What are you reading?

   

 

     It's been a good six months since I asked that question (post here and rough 'analysis' of results here), so time to do it again - everyone can contribute if they want to and it's a great way to get lots of cross-recommendations.

    Two questions, then:

1. What are you currently reading, and how are you getting on with it?

2. What's been your best book so far this year?

Comments

[Dark Puss]

I am half-way through Middlemarch by Mary Ann Evans. Apart from the fact that I think it is a little too long I am enjoying it. I like her sly digs at societal norms in particular and was interested to see how much contemporary science comes across too.

Best so far - I'm too tired to think properly so I'll come back to you on that one!

[Coffee and a Book Chick]

I'm currently reading By Fire, By Water, by Mitchell James Kaplan -- it's historical fiction about the Spanish Inquisition, and it is brilliant thus far!

And the best so far, this year? Hmm. There are so many that I've really enjoyed -- Evenfall, by Liz Michalski (to be released in Feb), Coffee and Fate, by RJ Erbacher, The Monsters of Templeton, by Lauren Groff, Sharp Objects, by Gillian Flynn...so hard to choose from! The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton I might have to select as *the* best simply because it's a classic that is still relevant today. Such a good book!

[Alison May]

Hello! I am de-lurking (shame on me!) to answer your question... I am currently enthralled by Miss Million's Maid by Bertha Ruck. It is the story of nouveau pauvre Miss Lovelace, who offers up her services as ladys maid to her own maid of all works when she inherits a million dollars. There follows a breathlessly daft stream of exciteable romps through mini disasters and hilarious crisis's all steeped in the kind of Edwardian social snobbery that can at times get a tad uncomfortable in this day and age...

But never mind the politics of it: though I remain mildly bewildered by the prose, events whizz by so fast one cannot help but be carried along, laughing at Miss Lovelaces snobbish outrage and admiring her valiant efforts to adapt to her new place in society much challenged by adversity and the flippity bibbity behaviour of her former maid and her love of all things in bad taste: both dresses and fly-be-night men!

Though not a book to be taken even half seriously, while feeling dementedly stuffed up with a cold, it has been a vintage pleasure to curl up with my Kindle and let the modern world come to a stand still for a while...

Find it on Many Books...
http://manybooks.net/titles/ruckb3397733977-8.html

[Mary Grover]

I'm a regular lurker but don't think I've ever posted before. I'm presently struggling a bit with John Lanchester's "The Debt to Pleasure." I find it slow and the narrator annoying and too much given to the use of French. Perhaps British readers as a group tend to have a smattering of French but I do not. (However,books with untranslated Spanish are no problem for me.)

It is too difficult to choose only one best book of the year. Here are three:
1)"The Music of Failure" a book of essays by the late poet Bill Holm, originally published in 1985. I had to buy my own copy after reading the library copy. The book was also published under the title: "Prairie Days."
2)"Poetry as Survival" by Gregory Orr. I haven't acquired my own copy yet, but I will. I love this poet.
3)"The Hakawati" by Rabih Alameddine is the fiction I'll mention now. It's full of Arabian Nights like stories mixed up with modern Lebanon. The author is Lebanese American. And there were at least five other candidates for best fiction read so far this year.

[Crafty Green Poet]

I'm currently reading Facing OUt to Sea by Peter Adamson, a novel set in Sri Lanka, I'm enjoying it but not as much as his novel The Tuscan Master, which is one of the best novels I've ever read (sadly out of print now). I'm also reading The Ottomans by Andrew Wheatcroft, a very readable but bloodthirsty history of the Ottoman Empire.

The best novel I've read this year is probably Lorsque j'etais un oeuvre d'art *When I was a Work of Art) by Erich Emmanuel Schmitt, an incredibly thought provoking novel about human identity and art.

[Eva]

I have just finished rereading my Barbara Pym books. Usually, I manage one or two re-readings a year, but late this summer, I started to read them in chronological order. She never fails to draw me in to her post-War Oxford, and the lives of "excellent women", vicars, vicars' wives, graduate students, and the generation just heading into the Sixties. At the same time, I am meant to be reading Orhan Pamuk's Istanbul for my book club, and am also reading Stoner, thanks to this website. It had to be especially ordered by my library and I am so glad they gave the "ok." It is a wonderful, thoughtful book.

[Susie Vereker]

Well, I really enjoyed Cutting for Stone by Abraham Vergese and intend to blog about it soon. Can't remember all the books I've read this year but I thought The Help by Kathryn Stockett was gripping. Enjoyed The Colour by Rose Tremain, A Week in December by Sebastian Faulks. Also liked the Cornflower book choice, My Cousin Rachel.

[Audrey]

Currently reading: a lot of mysteries, because that's what's coming up in my library reserves. Right now, the latest Simon Serrailler by Susan Hill. I still like the first one best, but this one's good.

Best books of the year? (Best, as in enjoyed most...) Major Pettigrew's Last Stand, The Tortoise and the Hare (and Elizabeth Jenkins' biography of Jane Austen), Death Comes for the Archbishop (thanks to you!), Cranford, The Cookbook Collector, The Three Weissmans of Westport, and Washington Irving's short story 'The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.'

[Sandy]

I am reading 'The Owl Service' by Alan Garner, as reccommended here - and I am absolutely loving it.

My favourite book of the year is 'The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet' by David Mitchell.

[adele geras]

I am currently reading Catherine O'Flynn's second novel THE NEWS WHERE YOU ARE which is very enjoyable and quite different from most other novels. I like it a lot but it's not as good as her first I don't think. I've been reading this book, which is very short for more than two weeks but that's because we've been moving house and there was a period of ten days or so when I was not reading AT ALL....something that has never happened to me before EVER!

Best two books of the year are Marina Endicott's GOOD TO A FAULT and Elizabeth Strout's AMY AND ISABELLE.

[Anna]

1. Currently reading The Forgotten Garden by Kate Morton. It's lovely; I wish I had more time to read it. Also in the middle of Strong Poison by Dorothy L. Sayers.

2. My best book is a much harder question. Either The Man of Property by John Galsworthy, A Room with a View by E.M. Forster, or Blackout by Connie Willis.

[Susan in TX]

Currently reading: The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins (barely into it as I was been interrupted to tackle the Iliad with my eldest, but really enjoyed the first two chapters and am hoping to get back into this weekend), Westward Ho! by Charles Kingsley, Dug Down Deep by Joshua Harris, and Leepike Ridge by N.D. Wilson (aloud to my kids).

Best so far this year: This is a toughy - I do good to get it down to a "top 10" at the end of each year! :) Howard's End is on the Landing by Susan Hill, The Help by Kathryn Stockett, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows, What Did You Expect? by Paul David Tripp and The Hawk and the Dove Trilogy by Penelope Wilcock (a re-read, but could be #1 on the list for the year - it's a very powerful book and is perfect for winter reading by a fire).

[Dark Puss]

I haven't quite keeled over yet so as threatened I'm back!

Best book new to me was without doubt If on a Winter’s Night a Traveller by Italo Calvino.

Best re-read (yes very rarely I do) was Ripening Seed by Colette

DP falls over ...

[Barbara]

Currently finishing a series of four books, rather obscure, about Rangers. I'll write them up when I'm done. At the same time reading The Lady of the Basement Flat by Mrs George de Horne Vaizey.

Two of the best books I've read this year were written for children: Beswitched by Kate Saunders and The London Eye Mystery by Siobhan O'Dowd.

[GeraniumCat]

I loved the Calvino, I wish I could rediscover it!

Just finished Hue and Cry, which you mentioned here recently, Cornflower (I took that as a recommendation, even though you said you hadn't read it), and enjoyed it very much. I've picked up a couple of things today, but nothing suits my mood, though I've got a book about polar bears on the Kindle. Best books of the year? Alan Garner's Thursbitch and The City and the City by China Mieville.

[serenknitity]

I'm reading 'The Crimson Petal and The White' in a hurry as it's shortly going to be serialised on TV. One reviewer claimed it's 'like Charles Dickens with sex' - how good does that sound?

My faves this year are two short ones - 'The Believers' by Zoe Heller and 'Brooklyn' by Colm Toibin. The first slyly funny, the second haunting.

[Barbara]

I loved Middlemarch, George Eliot creates such a complete world in it. (I live just a few miles from the place Middlemarch is based upon, we have the George Eliot hospital and the Middlemarch Business Park!)

[Barbara]

I can't remember all the books I've read this year, and not sure I could pick a favourite if I tried, I know I read all of John Connolly's in the first couple of months and loved them all, and really enjoyed Jo Nesbo's The Snowman. At the moment I'm reading Kelley Armstrong's Industrial Magic having picked up that and Dime Store Magic in a charity shop, great fun!

[Georgina]

On Mr Cornflower's recommendation I'm reading 'The hare with amber eyes' by Edmund de Waal and loving it. The current read often seems like the best this year but if pushed I would probably say the new C J Sansom. Jo Nesbo is beckoning from the to-be-read pile.

[Elizabeth]

I'm halfway through Bess of Hardwick by Mary S Lovell; I am presenting it to my book club on Tuesday so have to get a hurry up today. Fascinating history. Lots of 'best' books as I tend to be enthusiastic (or highly critical or non-committal or of course there are some I can't read beyond the first few pages) but I nominate Truth by Peter Temple as top of the list of 'best' books; a 'cop' book set in Melbourne, it is much more than that - just wonderful. I've read it three times already.

[Linda C.]

Currently Reading: Must You Go, My Life with Harold Pinter (Antonia Fraser)I'm not enjoying it much and may not finish it. It's full of names of A-list folks, but very little emotion so far. Rather boring.
Best this year: Two about war(not my usual subject matter) "Matterhorn", a novel about VietNam war which took thirty years to write. And "To the End of the Land" by David Grossman about war and a mother's anguish for her soldier/son. Also Tinkers and The Hare with the Amber Eyes.
Top of my TBR stack: review of new bio of Cleopatra

[Sarah]

1. I'm currently being charmed by Elizabeth and her German garden by Elizabeth von Arnim.
2. Glad to see If on a winter's night... and Truth mentioned by others, the best books I've read this year are Too much happiness by Alice Munro, Can you forgive her? by Anthony Trollope, Started early took my dog my Kate Atkinson and Reading by Moonlight by Brenda Walker.

[yvonne]

I am currently reading a crime thriller, about an Irish Private Investigator, "The Colour Of Blood" by Declan Hughes. It is the second book in the series, although you don't need to have read the first one to catch up with any plot. The book has had some mixed reviews, so far page 96/348, I am enjoying it, although it is not going to be one of my outstanding reads.

It is always really difficult to select a particular favourite book of the year, but if I have to choose one, I would go for "The Girls" by Lori Lansens. A highly emotional read, sensitively written in an unusual format, that I didn't want to end.

[Lyn]

I've just finished Judi Dench's And Furthermore. Interessting look at her professional life but not much of the personal. I'm reading 3 books with different book groups. War & Peace with dovegreyreader - just finished second instalment & loving it. Anne Bronte's Tenant of Wildfell Hall with my online group - third time I've read it & it's hard not to race ahead of the weekly instalments. Devil's Elixirs by E T A Hoffmann with another online group - German Gothis, very overworught & melodramatic. Not sure how well it works as a novel but I need to know how the very confusing plot works out. I'm also listening to David Rintoul reading Monarch of the Glen by Compton Mackenzie. Very funny, can't wait to get back in the car for the next chapter. Next up wil be some Remembrance reading. I always read something related to WWI or II in November so I'll be having a look at the tbr shelves soon.

[Jennifer Dee]

I have just finished Kate Mosse's 'The Winter Ghosts' which I loved. My favourite books of the year is between Rumma Godden's biography 'A Time To Dance, No Time To Weep' and 'A House with Four Rooms' both brilliant books. The other favourite book of the year is 'The Silent Traveller in Oxford' by Chiang Yee. This book is part of a series of books that Yee wrote in the 30s and 40s whilst travelling around Britain. Yee first visited London in 1934 then in 1937 and finally in 1939 his placed of residence was bombed so he moved to Oxford. This book is beautifully written with his own illistrations. Thinking about it this is definitley my favourtie book of this year. I am on the look out for the rest of his books which unfortunatley out of print.

[Harriet]

I am just finishing The Shuttle by Frances Hodgson Burnett -- reading it on my iphone which is OK though I'd rather have the book. I have some reservations but am enjoying it none the less. Am also struggling with a book I am reading for work -- How Late It Was How Late by James Kelman, a Booker Prize winner but a tough book which I would not be reading if I wasn't being paid to do so. I can never say what my best read of the year would be, but a book I have just finished must be high on the list -- Annie Proulx's Postcards, an amazing novel.

[Ros]

I think I would say that Middlemarch is the best book I have ever read. Though, as a struggling PhD student, I wish I weren't quite so haunted by Mr Casaubon!

[Juxtabook]

I am currently failing to read War and Peace for Team Toltoy at DGR and to amekup for that I am beginning Harbour by John Ajvide Lindqvist (Let the Right one In).

Best book of the year? It will have to be plural: Conceit by Mary Novik tops my list alongside The Tsar's Dwarf by Peter H. Fogtdal, and a close third the lovely but bewildering Tales of Protection by Erik Fosnes Hansen and Fludd by Hilary Mantel.

[catharina]

Currently (re)reading Kate Chopin The Awakening and Jane Kenyon From Room To Room (Collected Poems). Best this year so far Susan Hill The Service of Clouds and
Colm Toíbín Brooklyn.

[Julie Fredericksen]

I am reading The Princess of Burundi by Kjell Eriksson, a Swedish crime writer. I liked the Stieg Larsson trilogy so I thought I'd check out this one. I'm enjoying it very much.

Favorite books would have to include the Flavia de Luce series, Major Pettigrew's Last Stand, The Help, and The Kitchen House by Kathleen Grissom.

I see they are making The Help into a movie. I look forward to seeing how well they capture the book.

[Julie Fredericksen]

Yes! to The Girls. I read it a couple of years ago and it would have been on my best book list that year.

[MaureenD]

I have just started The Lunar Men by Jenny Uglow and Vampires and Volts by Marcus Sedgwick (a children's novel) but am also three quarters of the way through Fragile Eternity, the third in Melissa Marr's Wicked Lovely sequence for teenagers, which I am enjoying as a seriously guilty pleasure!

Favourites are a bit more difficult but would have to include Where I belong by Gillian Cross, The Undrowned Child, Sunshine by Robin McKinley, The Childrens Book by A S Byatt, Terry Pratchett's Unseen Academicals, and The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins.

[stujallen]

I m reading Ilustrado by miguel syjuco ,a book about a writer searching for the last book and strange death of a great Philippines writer ,a wonderful bit of meta-fiction ,also old school tobias wolff a story set in an American private school in sixties ,favourite this year oh postcards from a dead girlfriend Kirk Farber ,circus bulgaria by Deyan Enev ,the end salavtore scibona all stand out but may change by end of year ,all the best stu

[Betty]

I'm reading "The Three Insights" by author Tim Pond. It's a non-fiction, self help book about finding your purpose in life. It discusses profound themes with humor, illuminating stories and surprising elements like; What is my true self? What is my unique purpose? What is everyone’s common purpose? I'm loving it! http://www.threeinsights.net/book/

[Pippa]

Currently reading Room, which I'm sure most lit blog followers will know, and really enjoying it.

Favourite book this year- Any Human Heart William Boyd, read this at the start of the year and glad I did, as it will be nice to have read it before watvhing the tv adaptation (which I am really looking forward to.) Pippa

[M (notarevolution)]

Currently reading Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel. I don't often read about the Tudors, but I picked this one up because it was on all the "best book of the year" lists in 2008 and because the focus is on Thomas Cromwell instead. I'm only about 40 pages into it, but I do like Mantel's writing. I find her frequent use of "he" (for Cromwell) a bit frustrating, though.

Favorite books from this year included:
-The City in Which I Love You - Li-Young Lee (poetry)
-Purple Hibiscus - Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
-Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day - Winifred Watson
-The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears - Dinaw Mengestu

[Susan P.]

I am currently reading T.C. Boyle's The Women, which I am enjoying although I don't think it's as good as others by him. Best books I have read so far this year are the Pat Barker World War I trilogy. I also enjoyed Julia Blackburn's Old Man Goya for a nonfiction book.

[Marina McIntire]

I just started Russo's That Old Cape Magic. So far, there is a fair amount of focus on academic types -- and as I am retired from being one of those, it's quite interesting.

Best book(s) of the year.... hmmm.
Helen Garner, The Spare Room
Ron Carlson, Five Skies
Elinor Lipman, The Family Man

[Mr Cornflower]

Good luck with Lanchester. The narrator is deeply unpleasant but the story grows on you.

[Mr Cornflower]

Glad you're enjoying de Waal, Georgina - it has been I think my book of the year. My current read is "Metier d'Historien" (The Historian's Craft) by Marc Bloch (1886 -1944) scholar, soldier, member of the French Resistance.

[Barbara]

My goodness, that was one of the books on my pre-university reading list. I'd forgotten all about it.

[Janet]

I'm currently reading George Sand's Winter in Majorca, translated and annotated by Robert Graves.It is about the few months George and her son and daughter together with Chopin spent at Valledemosa in Majorca. I watched a serial about the life of George Sand on French television, but haven't so far read anything by her, except this. I'm enjoying it, as she is an extremely self-opinionated writer, but some of her opinions are refuted by Robert Graves. I'm also reading Suzanne Griffith's Stitching for Victory, about the amount of textiles which were stitched in some way during World War Two and the austerity period just after. The range of textiles mentioned is huge, from barrage balloons, blankets, parachutes, to uniforms of all sorts as well as clothing.
One of my favourite reads this year has been Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall, for the sheer quality of her writing.

[m]

Best reads this year were Wolf Hall and The Hare with Amber Eyes. But at the moment I am limping through The Lacuna and if it wasn't for fact that it's a book group choice, I'd happily abandon it ... I might anyway! Not sure I can face another 300 pages to go!

[Linda Gillard]

Have just finished Rosy Thornton's THE TAPESTRY OF LOVE which I thought was completely marvellous - so beautifully written. It also reminded me quite a bit of one of my old favourites, Mary Stewart. That would have to be my favourite novel so far this year, but I've mostly been reading non-fiction, of which the best were Deborah Devonshire's WAIT FOR ME! and Karen Armstrong's THE SPIRAL STAIRCASE. Both were completely engrossing reads.

[Sarah west mids uk]

Well I have just read a Bouquet of Barbed Wire and enjoyed it for its period feel.
Also read The Midnight Fox ,this I read on the way to work (travel by bus) and had me crying at the end. Plan to re read Jamacia Inn as the opening is set in November.
So many books to read and re read!!!

[Mystica]

Off the cuff Best book is tough. I liked Still Missing very very much - the Widows season by Laura Brodie was excellent for me.

right now I am reading Anita Shreve's Strange Fits of Passion and next up is Pankaj Mishra's The Romantics.

[LizF]

Currently reading War & Peace for DGR's readalong, Faithful Place by Tana French and Millicent Dorrington by Richmal Crompton.
Favourite books so far would have to include The River by Rumer Godden, Major Pettigrew's Last Stand, The Tapestry of Love, White Crow by Marcus Sedgewick (thanks for that Cornflower), Princes in the Land by Joanna Cannan and the wonderful Corrag by Susan Fletcher.
I'm sure that there are others I will think of as soon as I post this but those are the ones that spring to mind.

[Margaret Powling]

As with Linda Gillard (above) I've recently finished The Tapestry of Love (Rosie Thornton) and absolutely loved it. Current reading: The Season of Second Chances by Diane Meier, which is equally enjoyable. Best book this year? Hard to say but perhaps the ones I remember the most are the two historical crime novels by the late Michael Cox, The Meaning of Night and The Glass of Time. These are love 'em or hate 'em novels, and I absolutely loved 'em! Also reading non-fiction: Juliet Gardiner's The Edwardian Country House (which accompanied a TV series several years ago but don't let that put anyone off; the period details are excellent) and Martin Wood's biograpny of Nancy Lancaster. Just arrived in today's post: Donimic Dunne's The Two Mrs Grenvilles which I can't wait to start ...

[Mary Grover]

I think it was your recommendation that led me to getting "Tales of Protection" from the library. I really enjoyed it though I also found it bewildering at times. It is one of many books I've only discovered through book blogs. Most of these discoveries I enjoy. I'm only occasionally disappointed, as I was with
"The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie."

[Fictionwitch.wordpress.com]

Currently reading The Heir of Redclyffe by Charlotte Yonge, which is rather glorious, if you like that sort of slightly dotty, High Victorian thing, which I do appreciate everyone doesn't! But her people are very attractive and real, and I would recommend any one who likes George Eliot to give Yonge a go. In complete contrast, my best book this year so far has been an Ian Rankin: The Naming of the Dead, which took me a while to get into and then completely knocked the socks off me.