Where's your reading taking you?

   It's been a while since we had a "where are you?" post, one of those where we swap the literary locations we're visiting through the pages of whatever we're currently reading.

    With precious little free time at the moment, I'm taking Vanessa Gebbie's The Coward's Tale at a sedate pace, but I'm loving every word of it. It's not a book to rush, anyway, as that would be to insult the excellent writing and its beautifully crafted, cleverly interwoven stories, all set in a small Welsh mining town; this means that while I'm physically here at home trying to keep up to speed with Christmas preparations, my reading is taking me slowly and quietly up and down the streets inhabited by 'Factual' Philips the librarian, Baker Bowen - who is not a baker, Icarus Evans the feather-carving woodwork teacher, and Ianto Passchendaele Jenkins, the beggar-storyteller whose own history is just beginning to be revealed.

    Happily, words alone need not suffice as there is a lovely map of the book's location to help us picture it, and to have a proper look at it (and a listen, too, because it's a musical map), just click here.

    So that's where my reading's taking me - where's yours taking you?

Comments

[Teresa]

My reading is keeping me right at home at the moment. I'm reading The Revisionists my Thomas Mullen, which is set right in Washington DC. The opening scene was just a couples of miles from my house, and one of the characters shops several times at a grocery store I visit now and then. It's been a fun read because the author clearly knows the city. Too often, books and films set in DC ignore everything outside the monuments, White House, and Capital building.

[adele geras]

My reading has recently taken me to Iceland with Sarah Moss....her fortcoming memoir of a year spent there is called NAMES FOR THE SEA and you would be most interested in it, Cornflower, as a lover of NIGHT WAKING! Now I'm in North London reading about a nanny who is clearly NOT ALL SHE SEEMS: Araminta Hall's Everything and Nothing. It's what my daughters call ' a roll' ( short for 'rollicking good read.)

[LizF]

I'm not getting much reading time either at the moment due to a combination of being busy at work and Christmas preparations at home but for the last week or so I have been dividing my time between the Perigord of Martin Walker's town policeman Bruno and his third adventure, The Black Diamond, and the narrow paths and ruined villages of mountainous Liguria. Writer Julia Blackburn has recorded the stories of her mostly elderly neighbours and the terrible times they went through in wartime in Thin Paths. She came to the area after her partner went walking in the mountains and fell in love with a ruined house and they now spend a large proportion of the year there. The book is full of atmosphere and stories of a life that is long gone and will soon be forgotten as the last generation to experience it passes on.
I can thoroughly recommend both books in their different ways but I definitely plan to buy copies of Thin Paths to pass on to friends and family once it gets into paperback.

[oxslip]

Accrington - poor Jeanette Winterson has put her real life on paper at last (Why be happy when you could be normal? It's not dissimilar to Oranges, only more brutal and with a surprising amount of self-justification. Personally I think it's a miracle she's still alive given her childhood and no justification required, though of course I've never been at the sharp end of her moods or anger.

[Dark Puss]

From Germany to Switzerland, a sanitorium in Davos, since I'm about 1/3 of the way through The Magic Mountain. I made a brief post on the mountainous part of the railway journey on MCS.

[LizF]

I have just visited dovegreyreader and Lynne has a wonderful review of Thin Paths as her current post.
All the things I would like to say about it but written in her own inimitable way and far better than I could manage!

[Cornflower]

I love to read novels set in familiar places!

[Cornflower]

Yes, I'd be very keen to read Names for the Sea, and I happen to have Everything and Nothing, so I must move it up the pile...

[Cornflower]

What good timing!

[Cornflower]

I've still not read her, but I've heard her talk about her childhood in interviews and it does sound extraordinary.

[Cornflower]

Still only 1/3, DP? Is it not gripping, or have you been having little reading time lately?

[Anji]

Well I am out on Dartmoor at the moment. It is bleak, weatherwise which is quite different from the white scenic view from my window. I have just started 'You' by Joanna Briscoe. It is slow going mostly because I haven't had the time to really sit down and read.

I am making better progress with my audio book 'Swan Thieves' by Elizabeth Kostova which is set in Washington DC. I always try to listen to something when I am out driving around. I have found audio books are just what you need when you're stuck in traffic!

Merry Christmas to you, Cornflower and best wishes for a great New Year!

[Rosie H]

I'm between books at this moment, but a recent re-read (When Jays Fly to Barbmo, by Margaret Balderson) took me to the very north of Norway, where there are months without the sun. It's a WWII book, but with a very unusual (to me) setting, and is both harrowing and beautiful. Highly recommended (though probably out of print).

[Jo]

I am in Post War Britain and I have not discovered where exactly - I think it is meant to represent everywhere. I am reading Just Henry by Michelle Magorian after it being on the kindle for 99p and also adapted for the telly last night.

Just a wonderful tale so far.

[FleurFisher]

I'm in Bath with Catherine Morland.

I had been in the same Welsh town as you, but I don't have the concentration to do the book justice at the moment.

[Sandy]

I am happily absorbed into the world created by Robin Hobb in the Farseer Trilogy. At present I am in the Farseer's army base in Moonseye, the Six Duchies' outpost on the borders of the Mountain kingdom - about 30% into the 1st book Assassin's Apprentice.

It's well written with a lot of detail to bring the place to life. For those who like this genre I can reccommend it so far.

[Claire]

I am in Victorian Britain traveling between Windsor/Osborne/Balmoral with a self-absorbed Queen Victoria. The wonderfully written Magnificent Obsession by Helen Rappaport. She brings her fresh writing to the well known story of Victoria's mourning for her beloved Albert.

[Dark Puss]

Checking last night I find I'm only 1/4 of the way through! Indeed I am spending only a few minutes per day reading novels at the moment and the book is complex and very philosophical which doesn't make for rapid progress.

[Margaret @ BooksPlease]

I'm in London, with Poirot in The Clocks. I'm squeezing it in between Christmas preparations - hope to finish it before Christmas Day. The Coward's Tale sounds like a book to savour - next year, maybe.

[Claire]

Sorry, have to put it right or I won't sleep tonight! "travelling"!

[Lucy]

I am in Wales. I just finished Judy Corbett's "Castles in the Air" and am with Jan Morris in "A Writer's House in Wales". Makes me want to visit and spend at least one night in a castle.

[Julie Fredericksen]

Claire,

You're all right with us Americans as we spell it traveling!

[m]

Just back from the Hebrides after your recommendation of The Blackhouse!

[Claire]

In reply to Julie. Thank you - I'll remember if I'm traveling in the US!