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

[IceIceBabyBump]

Currently:
I'm currently about half way through "Enter Ghost" by Isabella Hammad.

Feeling:
I've been working my way through the six books shortlisted for the Women's Prize and this is the last one. It's probably bottom of my list of those books. I haven't at all clicked with the characters and I'm finding it quite boring to be honest.

Next:
I've just had my next stack of four books delivered and I think I'll try George Orwell's "1984" next. I'm excited.

LOL @mrstea301 I've just recommended you the thread you recommended me first! What happens when you're on multiple threads about books and you lose track of who said what! Sorry!

Ha ha, I know, I wasn't going to say 😂 I have now got up to date with all the books and happily started diving into the thread myself!!

Just finished reading Of Cattle and Men by Brazilian author Ana Paula Maia translated from the Portuguese by Zoe Perry.

It's only 90 odd pages long and I read it very quickly it's set in a slaughterhouse and it conjured up the setting for me vividly.

When I finished it I thought "well that was a weird book!" but I did really like it. Looking at Goodreads it made more sense when I discovered she has written several books with the same lead character.

I'd just had to DNF Precipice prior to that which was disappointing because I'm fascinated by the topic. I got to p.176 and I found it frustrating. I think I'd rather read a non fiction book about the main players. Can anyone tell me if I've made a mistake though and it gets better? The bit at the beginning with boat trip was good but the policeman character & his plot was jarring.

Tomorrow I'm looking forward to sitting on my bedroom floor to check through my entirely out of hand to be read pile(s). 😃

Just started Miss Austen by Gill Hornby, ahead of the BBC adaptation which I really want to watch but want to read the book (which has been hanging around on my kindle for quite a while) first. So far so good, but I have had to bookmark the family list at the start as I keep getting muddled about who is related to whom and how.

I'm currently reading "Looking For Lucy" by Jane E. James - an author I've never read before and I got the book after someone mentioned that there was a book by her on the infamous Crying Boy Painting legend (that will be my next read).

Really enjoying "Looking for Lucy" and will definitely be looking out for more of Jane E. James' books.

Another nice surprise was when I opened the book, it's actually been hand-signed by the author.
Usually I donate my books to charity when I've read them, but this will be one of the few I keep.

Just finished The Corrections.

Have now started The Secret Diaries of Charles Ignatius Sancho. A couple of chapters in and really enjoying it.

I've read several good books lately. 'Mudbound' by Hillary Jordan was excellent and I just finished 'The Bee Sting' by Paul Murray, which I couldn't put down. I didn't like the ending, but I thought he wrote the characters, male and female, gay and straight (he's a straight male), exceptionally well and the plot romped along. It was the most absorbing book I've read in a long time and the 650 pages never felt onerous, because it was such an easy read. I would baulk at writing from a teen girl's perspective now I'm in middle age, but I thought he did an excellent job of it.

The Bee Sting didn't win the 2024 Booker prize, yet I thought it was many orders of magnitude better than 'Orbital', which won this year. I haven't read 'Prophet Song' by Paul Lynch (the 2023 Booker winner). Has anyone else?

I'm on a roll with my own reading, though sometimes find my book club choices a slog, e.g "The Drowning Woman". by Robyn Harding. Utter utter shite. There is absolutely nothing good about it apart from the bit where you close the pestilential thing at the end.

OTOH "Orbital" was amazing, a book that took me out of my day to day life for the first time in years, as well as being very well-written. It got me onto the ISS app so I can look out for it when it's next over Melbourne, as well reading up on the Second Law of Thermodynamics - short version - everything fucks up.

Next up: 'The Offing" by Benjamin Myers.

The Orbital author was quite engaging at a book festival. I might reread, I thought it was a bit 'thin' getting to grips with the emotional side of small space living, almost just fictional facts and research spread over a tight structure.

Absolutely get on with Prophet Song @cheezncrackers it builds really well to a conclusion you don't see from the outset.
I liked the telling of the universe of Beesting but also struggled with the ending. Maybe I rushed it but interesting you flagged it.

Only got 75 pages left of A Gentleman in Moscow and I don't want it to end, I want them to live for ever and I've really enjoyed pootling around the hotel with them.

I enjoyed "Prophet Song", though got pissed off with all the dreams, bar the first one, especially when it was clear it was a set-up for the last scene - the blue horse. In all other ways very powerful writing. The audiobook is outstanding.

I'm currently reading Romantic Comedy by Curtis Sittenfeld and really enjoying it - it feels like she's really captured the lifestyle of what it would be like to work on SNL and her characters are always quite engaging!

It's so interesting seeing everyone's views on The Bee Sting by Paul Murray - I read it a few months ago for my book group and I honestly don't think I would have finished it otherwise! I found the writing entertaining up to a point but I felt that he didn't know how to write confrontations and would just cut away from them, which I think you can only get away with once really. The one that sticks in my head is with the dad in the club - all the build up felt like it was pointless with how it ended. Then the ending was frustrating- I don't mind an ambiguous ending, but not after every confrontation was cut short through the book. I see his other books also being heavily recommended but I'm just so wary of trying them now!

@BookEngine I loved A Gentleman in Moscow- brilliant characters.

Currently reading Trust me by T M Logan which is quite gripping. I have been late to work twice this week because I have been so engrossed!

Next on my list is My favourite mistake by Marian Keyes.

That's a really good book and I like T M Logan.

I'm currently zipping through "The Crying Boy" by Jane E James, based on the legend/myth from the 80s of the cursed painting that would cause house fires.
It's brilliant and she's really done her research on the myths, stories and media from around that time and she's based the house in the book on a house that was really involved in the legend, called Swallowsnest in Yorkshire.

She's a good author and writes really well but the only thing that is really putting me off reading any more of her work (I've read three of her books one after the other) is that for some reason, she seems to have an obsession of putting in loads of really horrible animal deaths and acts of cruelty that are hard to read and often aren't even relevant to the story in every single book.

In "The Crying Boy" there's been four totally unecessary and irrelevant animal deaths and it was the same in the other two books of hers I read.
Apparently she's an animal lover and advocate but I don't understand why so many animals die/get cruelly hurt in her books - as an animal lover myself, I find it hard to read and the only reason I'm reading "The Crying Boy" is because the legend fascinates me because I remember it from when I was little.

This will be my last Jane E James book though.

I started a Liane Moriarty (Apples Never Fall) and abandoned it almost immediately. Didn't like it at all. Now on Started Early, Took My Dog by Kate Atkinson. Whizzing through and loving it.

@beguilingeyes

You made the correct choice Apples Never Fall was abysmal and has put me right off the author

Just finished Moriarty's latest Here One Minute. I can feel it will probably get made into a tv mini series, I can almost guess which actresses they will cast, certainly an ensemble.

It moves along, the odd really good observation buried in amongst 500 pages of plotting and hitting the reveals spaced per chapter.

I also finished seven husbands of Evelyn Hugo, a quick read, I'm not sure it really got under the skin of the era but it did try. My teenager found it a forgettable holiday read last summer, she couldn't remember the clumsy unbelievable twist, that's pretty damming.

I'm still missing the well written, immersive world of the Gentleman in Moscow.

Just finished 'Glorious Exploits' by Ferdia Lennon. It was the Waterstones' Pick of the Month or whatever they call it and it's just out in paperback. I do love a book set in the ancient world and I enjoyed it, though it was an odd story (two poor blokes in ancient Syracuse decide to put on a performance of two Euripides plays in a stone quarry performed by starving Athenian slaves in 412 BC). The plot though wasn't the weirdest thing, it was that the author chose to voice the main character as a contemporary Irish bloke. His turns of phrase, including 'Grand, so' and calling things 'shite' definitely added to the surreal nature of the story, but it was quite fun and it's a short read at 288 pages.

I'm now reading 'The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn' by Mark Twain, ahead of 'James' by Percival Everett (book group choice for next month). I felt I couldn't really appreciate the latter without reading the former first. But having started HF I realise that it's actually Book 2 and that 'The Adventures of Tom Sawyer' is Book 1! Argh! I'm not going to read TS or I'll never get to 'James' and I'm not sure how much tolerance I have for the subject matter anyway.

Currently reading Orbital by Samantha Harvey - enjoying it so far though I don't think much will happen in it! I loved her book The Western Wind although it was very different.

Next...possibly The Land in Winter? feel I should read it before the weather warms up!

Currently: Origins of the Universe, the cosmic microwave background and the search for quantum gravity by Keith Cooper.

Next: Why does E=mc2? by Brian Cox & Jeff Forshaw

Reading - A little Life by Hanya Hanigihara

It's a large book, had some slow and confusing moments but I am so glad I persevered. I had a 2 month break, read a few more books and then went back to it and have about 200 pages to go.

It is at times breathtakingly sad.....but love the characters and it's very very well written. The main character Jude has been subjected to years of horrific abuse as a child. It's harrowing and amazing at the same time. Very hard to explain.

Up next; something light and funny to take the edge of this one I think.

Yanagihara sorry spell check!

I've just finished Weyward by Emilia Hart. It's the story of three women from different times and how their lives link together. I absolutely loved it.

Now reading The Women by Kristen Hannah. Enjoying it so far.

I agree - A Little Life is a roller coaster of emotional reading! I was worn out by the time I'd finished it. Definitely try something more lighthearted after.

I loved this book. Read it on holiday last month.

Currently reading Yellowface and really enjoying it. Not sure what's next.