What are you reading right now?

I'd be interested to know what you think of Adam Smith's Dinner, Shovetheholly

I'm now reading The Moral Judgement of the Child, by Jean Piaget. It's bloody fascinating.

Can't stand Dickens, he is the epitome of mawkish Victorian melodrama. All hand wringing with added anti semitism. Ugh. Austen OTOH has a wicked sense of the absurdities of the world she lives in and brings them to life.

I'm reading The Diary Of Martha Ballard. Martha was an 18th century midwife in New England. It is a fascinating look at the period of time before men really took over the business of the birth. Martha worked as a midwife until her 70th birthday. She also tended to her family, house and farm work as expected during that period of time.

For the second time reading ' the reader' so terribly sad, now got to the trial and she is so disempowered through the court process not being able to understand documents, incriminating herself and so on..

Next time might have to read a book of this thread so many ideas..

Just picked up Edith Wharton's The Age of Innocence - haven't read it before so thought I'd give it a whirl - going well so far.
And also have Janet Evanovitch's number series (Stephanie Plum) on the go as well.

I'm not very highbrow!

oops, posted too soon - was going to add that although the default "she" is just world building background, I do find it quite a pleasant background effect. I realise that I am often disappointed with SF that does fantastic world building and then has lazy, unexamined gender defaults that appear to have no reasoning behind them, which then tends to throw me out of the story.

Finished Ancillary Mercy this week. To answer the question Cote asked way back up there somewhere, the reason they're not all called "it" is actually quite relevant to the story - ancillaries are "it" (in this universe, ancillaries are humans, usually former prisoners, controlled by AIs in spaceships, stations etc. The process of putting in the implants that allows the AI to control the human body irreversibly destroys the original personality, and ancillaries are not considered people, but equipment). So, people are "she", ancillaries are "it". Obviously the Radch do have biological sexes, but they don't distinguish between them grammatically, they just use one pronoun (like Finnish I think, but unlike Finnish they also don't have a. Other cultures in that universe do distinguish, so will refer to some characters as "he", so occasionally you discover a character is male.

TBH, though there seems to be a lot of focus on the ubiquitous "she", that isn't really the interesting part of the series for me. It quite quickly fades into the background and becomes just another part of the world building.

What an enjoyable thread. I've just read it all in one go.

Recently, I have been reading The Last Winter of Dani Lancing by P D Viner. But I haven't been enjoying it at all, so I have decided to give it up and go on to something else. The next book in line is a completely different sort of book - The Cunning Woman's Cup by Sue Hewitt.

Dorothy L Sayers is an enjoyable read, Lord Peter has just visited the Communist Club for a bad dinner with a female friend. It is very funny and clever about social mores. A murder will be solved by the end of it.

I've been discovering the joy of Barbara Pym too, it's the minutiae that means I can enjoy a chapter at a time before bed. It's wry navel gazing and very much about a set of seemingly overlooked women who are actually the backbone of their rather constrained world.

Ebearhug - I've recently read Who Cooked Adam Smith's Dinner. It actually annoyed me so much I contemplated throwing it in the Rayburn, rather than giving it to a charity shop, and I don't generally get annoyed at books
I was hoping to read a book exploring why a particular strand of economic thought had become dominant, particularly in America/the UK over the last 30-40 years. Instead it was a classic of 'economists say X', 'economists think Y' (note to author: you're not the first feminist economist on the planet) along with the compulsary selective quoting of Keynes out of context.

ITIL sounds gripping, scallops, though maybe a bit weak on plot & characterisation

Elizabeth Jane Howard - Marking Time.

Oh and ITIL v3 (2011) Service Operations. Thrilling read I tell you. Thrilling.

Another one who hates Dickens but likes Austen.

Kindle is a great boon wrt not wasting time - I always get a sample chapter if I don't know the author, so I delete it if that doesn't grab me.
Also, Kindle saved me having to move to a bigger house, because even with frequent loads to charity, I still have 12 bookcases, 1m x 2m.
No more dead trees now.

I'm the one who likes Honor Harrington.
I'm indifferent to his far future party politics, because that society has already achieved sexual & racial equality, plus good basic standard of living.
I skip the boring politics in any book, anway.

I can tolerate a few by Heinlein, but none of his ridiculous Randian crap.
I like Miles Vorkosigan too, but not Moon's Remnant Population - her Paksenarrion trio was remarkable and the Paladin successors are good.

My daily work is leading edge science, but my leisure reading is basically junk brain binges : tough women warriors fighting battles on equal terms < bloodthirsty bitch emoticon >

As I read mostly on the Kindle app on my phone nowadays, the option to download a free sample is really useful. I often get turned off by writing style so books that seem promising in every other aspect can be unreadable for me.

I find myself abandoning books more and more frequently, actually

Me too. I used to feel guilty about it but life really is too short to waste time on books I'm not enjoying.

I didn't like Life after Life.

My mum recommended it and we are usually on the same page with fiction, so I wanted to like it. But...I got bored about a third of the way in and abandoned.

I find myself abandoning books more and more frequently, actually .

I'd love to join a book club, but fear I would always be the grumpy one, saying I didn't like the book. I never seem to enjoy the modern novels that other people love (Wolf Hall? Snooze etc).

I can't stand Dickens .

If the '50 Novels' thread is still running next year, I'll definitely join. I read a novel a week and usually have a non-fiction book on the go, too. Be nice to waffle on about it a bit with you lot.

Yes Cote in real life discussion of this book I haven't come across any one who didn't like Life after Life.

It was one of the few which met with universal approval at my book group, which if it is relevant, is a mixture of men, straight and gay and women.

Chunky - When I read them both as a teenager, I thought Brave New World was brilliant and 1984 was dry & uninspired. Then last year I read them both in quick succession for the first time in 25 years and was to see that BNW was badly written, lacked depth & character development, and was even slightly ridiculous. Its writing style had dated badly. 1984, on the other hand, could have been written today. I now realise that much of it has gone over my head when I read it as a teenager. It is a great book on many levels.

I'm reading Elephant Moon ATM. I can't remember exactly what it's about because I tend to gather large swathes of books I want to read at a time and then pick one at random so it's a bit of a surprise.

Currently it's set in WW2 Burma where a teacher of a school for mixed race and disabled children is trying to get the DC out of Burma to India but it's all very last minute and she has to keep averting disaster. I think it's based on a true story but I can't remember. It's good, though :)

"I did re-read Heinlein recently. I adored him when I was a teenager, but now, it's all so distastefully misogynistic that I couldn't even make it re-through one of my previous favourited"

My sentiments exactly. I adored him as a teenager, too. Stranger In A Strange Land, Time Enough For Love, etc I read them all at least 10 times. I don't dare re-read them now for fear of ruining my memories of them, but I did recently read one of the few Heinlein books I had not previously read and found it badly written, clunky, and as you said, terribly misogynistic.