What are you reading now, beginning of 2012?

Just finished In a Strange Room by Damon Galgut. He was new to me and I found this book stunning; moving, unsettling, cruel but compassionate as well, utterly compelling.

Looking for something to match up now! I may try another Jim Crace ? have discovered him recently and read a few and I think he's fantastic.

Thoroughly enjoying the Kerry Wilkinson "Jessica Daniels" books. Can't put the kindle down!

Just finished Lionel Shriver - We Need to Talk about Kevin

Now on Donna Tartt - The Little Friend

Next is Rose Tremain - Trepass

But I do fancy a really good autobiography some time soon.....

The Wedding Plot by Jeffrey Eugenies, loved Middlesex, one of my favourite books of all time, and this so far has grabbed me from the start

Also really recommend 'Winters Bone' and 'The Bayoux Trilogy' by Daniel Woodrell.

'The Homecoming Of Samuel Lake' by Jenny Wingfield;
'Best Food Writing 2011' edited by Holly Hughes;
'Anthropology Of An American Girl' by Hilary Thayer Hamann;
'Girl In A Green Gown'- the Arnolfini Portrait' by Carola Hicks

Remus - one of hte free kindle books I have is a history of lunatic asylums called Broadmoor Revealed. You might find that interesting if you have a kindle

On my lovely new Christmas Kindle I have just finished all the Katy books, current reading is The Small Hand by Susan Hill. Next up is a reread of The Woman in Black ready for the film release. Then I have The Moonstone, The Woman in White, some Poe, a collection of Du Maurier short stories and Emma. I like a bit of classic fiction, me.

The kindle has reignited my love of reading.

*intriguing. Typing too fast .

I'm just about to finish reading The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ by Philip Pullman. It has been a thought-provoking read and raises the question of what is history and what is truth. An intruiging story.

Have just finished Water for Elephants, a nice easy going read. About to start Cancer Ward, which won the Nobel Prize in 1970. If anyone else has read it let me know!!

The Sense of an Ending is excellent - definitely not one you'd forget in a hurry, even though none of the main characters are at all likeable. But I'm reading Dickens by Peter Ackroyd, as it's the Charles Dickens Bicentenary this year (and I've never read a Dickens novel before)

Elderberry - I really rate the, 'Mortal Engines' series. Didn't think a great deal of, 'I, Coriander' though. It was okay but I expected it to be better/do more.

I am a few pages into Le Grand Meaulnes by Alain Fournier (for reading group) and I am having a go at Dickens' Hard Times. Enjoying so far.

And have got Housebound by Winifred Peck and Nightingale Wood by Stella Gibbons waiting to be read- am quite excited.

Plus lots of ideas on here; great

Just finished reading the blood pact novels by Tanya Huff (given the set for Christmas) and The Game, a novella by Dianne Wynne Jones. I have Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy and Dark Star Safari lined up to read next.

Re-reading Birdsong

Re-reading The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton and really enjoying it

Over Christmas, Death Comes to Pemberley.

After Christmas, The Stranger in the Mirror by Jane Shilling - excellent.

Now, the new Dickens biography. Promising.

I read a fair amount of Young Adult fiction too Elderberry - a good book is a good book IMO whatever age it is aimed at. My local library only seems to stock variations on the Twilight/Vampire stuff in its YA section though.

I've given up on adult fiction and read the better end of Young Adult these days. Recently finished Mortal Engines by Philip Reeve and I, Coriander by Sally Gardner; now on Life: an exploded diagram by Mal Peet.

I think I just expected something a bit more wow, because of the Booker Prize tag. To be fair though - I'm only about 80 pages in, and certainly don't hate it - it has amused me so far, and looks as if it will deal with some interesting areas.

Our last read was Beloved - which I loved (although I was very much in the minority at the club )

I've got Snuff by Terry Pratchett and The Children's Book by A S Byatt on my To Read pile.

I see GoandPlay is reading The Hunger Games - I gave my grown up DS that for Christmas, and the next two for his birthday last week - he says it's brilliant too, so I will swipe it from him soon

I read The Finkler Question quite recently, Kurrikurri; picked it up in a charity shop. I thought it was a light read, quite amusing (though the hero is so irritating and stupid, but probably purposely so, except I think he's meant to be funny, which he was in a way which doesn't make you laugh).

Interesting for it's detail of Jewish belief/ritual, and so on, and the description of London (because I miss London a lot, and I knew most of those parts well). Fine for whiling away a couple of days.

In other words, it didn't blow me away, either. Was it reputed to have that effect?

I'm reading The Finkler Question - its my book club read for January, it's OK so far, but I haven't been blown away yet.

My second post on this thread....just to report that I also recently finished 'Greenbanks' by Dorothy Whipple - a Persephone book - and absolutely loved it. She's one of the authors they've rediscovered and now made a bit of a cult out of, but none the worse for that. It's about a family living in the eponymous house in the early 20th c, and their various lives over the next 20 years or so.
I was so gripped by it that I've started another Whipple novel, 'High Wages', whose heroine is a draper's assistant in Lancashire in 1909....very good so far