It’s the first Wednesday of the month, so it’s time for WWW Wednesday, an idea I borrowed from David Chazan, The Chocolate Lady, who borrowed it from someone else. For this feature, I report

• What I am reading now
• What I just finished reading
• What I intend to read next

This is something you can participate in, too, if you want, by leaving comments about what you’ve been reading or plan to read.

What I am reading now

I am reading The Deepening Stream by Dorothy Canfield Fisher, which I’ve had sitting on my nightstand for a few weeks but was avoiding during Nonfiction November and Novellas in November because it is 600+ pages long. However, it is perfect for Doorstoppers in December, so I signed it up for that. I originally chose it because it’s on my Classics Club list, so reading it serves two purposes. So far, the novel may be autobiographical, and it is covering the main character’s childhood. It was published in 1930.

What I just finished reading

I just finished a really entertaining early mystery, Enter Sir John, by two authors I have never heard of, Clemence Dane and Helen Simpson. Well, actually, I think I have heard of Clemence Dane, but not in terms of mystery novels. It turns out both were successful writers, Dane mostly as a screenwriter and Simpson as a novelist. This mystery is from 1928.

What I will probably read next

The next book in my stack is Wild Dark Shore by Charlotte McConaghy, which has shown up here and there a lot this year. I have forgotten what it’s about since I ordered it, but that just makes it more fun to dig in!

What about you? What are you reading?

It’s the first Wednesday of the month, so it’s time for WWW Wednesday, an idea I borrowed from David Chazan, The Chocolate Lady, who borrowed it from someone else. For this feature, I report

• What I am reading now
• What I just finished reading
• What I intend to read next

This is something you can participate in, too, if you want, by leaving comments about what you’ve been reading or plan to read.

What I am reading now

I am reading What Happened to Nina? by Dervla McTiernan. It’s a departure from the other books I’ve read by her, because it’s set in Vermont, U. S., instead of Ireland. It’s billed as a thriller, although so far (I’m two-thirds of the way through), it’s not showing any evidence of that. It’s more of a psychological novel about what happens when a young woman goes missing.

What I just finished reading

My last book was one I read for Literary Wives, review coming up December 1. It’s The Soul of Kindness by Elizabeth Taylor. It’s more of a community novel, like Middlemarch, even though it has a main character. It’s about the effect of a woman’s actions on the people around her.

What I will read next

I just got this book out of the library, so I’ll probably read it next. It’s Jane Austen in 41 Objects, yes, nonfiction by Kathryn Sutherland. I read about it on another blog, and it sounded fascinating. I would say it is right in time for Nonfiction November, except that I probably won’t be posting my review until January or February.

How about you? What have you been or are reading?

It’s the first Wednesday of the month, so it’s time for WWW Wednesday, an idea I borrowed from David Chazan, The Chocolate Lady, who borrowed it from someone else. For this feature, I report

• What I am reading now
• What I just finished reading
• What I intend to read next

This is something you can participate in, too, if you want, by leaving comments about what you’ve been reading or plan to read.

What I am reading now

I got on to Henryk Sienkiewicz quite a few years ago now, when I read his gripping novel With Fire and Sword, the first of a trilogy. When I was reading it, I learned from a friend who is first-generation British/American of Polish descent that his were the books Polish children grew up with, but these aren’t just books for children. He is a late 19th century/early 20th century writer of historical fiction, a Nobel Prize for Literature winner. His best-known book is Quo Vadis, my least favorite of his so far. Sometime back, I noticed that someone was selling a used copy of The Teutonic Knights by him, and it finally made it to the top of my pile. I have since read that he considered it his best book, and I’d say it’s a real page-turner. It’s also very long. All of his books that I’ve read so far are quite long except Quo Vadis. But somehow the time goes quickly. Almost finished!

What I just finished reading

I just finished a book sent to me by NYRB, The Sweet Dove Died by Barbara Pym. It’s about an attractive woman of a certain age, a “fragile” woman, who becomes friends with a much younger man and his uncle. Although friendship with the uncle is more suitable, she prefers the young man and slowly begins drawing him in so that he is dependent on her. At 207 pages, this one squeaks in for Novellas in November.

What I will read next

I usually have written quite a few reviews ahead of time, and I see that I should be reading things I will be reviewing in November, which means two things: Novellas in November and Nonfiction November. Since Nonfiction November tends to be more about the nonfiction people have read during the year, I have a pile of novellas on my bed table that it’s about time to start reading. And Seascraper by Benjamin Wood serves both the purpose of being a novella and of being a book that I’ve read about lately (and also a Booker Prize longlister). So, I’ll start reading my pile with it.

What about you? What have you been reading?

It’s the first Wednesday of the month, so it’s time for WWW Wednesday, an idea I borrowed from David Chazan, The Chocolate Lady, who borrowed it from someone else. For this feature, I report

• What I am reading now
• What I just finished reading
• What I intend to read next

This is something you can participate in, too, if you want, by leaving comments about what you’ve been reading or plan to read.

What I am reading now

I just started Long Island, Colm Tóibín’s sequel to Brooklyn, which picks up 20 years later. It’s been a year or so since I read Brooklyn, and I find myself struggling to remember where it left off, but so far I am enjoying it. I just started it yesterday. Eilis is now a mother of two, living on Long Island in the same street as her husband’s Italian family, and right away she finds out something disturbing.

What I just finished reading

I just finished the fourth book in Ellis Peters’ Cadfael series, Saint Peter’s Fair. I am enjoying this series, particularly because of the characters and the time setting, as I have read about this period before. The series is definitely getting more political, but we’ll just see where it goes.

What I will read next

Sometimes I change my mind at the last minute, and this time, when I was looking through my pile of books to read, I picked out The Western Wind by Samantha Harvey, only to realize that I read it some time ago for my Walter Scott project and somehow picked up a copy of it later. So, I went back to the shelf and picked out Shakespeare: The Man Who Pays the Rent by Judy Dench. I was in Ashland, Oregon, two years ago for the Oregon Shakespeare Festival and picked up this book at the town’s excellent bookstore. It has finally worked its way to the top of the pile, and it’s about time I read it.

So, what about you? What’s going on with your reading?

It’s the first Wednesday of the month, so it’s time for WWW Wednesday, an idea I borrowed from David Chazan, The Chocolate Lady, who borrowed it from someone else. For this feature, I report

• What I am reading now
• What I just finished reading
• What I intend to read next

This is something you can participate in, too, if you want, by leaving comments about what you’ve been reading or plan to read.

What I am reading now

Right now, I’m reading the second book in the Department Q series: The Absent One by Jussi Adler-Olsen. It’s pretty grim so far, but that doesn’t usually bother me with crime novels. The second season of Department Q is supposed to be uploaded to Britbox this month, so I’m right on time. FictionFan pointed out to me that the TV series has inexplicably moved the mysteries to Scotland. I didn’t even notice that! Maybe it’s because I saw the TV series first.

What I just finished reading

I have to thank Nonfiction November for this one, because I have seldom enjoyed a nonfiction book as much. It’s the beautiful Pocket Atlas of Remote Islands by Judith Schalansky. If you like maps and stories about remote places, even if you don’t have an affinity for islands like I do, you’ll find this one fascinating.

What I will read next

I think it’s going to be The Darlings of the Asylum by Noel O’Reilly. I have no idea how this book got on my list or what it’s about, but it’s almost time to find out!

How about you? What have you been reading?

It’s the first Wednesday of the month, so it’s time for WWW Wednesday, an idea I borrowed from David Chazan, The Chocolate Lady, who borrowed it from someone else. For this feature, I report

• What I am reading now
• What I just finished reading
• What I intend to read next

This is something you can participate in, too, if you want, by leaving comments about what you’ve been reading or plan to read.

What am I reading now?

I am reading English Magic by Uschi Gatward, one of the last books for my James Tait Black Award project, since I’m trying to wrap it up. It’s a collection of short stories. I don’t always get on well with short stories, but so far, I’ve found some of them interesting and some of them frustrating.

What did I just finish reading?

I just finished The Librarian by Salley Vickers. I’m not sure how this book got on my list, but I enjoyed it. It’s about a librarian who moves to a small English town in the 1950s and tries to get more children to use the children’s library. At first, I thought it was going to be a standard romance, but it didn’t turn out that way.

What will I read next?

This can always change, but what’s next in my pile is Night Watch by Jayne Anne Phillips. It’s a historical novel set during the Civil War, and it’s been on my list for some time.

What about you? What are you up to with your reading?

It’s the first Wednesday of the month, so it’s time for WWW Wednesday, an idea I borrowed from David Chazan, The Chocolate Lady, who borrowed it from someone else. For this feature, I report

• What I am reading now
• What I just finished reading
• What I intend to read next

This is something you can participate in, too, if you want, by leaving comments about what you’ve been reading or plan to read.

What I am reading now

I just finished my previous book, so I haven’t actually started An Episode at Toledo by Ann Bridge. I have liked the couple other books I have read by Bridge, but this one is apparently a part of a mystery series she wrote. I haven’t read any of the others, and I’m afraid I’m getting this one out of order, which I hate to do if I can avoid it. Anyway, I’m looking forward to starting it today.

What I just finished reading

I just read The Safekeep by Yael van der Wouden for my Walter Scott Historical Prize project. It is set in the early 1960s in Utrecht, but the vestiges of the war are still in evidence. I don’t want to say too much about it here, because it goes somewhere surprising at the end. You’ll have to wait for my review!

What I am reading next

I sometimes forget what I said I was going to read next and read something else, but this time I think I’ll read the third book in Edna O’Brien’s Country Girls trilogy. It’s called Girls in Their Married Bliss, and I can’t help thinking that title might be meant ironically. I’ll find out!

It’s the first Wednesday of the month, so it’s time for WWW Wednesday, an idea I borrowed from David Chazan, The Chocolate Lady, who borrowed it from someone else. For this feature, I report

• What I am reading now
• What I just finished reading
• What I intend to read next

This is something you can participate in, too, if you want, by leaving comments about what you’ve been reading or plan to read.

What I am reading now

Right now, I’m reading There Once Lived a Woman Who Tried to Kill Her Neighbor’s Baby: Scary Fairy Tales by Ludmilla Petrushevskaya. I’m not sure where I heard of this book, but I’m always interested in Russian writers. This book is written backwards, starting at the back of the book, and I’ve barely started it, so we’ll see how it goes. Also, it’s short, and although that usually doesn’t figure in to my reading, right now it’s a plus.

What I just finished reading

Well, that depends on how you count. I took a short plunge into Slowness by Milan Kundera. It is very short, and I hadn’t read any Kundera, was just familiar with the movie version of The Unbearable Lightness of Being. However, it seemed more like a philosophical treatise than a novel. Almost nothing had happened by 20 pages in. I got bored. Yes, that’s right. Slowness was too slow for me. Not usually a problem.

So that leaves the book before, an Agatha Christie I hadn’t read before, Death Comes as the End. Unusually, it is set in Egypt, not in Christie’s Egypt but in 2000 AD or so. Still, it is a mystery.

What I intend to read next

It’s looking like my next book will be another mystery, The Widow of Bath by Margot Bennett. I read one other book by Bennett, and I liked it very much.

It’s the first Wednesday of the month, so it’s time for WWW Wednesday, an idea I borrowed from David Chazan, The Chocolate Lady, who borrowed it from someone else. For this feature, I report

• What I am reading now
• What I just finished reading
• What I intend to read next

This is something you can participate in, too, if you want, by leaving comments about what you’ve been reading or plan to read.

What I am reading now

People who can remember my WWW Wednesday for last month may be amused, because what I am reading now is finally Lanark by Alastair Gray. That’s because this book was the one I was planning to be reading next that month. However, since I was dreading it for its length, a bunch of library books came in and saved me, plus I squeezed in some books for ReadingIreland25 and ReadingWales25. So now I am finally getting to it. It’s going to fill the position as second-to-last book in my A Century of Books project.

What I just finished reading

I took a break from the tomes that are the remainder of my A Century of Books project and read a very short book for my Booker Prize project. It was Treacle Walker by Alan Garner. It reads like a myth or fairy tale, and I wasn’t always sure what was going on. But it was beautifully written and interesting. And a plus at this time, it was only about 140 pages long!

What I will read next

If I live through Lanark, which is almost 600 pages long, I’m planning on reading another short book that is not related to any of my projects. It’s been quite a while since I did that. The book is short stories, Walk the Blue Fields by Claire Keegan.

What about you? What are you reading now or have read recently?

It’s the first Wednesday of the month, so it’s time for WWW Wednesday, an idea I borrowed from David Chazan, The Chocolate Lady, who borrowed it from someone else. For this feature, I report

• What I am reading now
• What I just finished reading
• What I intend to read next

This is something you can participate in, too, if you want, by leaving comments about what you’ve been reading or plan to read.

What am I reading now?

During Novellas in November last year, I read a novella about an interesting woman, Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle, the first woman to publish more than one work. She was prolific, but she got the label of Mad Madge. We can assume that some men were jealous. Anyway, this is a biography of her, Mad Madge by Katie Whitaker, one of the source materials for the novella, I think. Not only will it work toward a larger number of books to report for Nonfiction November and fill a hole in my A Century of Books project, but I wanted to read it anyway. I am just getting started on it.

What did I just finish reading?

I don’t often read YA books, and I confess to being perplexed as to why so many adults read lots of them, but John Green is usually a reliable author and has even managed to tear me up at times. So, when I saw that Looking for Alaska filled a hole in my A Century of Books project, I got it from the library. Green, so far in my experience, usually writes about some major issue, and in this case, it is death and grief.

What will I read next?

As of this writing, that’s a good question. The next book I have on my pile for A Century of Books is Lanark by Alasdair Gray. I am sort of dreading it, though, both because of its length and what the cover forebodes. (I’ve seen that exact same devilish character on the cover of another book from that era, and I remember disliking the book intensely, although I can’t remember what it was. I also find no succor in the image of the naked woman or in the blurb that says it’s “probably the greatest book of the century.”) I’m writing this a few days ahead, being very sure that I won’t finish Mad Madge by Wednesday since I am a slow nonfiction reader, so what I read really depends on whether some of my other A Century of Books selections arrive from the library before I finish it.

The books I’m waiting for are, in order of how long I’ve had them on hold:

• Girl Interrupted by Susanna Keysen (which I’ve been waiting for since December, so I suspect it’s stolen; however, one time that I had a book on hold for several months, they apparently bought another copy, because the one I finally received looked unread)
• A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson (which is probably going to end up being another big honker)
• Sarah’s Key by Tatiana Rosnay (I think I read another book by her and didn’t like it, but this one was very popular—we’ll see.)
• The Quiet American by Graham Green (The movie was good.)
• Moo by Jane Smiley (I have an uneven relationship with Jane Smiley. Sometimes I think her books are so-so and other times they’ve been great. We’ll see.)

Update! Not only did some of my library books arrive yesterday, but almost all of them did! The only one that didn’t arrive was A Short History of Nearly Everything. (We should have a copy in the house, because I gave one to Wayne for a present years ago, but of course, since it’s his, he can’t find it.) So, the next book I read will probably be The Quiet American. Girl, Interrupted is shorter, but I just read a nonfiction book, so I don’t want to push it. I know it’s silly to read shorter books first, but I just read several big honkers in a row!

What about you? What are you reading, or what have you finished reading?