Monday, October 21, 2013

It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

 Well I had a long week and things are finally starting to settle down after getting home, getting over jetlag, getting sick and getting better. I've even stacked up my books and put them in a pile near my bookshelf, so that's progress, right?

I finished As Music and Splendour last week, and loved it, but since then I've been a little at loose ends. I picked up The Art of Joy, the Italian tome I started before my trip, and have been reading it a little each day. I'm still enjoying it and I plan to finish but it's long. Meanwhile Donna Tartt's new book is out tomorrow and my customers have been clamoring, so I feel like I need to read that for them so we can talk about it, but it's also long. So we'll see.

As a treat to myself I started reading Ludmila Ulitskaya's Daniel Stein, Interpreter, her latest book (it came out in paperback last spring) about a Polish Jew who works as an interpreter for the Gestapo during World War 2 and ends up becoming a monk, then moving to Israel. It's his life story told through a winding trail of letters covering a lot of space and time. The characters include an upper-class Boston lady, an Polish-American in search of her roots, her mercurial mother and Daniel/Dieter himself. Ulitskaya is such a solid writer, and I've enjoyed her books so much in the past. So far, so good!

I also started Jonathan Grimwood's The Last Banquet, about an impoverished French aristocrat with a taste for the culinary arts, and his journey through the Revolution. It's the first hardcover published by Europa Editions and if you like historical fiction I recommend it so far. If you liked Andrew Miller's Pure, one of my favorites of recent years, this a natural next book for you. Grimwood is doing an event at my bookstore this week and I look forward to meeting him!

What are you reading this week? See more at BookJourney.wordpress.com.

6 comments:

Mystica said...

I just love the mix of reads here. The Stein one really intrigues me.

Lisa C. Hayden said...

I'm glad to see you're enjoying Daniel Stein!

Sandy Nawrot said...

You have grabbed my attention with Daniel Stein. Please when you finish, shove it in my face or something...get my attention...because if you love this book, I'm going to have to read it.

As the Crowe Flies and Reads said...

Aww, I'm glad you're back and feeling better. Jetlag often leads to sickness, I feel. I loved catching your occasional FB photos that you posted from the road.

Donna Tartt is uber-good and worth the wading through.

Athira said...

You have some good reads here. Glad that you had a great vacation as well. Welcome back!

bermudaonion said...

Getting sick after a trip like that stinks. I'm glad you're getting back to normal.