What BOOK are you reading right now?

Almost finished with Death in Holy Orders by P.D. James, the finest mystery novel writer of all time, imo.

@Lustig Andrei,

I liked PD James, and others, but I would not put her at the top of a reread for myself. Indeed, after ten and more years of reading english mysteries, now some years ago, I'll read almost any other kind of police procedural first.

I don't expect you to agree with me nor to defend PD James and a few others to me - we seem to have different criteria.

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@Lustig Andrei,

I like P.D. James very much.

Now reading Far From The Tree by Andrew Solomon. Studies of "otherness". It's making me think of how I entered into motherhood back in 1969. Hey, I got married and had a baby, and counted his fingers and toes, and took him home from the hospital along with a starter kit of Enfamil, and then I've loved him for the next forty plus years. Oh happy, happy ignorance and good fortune.

I'll be reserving Solomon's The Noonday Demon, An Atlas of Depression.

Also reading George Saunder's short stories,Pastoralia, and recently read his children's book, The Persistent Gappers of Frith.

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Just started Nick Cohen's 'You can't read this book'. The opening salvo on islam oppression of women was worth the entry price alone (no, he doesn't let any other religion get off either).

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Just finished Cloud Atlas and loved it. Don't know where I am going after this . . . in so many ways.

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@plainoldme,

Mid reading Roddy Doyle's The Van.

Bored out of my tree for the first lot of pages, while still interested, I got more interested.

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@ossobuco,

THE OUTPOST by Jake Tapper.
A story about what our guys arre going through in the Afghan "adventures", and the idiocy of ego driven officers .

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I am finishing up The Feminine Mistake, a very frustrating book.

Apparently so many professional women are dropping out of the workforce that professional schools are rethinking whether they should admit women as readily as men, claiming the former are not as reliable an investment:

Quote:

After several decades of increasing possibilities for women, the current fashion for repudiating careers and retreating to the home has alarmed many analysts who fear that existing opportunities are being eroded and further progress will be derailed. "What's really pernicious is, 'See--we gave you all these chances, and you don't even want to take advantage of them, so why should we open our law schools and medical schools to you gals!' " says sociologist Kathleen Gerson. "It's a way of justifying not opening doors to women."

There are pages and pages like that...

(I'm sorry. I guess I've talked about this topic so often recently that I've turned into a bizarro hawkeye. No worries, I'm almost done with the book and will soon be able to forget all about it.)

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@Kolyo,

On Roddy Doyle -

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roddy_Doyle

Roddy Doyle (Irish: Ruaidhrí Ó Dúill; born 8 May 1958) is an Irish novelist, dramatist and screenwriter.
Doyle is the author of ten novels for adults, seven books for children, seven plays and screenplays, and dozens of short stories. Several of his books have been made into successful films, beginning with The Commitments in 1991. Doyle's work is set primarily in Ireland, especially working-class Dublin, and is notable for its heavy use of dialogue written in slang and Irish English dialect. Doyle was awarded the Man Booker Prize in 1993 for his novel Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha.

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I'm just finishing up John Kenneth Galbraith's MONEY. It's a great introduction to money and banking for any smart person who finds the term "money supply" a bit mystifying. It left me wanting more so I went to the university library and checked out one of the books Galbraith frequently cites in footnotes throughout his book, THE FINANCIAL HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES by Studenski and Kroos. Incredibly no one had checked it out since 1988! (I just love it when that happens; you check out a book from the college and it turns out it has sat there untouched for 25 years!)

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I've been reading David Foster Wallace's Brief Interviews with Hideous Men.
I've read about DFW and I think read one short story, but not any of his books before.

His writing knocks my socks off. I'm sure I'll have to read this again - I'm too thick to understand all that is going on, the layers, in a first read. I'm really just stunned, I like it so much, and am only 1/3 the way through it.

This after I just finished the Roddy Doyle book, The Van, which was also interesting in its way, although I spent some time wanting the protagonist to break his neck on a banana peel, or at least just shut up.

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I'm trying to get thru a book on Scientology, I have to read then re-read paragraphs because everything is so bananas. I don't know if I should laugh or cry. The title is "Getting Clear", not sure how accurate the story is, I'm not a follower of L. Ron Hubbard. I'll come back when I manage another 20 pages, I think.

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@glitterbag,

It sounds like you are finding out that not every book deserves to be read.

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@roger,

Just finished Anna Quindlen's Loud and Clear, essays that appeared in Newsweek 1994-2003. Interesting to think about what has changed and what hasn't.

Just started Standing in Another Man's Grave by Ian Rankin. I like the early Rebus better than the later ones.

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http://www.mountainsoftravelphotos.com/ReferenceImagesF/Seven%20Years%20In%20Tibet%20Book3.jpg

I'm really enjoying the extraordinarily unvarnished writing.

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Reading another Arthur Phillips book (read his 'newly discovered Shakespeare play' The Tragedy of Arthur this summer) The Egyptologist. Both are tour de forces.

The Egyptologist reminds me of Cloud Atlas in that both novels are written in several voices. I think if you add in Roddy Doyle's A Star Called Henry, you have a list of "clever novels."

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@plainoldme,

We would never expect you to be reading anything but a tour de force pom.

You should have non-English expressions in italics.

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@farmerman,

farmerman wrote:

THE OUTPOST by Jake Tapper.
A story about what our guys arre going through in the Afghan "adventures", and the idiocy of ego driven officers .

I have this one among a big pile of bought and will read...eventually.

What do you think about it?

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@ossobuco,

ossobuco wrote:

Mid reading Roddy Doyle's The Van.

Bored out of my tree for the first lot of pages, while still interested, I got more interested.

What BOOK are you reading right now?

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