What are you reading in September 2013?

Recently completed The Heart of Rachael by Kathleen Norris, who delves deeply into the matter of failed marriages in the early 20th Century. The novel includes a rich assortment of women, drawn with detail and complexity. But the novel is marred by the ending and its diatribe against divorce.

However, the book begs an older woman reader (i.e., me) to wonder what modern literature gives us in the way of reasons to be married at all anymore.

Recommendations?

just started white teeth yesterday and so far am finding it great, although i wonder if in the course of over 400 pages the style will get to me.

I just started Pavilion of Women by Pearl S. Buck. So far I love it! I actually have never read anything by her before.

#2 and #3: Both wonderful books, and ones I have re-read a few times! Buck's "The Good Earth" trilogy seems to be more critically acclaimed, but I found "PoW" extremely good, akin to Rumer Godden's exploration of the spiritual lives of women in her nun books.

My Fair Lazy. I'm waiting for it to get funny (?)

Joined the bandwagon a little late and picked up Gone Girl finally. Only a couple of chapters in so far, so still waiting to see what all the fuss is about.

I just started Bring Up the Bodies.

>#6. Don't expect TOO much from Gone Girl. It is a super fun read--no question about it. It is VERY clever. But don't expect great literature. As much as I enjoyed the book, I don't feel any need to seek out other books by the same author.

I enjoyed Gone Girl very much, although one does have to cope with some fairly unpleasant protagonists.

Currently reading Elizabeth Bear's Blood and Iron.

Started Maddaddam by Margaret Atwood. Arch style, check. Fast paced, check. Vividly imagined, check.

So why aren't I enjoying it as much as "After the Flood"? I'm starting a separate thread for this so people can go over and discuss when they've done without worrying about spoilers.

I'm looking forward to Maddaddam but I think I might reread the other two books first.

Currently crawling through Night and Day by Virginia Woolf, listening to Interview with a Vampire on audio book, and starting The Children's Book by AS Byatt.

I have Maddaddam waiting for me to find the time to settle down with it.

I've just read A favourite of the gods, which was very good. It has echoes of Edith Wharton in the (grand) mother's story, but the daughter (mother) is a more modern character. The (grand) daughter's story is told in A compass error, which I will read soon.

"Maddaddam" has a synopsis of the other two books at the beginning; I found it sufficient to jumping in where the others leave off.

12> Thanks! I may just start it that way. I have trouble remembering where my two earlier books have gotten to.

Read for book club The Year of Yes, a memoir by a woman who decided to say "yes" to any man who asked her out for a year, rationalizing that men she'd chosen to date were pretty bad in the first place, so men she wouldn't usually say yes to couldn't be much worse. I was hoping the book would have some takeaway or wisdom, but it was mostly a collection of predictably weird stories, because a lot of weird men in NYC will ask women out. I was bored.

Ha ha ha! Maybe I should write a book about all the weird men in NYC I met when I was looking to meet someone! (Of course, I met my sweetie when I wasn't looking.)

New to this group, but I'm reading The Left Hand of Darkness. Been on a sci-fi kick lately.

16> Welcome!

llaa, great book! I need to re-read it. Welcome!

SaraHope, that book reminds me of A Round-Heeled Woman, about a 60-something who decided to advertise her sexual availability and wrote a book about the men she met. I heard her interviewed on the radio some years ago about the experience. She sounded articulate and witty, though her experiment sounded awfully risky.

#19 I've heard about that book but never read it . . . I'm sure I'd have some similar issues with it!

After reading that memoir I didn't care for, I decided to reward myself with Fingersmith, which I've never read before! In fact, of Sarah Waters' work I've only read The Little Stranger, which I understand is quite different in some regards from her other work, so I'm excited to read one of the books she's better known for.

*finally* finished white teeth (for "regular" book club) last night. i really liked it but dang it took me forever to read. now starting yes means yes: visions of female sexual power and a world without rape (for "feminist" book club). once i'm reading for myself again i'm really looking forward to a reread of the heart is a lonely hunter.

#20 - I've wanted to read Sarah Waters but I was unable to get more than 2 pages into Fingersmith. I was disappointed. :-/

> 7 I see what you mean. I was very much engrossed with Gone Girl but after finishing it, I don't feel any pressing need to seek out her other books.

> 9 I'm STILL waiting for Oryx and Crake to come through my library's ILL system. Usually these things are very fast but for some reason, I've had this one on hold for months with no response. I can't even imagine the demand for the newly released Maddaddam. I'll get there eventually I guess ...

> 16 Welcome! Le Guin is a fabulous author. My favorite in that particular series (so far, as I haven't read them all yet) is Four Ways to Forgiveness.

> 21 Yes Means Yes has been on my wishlist for ages now. I'd love to hear your thoughts when you are finished with it!

>23 sweetiegherkin:

i'm 7 essays in right now (and i'm an awfully harsh critic) and am finding it a little better than "meh." it's essays by different people so i expect to not like all of them. a couple so far have been pretty good. it's very much "preaching to the choir," which i don't find particularly useful. affirming maybe, but not useful to reach a general audience. and they make a number of leaps in the articles that seem farfetched even to someone who is very much a part of the choir.

so far, anyway.

> 24 Ah, yes, I've stumbled across many preaching-to-the-choir books. At least sometimes they're good for an affirmation that one is not alone in their "crazy" beliefs.

Like llaaiinnaa (#16 above, and welcome to the group!), I'm having a sci-fi (and fantasy) binge at the moment.

Elizabeth Bear's Blood and Iron is proving more challenging than I expected, it's definitely a notch above most urban fantasy I've been reading. At about page 100, I finally think I got a handle on all the faerie and Arthurian legends. I think, every now and then she throws in a new twist that has me wishing I had a handbook to faerie legends. (Tam Lin? I've heard of him, but don't know his tales.)

Finished The Pavilion of Women and it was wonderful. I need to get back to writing reviews. I am way, way behind!

Right now I am reading the kindle sample for Alias Grace. I probably will continue with that. Every once in a while I need a Margaret Atwood. Of course I am neglecting the hundred kindle books I already own, but oh well...

k4k

Agatha Christie's Endless Night. This was one of her favorites, and it's been fun to read Dame Agatha again. This would have made a wonderful Hitchcock movie. Since the novel was written in 1968, I've cast Faye Dunaway as the enigmatic Greta, Agnes Moorhead as the snobbish and grasping Cora, John Gielgud as Uncle Andrew, and the leads Mia Farrow and Alan Bates as the American heiress and her working class English husband.

27> I'm shocked, k4k! After all these years and you only own a measly hundred Kindle books?

28> Endless Night's my favorite Christie. And it was made into a 1972 movie (IMDb), which I've really got to get around to watching one of these years considering Hayley Mills was my very first screen crush from half a century ago.

29> Certainly not, Currerbell! Those are only my unread ones.

I apologize for the confusion.

Thanks, CB, for the IMDb link to "Endless Night." I like my cast better. Except for George Saunders. Mmmmm.

I am reading Wild Swans which I have wanted to read for years. I have a hard time wrapping my head around the treatment of women in China: not naming girls, foot-binding, status of widows, etc. but it is incredibly well-written.

I finally read Gone Girl as well--I'm tardy not because of the trend, but because I'd already been a fan of Gillian Flynn, who writes the most appealing unappealing characters I've ever met. Liked this one as well as the first two, though this was darker in a way that's a little less . . . graphic? maybe? . . . than the first two.

I've just started listening to the audiobook of Susan Orlean's Rin Tin Tin: The Life and the Legend. I like to listen to non-fiction, but I'm not sure that I would have picked this up if I had known that it was read by the author. Authors are rarely as good readers as professionals.

Also starting to read The Art Forger. It was given to me to read by a friend and I have to return it soon so it got moved to the top of the pile. I have no idea...

>35 vwinsloe: this is an aside but: i'm so interested. i've never listened to an audio book before and just assumed that the writer would be the best reader because s/he knows the tone, the way each sentence was meant to be read. you don't find them to typically be good readers?

>36 overlycriticalelisa:. Because they are not professional speakers/readers/actors. Some have really annoying high or nasal toned voices, speak in monotone, swallow their words or speak too quickly. Others have verbal tics or nose whistles or speak too closely to the microphone. Seriously. Every flaw is magnified exponentially when there is nothing to look at and you are just listening to the voice. There are very few authors who I have found to be good readers on audiobooks. The best reader authors are usually also radio personalities or have some other job that requires them to do public speaking.

interesting. i assumed there would be some kind of producer or editor who would make sure stuff like that didn't happen. that's too bad.

#36 Authors who read their own audios do have to audition, and in most cases my understanding is that audio publishers prefer they don't read (except when, as vwinsloe says, they are professionals in radio or something), except in the case of memoir. If the author really wants to, though, and it's a powerful author . . .

>38 overlycriticalelisa:. In this case, I am still listening Susan Orlean is better than many authors who do their own reading, although her voice is a bit high and she speaks too quickly at times. She also has a very long and slight "sh" sound to her letter "s" (which is much better than the sibilant "s" or slight lisps.)

I suspect that you are right #39, that powerful authors often get their own way (in the same way that many of their books suffer from lack of editing.) The worst that I have ever heard was Frank Herbert, whose voice was very high pitched and whiney in a nerdy sort of way--not an effeminate sort of way. His voice was extremely distracting to the material (it was hard not to giggle.)

It really is not easy to read aloud well. When I started college as a theater major, one of the things that all freshman had to do was to submit a recording of themselves reading the poem Ozymandias for analysis. The speech department would give the student a written report on how badly he read, identifying such things as regionalisms, slight speech defects, etc. All students were expected to correct these defects and learn to speak mid-western Canadian with perfect diction.

I used to read for Recording for the Blind (which has since changed its name) way back in the days before audiobooks. Our center did science textbooks. We had to audition and were critiqued by a committee that included blind people. If we were approved, we sat in the recording booth and there was someone outside reading along who would stop the tape if we made a mistake, coughed or started laughing. I did laugh once in the middle of a Genetics text and we had to go back and do that part again. I can't remember what was so funny, but it did have something to do with DNA synthesis, normally not a funny subject.

I also remember falling asleep sometimes. The reviewer would just stop the tape until I woke up. ;-)

>25 sweetiegherkin: (sweetiegherkin),

it (mostly) improved as it went along. still, unsatisfying as a whole, but with some definite bright spots. reviewed here: http://www.librarything.com/work/7468517/book/101887470 (if i did that right)

Speaking of Margaret Atwood, though I haven't started MaddAddam yet, I'm working through the Positron series on Kindle. (It's only available in e-book.) I'm currently just about to start The Heart Goes Last, the fourth and so far last installment. I'll have to see if this wraps up the story or whether there's more to come.

I've finished L'Amour by Marguerite Duras, a strange and mystifying, yet poetic, novella.

CurrerBell, I read "Positron," too. Very disappointing.

RebeccaNYC, thanks for the recommendation. Is that the novel on which the movie is based?

nohrt4me2, Duras adapted L'Amour into a movie called "Woman of the Ganges." She also wrote the screenplay for "Hiroshima, Mon Amour." I am not aware of a movie just called "L'amour" that Duras was involved with, but I'm not all that knowledgeable about film.

45> Disappointing by Atwood's standards, yes, but really not all that bad. The actual writing style, though, was rather sloppy, as if Atwood had slapdashed something onto the page in a hurry and didn't bother with a rewrite.

CB, yeah, sorta like Margaret Writes a Comic Book But Doesn't Finish It.

I enjoyed The Penelopiad.

> 35-40 I LOVE audiobooks and probably couldn't read half of what I do without them. Definitely agree that having a professional actor or audiobook reader is the route to go. The only author I can recall listening to that was any good was Khaled Hosseini with The Kite Runner. Frances Mayes was so bad she made me want to fall asleep and Alice Sebold almost ruined The Lovely Bones by having absolutely no inflection or modulation in her reading. Most of the other audiobooks I've listened to that were read by their authors were simply adequate.

> 41 Wow, so interesting to hear some of the behind-the-scenes of recording! Thanks for sharing your experiences. :)

> 42 Thanks for sharing your review. It really does sound like a mixed bag in terms of the quality. I'm still interesting in giving it a try eventually though.

>45 nohrt4me2: nohrt4me2, you may be thinking of 'The Lover' which is an adaptation of Duras' book L'amant.

Rebecca, if you're interested in reading another book by Duras at some point, I highly recommend The Sea Wall. It's essentially the same story as told in her later, more famous book 'The Lover' but I found The Sea Wall more powerful and, while less outwardly poetic, far more evocative. Since The Lover is very brief, you might try reading both to see which you like better.

>49 sweetiegherkin:, sweetiegherkin, have you listened to Ron McLarty read his The Memory of Running? He may be the best author that I have ever listened to, but he was an actor and read many audiobooks before his own.

#50 Thanks, marietherese. Someone else also recommended The Sea Wall to me but I already own The Lover so I will probably read that first. Good idea to read both of them! Of course, there's always the too many books, too little time problem.

Anyone reading Claire of the Sea Light, Edwige Danticat's latest? The reviews seem to be somewhat unenthusiastic, but listening to her interviews about the work make me want to read it.

>49 sweetiegherkin: almost everything is worth giving a try at some point! and there's enough good stuff in this one to make it worthwhile. i just wish there was more. but most people reviewed it more positively than me (which is true in general) so maybe you'll like it much more than i did. we'll be discussing it at book club in 2 weeks so i presume i'll like it a little better then, as i usually come from those discussions with more appreciation for the book we read...

I just read Still Midnight by Denise Mina based on an LT recommendation; I was intrigued enough that I'll probably try something else by her.

> 51 No, I hadn't even heard of it before actually. I'm sure there are other authors who read their work well but in my experience, it's better to go with a professional audiobook reader rather than an author.

> 54 Indeed! With compilations, it's hard for every piece to be a winner for every reader but there's usually enough good stuff to make it worthwhile. I did notice that it got higher ratings from other readers, but I tend to be on the more critical side also. And, yes, I definitely find that I appreciate a book more after I've sat down and discussed with a group! (Although sometimes I also find some more flaws that way, too!)

>56 sweetiegherkin:

yes - last week's book club discussion about white teeth was one of the first times i left liking the book less than when i went in. it does happen, i guess!

i'm going to check out your reviews since i know you're on the more critical side!

This morning started Cut to the Quick, the first of four cozy mysteries written by Kate Ross, who it seems sadly died at the early age of 41 from breast cancer. I'm really enjoying it so far--it's just what I'm in the mood for--and I'll likely read the other three books in the series as well.

Reading Aliette de Bodard's On a Red Station, Drifting. I really like her SF/F short stories which
often have female protagonists and settings that are slightly different from the usual white, western perspective, such as South-east Asian or Aztec cultures.

so glad to be rereading the heart is a lonely hunter. not loving it quite as much i did the first go around, but i think i built it up in my mind. it's still a wonderful, wonderful book.

> 57 Usually it's more like someone else points out a flaw in the book that I didn't notice before. Doesn't necessarily change my whole view of the book but I realize something less-than-great about it. At a recent book discussion meeting, someone pointed out that the characters in a particular book were all fairly one dimensional. I had been so caught up in the plot and writing style of that particular book that I hadn't even noticed that part until it was mentioned. Other times, I realize a book wasn't as great as I thought when I get to the book discussion and it's been a week or so since I read the book and now I can't remember much about it! Although that may be more telling of my poor memory than the book's merit ...

isn't it sad that "a week or so" is enough time to forget details about a book? (and, in my case, often gross generalizations, not just details.) i always try to time it so that i finish a book just before book club for that reason. even books i love don't stay with me. it's sad for me...

Just finished Joyce Carol Oates' Patricide and enjoyed it! Very nice character study. Have never read her (yes, I hang my head in shame), but enjoyed her in the same way I enjoy Henry James' delineation of self-delusional characters.

> 62 Yeah, I have a horrible memory and so-so books especially end up in the category of "wait, how did it end again?" or something like that.

I am reading a book called Death in a Red Canvas Chair by N. A. Granger, who is a friend of mine. It is her first novel. I am having fun with it. Since it is written in first person, I find I hear her voice narrating as the main character. I wonder if that is true for other people who personally know the authors.

I'm reading Invisible Boy, a crime novel by Cornelia Read, whom I consider to be a really underrated writer (likely because she only publishes every few years).

Say, girls (and others), there is a new message for reading in October ...

Just finished Virago is 40: A Celebration - a nice mixture of pieces celebrating Virago Press. About to start Blind Goddess by Anne Holt - as a big fan of the "Scandi-noir" series that have been on TV in the UK recently I'm hoping for the same feel of darkness and unseen depths.

67: good point. I actually still thought it was September. {sigh...}

Krazy4katz, September did seem to fly, didn't it? Or maybe it's just my age; time goes faster the less of it you have.

Yes, partly age and partly not wanting to do the chores at work that I knew were coming in October.

Ah, yes. It's a beautiful October day in the upper Midwest, but I hear the drone of my neighbor's leaf blower, and it makes me feel guilty.