Generally speaking I’m only really reading the top book on my night stand. There are nine books there.
From the bottom up:
Keith Richards - Life
I read about 1/3 of it and enjoyed it, but I have a really hard time actually finishing anything non-fiction.
The Annotated Sherlock Holmes
This has been there since the CC book club read "The Hound of the Baskervilles". I've read some of the other stories, but not all of them. I'm not that big a mystery fan, and not that big a SH fan, but I'd kind of like to finish it any way.
The Good Lord Bird - James McBride
Read the reviews and thought it sounded intriguing. I read a chapter. It didn't quite grab me, but I didn't hate it either. It stays there because I think I should give it another shot.
In Translation - Translators on their work and what it means.
My kid got this book for a course he decided not to take. This is a subject that fascinates me, but not enough apparently to open the book. It's non-fiction, that's a problem.
P. G. Wodehouse - Hot Water
I've always thought I should read a Jeeves book. This was recommended by my sister-in-law, but it's not a Jeeves book. I think I read the first chapter or two. Was not impressed. I need to give it back to her.
Justice Calling - The Twenty Sided Sorceress Book One - Annie Bellet
DH gave them to me for Christmas having read a good review in a sci-fi mag. YA - very YA. Not impressed. Read all three, so why is only the first one still here? They'll be going to the library sale when I track them all down.
The Sculptor - Scott McCloud
Another Christmas present from dh. Graphic novel this time. Not my favorite form. It was pretty good, but I didn't love it. I did finish it though.
Persepolis - Marjane Satrapi
Read this for the CC Book Club's April selection. Another graphic novel. It was great. I should replace it with Reading Lolita in Teheran which we are also reading.
Shades of Milk and Honey - Mary Robinette Kowal
The book I am actually reading. Jane Austen with magic. Not as good as I'd like it to be, but the author shows promise. It was nominated for a bunch of awards including the Nebula. My son was reading these, because he listens to the Podcast "Writing Excuses" and she is one of the regulars. I have only listened to some of the podcasts, but I really enjoy it - three genre writers talk about the craft of writing.
If you haven’t read other Edith Wharton books, PLEASE do not give up on her after Ethan Fromme. Her other novels are so different – even the ones that end in tragedy are infused with humor and joy throughout. And the sparkling Fifth Avenue and Washington Square drawing rooms are so much more cheerful than the bleak and frozen New England landscape of Ethan Fromme.
Abasket – Yes, I do! I read tons of books in every genre and sometimes feel like a lighter, domestic read. Liane Moriarty’s books fall into that category, for example.
What books are you thinking about that fall into that category?
^I actually don’t mind Ethan Frome. It was just the wrong weekend to read it, kind of like the time I tried to take a book I’d been wanting to reread-Crime and Punishment-on vacation to the Caribbean. Got through about 5 pages, thought “What was I thinking?!” and threw it to the bottom of my carry-on.
It never seems to me Ethan Fromme was even written by the same author!
Custom of the Country is my very favorite.
The Children is pretty interesting, but not a real popular one.
I like to read Wharton alongside Candace Bushnell. Does she count as chick lit?
I have no books on my nightstand because I don’t read in bed. I read in the parlor. In the parlor (in the secretary because in my minds books become clutter) I have a Marilynne Robinson trilogy a friend gave me to read and I’m half done with it. And “Can you Forgive Her?” which I finished rereading yesterday.
I am finding I keep lots of books on kindle these days. It’s a present from my kids that has really changed my life.
^Just read Marilynne Robinson’s “Gilead” which I gave up on when I tried to read it a few years ago. This time I liked it once I’d slowed my metabolism a bit to match the book.
No books on my nightstand. No Kindle, but yes, iPad. I don’t read as often as I used to. I’m a podcast and audiobook listener though. Finished Elena Ferrante’s Naples series, all four books back to back, most recently. Desert Queen by Janet Wallach is on deck. I have more audiobooks in my wish list at Audible, but don’t recall any titles off hand.
Yay for Anthony Trollope! Can You Forgive Her is a good choice for an election year. I haven’t read then in a long time but I remember all the political nonsense in the Palliser series as seeming so contemporary.
I just reread Barchester Towers after recommending it to someone on the other thread. So much fun!
Yay also for Marilynne Robinson. Housekeeping is one of my all-time favorite books but she does require patience and close reading.
I had a large stack, but we had a new bed delivered/set up a week ago and I had to move them downstairs.
There was (just-finished) Hank Phillipi Ryan, the latest Sophie Hannah, a Peter May, and 3 that I read ages ago and never got around to reshelving: a Laurie King ‘Mary Russell’, a Susan Hill, and a Camilla Lackberg.
Yesterday I read/finished a family/chick lit book (The Hole in the Middle) and half of an odd police procedural (Murder in Thrall, finished today) on my iPad. I tend to read a less intense, lighter novel after every 2 or 3 harder things.
Right now, there are at least 30 books under the sofa table in the family room - a mix of read and unread. Since I went to the bookstore on Saturday, there are also 4 in a bag on the backseat of my car. Yes, I have a book problem. I read fairly quickly and will go through as many as 4 or 5 books each week if I’m not working extra or busy with family stuff.
The oddest thing on the shelf is a Spike Milligan, “Adolf Hitler and My Part in His Downfall.” I have no clue how it got there.
I am not crazy about most current “literary fiction.” Too much is pretentious and boring. My SIL will read it as self improvement and tell me all about it. That’s as close as it gets.
I read one book at a time. Usually fiction but sometimes nonfiction. Now reading the second in a series by Stephen Booth. Not bad. I keep The Medical Detectives by Berton Roueche and a P G Wodehouse on the nightstand in case I finish whatever I’m reading in the middle of the night and need an emergency read. Elsewhere in the house I have a cache of 6-10 books to read next. I have to have books on tap or I get antsy. I’ve decided I don’t like reading fiction on the Kindle (though I will if I go out of town.)
I like chick-lit. Patty Jane’s House of Curl by Lorna Landvik is one of my favorites. Sounds stupid but it’s really good.
Pre-Kindle, I used to have typically 3 books on the nightstand…but I still have a 6’ x 3’ bookcase two steps from my bed. It is full. double-parked on the bottom shelves. The Kindle I tend to keep 1 or 2 ‘active’ but my cloud library is quite large. I tend to read fast. If I fly somewhere I typically bring 3 books minimum. One for flights each direction and one for in the hotel.
Only teh one I am currently reading - “Girl Waits With Gun” by Amy Stewart. I need to get to the library again. OTOH I do have a stack of “emergency” unread books I can always read.
(oh, Gilead…I do not get that book’s critical acclaim…But the Good Lord Bird?! Oh my gosh, one of my favorites…just stick with it)
4-ish : the one I’m reading (Not in God’s Name: Understanding Religion and Violence) and the next bunch: Reading Lolita in Tehran, Kent Haruf’s Evensong (or is it Eventide?), a history of Carnegie Libraries in America, and a book my dad gave me called Saturn. Oh, and Seveneses is waiting at the library. And the book I just finished, Jacksonland (Cherokees, politics, precivil war nonfiction) because someone wants to borrow it.
I’ve tried to like chick lit, but I just find it exasperating. Probably the closest I’ve come there is The Devil Wears Prada.
I tend to like escapist stuff like space operas and Harry Potter-ish lit, and I devour behavioral economics books like they’re candy (I’m a Freakonomics fan).
The true crime stuff just upsets me too much, and I won’t touch Marley and Me with a ten foot pole.
I can read limited amounts of chick lit, but it strikes me as potato chips for the brain- a little is fun, but too much and my brain feels sick. My not so guilty pleasure is good children’s and YA literature. I’ve been on a reading jag lately and have read and reread a few really emotionally tough books, including Jane Hamilton’s A Map of the World, but the one book that had me full-out, snot-dripping sobbing was Kate DiCamillo’s The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane. I first read it for an elementary school mother-daughter book group and both I and my reluctant reader loved it.
Although I realize it is a loaded phrase for her, I have probably read the complete works of Jennifer Weiner.
Last summer I really enjoyed, Crazy Rich Asians and Rich China Girlfriend, Kevin Kwan (is it chick lit if a man writes it? )
I also read a whole lot of books that grew out of blogs: Black Heels to Tractor Wheels, Ree Brummond, the Pioneer Woman
I looked up “chick lit” on good reads and I have read these authors:
Candace Bushnell (love, love - frequently retelling Wharton tales)
Sophie Kinsella
Lauren Weisberger
Plum Sykes
Rebecca Wells (Ya Ya sisterhood books - chick lit??) - love her
Janet Evanovich (mystery writer) - fun reads
Elizabeth Gilbert is on the chick lit list. That is interesting. I haven’t read her yet.
Sorry I didn’t mean to derail the thread with my chick lit comment! I’m just always so astounded at the “heaviness” of some of the books you all read! I guess I like my books like my tv selections - light, quick and not too complicated!
My examples of “chick lit” - or really what I would call “beach reading”:
Jennifer Weiner (as noted by @alh)
Emily Giffin
Nicholas Sparks
Elizabeth Berg
Nancy Thayer
Luanne Rice
That kind of stuff. I like to “beach read” all year long.
Does she count as chick lit?
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