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?

It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

It's Monday! What Are You Reading is a bookish meme hosted by Sheila at Book Journey.

Here are a few of the amazing books I've received from publishers recently. First up is the book I'm currently reading, a novel by Francine Prose. I have fewer than eighty pages to go in Lovers at the Chameleon Club, Paris 1932. This historical novel has a fascinating genesis: Prose saw a photograph by Brassai ("Lesbian Couple at Le Monacle, 1932). A little research revealed a historical oddity: the tuxedo-clad woman whose arm was protectively hugging a slinky woman in evening gown was Violette Morris, Morris was a French athlete and race-car driver who famously had an elective double-mastectomy to make it easier to fit behind the wheel of her racing car. Morris was also infamous for being a Nazi collaborator during the French Occupation. Prose fictionalizes Morris as Lou Villars. Here's what Violette Morris looked like during her racing days:

Prose tells the story of Lou Villars from several perspectives: that of Baroness Lily de Rossignol, patroness of the arts; Gabor Tsenyi, the photographer character based on Brassai, Lionel Maine, an American novelist, and several other voices, each telling his or her own particular truth. Lovers at the Chameleon Club is entrancing.

Julia Fierro's debut novel Cutting Teeth has been getting a lot of buzz; Sadie Jones is known for Uninvited Guests--I'll be reading and reviewing Fallout this month.

W.W. Norton sent me a copy of Andre Dubus III's story collection Dirty Love, which I can't wait to read. I absolutely loved his memoir, Townie, as well as his novel, House of Sand and Fog.

I was so excited when I was offered a review copy of Time and Again by Jack Finney. It is one of those books I have been hearing about forever, and have aways meant to read. This time-travel novel has been reissued, with illustrations and a foreword by Audrey Niffenegger. Can't. Wait.

Finally, I am super-excited about delving into John Sutherland's biography of Victorian sensation Jumbo. I've done a fair amount of reading and research on the topic of elephants, and this nonfiction book looks great.

That's what's on my reading list for the next couple of weeks. It's Monday.... What are you reading?

It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

Indecision

I know you've felt this way. There are just too many good books sitting on your shelf, giving you inviting looks. You sit, you fret, you equivocate. You can't decide.

That's where I am right now. Indecisive.

I've just finished a couple of good books. I have a little stretch of time in front of me. It's Spring break and I feel free. I want to read my brains out, something good and completely absorbing. I want to read a lot fast. I want to read something really good slowly.....

Here's what I just finished:

Darkroom: A Memoir in Black and White by Lila Quintero Weaver
This was an excellent memoir written by a woman who was neither black nor white, coming of age in Alabama during the height of the Civil Rights Movement. The book is heavily illustrated (in the style of a graphic novel) in beautiful black and white drawings.
Mind of Winter by Laura Kasischke (review tomorrow)
A combination of thriller and horror genres... this one was a page turner.
Trans Atlantic by Colum McCann (review soon)
Breathtakingly gorgeous and emotionally wrenching. I loved, loved, loved this book, even though it had its slow moments. Colum McCann's writing is amazing.

In my bag (this is the book I carry everywhere and read in those little moments):
Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman

Reading today (I hope in a single sitting):
How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America: Essays by Kiese Laymon
I heard an interview with the author on NPR

About to start:
Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler
I read Butler's Kindred in one day over the summer, so I have a feeling I will enjoy Parable of the Sower. It is the kind of book that will both make me think and keep me turning those pages.....

So.... It's Monday! What are you reading?
A bookish meme hosted by Sheila at Book Journey

It's Monday, What Are You Reading?

I have possibly the weirdest hodgepodge of books going right now. We just finished up the big standardized test at my school last week (not that it is the only test...there are many). I was a testing administrator. That means that for four hours a day, three days in a row, I was chained to those tests like a super spy in a James Bond thriller. I mean, I had to take the testing materials basket into the restroom with me. I kid you not. And for the three days, during the testing, I was not allowed to:
.

• Talk
• Read
• Grade papers
• Use my computer
• Have my phone on
• Write

It's actually excruciating.

Thank goodness I have a daily meditation practice! Otherwise, I don't know how I would have done it.

So now that that's over, and I can have my brain back. It's Monday, and Sheila over at Book Journey has this fun meme. So here's what I'm reading.

 .

• Started this a while ago: Darkroom: A Memoir in Black and White by Lila Montero Weaver. A memoir, with beautiful black and white drawings, about the author's experience as a Latina immigrant in Alabama at the height of the Civil Rights Movement.
•  Just finished reading Incendiary Girls--review coming tomorrow. An excellent debut collection of stories by Kodi Scheer.
• The True Secret of Writing by Natalie Goldberg. About meditation practice, silence, and writing. I'm loving this, even if I only get to read it in sips....
• Trans Atlantic, which I have had for nearly a year. It is beautiful.
• Finally, a student put Kwame Alexander's He Said, She Said in my hands and insisted I read it. So, okay.... turnabout's fair play!

I'm also trying to work in Hard Times by Charles Dickens (it really seems to fit in with my experiences with standardized testing). And Mind of Winter by Laura Kasischke is next up for review.

It's Monday! What are you reading?

It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

It's Monday! What Are You Reading? is hosted by the indomitable Sheila at Book Journey. I've really enjoyed participating in this meme over the last couple of weeks, and I'd like to keep it up at least through the summer. It has been so interesting to see what other folks are reading.

This week was not the fiendish reading week that I had last week. The Idiot and I are still besties, but I had to put the book down temporarily in the middle of a gigantically philosophical discussion between two characters. I have just over one hundred pages left, and plan to finish it this week. Strangely, this read-along has been fantastic for me as a reader, but the posts have had fewer comments than almost anything I've written for this blog. Maybe it is the daunting Russianness of it all.

I finished reading Ann Patchett's State of Wonder, and it sort of ruined me for other books for a few days. I just kind of wanted to sit with the experience of the book, and didn't want any other books in my head for a few days. My review will be posted June 29th as part of the TLC Book Tours schedule.

I also need to post a review of Jo Scott-Coe's Teacher at Point Blank, which I also finished last week. Scott-Coe has a compelling voice and I loved her book-I hope she will be publishing another soon.

I'm about halfway through How to Escape from a Leper Colony by Tiphanie Yanique. She's from St. Thomas, Virgin Islands, which is where my husband was born and raised. She's the only contemporary writer I can find from St. Thomas, and I bought her book mostly out of curiosity, but she is a very fine writer and I'm enjoying the book. It is a novella and stories-and I love the short story.

One of the things on my agenda for today is to explore my own bookshelves and see what I might want to read next. I have a book I won from Wendy at Caribousmom that really intrigues me: Being with Animals by Barbara J. King. I'm also going to spend some time with this handsome guy:

Isn't he ridiculously cute? That's Beaux, and he actually belongs to my daughter and her boyfriend, but he's spending a few days with us. So cute.

Tomorrow is the first day of the Summer Institute for Coastal Savannah Writing Project. I'm excited, and somehow just a little nervous. I expect to have less time for reading, but I'm pumped up about all the writing I will be doing.

It's Monday, what are you reading?

It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

My husband has been giving me funny looks. I walk past him, book in hand. He says "Is that the same book you were reading, or is that a new one?"

I've been fiending for books. (Just a couple of years ago I found out from my students that fiend is a verb now. Everything is a verb now.).

Thursday was my last day of school. Friday: I read a book. Saturday: I read a book. Sunday: I read a book.

This weekend I read: On Friday, S.J. Watson's Before I Go To Sleep for TLC Book Tours (review on June 22nd). Then Saturday I finished reading Jo Scott-Coe's phenomenal Teacher at Point Blank: Confronting Sexuality, Violence, and Secrets in a Suburban School. Sunday I read Ann Patchett's State of Wonder, also for TLC Book Tours (review on June 29th). I am still letting State of Wonder soak in. Somewhere near the middle of the novel I forgot it was a novel. Somewhere in the novel I forgot I was reading.

On my list for this week:
The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoevsky for a readalong hosted by Allie at A Literary Odyssey. I'm very close to finishing Part Three of this novel, and will post about it on June 15th.
The 9 Rights of Every Writer by Vicki Spandel. This is my assigned reading for the Summer Institute at Coastal Savannah Writing Project (I begin on June 21st).
How to Escape from a Leper Colony by Tiphanie Yanique. This is a novella and stories written by a writer from my husband's birthplace, St. Thomas, Virgin Islands. I'm really excited to read this title.

If I finish all of these titles, then I will grab something from my bookshelves. I have a whole list of books I own and want to read. There are also books I've downloaded on my Nook: I'm just going to see where my fiending leads me.

It's Monday. What are you reading?

Sheila at Book Journey is the indefatigable host of It's Monday! What Are You Reading? Her latest post shows a bruised, banged up, smiling Sheila with one arm in a sling. Sheila is so awesomely energetic and incorrigably cheerful, even a trip to the emergency room doesn't keep her from smiling. Here's wishing her a speedy recovery from her cycling accident.