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Our original What's everyone reading right now? thread has gotten to be quite long. So starting in 2021, we will open this new thread and close the older one.

Reading Bag Man: The Wild Crimes, Audacious Cover-Up, and Spectacular Downfall of a Brazen Crook in the White House by Rachel Maddow. The baddie in question was Spiro Agnew. I will not finish it today (New Year's Eve).

That sounds intriguing, Allen. I love a good nonfiction book.

It is good -- and while you're at it, take a look at the granddaddy of all Watergate books: All the President's Men

My first classic for 2021 will be War and Peace. I even started a few days early.

ALLEN wrote: "It is good -- and while you're at it, take a look at the granddaddy of all Watergate books: All the President's Men"

That one has been on my TBR list for so long.

Milena wrote: "My first classic for 2021 will be War and Peace. I even started a few days early."

Oh, good for you!

I have spent the last few days finishing up a few short books to boost my total for 2020 ;o)
inlcuding Clarice Lispector's extraordinary Near to the Wild Heart

Darren wrote: "I have spent the last few days finishing up a few short books to boost my total for 2020 ;o)
inlcuding Clarice Lispector's extraordinary Near to the Wild Heart
[bookcover:Near to th..."

Glad to see that the Lispector is going so well for you, Darren.

I am wrapping up the year with Nutcracker and Mouse King and the Tale of the Nutcracker .

I begun reading book two of Ramses the Damn-The Passion of Cleopatra by Anne Rice & Christopher Rice. Also continued with the Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter series book # 8 Blue Moon by Laurell K. Hamilton.

I started The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett.

I just finished The Mischief of the Mistletoe and tomorrow will be starting Rebecca. :)

I have started We by Yevgeny Zamyatin.

Now that 2021's finally here, I've started:

Pilgrimage, Vol. 1 - Dorothy M. Richardson
Nectar in a Sieve - Kamala Markandaya
A Personal Matter - Kenzaburō Ōe
East of Eden - John Steinbeck

I have started The Portrait of a Lady and The Wall.

Starting for January:
��������������ô by Gustave Flaubert 1862;
Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë 1847;
Bleak House by Charles Dickens 1853;
The First Republic, Or, the Whites and the Blues, in Two Volumes; Volume 2 by Alexandre Dumas 1867; and,
Honore de Balzac in Twenty-Five Volumes: The First Complete Translation Into English, with Illustrations from Drawings on the Wood by Famous French Artists; Volume 5 (Ursule Mirouet - Eugenie Grandet) by Honoré de Balzac 1841.

These are the ones I started today, January 1st. Since I have chosen several long ones, I may only read a few pages of them each day and finish a couple of the longer ones in February. But I really want to read them all -- so I'm going to!! ;)

A Promised Land by Barack Obama
The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
The Idiot by Elif Batuman
The Night of the Hunter by Davis Grubb
Outlander by Diana Gabaldon
11/22/63 by Stephen King

I'm currently reading The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper by Hallie Rubenhold.

Vintage Season is a Golden Age of Science Fiction short story. I absolutely loved it. I often turn to science fiction for "fun" reading. This short story is by a writing team that I knew of but just had not read their story yet from my anthology. Henry Kuttner and his wife C. L. Moore (Catherine) wrote under numerous pen names and were staples in Gold Age Science Fiction magazines. They have numerous stories from the 1940s in particular.

Lynn wrote: "Vintage Season is a Golden Age of Science Fiction short story. I absolutely loved it. I often turn to science fiction for "fun" reading. This short story is by a writing team that I..."

Lynn, I read Vintage Season over the summer and loved it! It was part of a duo of science fiction novellas, Vintage Season/In Another Country. I love reading some of the classic sci-fi novels and stories from the past.

Thank you for the thread Katy!

Started The Vicomte de Bragelonne
Yesterday.

Franky wrote: "Lynn wrote: "Vintage Season is a Golden Age of Science Fiction short story. I absolutely loved it. I often turn to science fiction for "fun" reading. This short story is by a writin..."

I have already over-committed on challenges, but I am thinking about a 1940s decade challenge of science fiction that will feature Henry Kuttner and C. L. Moore (or Lewis Padgett their pen name) heavily. Like I said, this is my "fun" reading. Franky, last week I read The Lineman by Walter M. Miller Jr. and it was also fantastic!

Finished Tracks, and will be reading Captain’s Daughter and Waiting for the Barbarians next.

Lynn, is the Lineman about football. Yes my brain thinks that way lol. There were no reviews on goodreads for me to check.

I finished reading The Vanishing Half, which I really loved. I am going to start The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Universe. It should be a change of pace.

Lynn wrote: "Franky wrote: "Lynn wrote: "Vintage Season is a Golden Age of Science Fiction short story. I absolutely loved it. I often turn to science fiction for "fun" reading. This short story..."

Thanks for the heads up on that title. I'll check it out.

Brina wrote: "Finished Tracks, and will be reading Captain’s Daughter and Waiting for the Barbarians next.

Lynn, is the Lineman about football. Yes my brain thinks that way lol. There were no reviews on goodre..."

Ha! No. Think a lineman like the electrical line worker in the old Glen Campbell song "The Wichita Lineman", but this is Science fiction so now put the man on the moon. Warning, there is a brothel involved as well.

Oh you finished Tracks! How nice.

Galaxy, not Universe!

Finished the eh.. enigmatic Death Sentence by Maurice Blanchot [3/5] review

Starting We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson.

A little over halfway through The Guermantes Way. Just started Lord of the Flies, which I was never assigned in high school or college somehow.

My first review for the year is for the worthy Pulitzer Prize winner Beloved by Toni Morrison. It's hard to understand the kind of treatment 'former' slaves still endured after the end of the Civil War.

Technically, it's an easy read; emotionally, it's a heartbreaker.
5�� Link to my review of Beloved

My first book of 2021 was more lighthearted. We know from the title to look forward to The Great Escape from Woodlands Nursing Home, but it's an after dark innovation suggested by author Joanna Nell that interests me. I do love a good idea.
3.5�� rounded up Link to my Great Escape From Woodlands review

Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë. Such a dark and twisted tale. I want to know what was going on in Emily's mind when she wrote this!

A Clash of Spheres by P.F. Chisholm is the eighth in this favourite historical mystery series where the dashing Sir Robert Carey is always close to being assassinated! Scotland, 1592.
4.5�� rounded up Link to my Clash of Spheres review

I just started Lincoln in the Bardo, another Booker Prize winner.

Robinson Crusoe.

Completed the very poor adaptations Discworld Graphic Novels by Terry Pratchett, Steven Ross [1/5] review

Still reading 'We Have Always Lived in the Castle' and added a short story collection which turned out to be horror comedy Modern Penny Dreadfuls by Ana Neimus and also In the Morning of Time by Charles G.D. Roberts which i think is something like the Robin Williams film 'Human Being'.

Who knew there was an in-depth, scientific (GORGEOUS!) study of international fairies?! A Natural History of Fairies by Emily Hawkins and illustrator Jessica Roux is terrific - as appealing for oldies as for kiddies!
5�� Link to my Fairies review with several beautiful illustrations

Nobody Walks by one of my favourite authors, Mick Herron, has nothing to do with driving kids to school these days. : )
Always suspenseful!
4�� Link to my Nobody Walks review

Itchy fingers? Amigurumi Crochet: Farm and Forest Animals by Kristen Rask will have you busy with these cute designs. Clear details, excellent instructions.
5�� Link to my Crochet Animals review with several pictures

I finally decided to 'review' my own 2020 on ŷ������ by choosing the books I liked best. It's a strange assortment, but that's what makes reading fun for me.
5�� of course! Link to my good reads of 2020

I just finished Rebecca (for 2 ŷ������ groups) and am now starting a reread of Pride and Prejudice.(for a book blog).

today started the 2,500 page epic that is the Chinese classic The Story of the Stone, starting with book 1 of 5 The Golden Days

early signs are good :oD
(there is a buddy read for this under way btw)

I accidentally came across this children's book, didn't even know it existed, but saw a movie version a while back.
Tom's Midnight Garden by Philippa Pearce.
I think it's actually a children's classic, as it has several film/tv adaptations, and btw. it also won the 1958 Carnegie Medal. But I think the book might not be as well known outside Britain.
Do any of you know it or read it as children?
So far it's a great read.

Jamaica Inn by Daphne du Maurier.

Lilly wrote: "I accidentally came across this children's book, didn't even know it existed, but saw a movie version a while back.
Tom's Midnight Garden by Philippa Pearce.
I think..."

I live in the United States and no I have not heard of it. Interesting.

Lynn wrote: "I live in the United States and no I have not heard of it. Interesting."

Thanks, Lynn!
The last year or two I've started noticing some children's books and authors that apparently are well known in the UK - well read for some decades and often award winning (Eva Ibbotson is another example), but that somehow don't seem to have gotten much attention outside of Britain.
Or also, in well known cases like Enid Blyton, I found that some of the apparently in Britain very well known series are almost unknown here and only made it into translation some years ago (see The Magic Faraway Tree), while we know her for other works.
So I kind of started wondering how well these books and series are known in America and other countries ...

Lilly wrote: "Lynn wrote: "I live in the United States and no I have not heard of it. Interesting."

Thanks, Lynn!
The last year or two I've started noticing some children's books and authors that apparently ar..."

I do not know these other two authors either.

Thank you, Lynn! It is really interesting to see which authors are known in which countries - or not known. Enid Blyton is often thought to have been Europe's most influential children's book author from after the war. - I kind of thought that she at least would be known in America, so this is particularly interesting.
As for Eva Ibbotson, I believe she's underrated everywhere outside the UK. Personally, I think at least all Harry Potter fans should know her, as J. K. Rowling took all her inspiration for the Dursleys and Harry's life with them from Ibbotson's The Secret of Platform 13 - although Ibbotson never called Rowling out for the plagiarism it was. ...