What BOOK are you reading right now?

Started
"The Great Divide"
The relationship between Washington and Jefferson. An interesting analyis by Thomas Fleming that looks at their relationship in terms of what the USA could have become without Washington's sense of "ward Politics"

I really, really, really enjoy Susanna Clarke's Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell: it's about two magicians trying to bring magic back to England in the Regency period, and it doesn't have a clear antagonist (unless you count the Gentleman with the Thistledown Hair, who, in his point of view, is only helping those he likes). It's almost historical fiction with magic.

I just finished Saturn Run from John Sandford and Ctein. I've followed Sandford's police procedurals featuring the Minnesota BCI, which have been very well written, with no noticeable factual problems. Suddenly, he's joined up with Ctein and jumped into science fiction. It's flawless, except as noted in the author's note at the end.

Finished the audiobook of H. P. Lovecraft's anthology of short stories, Necronomicon: Book of Dead.

Now? Alternating between the Audible versions of ... The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt by Edmund Morris
and
A Red Herring Without Mustard by Alan Bradley

The BBC did a widely praised adaptation. Not read the book so I can't say how accurate it is, but I enjoyed it.

I wrote on the Mundane Participation thread yesterday about Diane and me going out for a great lunch (little does one hear me moan about good food out loud, if very quietly - years go by before I'll do that. I almost mooed). We had gone to a new thrift shop place first, which I also described in the Mundane thread, but didn't mention the titles of the books I nabbed.
http://able2know.org/topic/65973-143#post-6066523

That's key to some of my exhilaration (besides the new sweater/jumper).

It was, as mentioned in the other thread, a thrift shop with a great many people swarming. We were there, might as well look. I didn't see the book section until Diane clued me in, late in the visit, busy as I was trying to pass people sort of trying on clothes in the aisle, and aisles with poles (er, columns, perhaps, on the wimpy side) holding up the roof.

I'm a fair book scanner in thrifts, as I trust ehBeth and others are too. But I was knocked out, there in one of the first sections of paperbacks was a book Olivier highly recommended, that I would not guess to be in a shop in Abq.

I bought that and another one on whim: $1.99 each, good condition.

1) Suite Francaise by Irene Nemirovsky. The word Nemirovsky sparked, my just having read Olivier's posts.

2) The Tattoo Murder Case by Akimitsu Takagi
I know nada re that one.

Both of those translated.

Meantime, I remember thinking, when I first knew about my eyes now long ago, that I would die by falling in a manhole in a city street.
Now I think I might die in a roof fail in a thrift shop.

I'm going to read the japanese book first to give myself a break from reality, maybe.

Nice. I hope you enjoy them both. Do tell.

I read that several years ago and enjoyed it. I live near Smith College and saw a student who was walking down the street reading it. I did not enjoy it that much!

I love brick and mortar book stores. There is a thrill to go in and browse and come out with something that surprises. As I have been reading heavy-going, consciousness-raising and conscience-jabbing non-fiction lately, I decided to go for something light.

I picked up, "By the Book," edited by Pamela Paul from her NYT Book Review column of the same name. What fun, although it does remind that once I read the NYT Book Review with some regularity and the NY The New York Review of Books with absolute loyalty.

I opened the book and read the Foreward and the introduction, then realized that I did not have to read this book entry by entry or page by page. I could read at random. I was inspired to start with someone that I admired and liked: Emma Thompson. That called for someone totally new to me: Gary Shteyngart. I think the best way to approach this is by alternating old friends -- Isabel Allende and Amy Tan -- with new people -- Michael Chabon and Dave Eggars.

I suppose I am going to have to read some of Lovecraft's stuff. He certainly gets referenced often enough.

I just finished Robert Galbraith's Career of Evil. A surprisingly well written crime/detective. The first in the series, The Cuckoo's Calling had a very impressive blurb about the author's qualifications to write such a book. I will never believe such a blurb again, as I later discovered that Robert Galbraith was a pseudonym for J.K. Rowling.

Olivier et al, I've now read both of those books, the one on Japan in 1948, a crime novel, and Nimerovsky's book, a book for the ages.

Well, not quite, as I'm still reading the appendix(es) re Nimerovsky.

I had a tough time to start with on the book re post war Japan, not personally being very caught up in tattoo culture, but it was so well written that I succumbed and will even recommend it.

Nimerovsky? major book for me, along with Primo Levi and a few others. For anyone reading me on this as a new post, the first book to grab is A Woman in Berlin, by Anonomous.

I just finished reading three books by Louise Penny. This woman can spin a yarn--and write. Her mysteries are almost always wonderful. And her characters are multidimensional and credible.

Glad you liked Nimerovsky. She was already in hiding (in a little French village not unlike the one in the book) when she wrote it.

She's seen as a self-hating Jew by some (evidently self-loving) Jews for a previous book she wrote, David Golder. Also an excellent book, not as vibrant as the Suite though.

I'm readying another crime/mystery book by a well known Cambridge, Mass native.

The book is DUST.

Which Niverovsky? Also the name of the book on Japan.

Suite Francaise
I still haven't read the appendices, I know I will cry.

The book re Japan, fiction but also allied to reality, is Akimitsu Takagi's The Tattoo Murder Case. Lighter than the rest of these but not uninteresting.
It's part of the SohoCrime series, which I bet you might like, Tak.
I've read batches of crime novels set in Japan (my way of traveling), and would recognize author names, I think, but can't tonight do a list.That was all part of my long time interest re there.

I highly recommend two others -

A Woman in Berlin, by Anonymous
one of the best books of my life, it was Olivier who clued me in

and

Primo Levi's The Reawakening. About after he got out of Auschwitz environs, a road trip.

There's a trailer on YouTube. I'll go to the library tomorrow for the book.

The first time I visited Berlin, most of the buildings were destroyed, but we stayed in a hotel in East Berlin that seems to have survived, and I remember being able to see the TV tower from my room's window. I went up that tower many years later after they reconstructed the city.

It's now a beautiful city.

It's a trailer on youtube?

No, no, no, and no, read the book, which I take you are going to do.

It isn't all sensational though there is an aliquot of that reality, but there is a lot of ...

well, I'll let you read.


The book is her diary for two months.

It's thick.

As I do every Christmas season, I am re-reading "A Christmas Carol".