What book are you reading just now, why are you reading it and are you enjoying it?

How lovely to have such a long list (mostly) of recommendations. I'm reading Miss Pettigrew lives for a day, because DH bought it for me for our anniversary. It's a hoot - uptight spinister governess meets "caberet artiste" and learns to let go a bit. Very easy read.

The novel is Middlesex, and very good it is too Intersex is a collection of little vignettes about the author's experience of being intersex - she's a gay woman with Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia. I'm writing about Middlesex as part of my dissertation so thought this would be an interesting read.

cyteen, what is Intersex about? I think there is a novel of the same name by Jeffrey someone?

Am currently reading Age of Capital by Eric Hobsbawm, have owned it plus the previous one Age of Revolution for years, literally, (bought 2nd hand when I was a student I think) and tried to read them several times, but for some random reason I zipped through the first one after turning them up when we moved, and am really enjoying the 2nd right now. Interesting background to the current economic situation & parallels with China/Asia today I guess.

Unfortunately Pembs library system has those two but not the next one so will have to shell out unless I can find a 2nd hand copy

Socttsboro.
its ok

afetr the shiteola that was " home" its a blessed relief.

have just ordered 6 to take on hol

I'm reading 'Contagious: Cultures, Carriers and the Outbreak Narrative' by Priscilla Wald and 'Intersex (for lack of a better word)' by Thea Hillman. Both for my MA, enjoying them very much.

Mrs Danvers. I liked 'Restoration' a lot though I must admit I can now remember nothing at all about it.

I read my first Heyer this year (in case you haven't guessed, I am a huge Austen boffin!) and really enjoyed it - it's basically a mix between Austen and Jilly Cooper. I keep trying to find more in the library but they've never got any in.

Agree with you there Winky I thought it was a brilliantly written novel.

I've just finished Scotsboro: a novel

It's brilliant. It's all about the Scotsboro trials in Alabama in 1930's told mostly from the point of view of a journalist who gets to know one of the women accusing nine black boys of gang rape.

It depicts the power of the mob, how being black means doomed and poor white also means doomed in that era + region.

It makes you think a lot about society and how it happens that people can be so easily pitted against each other with true hate. It will make you feel great anger and hope without sentimentality

It's un-put-downable. I can highly recommend it.

CheGirl Seeing whole sections of MisLit just depresses me. I understand they may have been cathartic to write, but unless the reader has been abused themselves what could they relate to? Seems a bit voyeristic to me, but this comes from someone who has to turn over when the NSPCC ads come on...

Janeite I read another 200 ish pages of TH@R last night & I kept thinking any minute now the plot will grip me properly but it just wasn't happening! Kept linking it to scenes in Atonement too, from the film tho, haven't read the book..

Ikwym about Pillars, it seems he had improved a lot by WWE. Although with both of them quite a few times the plot was so predictable that I just flicked forward to what I knew the outcome would be

Not sure whether I'll persevere with TH&R. On my To Read Next Pile are 'Restoration' by Rose Tremain (as I really liked Music&Silence), 'Our Mutual Friend' (a Dickens I haven't read) & 'Arabella' by Georgette Heyer (Someone said if I loved Austen then I'd enjoy Heyer's books)

Hmm, what to pick ?

Just finished Deaf Sentence by David Lodge. Bit of a return to form after a few disappointing books from him, imho. Very poignant.

Mainly read it out of curiousity as I was a huge fan in my teens (then met him, which put me off for a while ).

Next book is the Boy in Striped Pyjamas.

You can get most libraries to order books in for you (whoever said their library didn't stock The Female Eunich). Only costs 55p for adult books, free for kid books, bargain if you ask me!! I recently ordered in Tom Sawyer for DS1.

There are a lot of survivors of Abuse books out there, aren't there? Quite grim, mostly I can't stomach them. I managed Runaway by Skye Sinclair, though, that's a cracking good read although it's veracity has been widely questioned.

chegirl welcome back to the world of reading! And oh yes, miserylit, huurrrlll! Have you read Wild Swans? Sort of auto/biog but if you like Maya Angelou...

im reading "the well of lost plots" by jasper fforde, cos ive just read the first two and i need to know what happens next!

im loving it. very funny. makes me smile on the train!

I am reading " things i want my daughters to know" by Elizabeth Noble.
I had a recent cancer scare that went on for a few months, and although the book could be seen as a bit "cheesy"... it's had me in tears. (of laughter and sadness).

Going to start Coe's The Rain Before it Falls tomorrow.

Hours! Not ours! feckity feck

I'm reading The Morville ours by Katherine Swift and it's bloody dull and it's going back to the library tomorrow!

Perusing a few having just finished Amercian Wife, but may stick with A Death In Tuscany.

Thanks Pan. I think I will add it my list.

Mrs Danvers - I read The House At Riverton on holiday last year and hated it. It didn't help that I thought it was a re-hashing of 'Attonement' which I also hated!

I enjoyed 'World Without End' - thought it was better written than 'Pillars' which, whilst an interesting story, was quite clumsily written I thought, with quite one-dimensional characters. I thought he'd fleshed them out better in the 2nd.

Meg - 'On Writing' is really interesting isn't it? I have just re-read 'Danse Macabre' and it persuaded me to have a go at reading HP Lovecraft (who King really rates). Unfortunately I found it so turturous that I gave up after just two stories!

I am now bookless again. Library tomorrow if I'm feeling better - have just got up after leaving work early and sleeping all afternoon.

I'm reading "The Corner" by David Simon.

i read Life of Pi and really liked it, apart from the - stop now if you're only half way through - Island bit, which i found odd and and out of place.

Have just finished The White Tiger, bought in on a 2 for 1 or whatever with the non-fiction book Fear by Dan someoneorother. it was brilliant - it won the Man Booker last year, i totally recommend it. Also the Fear book is a great and very worthwhile, if rather dry, read... puts modern life and our fears about it (and our children) into context.

MrsDanvers they have their own shelf/section in WH Smith now .

I did read Damaged by kathy Glass [?] but that was because I have been a foster carer and I was interested in the subject. I have skimmed through a few others but dont get the attraction.

I feel uncomfortable reading them. They feel exploitative although I presume the authors are paid well for them. People have the right to share their stories and I hope they are cathartic but really, once you have read one you have read 10.

I am currently reading Stephan Kings "On Writing."

It's an autobiography/guide to writing fiction.

Excellent stuff.