What BOOK are you reading right now?

p.s. Sozobe, you really need to read on in the book.

Hi littlek!

Yes, I've found Poisonwood very engrossing. I'm just at the point where the youngest daughter has died in terrible circumstances & the females of the family have headed off in their separate directions. Very sad.
I must say it's great to have so much time to read again .... I've spent whole days flat on my back on the couch reading, reading, reading .... Wonderful!
No, I haven't read other novels by Kingsolver .... Any recommendations?

You're having trouble finishing Cold Mountain, littlek? I had the same problem ... Not sure why, but I just couldn't get into it.

Finished Illusions and The Bridge Across Forever today. It's been a real bookfest for me recently. 5 in the last 2 weeks. I need to borrow some more.

Mosolga and Littlek, I've not read Poisonwood; although I've had a few long passages read to me. I know Kingsolver mainly through her essays. She has published at least two books of them. She's a bright refreshing mind.

McTag, when it comes to periodicles, I like NYRB, New Yorker, and Harpers. I increasingly find NYRB to be indispensable. It has been years since I read the Spectator. What are it's merits?

Hazlitt

I know almost nothing about her, apart from reading the Poisonwood Bible. Reading that certainly makes me want to find out more.

Hazlitt!! Hello! Was just thinking about you.

angie, my husband tells me the same thing about "Lies." I'll finish it at some point.

I think "Life of Pi" is up next for me.

Well, although The Spectator is a nominally right-wing and fairly conservative organ, which my organ is not, it has a broad spectrum of gifted writers and not all opinions expressed are conservative.
Also, the variety and the mix are good.

It is available online if you want to take a look, although I, for one, do not like reading publications online.

http://www.spectator.co.uk/frontpage.php3

Check it out, see what you think

Msolga, I don't know anymore about Kingsolver than can be read in her posted bio, but from reading her essays, by way of which, as Cynthia Ozick put it, we take a stroll through the mazy mind of the author, I'd say she's a writer who it is hard for me not to like, even if I may disagree with what she says. Sometimes I agree with her conclusion even though I arrived there by a different path.

I often judge an essayist by asking myself if I think I'd enjoy an evenings chat with him or her. I think I'd enjoy Kingsolver.

http://www.kingsolver.com/about/about.asp

McTag, Thanks for the link. I'll do some reading there and comment (may be a day or so).

Sozobe, Come back on after you read Pi. It seems like months ago you said it was on your list, and I said I wanted an opinion on one or two points.

I had coffee at Borders and read a little of Lies. This book is too exciting for me. The Chicago Tribune has enough news of Bush and his pals to keep my heart pounding all night long. I can only guess what Frankin could do to me.

Hazlitt

Thank you for that link. She sounds more interesting by the minute!
Most of all I'm impressed with anyone whose managed to find a way of existing without compromising the things they believe in. She sounds as though this is extremely important to her & you can see this in her writing.
It's interesting that she cites Doris Lessing as an important influence. I've read almost everything Lessing wrote (prior to the science fiction novels) & have been extremely impressed by her, too. Small world!

Yes, too exciting for me, precisely. So far everything that I have read has been persuasively presented, but has not been anything I needed to be persuaded of. If my pulse is going to go up, I'd like it to be in the service of something more radical then "Yeah, that's what I thought too."

But it is interesting, and I feel like I should finish it.

"Life of Pi" has been on my LIST forever, only just bought it a couple of weeks ago, a Christmas exchange. Looking forward to discussing with you. My book club read "The Da Vinci Code", better than I expected, and will be meeting to discuss that at the end of the month, probably won't start Pi until after that. (I have a bad habit of conflating plot points if I am trying to think of one book while reading another. And they both have this religious aspect.)

MsOlga - I absolutely adored the book Progidal Summer, by Kingsolver. I ravished the book of essays called Small Wonder. And, Animal Dreams is wonderful too....

I picked up a collection of short sci-fi stories called Alternative Edens. Can't fathom how some of these stories could be considered edens, but, I've never been good with short stories.

Msolga, glad you liked the link. I've not read Lessing.

Sozobe, we agree on Franken. I went out to my daughter's church to hear my grandson, who was giving a cello recital, and was a little surprised to see in the church program that a class was to be held on a week night to debunk The Da Vinci Code. I was tempted to attend, but decided not to embarrass my family.

I must say goodnight. I'm trying to get ready for a discussion tomorrow AM of Faulkner's short story Red Leaves, which by the way is a provocative story about the melding of southern white slave culture with the Indians who were in the south at the time. Faulkner was a man of wild imagination.

littlek

Thanks for the suggestions. I was wondering abour Prodigal Summer. Now it's a must! Will try to find a copy at my trusty re-loved bookshop.

Good luck with Alternative Edens. I'm not too good on sci-fi. Don't know why.

books read
Ingmar Bergman
the scion of movie direction,
from Sweden... I've just finished
his 7th work.

MsOlga, good luck with your search for P Summer! I was reared on SciFi, it's in me blood.

McTag,

Thanks again for the link to The Spectator. I just read the cover story "V is for Victory..." You are right, the magazine is a little more than a little on the conservative side. As far as I know this is the first time I've read anything by Ross Clark. He has the political writers knack of picking out the excesses in an opponents philosophy and then making light of them; and thereby, casting doubt on the whole thing. He was not too heavy handed, though, and had that redeeming English wit.

What I notice is that many political positions or philosophies come into being as a response to some obvious need. Then, time passes and the philosophy developes further. It begins to try to respond to more and more issues and problems that impinge on its area of interest. As this happens, excesses get introduced into the system, are taken seriously, and, finally, become sacrosanct. It would seem that Ross Clark was responding mostly to aspects of feminism that conceivably fall into the area of excesses.

The danger of his approach is that he pokes fun at a proposed solution to a problem without acknowledging the seriousness of the problem itself. For example, as Clark points out, a production of the Vagina Monologues staged in Kabul would doubtless be counter productive, even laughable. Yet, he fails to admit that the women of that part of the world suffer a deficit in the area of human rights, or that this deficit is an area of legitimate concern. I have this kind of criticism of writers on both the right and left.

On another tack, I recall that I subscribed to The Spectator for a while back in the 1950s because I thought I needed to expand my scope of awareness by reading a European point of view. In those days, that was about the only way you could do it. Today we just switch on the internet. Talk about a change.

Note to book lovers, McTag and myself included, I submit this post as a criticism of a style of writing that is pretty much universal. It is not my intention to introduce the discussion of specific political issues into this forum.

Hazlitt, you're most welcome.

I heartily endorse your aim of not letting politics intrude into what is a civilised thread.
(Funny we (I?) should regard politics, the very science and study of contemporary society, as uncivilised). I am not a political animal in any way, but have quite recently begun getting Spectator every week. My newsvendor keeps a copy for me.
One of its delights is, there is a literary competition ever week, sometimes poetry, sometimes prose, mostly humorous, and the high quality of the entries is astonishing. Most entertaining.

Additionally there are good and numerous book reviews, and many other things. Its not all politics by a long chalk. There, that's the last time I shall mention that word for a while.

I find it quite frustrating reading this thread, because there are so many suggestions which I would like to try!

Thank you all, McT

I found a copy of a book on one of my bookshelves that I hadn't read yet. We Were THe Mulvaneys - Joyce Carol Oates. Have read something like 90 pages so far ... Early days yet to comment. Interesting so far ...
Has anyone else read anything by this author? What's your opinion?

I'm still reading oliver twist - it's amazing the time you CAN'T steal to read by yourself.