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.

I am finishing off Babel tonight and I am so fed up with it. I had high hopes for it , yet with just over an hour left on Kindle, I really couldn't explain how the silver bars work
There aren't many characters left now so goodness knows how it will all end!

I have Things in Jars from the library next.

I'm reading The Killer Question by Janice Hallett, I'm really enjoying it and I love the style of Halletts books.
Next up is whatever takes my fancy when I'm scrolling the many unread books on my Kindle!

I've started a Rosie Thomas called Moon Island . It's not grabbing me like her stuff usually does.
I'm also reading The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah, second world war French resistance story which I'm enjoying very much.

New York by Edward Rutherford. I read London a few years ago and enjoyed it. I’m enjoying this one too. Next is Jeremy Vines book Murder on Line One. Met him at the Durham book festival last week and got him to sign it. Looking forward to it.

Just finished List of Suspicious Things which I really enjoyed. Next book I’m going to read is The Names which I’m hoping I’m going to enjoy as well.

Reading South Riding at the moment. Enjoying it, v interesting reading an account of life then in the 1930s written at the time as opposed to a historical novel .

Good to hear about the Janice Hallett book, I really enjoyed the Appeal..
Agree about Babel - seemed like a fantasy novel written by someone who can't really plot or create enough detail interest in the world she'd created.

The adaptation of South Riding with Anna Maxwell Martin is very good.

Current reading:

Poor by Katriona O'Sullivan. An autobiography written by a woman who had an absolutely chaotic and abusive upbringing by parents who were drug addicts. Well written but absolutely heart-breaking. From the blurb she comes through this hell to succeed but, damn, the first chapters are harrowing.

Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel. This is a post-apocalyptic story of society after a devastating pandemic which wiped out modern society as we know it (this was written a few years before covid). I adore her writing style and I'm really enjoying this one.

Dark Sun by Richard Rhodes. A non-fiction about the development of the hydrogen bomb by the US and Russia in the 1940s and 1950s. I'd previously read his The Making of the Atomic Bomb and so this was the obvious next step. I'm about a third of the way through and and a lot of it has been a slog as although the rampant and pervasive Russian espionage could potentially be a really interesting story, Rhodes struggles to make it so. He's much better at the technicalities which, so far, have been annoyingly sparse.

Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir. This is an audiobook that I listen to on long car journeys. I've read this before, as I've also read his The Martian more than once. I quite like it. As with The Martian it's got some absolutely MASSIVE plot holes and unfeasibly convenient solutions to problems, but he's obviously learned how to write somewhat more believable characters than his earlier work. And it's good fun. I am both looking forward to, and suspicious of, the movie of this book.

@HowardTJMoon Were you the person who recommended A City On Mars by Kelly & Zach Wienersmith a while back? I have just read it and found it fascinating and very funny, and most of all refreshingly realistic, it punctures all the Musk-ish bullshit and talks about whether we can even have babies in space (er probably not) or grow enough to live on (very difficult indeed). I loved it.

Just starting This is How You Lose the Time War. So far it’s overly complex and a bit too pleased with itself. We’ll see.

Just finished “A woman is no man” by Etaf Rum. Loved it.

Not sure what to start. Maybe the Beekeeper of Aleppo

I have kindle unlimited if anyone has suggestions

I've just finished Tim Winton's "Juice", its climatic apocalypse setting is a new one for him. It's a gripping read, though as usual he really doesn't write women well. Not atrociously, just not as well as he does men.

One caveat is a late reveal in the narrative line, not of the unforgivable totally-new-character-who's-the-murderer faux pas of rubbish detective stories but still not OK.

I'm making it sound terrible, which it isn't.

Oh, and you'll never look at mulching the same ever again.

@MotherOfCatBoy yes, that was me. I'm glad you enjoyed it! It's a fun mix of a well researched but very realistic look at a topic that attracts an awful lot of wishful thinking.

I’m reading Riceyman Steps by Arnold Bennett. A lesser known novel by this author I believe. I’m enjoying it, also enjoyed Anna of the Five Towns….
The one I’m reading now is set in 1919 gives a good picture of London just after the end of WW1 and I tend to like books written between the WWs.

Also recommend Poor, Katriona O’ Sullivan….

I’m currently reading On Broadway by Damon Runyon and absolutely loving it. His writing is so sharp and funny and observant and completely transports you to the time and setting of his work - the shadier streets of Manhattan in the 1920s and 30s, with most of the characters being small-time gangsters, gamblers, drifters, dancing girls etc. I adore his work and love the fact that he was writing about the people he knew and observed and listened to every day. Also I can now only think of money as ‘scratch’ or ‘potatoes’.

I’m also reading (I rarely read only one book at a time) Empire of the Vampire by Jay Kristoff. It’s fabulous. It’s proper grimdark fantasy - dark, violent and complicated, full of betrayals and with a cynical, cunning, very morally grey protagonist. It’s set in a world broadly aligned to late 18th century Europe and it’s heartbreaking, darkly funny, haunting and filthy all at the same time. I can’t wait to start the next book in the trilogy.

Finally I’m reading The Ghost Rider by Ismail Kadare. It’s an Albanian satirical novel that draws on an old Balkan folk tale with elements that are symbolic of life in Albania under extreme communism in a magical realism setting. It’s great; I’m just getting into Kadare after visiting Albania recently.

Also Simon Schama; 'Citizens.'

I’m currently reading Jurassic Park, not read it for years and I’m really enjoying it. I might re read Timeline next also by Michael Crichton.

I'm currently reading The Miniaturist, which took a while to get going, but I'm about half way through now and really enjoying it.
That's a paperback. On my kindle I've got The Flowers Of The Field by Sarah Harrison which I read years ago and have completely forgotten, although I remember loving it. It's the first part of a trilogy so the next two are waiting.

Loved the miniaturist and have the follow up to read on my immediate TBR pile (I have so many books yet keep getting them out of the library!)

Im reading Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood and really enjoying it. Listening to If We Were Villains. Not my usual style and it’s ok. Part of a Goodreads challenge list.

I'm reading Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil and absolutely loving it. It's my first V E Schwab.

I also reading Poor by Katriona O’Sullivan. Good, but harrowing.

Poor, by Katriona O'Sullivan, is on stage in The Gate in Dublin right now.
I went to see it last night with my sisters and OMG I bawled my eyes out!
It was brilliant! What really struck me was how important good teachers are, and what an enormous impact they can have in a child's life.
I hadn't read the book, but one of my sisters had, so I had nothing to compare it to - not sure I could read the book, I'd cry my way through it.

Right now I'm reading the latest Richard Osman, it's pretty formulaic but I need something light and easy to read right now.

I found a copy of Swallows & Amazons in a charity shop & I’m really enjoying re-reading it.

I’m reading The Lost Bookshop by Evie Woods. Picked up in a second hand book store. Had never heard of her before but I’m absolutely loving it. Will be reading her other books.

I've read this and absolutely loved it too!!
Loved that book