested in the response - not just the books which the comments flag up  - and that in itself is a list worth referring to - but the fact that sometimes very few people (given the numbers who visit the site) are willing to say what they are reading. This may be because they are rushing and have no time to stop and chat, or could it be - heaven forfend - that they are hesitant about revealing what they have currently on the go!
     As I write this I am in that no man's land, that cross-roads place: "Between Books". I've finished an excellent biography and am swithering over what to pick up next. There's no shortage of choice here, and no Booker contenders to push their way in, so I'll see where my mood takes me!

While I make up my mind, here's what a couple of members of the family (the ones within shouting distance) are reading:
Trollope's Phineas Finn (Mr. C. is 'doing' the Palliser novels)
Dodie Smith's I Capture the Castle : Harriet's very taken with this (and look at what's on the cover!).

Comments

[Simon T]

I'm reading Edward Carey's first novel, Observatory Mansions, having loved his second, Alva & Irva. Quirky and individual.

Also reading Gentlemen Prefer Blondes!

[Treehugger]

I'm reading a new book (pub date: September), South of Broad, by Pat Conroy (The Water is Wide and lots of others). Set in Charleston, S.C. (as are all his books), it's good so far, but there's something a bit off, odd, twee, about it. We'll see.

Just finished Atlas Shrugged (Ayn Rand) which my bookclub will "do" in September. I read it in high school (many years ago), and it is now an amazingly different book! She tends to be a bit much (in tone and length--1,000+ pages) about her "message," but all in all, I found it quite interesting.
Linda C.

[Samantha]

Totally immersed in Nella Last's War Diaries and loving it so much I may soon buy Nella Last's Peace to keep me going afterward.

Having had a look at the Booker Long List I have made two extra picks - The Quickening Maze and Love and Summer. The Trevor does look very interesting.

[Claire (Paperback Reader)]

I envy Harriet reading I Capture the Castle for the first time (is it the first time?) I love the cornflowers on the cover!

I am one of the gluttons for punishment reading the Bookers and as coincidence would have it I am currently reading 1984 Booker winner, Hotel du Lac by Anita Brookner.

[Marina]

I've just come to the end of a long and arduous task, that played havoc with my reading over the last month. Two books had been left to wait for quieter times. Yesterday I finished Andrew O' Hagan's 'Be near me' but I am finding 'Weymouth Sands' by John Cowper Powys harder to pick up again. Don't get me wrong, it was a great read, and I can't wait to get back into it, but it needs more attention and concetration than I am able to give it right now. So I'm reading Christine Bell's 'The Perez family' (a Virago book I found at a local Cypriot bookstore) about a family of Cuban emigrants in Miami.

[MzTallulah]

I''m reading 'What we all long for' by Dionne Brand - I have a lifelong fascination with Toronto because my grandma was born there but I never visited, and the book was included in a 'Toronto canon' I found somewhere... also reading lots of baby books for/with my daughter, looking forward to August when hopefully I'll have a bit more time to read, and trying to decide what to devote it to.

[claire]

I'm reading Roberto Bolaño's 2666, the third part. Looking forward to I Capture as well.

[Sarah]

I'm enjoying a re-read of Trollope's The Small House at Allington (book #5 of the Barsetshire series).Once I've revisited all the Barset books, I'll be moving onto the Pallisers.

[Barbara]

There are two Booker hopefuls already on my wish list but I don't intend to read any of the others and ahem, couldn't care less about the prize.
I'm reading Linda Grant's The Thoughtful Dresser (and not liking it as much as her novel, The Clothes on their Backs) and rereading *again* The Proper Place by O Douglas. Your readers may like to know that Greyladies http://www.greyladiesbooks.co.uk/ are reprinting Pink Sugar. Sorry if you've already mentioned this.

[Dark Puss]

Reading a "Wycliffe" detective story (How to kill a cat). It's OK but not sure I'll seek out another. Just about to start (I hope) Murdoch's The Nice and the Good and also, now that it has been returned to my University library, Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita.

[Dark Puss]

Arrgh! got timed out during an edit grrrrr.
I just wanted to point readers to this excellent review of the Bulgakov http://booksdofurnisharoom.typepad.com/books_do_furnish_a_room/2009/05/a-russian-faust.html

[padma]

I started "White teeth" by Zadie Smith which I somehow missed when it was very popular, but I have another book which I want to begin: "Blackwater" by Kerstin Ekman. In Poland this book has been out of print for several years and now the Polish edition reaches enormous prizes and poeple claim that it's one of the best mysteries ever. I just got the English version and I'm very curious about it!

[adele geras]

I have just read The Nice and the Good and more on this on the 29th August! And now I'm reading a Scandinavian thriller called Woman with Birthmark by Hakan Nesser. Very good but not in the same class as Larsson and Indridasson, I don't think. But they do have something, those Nordic books...I like the atmosphere they create.

[litlove]

I'm always interested in the Booker, but I never think to read them all. I'm reading Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead, which is good, and Edith Wharton's The Mother's Recompense (always love Wharton) and some Eastern philosophy - When Things Fall Apart by Pema Chodron and On Fear by Krishnamurti. All healing and enlightening stuff. I really enjoyed Kate Pullinger's The Mistress of Nothing, which I read recently, and I'm looking forward to trying Molly Keane, who I've been meaning to read for ages.

[Becky]

Well: am taking a course on Wabanaki (Native people of Maine) history for teaching purposes in a week so have read two books for that course: Out of the Deep by Isabelle Knockwood and The Life and Traditions of the Red Man by Joseph Nicolar. Both were interesting and challenging in that neither is typical "literature" and both deal with areas of history that are unknown to me.

Now have been reveling in classic detective fiction: Under Orders by Dick Francis (excellent!), Dead Heat, by Dick Francis and his son Felix (a little more wooden, a few more stock characters, etc, but still entertaining), and The Private Patient by PD James--clearly, the work of a master (mistress) of the craft. I am still a tad confused by the resolution of the crime (have a bad tendency to skim over technical details, but I did go back and reread). Have just started Her Royal Spyness by Rhys Bowens, which is tons of fun, and have been challenged by my son and his friend to read ALL of the first and second Artimus Fowl books--after I confessed that I skipped to the end of the first one because I disliked Artemus as a character so intensely. I have been caught out, and must now pay the price--but I think I will get it on cd so I can work on my February Lady sweater as I do penance!

[Becky]

Er. . . follow up note: it's ARTEMIS Fowl (by Eoin Colfer)--so I was wrong on BOTH spelling counts.

[GeraniumCat]

I'm reading Patricia McKillip's Winter Rose which is a wonedrfully wistful, dreamlike story with resonances of the ballad Tam Lin - I particularly like retellings and reworkings of fairy stories - and Memory, Wisdom and Healing by Gabrielle Hatfield, an history of plant remedies in Britain since the eighteenth century. Next on my list is Denis Severs' account of the restoration of his silk-weavers's house in Spitalfield, now a museum that I plan to visit in the autumn.

[Mary McCartney]

Downstairs at my desk I've just finished reading 'The Children's Book' and tying in nicely, quite by accident, upstairs I was reading 'The Perfect Summer' by Juliet Nicholson. I unreservedly enjoyed the latter, was less happy about 'The Chilren's Book'.

[Heather Bond]

I'm just finishing Mariana by Monica Dickens (in the lovely Persephone Classics edition) and thoroughly enjoying it.

Next up, either Before Lunch by Angela Thirkell or Yesterday Morning by Diana Athill.

[Serenknitity]

I'm reading 'Whose Body?' by D L Sayers on my iPhone while travelling by tube, 'Hearts and Minds' by Amanda Craig in bed at night, and 'Naked' by David Sedaris intermittently. Finished 'The Little Stranger' on audio book and so enjoyed it I know nothing else will compare for a while. I'm taking 'I Capture The Castle' on holiday, by co-incidence, and also 'Deaf Sentence' by David Lodge.

[Pink Ladybug]

Oh, I love these posts, one gets such good reading suggestions. I am trying to read-down my piles of TBR at the present....but there is always temptation to buy the new. 'Henrietta's War' in particular is calling my name. I just finished "The Girl with the Pearl Earing" by Tracy Chevalier on the way to work this morning and got two pages into 'Angel' by Elizabeth Taylor, before I reached my train stop.

[Claire]

East Fortune by James Runcie. Although I could appreciate the quality of the writing, I just couldn't engage with the characters. Now Henriettta's War. Not hard to guess whose recommendations I follow!

[Swati]

I'm between books. Just finished Little Stranger today morning, and I'm wondering whether to take Angel Carter's Nights at the Circus next, or Wilderness. I also have The Handmaid's Tale and Julian Fellowes' Past Imperfect high up on my TBR list

[Anna]

Simultaneously (got to have a house book and a travel book--one can be made to stay open at the breakfast table, the other's light enough to carry) reading Diary of a Provincial Lady and Elizabeth Jane Howard's Marking Time, second in the Cazalet Chronicle. Very much liking them both, though I have yet to quite get into the swing of Marking Time.

[Jenny]

Just finished Charles McCarry's spy novel The Miernik Dossier (excellent), and am about to start another spy novel, Spies of Warsaw by Alan Furst. Then I'm gearing up to read War and Peace before the Summer of Long Classics is over.

[Elizabeth]

Just started John Grisham's The Associate - I had read it before but it is just as riveting the second time around. Dipping into (frequently) Bill Bryson's A Short History of Nearly Everything, and reading and re-reading as many Jane Gardams as I can get for my book club presentation.

[Danielle]

I loved I Capture the Castle-and what a pretty cover! :) I'm juggling a variety of books at the moment (of course). I'm still working on (and enjoying immensely) Sophia's Secret, feeling almost like I'm on an exotic vacation while reading Agatha Christie's Death on the Nile. I've just started William Maxwell's most excellent The Folded Leaf (have you read him? I think you'd appreciate his writing). And I'm dipping into Rosamunde Pilcher's Coming Home which is a reread.

[Elaine]

Just finished a stunning biog of L M Montgomery by Mary Hedley Rubio, two vols of LMM's journals, the latest Sarah Dunant Sacred Hearts which was wonderful and today, by way of light relief am reading (in bed with cup of tea early this morning) Quick Service by Wodehouse. Also started, We the Accused by Ernest Raymond.

[Tara]

I am reading load of things right now! Harry Potter 7, Sophie Kinsella's silly but fun new book, one by Mary Stanley, Sarah Dunant's new one, and finally, a book I've been reading for ages but am not really enjoying. I need to push towards the end and say goodbye to it.