It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

Hi! Remember me? I'm still here. I've been sick for basically a month and now my husband has the bug, so we're a pretty jolly household as you can imagine. Anyhoo I've been reading- or trying to. I finished

• Crazy Rich Asians (fun but don't feel like I need to read the sequels), 
• I'll Be Gone in the Dark,  Michelle McNamara's true-crime about the Golden State Killer (great but only because they caught the guy- otherwise I would not be able to read this),
• The Demon in the House, by Angela Thirkell (fun but I'm selling my copy), 
• The People of Forever Are Not Afraid, by Shani Boianju (intense drama about women serving in the IDF), 
• A Whistling Woman, by A.S.Byatt (the finale to her Frederica Potter quartet- great).

Fiction-wise I'm reading Bad News, the second Patrick Melrose novel, by Edward St. Aubyn, which I'm loving. If you can deal with non-likable characters and love beautiful writing, this series is for you. If you need uplift and morally unimpeachable life lessons, pass. I fall into the former category and I love these books. St. Aubyn is an incredibly stylish and emotionally precise writer. I'm almost done with Bad News and will read something else before going on to book three.

Bedside I'm slowly working my way through Red Notice, by Bill Browder, at the
pace of about one short chapter a night. He tells a captivating story and even manages to make high finance sound interesting.

And I started Andrei Bitov's The Symmetry Teacher, which I'll admit I'm having a hard time getting into. I started another book, which I won't name, and gave up on it after two nights and I'm hoping to not repeat that with Symmetry. We'll see. Lots of things are calling to me from my hardcover pile.

Finally in audioland I started Peter Ackryod's Queer City: Gay London from the Romans to the Present Day. It's fun and interesting and I'm learning a lot. Ackroyd's London histories are always worthwhile.

So I'm keeping busy with books as usual. And I think my collection is shrinking; I'm certainly not acquiring books much these days, and weeding and reading is actually opening space on my shelves. What are you reading this week?