Monday, March 21, 2016

It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

I realized the other day I haven't written a review since some time in February. Huh.

I finished Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood and the Prison of Belief, by Lawrence Wright, early last week, and I'm still reeling from it. I highly recommend it for anyone interested in learning about this controversial organization.
This week I'm still reading The Madonna on the Moon, by Rolf Bauderick, which I'm really enjoying now. The plot has picked up a lot over where it was last week. I need an excuse to go somewhere on the subway so I can have some solid time with it today or tomorrow. It's about changes in a fictional small town in Eastern Europe in the late 1950s. Bauerdick gives us a vivid tableau of the people and goings-on in this place and time. I feel like I should be reading it accompanied by some Gypsy jazz or something.

My nightstand reading is Places of my Infancy, a slim memoir by Italian writer Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa, about the houses he's lived in. Lampedusa was the author of the wonderful Italian/Sicilian novel The Leopard, about the last days of aristocratic rule of Italy before the unification. That book is a true masterpiece and a must-read for historical fiction readers- really anyone- and this memoir is delightful and moving. It's very short and I anticipate finishing this week.

I didn't get to the gym last week what with the strep, so I haven't made any progress in the Charlotte Bronte biography.

For my crime fiction reading group I'm reading Out of Sight by Elmore Leonard, which I hate. I have six wretched chapters to get through today. We meet on Wednesday and it can't come soon enough.

That's it for me. What are you reading this week?

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