What books are you reading right now?

Oh, Dear Silvia ended up being not-so-bad. The ending was kinda "meh," though.

I've read a bit more from the horror & suspense collection, and was a little disappointed that I'd already read Stephen King's contribution, and Neil Gaiman's was kind of...not interesting. Boo.

Also picked up Room, and started in on it last night. It's told entirely from the perspective of a five year old, who has spent his entire life imprisoned in one room. I haven't come to why yet, but it seems his mother was the prisoner, and she gave birth to him in the room. She tries to give him an interesting life, though, and it's a little sad, the way he thinks everything is entirely normal.

 

I'm about a fourth into Postwar. Super interesting. A tour de force in the vast expanse that is my ignorance about the latter half of the 20th century.

 

I have read around 50 pages of The purity of vengeance, by Jussi Adler-Olsen, a danish mystery;
Jussi Adler-Olsen’s Department Q series, with more than fourteen million copies sold worldwide, continues with the most chilling cold case yet.

In 1987, Nete Hermansen plans revenge on those who abused her in her youth, including Curt Wad, a charismatic surgeon who was part of a movement to sterilize wayward girls in 1950s Denmark.

More than twenty years later, Detective Carl Mørck already has plenty on his mind when he is presented with the case of a brothel owner, a woman named Rita, who went missing in the eighties: New evidence has emerged in the case that destroyed the lives of his two partners—the case that sent Carl to Department Q.

But when Carl’s assistants, Assad and Rose, learn that numerous other people disappeared around the same weekend as Rita, Carl takes notice. As they sift through the disappearances, they get closer and closer to Curt Wad, who is more determined than ever to see the vision of his youth take hold and whose brutal treatment of Nete and others like her is only one small part of his capacity for evil.

 

Just finished The Shrinking Man by Richard Matheson. Entertaining and a quick read.

My daughter talked me into signing up for a 2014 book challenge. I committed to reading 40 books this year. Better get cracking. Let's see what's next...

 

Catching Fire done.
Onward to Mockingjay.

 

Major Pettigrew's Last Stand

 

Trying to choose between Complete Stories, by Dorothy Parker or Doctor Sleep, by Stephen King......

I'm leaning toward Dorothy at the moment.....hmmmmm

 

Ok. I went with Stephen King first

 

Last night I finished Iron Sunrise by Charles Stross, his second novel; I've also read his first novel, Singularity Sky.

I think Stross got lost toward the end of the book. The bad guys detailed confessions were a little too neat (Stross even had the main baddy comment on why should they confess....go figure), and there were too many loose ends. Getting your readers emotionally invested in the characters then leaving them hanging is a bad idea. I'm sure that (some of) the loose ends will be addressed--some in passing, some in detail--in the next novel, which I happen to have.

While out bargain slumming I picked-up Blaze by Richard Bachman/Stephen King. The forward by King, some of it incredibly funny, is what convinced me to buy it. His horror novels don't do much for me, but I really enjoyed The Green Mile, Delores Claiborne, & Misery. I also bought Daphne du Maurier's Classics of the Macabre, a collection of six short stories.

 

The short stories are the best, no question. But the novella The Sign of the Four is worth reading, as is The Hound of the Baskervilles.

 

I started, then gave up on, The Code, by Ross Bernstein. I like pro football well enough, but not enough to read this book. It might be a good read for a dedicated fan.

Blaze by Stephen King was pretty good read, but it was no The Green Mile. I'm actually surprised that Blaze hasn't been made into a movie, the story is easy to follow, it has human interest galore, and there's plenty of action.

 

Couldn't Keep It To Myeslf, by Wally Lamb and The Women of York Correctional Institute. Lamb got involved in a writing class at YCI, which resulted in this collection of short stories written by YCI inmates. I'm only about a third of the way through it, but so far I've enjoyed most of the stories. Hair Chronicles I didn't care for, too much me, me, me.

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A book I passed on, even though it was only $.99, Fifty Shades Darker by E.L. James. I read Fifty Shades of Grey, which I didn't care for, but I thought that I might give FSD a chance. After twice picking it up and reading a few random pages I changed my mind. James doesn't have the writing talent to delve into the emotional complications she attempts to address, and to make matters worse the sex is pretty boring.

 

Hunger Games trilogy done.
Now a little over halfway through Reconstructing Amelia.

I love reading again. This is fucking awesome.

 

I'm nearly finished with Doctor Sleep. It's entertaining enough, but it pales in comparison with The Shining. Also, the plot seems a little bit by-the-numbers.

 

I feel so sorry for people who don't like to read. They have no idea how much they're missing.

 

About a quarter of the way into Doyle's A Study in Scarlet.