What are you currently reading, how do you feel about it, and what's next on the list? Part 2

I was inspired by the read along thread and finished A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens. I tried to do it as a read along but cemented that I definitely struggle reading more than one book at a time. Therefore I just finished it.
Because of this, I didn't really engage properly and feel I missed out on a lot and therefore I'm not quite sure if I liked it or not. I think I'll have to go back in a few years and re-read.
Currently reading The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck.
I have started East of Eden numerous times and never got into it, so surprised myself when I realised I'd blitzed through the first 100 pages of TGOW.

Finally finished reading Middlesex. It took me a while as I was reading in sporadic chunks. But I really enjoyed it. Involving characters, interesting history and locations, well written, moving and funny and with lots of little
narrative twists.

Haven’t decided what’s next.

I am currently reading Kingdom of Copper, second in the Daevabad fantasy trilogy by SA Chakraborty. Am really enjoying the middle Eastern inspired setting and the dense political plot. Haven't read a fantasy series to get my teeth into for a bit.

Am also listening to The Medici Murders by David Hewson read by Richard Armitage. Not as good as his Garden of Angels but still pretty good. A LOT of history for a murder mystery though - might have been better as a print rather than audiobook.

"You Couldn't Make It Up" by AB Monroe which appeared to be a lighthearted 'aren't-foreigners-funny' tale of a family moving to France. I saw it advertised at a tube station so assumed it was a legitimate book, although it was a little difficult to track down in an actual book shop, which is a bit weid for a tube-advertised book. They're usually more at the bestseller end of the scale, and available everywhere. Anyway, I like a tale of Brits in France so I bought a copy online. It was terrible, self-published hogwash, and smacks of someone telling the person who wrote it (if they're not AI) that she should write a book, so she did. She should NOT have written a book. It was bad, very bad, and in desperate need of a good edit and, at times, seemed to be written by someone with only a passsing acquaintance with English - for instance, talking about the 'subtotal' of her knowledge, meaning, I guess, 'sum total' or a 'barrel of complaints' - 'barrage', perhaps? Who knows? Anyway, don't trust tube adverts...

So, I tried to get rid of the taste of that with 'Convent Wisdom' by Ana Garriga and Carmen Urbita. I ddn't much like that either. I didn't realise that it was based on a podcast and I disliked its chatty, over-familiar style. But it did indirectly, via Catherine of Siena and some other holy anorexics, lead me to a late mediaeval poet Thomas Hoccleve who wrote about his mental illness in a moving and very modern way. 'My Complaint' - it's a short work with a modern prose translation available online.

Currently reading 'The Invisible Doctrine - the Secret History of Neoliberalism' by George Monbiot and Peter Hutchison. It's very pleased with itself...

Might give the Elif Shafak 'There are Rivers in the Sky' a go next.

I'm felling a bit rudderless in terms of reading at the moment.

I started Deep Cuts , Holly Brickley. It is our May book club choice. I didn't even make it past 12 %. Life is too short to read bad books and this, to me, was BAD. I have so many books I want to read and I'm looking forward to getting to so I scrapped it asap. I think I'm out of the target group.

So I've picked up Wild Dark Shore.(Charlotte McConaghy)..hopefully I'll get on with that.

Just finished There Are Rivers In The Sky and I'm angry, upset, haunted and delighted.
Angry that I didn't know much about the history of Mesopotamia and the ongoing consequences
Upset by the fact that those consequences are not being shouted from the rooftops
Haunted by all three of the stories that are interwoven
Delighted by the writing. It's beautiful

I've just finished There Are Rivers In The Sky
This might be what you're after re an environmental theme. Be prepared to get angry though.

Finished Year of Magical Thinking. My opinion remains unchanged. Brilliant writing, but not for me.

Needed to read a book with an environmental theme for a challenge. Started Migrations by Charlotte McConaghy. I loved Wild, Dark Shore last year but I discovered her blueprint for novels is very similar - mysterious misfit characters, the hints of a past tragedy, potential romance between two damaged people, remote and harsh setting. I think I will like Migrations when I have forgotten WDS so have put it back on the TBR.

In desperation to find something for my challenge, I put 'green' into Libby search and ended up with Green Rising, a near future climate change YA novel. It's an enjoyable and easy read so far.

I gave up on American Dirt and James and read a kindle unlimited called Mary Jane by Jessica Anya Bleur and it was brilliant- read it in one day. Had a Judy Blume kind of feel (though not a YA book) about a pretty steady teenager getting a summer job babysitting for the daughter of hippy parents, treating a famous drug addict rock star and his actress girlfriend.
im listening to My family by David Baddiel which is very funny and just starting Bright Young Women by Jessica Knoll.

Just finished The Nothing Girl by Jodi Taylor, fairly light read as was Daggers at the Country Fair by Catherine Coles.

Just downloaded to Libby Curse of the Celts no 2 in The Once and Future series. Not read the first so hoping I can pick up pick up whats gone before

I can't remember the last time I read a really good book. I finish one now and think "Is that it?" - unsatisfactory endings, killers who appear in the last chapter and shoddy research or SPAG.

@IceIceBabyBump thanks for the mention of A Complicated Kindness. I remember writing this title down but never did anything about it. Unfortunately it's not available on Kindle.

I’ve finished the Sweet Valley Twins graphic novel, and was disappointed by it. The update from the 1980s to vaguely present day (the internet and smartphones exist) worked well, but as an adult, the plot line where a new student is bullied by the Unicorns (the mean girls club) was quite shocking - she keeps getting in trouble at school due to the bullying, but the teachers don’t seem to think that a new student (whose mother recently died) might be struggling to settle at the school and just assume she’s a troublemaker. I think I should have just remembered the books fondly rather than trying them again.

I’m now reading Floating Hotel by Grace Curtis, which is a science fiction mystery set on a spaceship that is a luxury hotel travelling between star systems. The focus is very much on the characters and the mystery rather than the world-building, and I’m enjoying it.

The Dinner Party, Frieda Mc Fadden. Love her!

I am learning French. I am reading Simeon's Maigret.

So do I and I have an English Literature degree. I find 98% of 'worthy' literature rather turgid and dull.

On my TBR shelves I have everything from cosy, chick-lit such as 'The Spellshop' to macabre, historical drama 'Once Was Willem.'

All reading is good.

I’m always listening to an audiobook and reading a digital/print book.

Currently the audiobook is Stephen King’s IT - the voice actor makes it 👌

The digital one is Twenty Years Later by Charlie Donlea, I’m only 3 chapters in so I’m not sure yet.

@RaraRachael I think reading is great full stop. If it comforts you, challenges you, entertains you, makes you think, makes you laugh, makes you cry - all are good. I am a total mood reader and want different things at different times so can read grief memoir today and Regency romance tomorrow!

I've just re-read Project Hail Mary, having watched the film last week (loved it). Have now passed it on to DH, who is a total maths geek, and he's very happily scribbling down numbers to 'check the maths is correct.'

Undecided what to read next. Too much choice! My TBR shelf is now actually an entire bookcase!

I feel very unworthy reading about some of the books other people are reading.

I read for comfort.

I am reading The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion. I am not sure what I think of it. On the one hand the writing is spellbinding, the precision of each word, each sentence, each thought. It's like reading shards of glass. And it is doing exactly what it sets out to do in capturing the illogical, repetitive, deranged way of thinking that comes with grief. I think anyone who has lost someone will understand the thinking pattern she describes even if, like me, they haven't articulated it like this. So it feels wrong to quibble. But I find navel gazing tedious after a while and though this is excellent, best in class, outstanding navel gazing, that is what it is and I am struggling a little bit. I need a bit more momentum, a bit more emotion to really enter a book and while I understand the premise of the book precludes momentum and it captures the frozen, emotionless feeling of grief beautifully, I think this is one I will admire but not love.

I've just finished Don't Let Him In by Lisa Jewell which I didn't rate very highly. I thought it was very repetitive & simplistic. The women characters all melded into one - different names and occupations but other than that there was little to distinguish them. It's the first Lisa Jewell novel that I've read and it hasn't made me want to read any of her others.

I swear I lost a stone reading that book.

I just finished Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins Reid.
3.75 stars- which means I enjoyed it.
A reasonably engaging story with a few weepy bits but with a few irritating editing issues and plot holes/gaps for the pedantic like myself.
I chose this because I visited the Johnson space centre last year and thought it would be interesting reading with some recognition of places; but it didn't really give me that. I would have liked a bit more on the actual astronaut program, the challenges of being a woman in the program in the 80s, what the astronauts actually did after "graduating" (they seemed to just hang around). The romance was dominant (well, it was a romance really and not about women in the space program) and treated in a lovely way by the author (same sex relationship).
A lot of undeveloped characters and a mid ending (IMO).
My favourite character was neither of the leads.