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

I finished Sorrow and Bliss by Meg Mason at the weekend and have to say thought it was pretty good. I read a few reviews after and a lot of people didn't like the main character but I actually did.

Now reading City of Thieves by David Benioff which retells a tale during the Nazi siege of Leningrad. 2 young Russians are arrested for deserting and thieving and instead of prison are given 6 days to find 12 eggs so a Russian Colonel's daughter can have a wedding cake. It's has been really entertaining so far.

Just read ‘The Eights’ by Joanne Miller and really enjoyed it. I seemed to have read a lot of women-in-a-mans-world books lately. Not sure if it’s a new trend of books, or a coincidence.

Thanks to you both for recommending these - I have made this connection but they have only been on a mental list (for a very long time). So this is what I do now @Wheelbarrowracer - copy and paste the titles/authors on to a sticky note.

Meanwhile, I am back in Crete - well approaching cautiously by boat at dead of night - Ill Met By Moonlight/W Stanley Moss. The true story of a dangerous mission in WW2 - also involving Patrick Leigh Fermor.

Currently reading The Cut Throat Trial by the Secret Barrister. Finding it ok but a bit dull in places, and not sure how much I care about the back story of two of the women - interestingly only the two female characters get any kind of outside life shown, making me wonder if this book is written by a woman.

next is Slags, which I read a few pages of and I’m already not feeling. Very boring so far, just kind of and then I did this and then this.

Currently reading Fundamentally which I am quite enjoying but maybe feels slightly giggly-schoolgirly for reasons I can't quite explain. I have only just started though.

Just finished Trouble Was (Charlotte Edwards) which I really enjoyed and keep thinking about.

Had to put down Dawn French's latest on audiobook - I found her doing the children's voices and singing oddly nauseating.

I also loved The Go Between @tobee - a worthy classic. Haven’t sent the film. I read it around the same time as A Month in the Country and they both have that idyllic sense of England lost whilst interrogating that idyll rather sharply.

Thanks @tobee :)

Yes audible @EmailsaysOOO

Hi can I ask if you use audible? Do you have a subscription? My subs runs out soon ( it was a gift) so wondering what to do about renewing it. havent read any PG Wodehouse for along time. Would like to just wonder if you can get them for free

Oh and I’ve been listening to Jonathan Cecil reading Carry On, Jeeves sort of as a palate cleanser - very useful to while away the journey as I drive up and to visit my elderly parents; eases the stress

I’m (sadly) home now after my last gasp of summer holiday in the Balearics. I enjoyed reading my books in the pool! Not because it was scorchingly hot and I had to be in the there to cool off but just because I could! Blissful!

On the last day of the holiday I started The Go Between. I’ve been the 1971 film a few times over the years but not for a while and I absolutely had Julie Christie, Alan Bates, Dominic Guard et al in my head throughout. But it was so much better than I thought it would be to read the novel. I was completely involved, the building tension made it such a page turner. It felt so believable that it was hard not to think that it had to have been the author’s direct experience. I nearly took a degree course where The Go Between was on the reading list so I found myself imagining the sort of topics that would have been studied in lectures and seminars! 😀

I raced through it.

I found If We Were Villains to be a suitable companion for this time of the year. In keeping with @IceIceBabyBump 's comments on The Goldfinch having an atmosphere more for summer, I found a campus novel to be appropriate.

It made me realise that I have read a few in that setting - sometimes the students, The Secret History, and ones like The Affair/C P Snow, and Nice Work/David Lodge - where it is the lecturers or dons.

I’ve just finished The Bookshop of Yesterdays, a pleasant enough read but the protagonist annoyed me at times. Am just about to start Hood Feminism.

I’m two chapters in to Our Noble Selves by Kate Atkinson and enjoying it so far, I love her use of words and language. Next I’m going to read either Ready Player One or Dungeon Crawler Carl.

I’m planning on seeing Verity at the cinema this week, so hope the film is a lot better!

Re: books. I just have a list stored as a note in my phone, but I always have mine on me so works well.

I use Amazon to keep a list of what I want to read which I then look at in actual shops rather than buying them from Amazon. It's a minor act of subversion against Amazon. But I also just browse in shops and see what I like the look of. Sometimes I leave with nothing and sometimes with as much as I can carry.

I've gone for some quick and easy seasonal reads this week:

'Intercepts' byTJ Payne - a pacy horror/thriller about people who are running some sort of establishment where people who are mere shells are kept for their ability to glean intelligence by some sort of telepathy. Nonsense, but quite a good read.

'Ghost Month' by Simon Wroe. I liked the premise that the dead with unresolved issues return and just hang out for a month each year. It didn't quite live up to its promise for me - too po-faced.

'Starve Acre' by Andrew Michael Hurley. A really well done folk horror featuring an evil reincarnated hare. Lovely writing and actually, a sensitive portrait of grief, as well as the hare... What more could you ask for?

Now reading 'Ex Libris' by Anne Fadiman, a collection of essays about books and reading. I really like the way she writes. It's warm, friendly and very relatable.

How do you all remember what to look for? I have lists on my phone and on goodreads, but gr is useless in the library cos it's not alphabetical. Then i forget what's on my phone list. Wasted ages in the library today cos I couldn't really think what I wanted.

I have just read Verity, as recommended by a friend. What a load of bollocks that was. First and last ch.

I enjoyed that more than Secret History :)

The Ghostwriter is looking accusingly at me - I've been meaning to start it for days...

On one hand I'd love to read that as its an important and really interesting subject, but on the other hand yes I would find it a very upsetting read.

I'm reading Mornings in Jenin by Susan Abulhawa. It's about a Palestinian family who are forced from their farm during the Nakba in 1948 and end up in a refugee camp in Jenin. It's sad and harrowing. I'm not sure what my next read will be.

Funny you should say that, because that is referenced in the book, and the brothers and sister (the seventh sibling) are named alphabetically, starting with Adam. However, the husband wouldn’t allow his wife to use all the seven brothers’ names.

@Silverbirchleaf It sounds like a literary version of Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, Minus One!

“Faraday Country box set’ - Chris Keniston

Sorry folks, a bit more lowbrow then most of the suggestions. It’s a series of shortish books, in the Cowboy romance genre, whereby the six Faraday brothers meet their future wives. It’s quite Mills and boons-ish, and some of the stories are a bit same-y, but it’s well written, and heartwarming. Great for light relief.

Just read Tidal Zone by Sarah Moss. V good , part domestic story part history of Coventry and part folk tale.

Next am going to reread Cider with Rosie by Laurie Lee that I read at school. The edition i have is from 1974 and the bit in the front says that its a set text for US high school students. A whole 10 yrs before I read it for English literature O level.
It also said that Laurie Lee wrote every day from 10am till 4.30pm without a break .

@pipistrelle Carrere’s willingness to disclose stuff and not be coy about it ( it seemed that back in the day authors would
be enraged by any suggestion that a plot idea was autobiographical, when it obviously was) is a big part of his appeal. Many French persons will have parents/ grandparents etc who collaborated with the Nazi occupation, very few talk about it let alone write about it. I must admit his frankness about sex is also a big part of his appeal for me, although I suspect that in his private life it could be quite dangerous to get close to him.