What is your current "read"?

I am in Madrid, so only local magazines and guides and the La Guía Metrópoli, a Spanish food and entertainment Guide to films, museums, the Christmas Markets, theatre etcetra .. It comes out every Friday ..

Have a nice weekend ..
 
Another book I picked up for a few pence; Walter Scott's Rob Roy. I find Scott a bit over-romantic and sometimes his works border on hokum, but he tells a good story.

I've always found it slightly amusing that Edinburgh's main railway station is called Waverley, given that the Scott novel's eponymous hero was an Englishman.
 
Tom Hanks - actor, director, screenplay writer, producer - now writing fiction. A delightful compilation of short stories. No genre. There is one common thread - typewriters. Typewriters are part of each story. In some it is a very small mention. In others it is central to the story.

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Uncommon Type Some Stories. Well written, engaging, overall good read.
 
Finally found my lost book (ironically in the bookcase but at the very end of the shelf hidden behind one of my hubbies work books and the end of the shelf is reserved only for thick books because they come back in on themselves and hide paperbacks or up to 2 DVDs at each end!)

"Where the hell have you been?" By Tom Carver. His father's time during WWII only his father was Field Marshall Bernard Montgomery's step-son who was taken prisoner by the Nazis and escaped...
 
Blimey, is nobody reading or just not letting on?

Despite wondering if I'm the only one who is going to post on this thread, I'll bash on. I have just started Kazuo Ishiguro's Remains of the Day. This is yet another of those books that I've been meaning to read for a long time.

I enjoyed My Name is Red (see above post). One thing I will guarantee to anyone thinking about reading it is that you'll probably find that it's like nothing you've ever read before. I won't give anything away other than that.
 
I am "reading" Police by Jo Nesbo, and I also an half way through The Crossing by Michael Connelly in large print format. I did read The Birthing House by Christopher Ransom bit found the ending rather odd. It wasn't a library book I'd have chosen - just one of the hazards of getting library books chosen and delivered by different people each time. I've only found one of them to have the same likes (and be on the same wave length) as me.
 
The Railways: Nation, Network and People by Simon Bradley. While this is a tale of the history of Britain's railways, it's very much more. It is, in effect, a social history of Britain since the time that the railways began. When I bought the book, I wondered if I'd just be covering the same sort of ground that I'd covered in other railway histories that I've read. I've not read that many, but I've read a few books by Christian Wolmar that I have enjoyed. My fears were completely unfounded. I'm only about a hundred pages in, but this is really good stuff - some of the things that went on leave you sometimes amazed and sometimes simply laughing.

One brief example: some railway companies actively colluded in the promotion and stage of prize fights, which were illegal. There is one hilarious story of a train, carrying both fighters and spectators, rushing to and fro from various places to avoid the police. The fight starts in one place, the police come along, everyone rushes off on the train to get to another place and the whole thing is repeated several times. As Bradley wryly notes, try to imagine the railways taking people to those acid fuelled raves that used to take place in rural areas in the 1990s and you get some idea of what this was like.

That's just one of the brilliant tales thus far and I'm looking forward to more.
 
I tend to read early 20th century women writers, currently this is Elizabeth von Arnim's 'Vera'. I am feeling a little uncomfortable about it since the main character is 22 years old and she is being courted by a much older man whose wife recently died in circumstances which leave a lot to be desired. Before that I was reading John Lewis-Stempel ' The Secret Life of the Owl'. It started off well then went downhill with a decidedly lacklustre ending.
 
I need to order some books. I want to re-read The Good Earth trilogy by Pears S. Buck. I read it in high school - long enough ago to enjoy it again.
 
Toffeeapple said:
I tend to read early 20th century women writers, currently this is Elizabeth von Arnim's 'Vera'. I am feeling a little uncomfortable about it since the main character is 22 years old and she is being courted by a much older man whose wife recently died in circumstances which leave a lot to be desired. Before that I was reading John Lewis-Stempel ' The Secret Life of the Owl'. It started off well then went downhill with a decidedly lacklustre ending.
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I've not read any. Apparently she is something of a forgotten feminist according to this: http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-e...n-feminist-who-s-flowering-again-6258398.html

Von Arnim published a total of 21 novels before her death aged 74 in 1941, the bewildering variety of which makes them difficult to encapsulate. They range from the ebulliently escapist The Enchanted April (best imagined as a combination of Noël Coward, E M Forster and Frances Hodgson Burnett), to the sinister thriller Vera (a novel described by Virago Modern Classics editor, Donna Coonan, as bearing comparison to Du Maurier's Rebecca), to the witty and wistful histoire d'une femme The Pastor's Wife.
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I read the Pastor's wife first, that was decidedly odd then it was The Enchanted April which I rather enjoyed and now I am reading Vera - as I said it is rather disturbing.
There is a reading group on Facebook for Undervalued British women novelists if anyone wishes to join.
 
Toffeeapple said:
I read the Pastor's wife first, that was decidedly odd then it was The Enchanted April which I rather enjoyed and now I am reading Vera - as I said it is rather disturbing.
There is a reading group on Facebook for Undervalued British women novelists if anyone wishes to join.
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Interesting. Link to the FB group?
 
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