Monday, January 19, 2015

It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

I finished My Mother-in-Law Drinks early last week, as predicted, and read two more quick crime novels as well, Marco Malvaldi's Game For Five and its followup Three Card Monte. Those were fun, short books, definitely recommended for the beach bag. My next Europa Challenge book is probably going to be Damon Galgut's Arctic Summer, which I'm long overdue to read.

I'll finish The Hilltop, finally, today or tomorrow; I have about ten pages left.

I'm loving Daniel Galera's Blood-Drenched Beard, a slow-moving atmospheric crime novel/thriller about a young man searching for the truth about his grandfather's mysterious death. It's set in modern-day Brazil and comes with a twist- the protagonist, who so far is not named, has a neurological disability that prevents him from remembering faces. So he's a kind of unreliable narrator but it's not his fault. I probably have another week or two left on this. I'm in no hurry to finish.
Finally in the nonfiction world I'm reading Julie Kavanagh's The Girl Who Loved Camellias: The Life and Legend of Marie Duplessis. This is the story of a notorious Parisian courtesan of the mid-19th century whose life formed the basis for a novel by Alexandre Dumas fils, La dame aux camélias, and operas including La Traviatia, Carmen and others. I'm finding it to be an interesting exploration of the social mores of the time. Parisian social culture of the 19th century had a huge impact on what followed and is well worth reading about even if the subject of courtesans doesn't interest you.

A few weeks ago I rearranged my TBR pile and pulled all the nonfiction, what there is of it anyway since I read about 80% fiction, into its own pile so it's easier to find books for the gym. There's some good stuff waiting to be read in there!

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

3 comments:

Mystica said...

Both books new to me. Enjoy them and have a good week

Blogger10 said...

I love a good unreliable narrator! I'm in the midst of The Girl on the Train, which has a very unreliable one indeed.

I recently pulled all my nonfic out into a separate pile as well...so much of what I read is fiction, but after enjoying myself during Nonfiction November a couple months ago, I figured that pulling them out in a place easy to access would help me pick them up more often.

Sandy Nawrot said...

You have been reading some really interesting stuff, and on a roll! I am in a funk right now, reading slow as ever, and totally my fault. Ordinary Grace on audio and Where All the Light Tends to Go in print.