It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

This weekly meme was created by Sheila at Book Journey, as as she says, "it tends to add to your reading list." To participate, all you have to do is visit Book Journey and add your link to the list.

Last week was a time of glutting myself on books and sleep. My school year is over, and I got to spend a weekend in Charleston with my mother and sister--we took in some of the last events of the Spoleto Festival. Even though I have been in South Carolina for nearly two decades, this was my first Spoleto experience--and I loved it. I also loved having lunch in all the fun Charleston restaurants (although being a vegetarian in the South isn't easy....Southerners love their bacon).

Then I came back home and rediscovered REM sleep. Really, it's scary how much more I sleep and dream during the summer. It makes me realize how sleep deprived I am during the school year.

And of course I've been gorging on books. Yummy! Here's what I've been reading, and what I'm about to read:

Time and Again by Jack Finney. This is a reissue of the time travel cult classic. I absolutely loved this book. My review will be up soon.
A Replacement Life by Boris Fishman. My review for Fishman's novel is below. Good read.
Why I Read: The Serious Pleasure of Books by Wendy Lesser. I gobbled this one up in a day. While I don't entirely share Lesser's taste in books, I recognize her as a fellow bibliophile. I thought I would be writing down book titles throughout this book, but it is more of a meditation on what makes reading pleasurable, and about the reading experience itself. Lesser is a huge Henry James lover, and while I read and loved some of his books in college, now I'm not so sure. But Lesser has me pretty much convinced that I at least have to tackle The Golden Bowl.
Hard Times by Charles Dickens. This is one of the shortest Dickens novels I've read, but it definitely isn't my favorite. What I found interesting was the use of some of the same metaphors and ideas that are found in my favorite Dickens novel, Our Mutual Friend. I was very happy to be able to cross one title off of my Classics Club list.
What is Found, What is Lost by Anne Leigh Parrish. I had very much liked Parrish's short story collection (Our Love Could Light the World), so I was thrilled when Parrish offered me a review copy of her novel. I still plan to review this novel, so I won't say much except that I really loved this novel about three generations of women. The characters are very ordinary women, on the surface, but extraordinary when you understand their histories and their interior lives.

So that was the week--impressive how much reading I can do without the stress of work!

Now for today and this week:

Wendy Lesser raves about the Swedish mystery in Why I Read. In particular, she talks about Henning Mankell, adding that poet Louise Gluck has read all of Mankell's books several times each. That was enough to make me go to my own bookshelf, where I have had The White Lioness for a couple of years. I've just started it, but I'm intrigued because it is partly set in South Africa, shortly after Nelson Mandela was released from prison and apartheid was ended.

Andi's rave about The Name of the Wind at Estella's Revenge sent me right out the door to the bookstore. Oh, the freedom to be able to do that. And there was a copy, sitting there, faced out, just waiting for me. So, when I finish The White Lioness, I will be escaping into some epic fantasy.

So--It's Monday....what are you reading?