What books are you reading right now?

Right now i am reading a book by Robert Tressle its called The Ragged Trousered Philanthropist . The book is about how society treated the poor in England at the turn of the century . Tressle was a great believer in socialism his book is similar to the diaries of Samuel Pepys in that it describes the facts of life as they happened .Unlike Pepys the book was written as a novel but like Pepys you feel as though your there with him , i would recommend this book to anybody .I don't know if America suffered from the elitism at that time but it is a truly moving account of ordinary men women and children who were brought up to know there place , fantastic and tragic
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I think therefor i am- Descartes .I am pink therefor i am spam- Dibble

 

Feed - Mira Grant
Great zombie book so far.

 

Just finished One by LeighAnn Kopans, a YA novel. It was good. For a superpower/geek-reference heavy novel, it was a little girly, but it was nicely done. My guess is that it's marketed to the 15-17 crowd, but probably written for and ready by the 12-14 crowd. I tend to be demanding of YA lit, and while this was no all-time mind-blower, it was an amusing enough diversion: I would recommend it to students in those demographics, and for adults who really like YA lit.

 

Started Beggars in Spain. The writing seems slightly more heavy handed than I'm used to, but I imagine this is largely a function of just having finished a literary novel binge.

 

"Never Go Back" - Another Lee Child "Jack Reacher" novel.
A bit long winded but still the same action-packed suspense I've come to love from Lee Child.

 

I've been on a reading binge over the last few days.

The Keeper by Tess Gerritsen. A light & quick read, but entertaining. Gerritsen definately writes to broad audience, you don't need to makes notes and have a dictionary handy to follow her novels. At times, however, she dummies things down too much. I've read a few of her other novels, and will read more, just not too close together. It's like having a friend who is fun to hang around with, but who also does things that annoy you; some separation is a good thing.

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I was disappointed in I Am a Soldier, Too The Tessica Lynch Story by Rick Bragg. I wasn't expecting it to be an indepth investigative book, but I also wasn't expecting it to be so superficial. Some footnotes, mainly how the author found out the names of the some of Iraqi doctors & nurses, and how he got quotes from them, would've been nice.

The formatting of this book was interesting. IME most publishers condense as many things as possible to save paper (save money), and possibly in an attempt not to 'scare away' casual readers. Knopf stretched as many things as possible (generous amounts of white space, short paragraphs, single sentence paragraphs, etc.) to make this book 203 pages long.

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The Death of Vishnu by Manil Suri. Yes, I'm once again reading a novel about India by an Indian author. This is another one of my bargain finds, signed by the author. I'm about 54 pages into it, and so far so good.

 

the man in the high castle by philip k dick been meaning to read this novel for AGES!!!

 

I recently finished The Man In The High Castle. Unfortunately, at the time my mind was focused on other personal issues. It's on my re-read list.

 

Just started The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde for the first time ever. And I'm toying with the idea of reading some Sherlock Holmes with the boys.

 

Continueing my current trend of reading "light" novels, last night I finished Getting Mother's Body by Suzan-Lori Parks.

Whoever titled (boring!) this book should've been a little more creative. A book this quirky & entertaining deserves a better title. In a nutshell, a woman with a 'colorful' past was buried, supposedly and very possibly with her valuable jewelery (namely a pearl necklace & a diamond ring). The novel tells of the race to her grave to recover the jewelry from the individual perspectives of many of the characters.

Note: I'm not a fan of writers using regional and/or ethnic dialect because they usually blow it big time.
I'm not a fan of writers using regional and/or ethnic dialect because they usually blow it big time.
Parks makes it work.
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I enjoyed the first 3/4 of The Death Of Vishnu. Overall it was a good read, but unfortunately the author seemed to lose his focus.

 

skin game the latest harry dresdan novel by jim butcher

And it.is.Epic!!!

 

Almost through Skin Game, the latest Dresden novel by Jim Butcher. Totally worth waiting for. As @rezudo said above, it is epic. I fucking love these books.

 

Player One - Douglas Coupland

This was originally written and read as Coupland's participation in 2010's Massey Lectures.

 

Jesse James and the Secret Legend of Captain Coytus

Part civil war era history, party comedy, part love story and Captain Coytus (the name should tell you) is a trip!

 

I started Catch-22 by Joseph Heller, a book that I've been meaning to read for quite some time (never had to read it in HS or college). So far I'm enjoying Heller's 'Is my tongue in my cheek, or is it in your cheek?' humor.

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I found an early copy of Richard Wright's Black Boy. Unfortunately it's not a first edition ($$$), but it is a 'Buy War Bonds' copy. The back inside flap has a message supposedly written by the author encouraging people (namely men) not to be "dudes" during the war, but to use their money to buy war bonds.

 

No, at least not intentionally (I feel stupid, I had to look up AP = Advanced Placement). I have so many unread books* that I just follow my mood. Ever since I paid a library fine that far exceeded the value of the books, I buy books that interest me on the cheap. I might read them right away, or they might sit for many months. Sometimes I find books that I forgot about having; sometimes I can't locate books that I know I have.*

* Which along with the many stacks & boxes of books that I have read, sort of explains, but certainly doesn't excuse, my inability to find a locate a certain large (hard to miss) Tolkien book. I hope that I didn't give it to my ungrateful neighbor.**

** Mentioning my ungrateful neighbor: Hey, ungrateful neighbor, a simple thank you once in a while would be nice. I actually intended to keep the book listing the popes with brief descriptions as a reference book, but I gave it to you because you wanted a pope reference book. If you appreciated it, you should've said so. If you didn't want it, you should've said so. And that's just one of many examples.