What books are you reading right now?

Decided to go all high school and stuff.....just started The Scarlet Letter.

 

I live for cheap thrills, snowy.

I read Dante's Inferno last year just for the hell of it.

Yes, I know I'm a dork. But I make up for it in other ways.

 

Indeed. I was speaking of the difficulty in reading it. So far, I'm finding Hawthorne's prose a bit overly complicated. The story is just starting to unfold so I can't really judge its quality just yet.

 

I didn't make it all the way through Inferno. I couldn't get past the feeling that some knowledge of Italian politics and the Catholic church during Dante's time would be very helpful in understanding and appreciating it. Even frequently referring to the footnotes didn't help me much. A large part of that is just my overall aversion to poetry, or whatever the proper name is for Dante's writing style in Inferno.

 

Good info, thanks! I didn't realize that Dante was credited with developing a (then) new style of poem.

 

@Borla, you're my hero! Or rather Daniel Silva, and Brad Thor, "Foreign Influence" are, along with many more like these two authors. I'm currently into "Dead or Alive" by Tom Clancy. I was a late bloomer into the readership clan. I even have consumed some suggested chick-type reads by my significant other. She sometimes reciprocates giving in to setting the Gothics down for a spell. We have a used book store called, "McKay's" which we go to often, turning our finished reads back in for credit when we don't want to keep them. Then we dive for more. Granted, we don't get the most recently published reads, but doubtless we'll ever run out of choices! And whooboy! The prices are right too! Anywhere from 0.10cts. to just a few bucks/ea. Mine rarely cost more than a couple dollars. We've been giving some to a lady with terminal cancer. But she died a couple weeks ago. Need to find someone else in need who likes to read. Gotta keep the spirit going!

 

(9th April)

I'm now onto book eleven. Book twelve hasn't been released yet but the series is supposed to end in book 12. I can predict the ending.
But hey, the series has passed the time.
And I may be guessing wrong.

 

I just finished Salt Dancers by Ursula Hegi. It was an interesting read, but she left too many issues hanging for my tastes, and there were bits of dialogue that were just plain horrible. I thoroughly enjoyed Stones From The River, am neutral about The Vision of Emma Blau, but I do want to read Floating In My Mother's Palm because it sort of ties into SFTR.

I've barely started the The Borgias by Clemente Fusero. I'm not sure if I'm in the mood for something this loaded with Italian history, the Catholic church, and so many characters.

 

I spent most of my three day weekend reading, and it was glorious. I finished:

Dark Places, by Gillian Flynn. A sort-of murder mystery...the ending had the same "what the hell?" feeling to it as Gone Girl, though not quite as strong.

The Giver, by Lois Lowry. I never read this one as a kid, and I'm not sure why. I enjoyed it.

The Maze Runner, by James Dashner. The story was strange, but entertaining enough. I think it would've been fine as a stand-alone book, even though nothing really gets solved at the end. Still debating whether I want to read the sequels or not (I probably will, let's be honest.)

Hidden, by Catherine McKenzie. Again, entertaining enough. The ending was a bit unexpected, but not entirely shocking. There were three different points of view, which was an interesting way to tell the story-- the man who dies, his wife, and his (more than just a?) co-worker.

Thirteen Reasons Why, by Jay Asher. This one was pretty intense. A high school girl commits suicide, and leaves behind cassette tapes explaining why, mailed to the people she talks about on the tapes. Some of the reviews I've read knock the book for glorifying suicide, but I don't feel like it did that. If anything, it made you realize that people are paying attention, even when you think they aren't. Two different points of view in this one, you're basically following along with the tapes and getting Clay's reaction to them. This is one of the few books I've read that made me want to check out the audio book version.

 

Dark Places was good, Sharp Objects was better (Gone Girl was the best.)

The Giver - one of my all time favorite books.

I read the entire Maze Runner trilogy, and the prequel. They're ok, I wouldn't rush to do it right away, but they're worth a read. I liked the prequel a lot.

Thirteen Reasons Why is fantastic. Gives me chills every time.

 

Sharp Objects is on my list. My never-ending, never-gonna-get-through-it list

 

Well, I just read a book that I really REALLY liked.

It was called "Help for the Haunted" by John Searles

Its a mystery story I guess, but not a straight detective story (the ending probably wouldn't be forgivable if it was because it breaks the rules of detective stories). Its also kind of a ghost story, but one that probably doesn't believe in the supernatural but is kind of scared of it anyway. I think some people have read it as a character assassination of Ed and Lorraine Warren: in some ways they get off easier than many people would want them to, in other ways it's a devastating statement of what they are/were (given that Ed is no longer with us).

Sets a really spooky atmosphere, and has an incredibly engaging and likable narrator, and I guess in the end it leaves you with space to believe whatever you believe.

 

Open letter to snowy: I now fully understand what you were saying now.

I openly apologize for referencing Dante's Inferno in the same sentence with this thing.

I'm not finished with it just yet, but all I can say is Damn!