The Book Vipers discussion

Tell us about the books that you are reading in 2016

Have four books to read by Monday:

Alex Through the Looking Glass: How Life Reflects Numbers, and Numbers Reflect Life
Coastlines: The Story of Our Shore
Wild Nights: Camping Britain's Extremes
The Land Where Lemons Grow: The Story Of Italy And Its Citrus Fruit

I started reading my collection of Sherlock Holmes stories (all 56 short stories of the canon and 5 more that were not included in the collections). That's 1300 pages to be read, but I only read the introduction today. Easy does it, one story at the time...

And I also started The Cloven Viscount by Italo Calvino. It's a short book to kickstart the challenge for this year and it fills the emptiness that is my 1950s books, plus it's a book written in Italian and I haven't read Italian books in the recent years. And it's on one of my lists and sounds funny. Though it was not when (view spoiler)[grandpa's pet bird was killed (hide spoiler)].

Finished reading The Girl You Left Behind (Jo Jo Moyes) this afternoon, now 100+ pages into Little Black Lies (Sharon Bolton).

I'm reading A God in Ruins - loving it!

Currently reading Tess of the D'Urbervilles.

Tytti, I love The Cloven Viscount!

Love Tess

Oh, Tess is an all time favourite of mine. I love that book.

I'm currently enjoying "The Cuckoo's Calling" by Robert Galbraith. I'm about half way in and it's good so far.

Trying to zip through A Man Called Ove tonight. Some amusing parts so far. He reminds me of Victor Meldrew...

Now onto Pondlife: A Swimmer's Journal

I've started reading Seventy Times Seven by John Gordon Sinclair today.

Paul wrote: "Trying to zip through A Man Called Ove tonight. Some amusing parts so far. He reminds me of Victor Meldrew..."

Yes definitely a Victor Meldrew!

He was indeed Pink. Happy New Year too.

Aiming to read A Darker Shade of Magic, Last Night in Montreal and The Masked City this weekend

Just finished The Little Prince. Still on The Catcher in the Rye which I promised I would read all the way through this time!

Started J. M. Coetzee's Disgrace...a Booker Prize winner set in post-apartheid South Africa

I'm just a few pages into Hello From the Gillespies by Monica McInerney.

Just started A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway. Very interesting so far.

I'm reading The Gun Seller, written by Hugh Laurie long before he became famous as House. It's a spoof spy story and at first the humour was rather laboured, but now I'm about halfway through it's becoming more fluent and engaging.

Joy wrote: "I'm reading The Gun Seller, written by Hugh Laurie long before he became famous as House. It's a spoof spy story and at first the humour was rather laboured, but now I'm about halfway ..."

I wasn't a fan of that book myself - but would love to hear what you think of it when you're done!

Now reading The Fountainhead. Yes, Rand is an ideologue (and possibly a social Darwinist), but I'm finding the story really intriguing and the characters--though tending to be types--nuanced and quite intriguing as well.

Just started One Wild Song: A Voyage in a Lost Son's Wake. The little that I have read so far has been good. Working my way through Information is Beautiful and enjoying the richness of the infographics.

I am reading This House of Grief and listening to The House of Silk: A Sherlock Holmes Novel.

Bit of a House thing going on, just realised.

In more ways than one Jo...

Just started All the light we cannot see by Anthony Doer. :)

That was a BV book last summer Tracey. Some people loved it, others felt it was a bit too much for them.

Paul wrote: "In more ways than one Jo..."

Oh it's a sign, it must be, you are more on the ball than me. Three weeks to go... apparently.

Tracey wrote: "Just started All the light we cannot see by Anthony Doer. :)"

MIL's copy is still winking at me from the shelf, not quite got around to it yet.

Jan wrote: "Now reading The Fountainhead. Yes, Rand is an ideologue (and possibly a social Darwinist), but I'm finding the story really intriguing and the characters--though tending to be types--nuanced and qu..."

Btw, it is possible that Ayn Rand took her first name from the Finnish author Aino Kallas. She did say so but never mentioned the actual name and Kallas is the most likely answer.

I'm just about to start Crippen: A Novel of Murder by John Boyne. Have rated a couple of his other books very highly, no pressure for this one then!

I have only read The Boy in the Striped Pajamas by him.

This week i am aiming to read:
Island of Dreams: A Personal History of a Remarkable Place
Blue Skies and Black Olives: A Survivor's Tale of Housebuilding and Peacock Chasing in Greece
A Tour of Mont Blanc

And hopefully then onto
The Book of Strange New Things

I have a problem... I'd like to read some good historical fiction but I can't make up my mind, and I'd like it to be a relatively long book which is a part of the problem because I wouldn't want to not finish it... And I already have other books to finish, too.

I have read the Shardlake series by C.J. Sansom which are pretty good. I am lead to believe that C.J. Sansom writes some good historical fiction too, but I have never read any so cannot comment on them.

I've read the first one, I own the second and won Winter in Madrid in a library quiz. But I was thinking of something more historical. I have one about Herod Antipas, another set in Turkestan (China) in 1933 (or maybe more to the 1910's) and one about a Finn studying at Sorbonne in the 15th century who also later became the head master of it, those are now the front runners. :-)

Oh, I have also one about "Forest Finns" who were sent to farm land in Western Sweden in the 17th century. (They also went to America and became very friendly with the natives because they had similar lifestyles. I even just read that in the first Indian Wars the Finnish houses were spared when others were burned. Apparently some Native Americans called Finns "people like us".) And one book about 11th century Europe. Sigh, too many choices... :-P

I'm finishing up Red Queen and Pride and Prejudice. I've been reading A Tree Grows in Brooklyn for about a week. Too many other books distracting me. Hoping to be finished with it by Sunday.

I'm reading The Crimson Petal and the White but I wish I'd bought it on Kindle instead of paperback as the print is rather close for my eyesight!

Will be interested to hear your thoughts on that Joy.

I'm over a quarter of the way through John Adams by David McCullough. It's very readable, even for a person who doesn't like non-fiction. I think, though, that the author has a bit of a blind spot when it comes to Adams and his wife; he admires them deeply and it shows. And I think that's led him to overstate the anti- slavery views of John and Abagail. I don't think they were deeply anti-slavery for the right reasons- that it's morally wrong and evil. I think more that they were free labor and free soil and thought that things should be earned through one's own labor- that slavery was almost equally "unfair" to whites as well as to slaves.

Sansom series is good. I found I needed to read the first one or two to enjoy the series. I wasn't sure re those first couple but hard to understand others if you don't
Also, Hilary Mantel - her autobiography is awful but her historical ficton better.
I Claudius, if you are into Rome. The 2 books are excellent.

Finished The Catcher in the Rye. Moved on to Talking with Serial Killers which I have now finished, and I'm about to start A Midsummer Night's Dream for some light relief and to tick off another box on my personal challenge.

I'm about 100 pages into The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini I think I am enjoying so far but I am finding it difficult to warm to the main character at the moment.

I very nearly started The Kite Runner today..it'll be next I think

Tytti wrote: "I've read the first one, I own the second and won Winter in Madrid in a library quiz. But I was thinking of something more historical. I have one about Herod Antipas, another set in Turkestan (Chin..."

How about The Red Tent by Anita Diamant I haven't read it myself - although it is sat on my 'to read' bookshelf at home - but it comes highly recommended by a couple of friends

Toyah wrote: "I very nearly started The Kite Runner today..it'll be next I think"

I will be interested to hear what you think

Pat wrote: "Also, Hilary Mantel - her autobiography is awful but her historical ficton better.
I Claudius, if you are into Rome."

I do own I Claudius but never really been that interested in Tudors for some reason.

Wendy wrote: "How about The Red Tent by Anita Diamant I haven't read it myself"

Well I actually own all those books I mentioned, that's one of the reasons I'd like to read them (and they are all by Finnish authors, many with good reviews), so I'm not exactly looking for more... :-) I am not that interested in religion per se, either, in "Herod" he thinks about his life, probably a bit like Sinuhe in The Egyptian, yet another book that is looking at me disapprovingly. But they are all so different so I can't compare them and that makes it difficult to choose between them. :D

Just started The Farming of Bones by Edwidge Danticat. It's about the persecution of Haitian laborers by Trujillo in the Dominican Republic during the 30's. The story was touched upon in another book I read awhile ago: The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

I am not a Tudor person either but it's often about their lives, not the history. I guess, in order to choose, you can just shut your eyes and read the first one you touch. It's like being a child again.

Started The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt today.

Jackie wrote: "Started The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt today."
I am about half way through The Goldfinch and loving it but am not finding it a speedy read!

Started The Long Utopia today. Not bad so far

Hoping to read several books this week including:
Reality Is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change the World
Buried in Books: A Reader's Anthology
Blown to Bits: How the New Economics of Information Transforms Strategy and then onto
A Brief History of Seven Killings