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Started Concrete.

Starting Teacher In America and The Mayor of Casterbridge.

I'm such a slacko reader at the moment. I have been reading boring old contracts . About a zillion times over.

Starting The Radetsky March.

Should be finishing The Habsburgs: Embodying Empire in the next day or so.

All the Pretty Horses.

Tatiana, which brings me up to date in the series.

American Eden: From Monticello to Central Park to Our Backyards: What Our Gardens Tell Us About Who We Are. I am not learning all that much new from this. Turns out I know a lot about the history of American lawns and gardens already.

Austerlitz
A man sent away from his Czech Jewish parents as a 4-year old in 1939 to Wales recounts some of his life and memories.

American Medicine and the Public Interest
Boring; so far not what I was expecting.

Collected Short Stories by E.M. Forster and Mein Kampf.

The Cuckoo's Calling by Robert Galbraith (also known as J.K. Rowling). This is the first book in the series and the second one I will have read. The first one I read was not what I'd hoped for but that's why I'm reading another one in the series.

Just completed The Night Circus. Like this one. It's for my 'real world' book club.

A Banquet of Consequences.

Deep Water. Good so far.

Lobstergirl wrote: "Deep Water. Good so far."

I enjoyed 'The talented Mr Ripley.' I also have 'Deep Water ' on my 'to read' list.

^
I think you will like it. I don't always like her, but I'm enjoying this. Down to the last few pages and I have no idea what's going to happen.

I finished Behind a Mask, a short psychological thriller by Louisa May Alcott.

Reading The Reaper - Steven Dunne.

Started The Mind of the South.

And Then by Natsume Sōseki and The Danger of Music and Other Anti-Utopian Essays.

Good Omens by Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett, and Say Yes by Amy Poehler (having a hard time finishing it as it makes me feel like i can put it down for long periods and come back as i wish).

Tribe: On Homecoming and Belonging
by
Sebastian Junger.

The Homesman. Read it. You won't forget it.

Scout wrote: "The Homesman. Read it. You won't forget it."

I saw the movie and it stayed with me so I'm not surprised. I have that one on my 'to read ' list.

Finished Can't and Won't: Stories by Lydia Davis.

Richard Russo's Bridge of Sighs. How do you write a novel like this? Only he knows.

Started Eugene Onegin by Alexander Pushkin. Amazing, the English translation alone is a work of art.

Thought I would give it a try until I looked it up on Wikipedia (not a reliable source I know, but I'm taking their word for it). I just don't have the stamina for this one.

Reading Robert Galbraith's (AKA J K Rowling's) third detective novel. Entertaining plot with interesting characters. Not great; not bad.

America's Bank: The Epic Struggle to Create the Federal Reserve.

The best of the lot I'm currently reading is Everybody Behaves Badly: The True Story Behind Hemingway’s Masterpiece The Sun Also Rises.

Hemingway, Spain, Paris, alcohol, fistfights, wife swapping/swinging. Throw in Scott and Zelda and this is a rip roaring true story.

Sad and tragic in many ways.

Hemingway must be a favorite writer of yours. Speaking strictly of his writing, what do you admire?

Artists in Crime by Ngaio Marsh.

Just finished a book about Joseph McCarthy's career and the various hearings. I've been thinking for a while now I should read about this episode in history, given current events.

Just started On the Edge of the Cliff: Short Stories by V.S. Pritchett by V.S. Pritchett. This author was recommended to me a long time ago.

Scout wrote: "Hemingway must be a favorite writer of yours. Speaking strictly of his writing, what do you admire?"

I've been more interested for many years in the books about Hemingway, than Hemingway's own writing.

That being said, at one point in time I spent a lot of time reading his works. The Sea books (Old Man & Islands) are two that I still think of fondly. Many of his short stories are brilliant. They have a meditative quality that is often overlooked by casual readers and portray the brutality of man and nature as only Hemingway has ever done.

A Moveable Feast and Death in the Afternoon are two favorites in the Hemingway universe. The later is not the most palatable subject material but one of his most powerful works.

When it comes to books about Hemingway, the quality and reason for their have been written runs the gamut. The one mentioned previously (...behaving badly) is one of the better straight bio/journalism pieces I've read in a few years. Another non-fiction work that I like is Hemingway in Africa: The Last Safari. There are many historical works about WWI and WWII, art and literature in the 20th Century, bio's of artist's and other notables that mention or involve EH that for the Hemingway researcher/reader are a must. He was a fascinating character regardless of his many, many, personal flaws.

A work that I can not recommend highly enough is The Paris Wife by Paula McLain. While a fictional story of the early Paris Years and the story of 'The Woman from St. Louis' as she was referred to in one period of American Lit. History, this is a book to read for the writing. McLain hit a high note with this work that is worth the time. EH was a real piece of work and McLain captures this brilliantly.

My Review of The Paris Wife by Paula McLain

The Struggle for Europe: The Turbulent History of a Divided Continent 1945 to the Present which is excellent.

Just finished a book of stories, Goodbye, Wisconsin.

Starting Huntingtower.

Just started The Other.

Delicious novel

Just read this novel You. Narrated by a psychopath, and you see the fucked-up things he does from his point of view. Well done.

Tim Winton's Cloud Street

Cities of Salt and

The Patriarch: The Remarkable Life and Turbulent Times of Joseph P. Kennedy

Boar Island

The Books in My Life by Henry Miller

The Last Weynfeldt

The Riders

The Chateau

In Search of Respect: Selling Crack in El Barrio
-Philippe Bourgois

A first-hand account of a white anthropologist who infiltrates East Harlem's underground drug network, simply by befriending the dealers in his neighborhood. He highlights the racial and economic disparity endured by El Barrio's residents with raw facts and personal accounts. Great read thus far.

Just finished Hotel du Lac.

Among others:

The Golden Hour

I just started Niels Lyhne and Black Earth: The Holocaust as History and Warning.

Just started Cakes and Ale by W. Somerset Maugham.

I keep Maugham's short stories by my bed and read them when I occasionally run out of library books.

A Place to Come To and Reaching for Glory: Lyndon Johnson's Secret White House Tapes 1964-65.