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

I’ve just finished my first “non-fiction thriller” Midnight in Chernobyl- riveting read.

not usual holiday reading but bloody marvellous telling of the whole Chernobyl disaster in a very readable book. I won’t pretend to fully understand all the physics/science behind the disaster but it doest diminish the read at all.

recommended.

oh ladder of years is one of my favourite books of all time! Love Anne Tyler.
I’ve just finished ‘The Book of Guilt’ which was pretty good and hard to put down - based on a children’s home in a world where world war two ended in a truce.
Before that I read a brilliant thriller called ‘Five’, five characters, five separate stories and from the start it’s clear that one of them will die by the end of the book.
Now to try and get back to Atmosphere which hasn’t grabbed me yet.

I loved Moon Tiger!

Yes it was on kindle unlimited. I managed to finish it but it’s the first I’ve read of hers I won’t be recommending. Even if it did perk up towards the end.

I have finished the most recent Kingsbridge from Ken Follett, The Armour of Light which I liked a lot.

Currently storming through Firefly Summer, but it’s not for everyone I’m sure. It’s one of Maeve Binchy’s 80s books, I’m in the mood for twee so it suits me.

Next I will read The Castilians or The End of August.

I’m 90% through The God of the Woods by Liz Moore and I’m loving it - can’t wait to find out what happens!

next up is the new Steve Cavanagh, then Killing Thatcher.

Can I join? I used to read a lot but have been struggling lately to find something captivating. I have just started Moon Tiger by Penelope Lively, ok so far.

I also recently read a new debut by an indie author, which I don't usually do, but it was fab: fresh, fun, engaging. It's called Mna and is on Kindle U as well as print and ebook. Worth a look!

Kindle unlimited? I read summer island and just didn't see the point of it. I'm a fan of an easy read at times, but that was just lazy.

I've just started Theo of Golden, but gave up.

Read Oscar and Lucinda and wished I hadn't. Really didn't get the hype. English Passen g ers did it better.

Wedding people was fun.

I read the sequel to The Party by Elizabeth day first, so I've just read The Party. Considering I knew what happens, it still gripped me, which elevates it really. Like Patricia higjsmith meets Jonathan coe.

I seem to be caught in a rut of reading books that I really don't like. Most recently Irvine Welsh's new one. Can't even remember the name. I only picked it up because I heard it was a departure from his usual style. Maybe it was, but it was pretty terrible - not so much characters as caricatures, and dialogue that made me cringe. Set in the Los Angeles of hard-boiled crime fiction, it felt like cultural appropriation.

I then punished myself further with Michel Houellebecq's 'Serotonin' - creepy, creepy, creepy. (As in lechy man, not as in jump scare.)

I hope that a book of essays by Anne Fadiman 'At Large and at Small - Confessions of a Literary Hedonist' will help to restore equilibrium.

@MaryasBible I’ll join you all if I may.

Same. There are a few good, current book threads at the moment so here's my contribution. I have started a lot of books and I'm not reading much - but I will and they are very different, so here is one:

The House of Sixty Fathers, Meindert Dejong
Read to me at primary school, many decades ago. A Chinese boy displaced, when the Japanese occupy, is by himself with just his pig. The cover says: could be the story of any child in any war.

I’ll join you all if I may.

I'm currently reading Summer Island by Kristin Hannah. It’s just ok. Not her best. I’m approaching 70% but it hasn’t massively gripped me. I will finish it as then I will have completed 10/11 of the summer reading challenges on goodreads and I like the digital bookmark thingy. I love a reading challenge.

Next up is either Firefly Summer by Maeve Binchy or The End of August by Yū Miri. Depends if I finish it today or not.

Ahah! Thanks @EllieQ I bet you're right . I think it did say she was attacked by a lover that she'd taken but didn't grasp it could have been him. He was clearly violent towards his wife.

This book wasn't like her other books to my mind. I usually find them a bit easier to follow. Nevermind, my brain's struggling with lots of things..Many thanks for your post. I'm very appreciative 😃

It’s been a while since I read Human Croquet, but I think it’s implied that Eliza was having an affair with the really strict headmaster (Audrey’s dad?), and he kills her in the woods. There’s a line towards the end about the narrator hearing about a body being found in the woods many years after the events of the book. That was my understanding of it, but I think it was left deliberately vague.

I've just finished Human Croquet by Kate Atkinson and although I did like it I'm annoyed that I didn't really follow how the main, but largely absent,.main character, Eliza, met her end. Sort of defeats part of the point in reading it so I'm going to either trawl through it Amazon reviews or, to my shame, resort to asking AI how she died..{ in my defence I've been poorly)

Let me tell you how much I disliked 'The Vivisectors' by Missouri Williams. It's the most affected and arch book I've read in a long time. Not much idea of what the plot was because it was very carefully hidden behind a layer of needless opacity but, essentially, it's a sort of speculative fiction set in a nameless city. Why is it nameless? some sort of sixth form attempt at showing this world is different to ours, and yet... Anyway, this city is not doing well, and otherwise not very much happens for a long time. Nothing that I remotely cared about anyway.
Apparently, the author doesn't like her work being called speculative fiction. I don't care. Oh, and her actual name isn't Missouri. I know plenty people have pen names but Missouri Williams - really?
To try to find a positive, the actual writing was decent enough.

I'm also reading 'May We Feed the King' by Rebecca Perry. It's clever and interesting and innovative but, in contrast to The Vivisectors, it doesn't try to smack the reader round the head with those things.

In my fiction reading, I'm working my way through the books on the Booker longlist - well, the ones that have some appeal for me, anyway. I really wanted to like 'Black Bag' by Luke Kennard, as I like a campus novel, and the blurb promised it would make me laugh. It didn't, but it did make me cringe a few times. He has a good turn of phrase though.

In non-fiction, I enjoyed 'On Thin Ice' by Charlie Walker who decided to hike across Siberia, and set off just before the outbreak of the war in Ukraine. He met some nice people and some terrible people, with pretty much all of them scarred by the terrible corruption of the regime they negotiate every day. He was arrested for 'committing journalism'. He tells the tell compellingly.

Next will be 'May We Feed the King' by Rebecca Perry.

I’m easing East of Eden by John Steinbeck, and finding it much more accessible than I expected! Think it’s been built up in my head as a Classic for years! Also have Tombstoning by Doug Johnstone on the go after seeing him at a writing festival at the weekend.

next up is the new Steve Cavanagh!!

Oooh. A book thread! How exciting. I'm currently reading The Art of A Lie by Laura Shepherd-Robinson, and she's been a go-to writer for me since Daughters of Night, so thoroughly enjoying it. Will have to wait to see what grabs my fancy next.

just finished The Calamity Club by Kathryn Stockett. Absolutely loved it. I didn’t know much about it other than the setting when I started reading (depression era, deep south) and i don’t want to give to much away because I think this really added to my enjoyment of the story.
Now starting Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins Read. Her books can be a bit hit or miss with me but have heard good things about this one and I loved Daisy Jones and the Six.

Finished Yesteryear whilst on holiday and was hooked from the first page. Loved it from start to finish. I know it has divided opinions on here.

Also finally read the last of Elena Ferrante's Neapolitan series, The Story of the Lost Child. It was good but not brilliant and I found the narrator insufferable.

Currently reading The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri and really enjoying it. Also readking a non-fiction book on the side Overinvested: The Emotional Economy of Modern Parenting which is an interesting look at how modern parents have been groomed into spending inordinate amounts on their children and treating them as human capital.

I just finished The Works of Vermin by Hiron Ennes. It's extremely well written horror sci fi fantasy with great world building, lots of bugs, some body horror, and politics as art movements. Weird, very interesting, I enjoyed it a lot.

Yes, well worth its spot on the Booker long list.

I'm currently reading another on the Booker list - 'The End of Everything' - by M John Harrison. I can't get into it, but then it's sci-fi which is a genre I only dabble in. In its favour, it's short! It won't win though.

Agree, @LethargeMarg , 'The Shampoo Effect' is a warm-hearted book, very forgiving of human frailty.

I’ve just finished The Last Summer, the first book in the Wild Isle trilogy by Karen Swan. I’ve read and enjoyed other books by her before, but really struggled with this one.

Also reading and enjoying Spectacles by Sue Perkins.

Next on the list is This Book Made Me Think of You by Libby Page.