What's on your bookshelf?

[LondonTipton99]

This is my June 'to read' set (I section them out so I actually do read them - otherwise the tv calls!)

What is everyone else reading ATM?

Always love recommendations!

I'm currently reading Wild Dark Shore which I'm really enjoying.

I have a basket of books on my bedside table. It currently contains:
Wolf of Wolf Hall 10% read
The first two Frederica Potter books 25% second time around.
The Secret History 70%
The English Understand Wool 100%
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man 100%
A reader’s companion to Joyce’s Ulysses. 25%
Lessons in Chemistry 100%
Mrs Dalloway 60%
and Clean and Green by Nancy Birtwhistle.

On my TBR pile I currently have:

Raising Hare by Chloe Dalton
We Will Not Be Saved by Nemonte Nenquimo
The Light a Candle Society by Ruth Hogan
Elizabeth by Gyles Brandreth
The Executive Functioning Workbook for Adults by Taylor Reed
Brain Rules for Baby by John Medina

I have a trolley where I keep my imminent TBR books:

A knight of the seven kingdoms
Marple Short Stories
Golden Hill
Insomnia
Rizzio
Trustee from the Toolroom
My Best Friends Exorcism
The Appeal
The Betrayals
The Little stranger
Girl With the Dragon Tattoo

I am currently reading The Names.

In my TBR pile are:

Young Mungo
Blue Sisters
The Wedding Party
The Woman Who Went To Bed For A Year
Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow
Mrs Bensons Beetle
Animals

And I’m now on a book buying ban!

About 200 orchestra scores...

@Zerodarkforty can you let me know how The Names is? I keep picking it up and putting it down!

That's interesting as I just couldn't get into it and have donated it to a charity shop in the hope that someone else will enjoy it!

Reading Haywire, it’s by an academic I know and he’s lovely so I’m giving it a read. It’s 550 pages so taking me a while. Also reading Greyhound, it was recommended by a colleague.

I read Flesh over Christmas, didn’t really rate it. To quote the protagonist, it was “ok”.

I’m reading Scarlet by Wendy Perriam - not brilliant which is a shame.
to read The Great Plague Evelyn Lord, the Glassmaker Tracy Chevalier, Munichs David Peake.

@BookishBobby no i mean i keep picking it up in the bookshop, drawn to it, then putting it back down because I'm not sure if i want to read it or not!

I'm v interested to read it, it's not normally something I would pick up! Maybe not such high hopes now 😆

@Sgtmajormummy you are reading multiple books at once? I could never, i'd get confused!

The ones that are finished need to be rehomed or charity-shopped as our bookcases are seriously overcrowded.
I’m in a Ulysses reading group so anything Joyce/Woolf related is more like serious study.
Reading the 4 Frederica (A.S.Byatt) books in the right order has been on my bucket list for 20 years and I’ve finally got around to it. Loving it even more this time.
Secret History I’m probably going to abandon (I read it in tandem with DD) and I’ll take WoWH on holiday in July.
So there’s method in my madness!

I'm a mood reader, so TBR lists or stacks don't work for me; I pick up what I'm in the mood for.
I've just finished Nothing Tastes as Good by Luke Dumas. We're following Emmett, who takes part in a clinical trial for a new weight loss drug and experiences some unusual side effects. I really enjoyed it, it's classed as body horror, but it's very light (which was my biggest disappointment with it) and not gory.
I'll have a look through my Kindle library later and pick my next read.

Too many to mention. Currently reading Flashlight by Susan Choi. I’m trying to read the 6 shortlisted books for the Women’s Prize. This is number 4.

I just finished The truth about Ruby Cooper by Liz Nugent. Couldn't put it down. It's my book clubs 3rd Liz Nugent novel, if you haven't read Strange Sally Diamond I'd really recommend it, amazing book.

I really enjoyed it but got a bit confused with the chapters skipping back and forth. It's not a style I enjoy. I really like the book though, it's thought provoking. Kind of a 'sliding doors' scenario.

Currently reading:
The Good Liar, by Denise Mina (awful, probably won't finish)
Lucky, Jackie Collins (read it a hundred times)
The Darling Buds of May, HE Bates (also read many many times)
Eve's War, Evelyn Shillington (so far so good)

To be read:
The Odd Women, George Gissing
Harlem Shuffle, Colson Whitehead

I ADORED My Best Friends Exorcism!

I’ve just finished All The Colours of the Dark, and my TBR are;

• the safekeep
• witchcraft for wayward girls
• yesteryear
• notes on an execution

I usually have a couple of non fiction on the go, which I read quite slowly, and a fiction which I read fairly quickly.

Non fiction-
Moondust. The story of the men who fell to Earth.
and
Atomic. The first war of physics and the secret history of the atom bomb.

Fiction
The creak on the stairs.

Just finished: Emma (this was a reread)

I've just finished Sarah Morgan's latest book Brave New Summer

And am now reading Along the Borders by Richard Collett

I've also got Katya Hoyer's book on Weimar to read, Exit Stalin by Mark B Smith and Hotel Exile by Jane Rogoyska. And also the Shortest Histories of the USA and Scotland respectively. A bit of a history focus!

Just finished reading Stephen Donaldson's most recent series "The Great God's War" - most enjoyable - and am about to have another bash at "Remembrance of Earth's Past" Series by Cixin Liu. I tried to read it a couple of years ago when convalescing, but I think it was too heavy for my brain at the time.😄
I belong to a reading group - joined years back to improve the spread of books I read. I wasn't impressed at all by the latest offering "The Lamplighters" by Emma Stonex. I suppose it's one of those magical realism stories which I find dire, eg. Toni Morrison's "Beloved".
Give me Mrs Gaskell (for instance) for a non-sf decent read!!

I’m finding The Names quite beautiful but heartbreaking. It echoes a lot of things I went through in a previous relationship, so that has been difficult at times. Nonetheless, it’s been a worthwhile read.
It can be hard to follow if I miss a day of reading, as the story is told through three different lives and timelines. It’s definitely not a light-hearted book. If anything, it could probably come with a trigger warning for domestic abuse.