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While we get geared up for our new group read, tell us about what you're reading now.

I'm currently reading In the Night Garden. I've barely started it, but I'm enjoying it so far. It's been touted as "the Arabian Nights for our time." The author, Catherynne M. Valente, has written children's fantasy/fairy tales, including The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making, which caught my attention a while back, though I haven't read it, so I was glad to see she'd written an adult novel in the same genre.

I usually stick more to what I'd call literary fiction, but I used to read a lot of science fiction and fantasy, and I seem to be picking up more of it again recently.

I'm about halfway through Age of Iron and really get more and more impressed with Coetzee's writing all the time.

In the Night Garden was beautiful. I have, but haven't started her later novel Palimpsest.

I don't like genre when it's plot driven and dumbed down, but I think discounting entire genres simply because they are genre is a mistake. I think Valente writes beautifully.

I've been wanting to try Coetzee.

I just finished Skippy Dies. It was one of those things that kept showing up in all sorts of recommendations - here, audible. I'm so glad I decided to try it. I need to put together a review, but I recommend it. It was wonderful.

Today I started The Night Circus.

I've read a little coetzee, and what I read whet my appitite for more, which is why I nominated Slow Man but I'd like just about anything really.

I am just starting for another club, and I recently read which I loved.

Logophile wrote: "While we get geared up for our new group read, tell us about what you're reading now.

I'm currently reading In the Night Garden. I've barely started it, but I'm enjoying it so far...."

The Night Garden looks really interesting. Am going to keep my eyes open for it.

I've just finished The Map and the Territory by Michel Houellebecq I always wondered: is he as popular, (or rather affectionately hated) in anglophone countries as much as he is in France and Germany for example? Most of my english-speaking friends don't seem to know him, whereas in Germany when "The Map and the Territory" came out, everybody that could tell the difference between a book and a brick seemed to be talking about it.

I've now started reading Leviathan by Auster who's The New York Trilogy I loved, especially "City of Glass".

In terms of reading, December is a really good month so far.

I am reading The Secret History byDonna Tartt. I am totally engrossed by this book. I really wish it would never end. I never would get bored with it.

Maggie wrote: "I am reading The Secret History byDonna Tartt. I am totally engrossed by this book. I really wish it would never end. I never would get bored with it."

I agree, this was really a good book.

Jenny wrote: "I've just finished The Map and the Territory by Michel Houellebecq I always wondered: is he as popular, (or rather affectionately hated) in anglophone countries as mu..."

curious, I've never heard of him, but it sounds interesting...

Will wrote: "Jenny wrote: "I've just finished The Map and the Territory by Michel Houellebecq I always wondered: is he as popular, (or rather affectionately hated) in anglophone c..."

Well he's considered to be the enfant terrible of French literature. I've discovered him a few years ago and actually like him a lot, eventhough I can see why so many people hate his writing quite passionately. He tends to come across a bit like a misantrophe. Just found an article on him in the Times Literary Supplement in case you're curious:

After completing 2 Coetzee books in a row felt the need for something a little lighter so have picked up The Angel of Darkness. Am only about 10 pages in but so far it seems like exactly what I was looking for.

Currently reading The Taker by Alma Katsu, and even though it's not what I was expecting, I'm really enjoying the story and the writing!

I keep wanting to read Coetzee, but there's something daunting about his novels, so he keeps getting bumped down my list. And Paul Auster has been lingering on my TBR list as well.

Jenny, I hadn't heard of Michel Houellebecq (for what that's worth). Just looked at his author page here; not sure whether I'd fall into the love or hate camp. I don't mind shock and sleaze for a good cause, but inciting racial hatred? Was that a big misunderstanding, or what?

I will certainly agree that Coetzee is not light reading but oh, they are so good. His books bring out emotions and force you to open your eyes and think in ways that may be uncomfortable. Really powerful books.

Logophile wrote: "Just looked at his author page here; not sure whether I'd fall into the love or hate camp. I don't mind shock and sleaze for a good cause, but inciting racial hatred? Was that a big misunderstanding, or what? "

The whole debate was sparked when Houellebecq - who frequently states that he believes religion to be a rather silly concept in general - in an interview with a french paper called the Islam "the dumbest religion" of all. (His mother converted to Islam years ago after getting re-married which caused a lot of aha!-moments in the course of the debate) Based on this the the National Federation of French Muslims and the World Islamic League among others brought him to court, accusing him of "making a racial insult" and of "inciting religious hatred". This resulted in a rather large public debate, a lot of french (and non-french) writers and intellectuals jumped to his defense (Salman Rushdie wrote an article for the Guardian ) In court Houellebecq defended himself by saying that to attack people's ideologies or belief-systems is not to attack the people themselves. He won the trial on the grounds of freedom of expression.

I am not sure whether Houellebecq knows how to spell the term political correctness, nor whether he'd want to learn how to. He certainly knows how to pull a polemic stunt though.

His books however move beyond the element of polemic stunts and the will to shock. There not always easy to stomache but he's actually grown into the milder version of himself as a writer and his most recent publications like The Map and the Territory or The Possibility of an Island are less provoking and more accessible than his earlier books.

Jenny wrote: "The whole debate was sparked when Houellebecq - who frequently states that he believes religion to be a rather silly concept in general - in an interview with a french paper..."

Thanks for filling me in. Sounds like he could be right up my alley!

Bumping this thread since it has sunk far from view. Tell us what you're reading!

Currently about three quarters of the way through Half of a Yellow Sun and it is very impressive so far, if a little harrowing in places.

Finished A Brief History of Seven Killings on T-Giving evening. The first thing I did was to raise my arms over my head and sing the theme from "Rocky" to myself. Then I started looking forward to the discussion starting 12/1 and then I began Orfeo . Powers has such a gift for description that I'm finding myself rereading passages multiple times. This will not be a quick read for me, but that's perfectly all right.

Hugh wrote: "Currently about three quarters of the way through Half of a Yellow Sun and it is very impressive so far, if a little harrowing in places."

I read Americanah and loved it. I've heard so many good things about Half of a Yellow Sun that I'm moving it up on my TBR.

I'd read about a quarter of The Heart Goes Last by Margaret Atwood, when it was recalled to the library (someone else reserved it) - I wasn't enjoying it too much. May resume it later.

Now started Orfeo by Richard Powers and even in the first few pages I can tell this is going to be a fine read.

I believe this group read Half of a Yellow Sun about three years ago. I did not participate, so I don't know how good the discussion was. (It came up in a chaotic time during my life, in the aftermath of a major house fire.)

I have just finished reading The Pyramids of London, an alternate history, steam-punkish fantasy that I found delightful. It follows a family of very likeable characters through a series of extraordinary events they fall into as they investigate the sudden deaths of a husband-wife team of inventors/artists. The main characters in this book are the sister of one of the dead inventors, and the three orphaned adolescents for whom she has just become responsible. All of the characters are very bright, imaginative and creative people. One reviewer compared reading this book to being forced to drink from a fire-hose. There is a lot going on, and the book is very inventive.

I just finished The Portable Veblen: A Novel which was ok and The Girl in the Spider's Web which I loved.

I just started City on Fire which takes place in the 1970s in NYC-a time and place where I came of age.

Portia wrote: "Hugh wrote: "Currently about three quarters of the way through Half of a Yellow Sun and it is very impressive so far, if a little harrowing in places."

I read Americanah is very different from Americanah, but I loved them both so much.

Portia wrote: "Hugh wrote: "Currently about three quarters of the way through Half of a Yellow Sun and it is very impressive so far, if a little harrowing in places."

I read Americanah which is about events in a different west African country in the same period, and is one of my favourites, as are Aminatta Forna's memoir The Devil That Danced on the Water: A Daughter's Quest and her most recent novel The Hired Man

I'm not sure what happened to my last comment, but it ended up garbled, and I suspect the same happened to Ellie. My message should have started:

I have just added Adichie's other novels to my "to read" list. Half of a Yellow Sun is very reminiscent of Aminatta Forna's The Memory of Love, which is about events...

Recently finished The First Bad Man and the fourth Neapoltan series book, The Story of the Lost Child. Both were pretty extraordinary. The first is an incredibly quirky and odd book about a narrator that sort of reminded me of the character Pat from Saturday Night Live (whose gender no one was sure of). The second closed out Ferrante's epic tale of two friends and their journey through life (hard to sum up this one as it seems to touch on so much).

One of my f2f book group colleagues gave me Half of a Yellow Sun , but it took me years to get it off my TBR file. Found it to be very good when I did and eager to accept Adichie's Americanah when we chose it as a f2f group read. Very different books, but pleased with both. Both also are here on this board at:

Half a Yellow Moon: /topic/group...

Americanah: /topic/group...

Some very good videos of Adichie exist, from TED talks to her acceptance of the National Book Award.

I finished Dakota: A Spiritual Geography by Kathleen Norris tonight. A much needed break from A Little Life (Yanagihara) a few weeks ago, an attempt at A Brief History of Seven Killings -- not certain I'm going to stick with this one for now despite the upcoming discussion, and being in the midst of listening to All Quiet on the Western Front (Remarque)-- a grand, if disquieting, book that slipped through any required readings for me. A reminder that we must, must find ways other than violence to allocate the resources of this planet.

Lily wrote: "One of my f2f book group colleagues gave me Half of a Yellow Sun, but it took me years to get it off my TBR file. Found it to be very good when I did and eager to accept [author:Adichi..."

Ah, Dakota - one of my favorite nonfiction-memoir books ever. I went to a Kathleen Norris reading a few years ago. I have read most of her books and liked them.

I recently read All Quiet on the Western Front - truly a classic.

Somewhat restricted in my reading choices the last three weeks, as I only have Kindle with me "down under." I just finished The Sisters Brothers, which I enjoyed. Currently reading A Fire Upon the Deep, which I am really enjoying.

I just finished listening to What If?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions by Randall Munroe last night.

/review/show...

I recently finished A Brief History of Seven Killings which I loved! I had no real interest in reading it, but when I saw it at the library I thought "what the heck..." so glad I did. I'm excited for the upcoming discussion.

Hugh wrote: "Currently about three quarters of the way through Half of a Yellow Sun and it is very impressive so far, if a little harrowing in places."

I just read that Half of a Yellow Sun was picked on November 2 as the best of the best of the Bailey's prize winners of the prize's second decade -- .

I have just been doing a little digging in the group's old discussions, and I realised we already have a "what we're reading thread" but nobody has commented on it for over three years! So before I create a new one, perhaps we could revive it (renamed a little). So if you have any thoughts to share on what you are currently reading or have just read, this is the place!

I have just finished reading this year's Republic of Consciousness Prize longlist - as a prize for small independent publishers based in Britain and Ireland it is something of a niche interest, and there has been plenty of discussion over in The Mookse and the Gripes group, but it does contain some very interesting and innovative literature.

These are the 13 books:
Bottled Goods by Sophie van Llewyn. My Review

The Cemetery in Barnes by Gabriel Josipovici. My Review

Dedalus by Chris McCabe. My Review

¶Ù´Ç±è±è±ð±ô²µÃ¤²Ô²µ±ð°ù by DaÅ¡a Drndić. My Review

Follow Me To Ground by Sue Rainsford. My Review

Hang Him When He Is Not There by Nicholas John Turner. My Review

Kitch: A Fictional Biography of a Calypso Icon by Anthony Joseph. My Review

Lucia by Alex Pheby. My Review

Murmur by Will Eaves. My Review

Now, Now, Louison by Jean Frémon. My Review

Resistance by Julián Fuks. My Review

Soviet Milk by Nora Ikstena. My Review

Sweet Home by Wendy Erskine. My Review

I have now returned to trying to clear some of the books that have been sitting on the to-read shelf for longest, starting with The Sparsholt Affair.

Mikela wrote: "I'm about halfway through Age of Iron and really get more and more impressed with Coetzee's writing all the time."

My favorite Coetzee by far but it seems like a lot of readers I know have never read it, or heard of it. I'm always recommending it.

Lark wrote: "Mikela wrote: I'm about halfway through Age of Iron and really get more and more impressed with Coetzee's writing all the time.
My favorite Coetzee by far but it seems like a lot of readers I know have never read it, or heard of it. I'm always recommending it."
I have read 10 Coetzees and that wasn't one of them...

I'm always jealous of those of you in the UK who have easy/easier access to the RoC books.

I'm currently slowly dragging out The Art of the Wasted Day by Patricia Hampl. It's a set of essays in which Hampl visits the homes of historic time "wasters," like Montaigne, while dealing with the grief of losing her husband. I've never read anything by Hampl before and am loving her voice.

I just finished The Museum of Modern Love and was kind of relieved to not love it, because it seems lately I just love everything I read and I was worried I'd lost all sense of things. The novel reminded me a lot of Bel Canto, another book where everyone is transformed through the power of one artist's gift, and I kept thinking there must be one person in the crowd thinking: "gawd, what an awful racket."

I'm less than 100 pages away from finishing The End (book 6 in Knausgaard's lengthy series). It's one of the first times I've purposely kept myself from finishing a book because I don't want it to end (normally, with almost any book, I'm racing to the end, not only in excitement but in anticipation of the next read). This group actually got me hooked on the series (as well as Elena Ferrante's Neapolitan books, The Three-Body Problem trilogy, and Gonçalo M. Tavares's Kingdom series--I still need to finish the latter two series).

Also half way through Fields of Blood: Religion and the History of Violence by Karen Armstrong. I've been meaning to read any book by her for more than a decade and finally happened upon one at the library on my last visit. It does a fantastic job of pulling together biology, sociology/culture, and religion to explain our violent tendencies as a species.

I'm reading The Plotters, a South Korean detective noir and loving it for the characters, the story and how smoothly it reads.

I've been reading Leonardo da Vinci for months and months - meticulously researched and clearly written, but the plodding writing style makes me an unenthused reader. Maybe I've been spoiled by reading such great fiction and narrative nonfiction (esp. The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration!) that I can't handle 'regular' history writing any more. Or maybe Isaacson is a plodder. I've read two other Isaacson books and liked them - Einstein: His Life and Universe and Benjamin Franklin: An American Life but that was years ago. Maybe I was more tolerant then or he was a better writer.

Lastly, I'm not reading but poking my nose through Zucked: Waking Up to the Facebook Catastrophe after hearing the author interviewed on a couple of podcasts.

I still haven't read a single Coetzee book. Not a point of pride, nor necessarily one of embarrassment.

Marc wrote: "half way through Fields of Blood: Religion and the History of Violence by Karen Armstrong. I've been meaning to read any book by her for more than a decade and finally happened upon one at the library on my last visit. It does a fantastic job of pulling together biology, sociology/culture, and religion to explain our violent tendencies as a species."

I've read some Karen Armstrong and find that she makes really difficult stuff comprehensible.

Marc wrote: "I still haven't read a single Coetzee book. Not a point of pride, nor necessarily one of embarrassment."

If we're going to get into a "I can't believe I haven't read [name] yet" loop, mine is Borges. (Not 21st century, but 21st century influential...)

Nadine wrote: "If we're going to get into a "I can't believe I haven't read [name] yet" loop, mine is Borges. (Not 21st century, but 21st century influential...)"
That sounds like a new question of the week! I have read most of Borges' short stories and skim-read The Book of Imaginary Beings, and he was undoubtedly original and influential, but that was all a fair few years ago now...

[Glad to see this group has this discussion thread and has resumed it after over three years of inactivity.]
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I am currently about 1/4 into Donna Tartt's Pulitzer Prize winning novel, 'The Goldfinch.' A book that I have very high expectations for and thus far, has met them: in style, tone, prose, and charm. The opening scene in Amsterdam that kicked off what is reading like a tragic mea culpa, is one of the most vivid, invigorating book openings I've read in a long while.

Crisp, rhythmic, and deft, I love Tartt's writing here, as it makes for a thoroughly engaging read on every page. I am very much looking forward to seeing where she takes Theo's story.

I'm reading Iain Pears Arcadia. 300 pages in and I think it's fantastic. I would say it's a redux version of David Mitchell's Bone Clocks.

Cindle | kindle w/a C. wrote: "[Glad to see this group has this discussion thread and has resumed it after over three years of inactivity.]
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I am currently about 1/4 into Donna Tartt's Pulitzer Prize winning novel, 'The G..."

The Goldfinch was discussed by the group back in 2014, before I joined GR - this link should take you to the right index page: The Goldfinch. Archived discussions normally remain open for comments.

Robert wrote: "I'm reading Iain Pears Arcadia. 300 pages in and I think it's fantastic. I would say it's a redux version of David Mitchell's Bone Clocks."

I've been vascillating on Arcadia for years - now I can feel the scale starting to tip.....

I'm dual-reading 100 Years of Silence and Das Boot. Frankly, The passages in Das Boot where they are fruitlessly criss-crossing the mid-Atlantic were the most memorable for me.

There is a rhythm of the events in 100 Years of Silence that reminds me of Catch 22: Yes, yes, yes, impossible: repeat. At 30% through, it gets dull. In Catch 22, it's Milo Minderbinder buying eggs for 12¢ and selling them for 8¢ at a profit. In 100 Years of Silence, it's Colonel Aureliano Buendia and his firing squad.