The "I am currently reading" thread

[feargal]

I've been reading Jed Rubenfeld's "An Interpretation Of Murder".

 

I've been trying to get through it for, ooh, six months or more.

 

It's a murder-mystery, set in Manhattan, 1909, when Sigmund Freud visited the US. Freud and other psychoanalysts like Jung also figure in the novel.

 

I'm afraid I'm finding it a bit "Dry", I pick it up, and read a few pages, but then find I can't read any more for a while.)

 

I'm not at all fan of Freud, anyway, so I wonder if it's not necessarily Rubenfeld's style of writing that I'm struggling with, but the subject matter?

 

I wouldn't bother continuing PT I did persevere with it a few months ago, slogged through the whole blomming thing. It wasn't rubbish, just "nowtish". 3 months on, and I can't tell you anything that happened in it. That's the sign of a very poor book for me.

[Plain Talker]

I wouldn't bother continuing PT I did persevere with it a few months ago, slogged through the whole blomming thing. It wasn't rubbish, just "nowtish". 3 months on, and I can't tell you anything that happened in it. That's the sign of a very poor book for me.

 

Hmm. thanks for that, feargal, that's very-much food for thought for me!

 

I like a book to enthral me, to excite my mind, to be rapt with the plot even after I've put the book down.

 

I've read a few historical books of late, a couple factual :- "Elizabeth the Queen" by Alison Weir which (naturally) focuses on, erm guess who? (Lizzy 1) which has been an interesting book, if dry,-but-not-in-the-same-way-as-I've-found "Interpretation". The dryness came from facts and figures, rather than "the plot not moving on". I've got as far as Amy Robsart's suspicious death (Lord Robert Dudley's wife) in 1560.

 

I've recently finished reading "Innocent Traitor", a fiction-based-on-fact novel, by the same author (Alison Weir) which was the story of Lady Jane Grey, the "queen-for-nine-days" which I enjoyed, and found fairly well-written.

 

I've also really enjoyed Phillipa Gregory's latest novel, "The White Queen", the story of Elizabeth of York, (who's marriage to the Lancastrians brought about the Tudor dynasty. Another enjoyable read.

 

Before that, I read a book called "The Tudor Wife" by Emily Purdy which was based on the life of Lady Jane Rochford, who married Anne Boleyn's brother George. I didn't think much to that one I'm afraid.low on accuracy, and high on slaciousness, sadly. no substance.

 

(did I mention I was very keen on Tudor history?)

[foxydebs]

Domain, along with '48, is my favourite Herbert novel.

 

I've read it twice and on both occasions almost felt suffocated until I've reached the end. It's incredibly awful in places but also gripping. I associate with it because when I was at school in the mid-eighties, nuclear war seemed very possible.

 

Try '48 next if you liked Domain. Herbert's next book is not due out until autumn 2011.

 

Ive got 48 too but not read it yet.

[Chris_Sleeps]

Started 'The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution' by Richard Dawkins. T'is interesting.

[maat49]

Just finished The Long Woman by Kevan Manwaring, was very thought provoking. Now started BlokeMiles by Mathew Ravden which is hilarious:D

[nickinibbs]

The twilight saga! Lol thought it was be a load of poop but i actually love it. Now waiting for Breaking Dawn to come out in paperback so no spoilers please!!!!

 

Also i am rterrible for books i'm always reading about 5 at a time-i've lso got these on the go: The Time Travllers Wife The Kite Runner and We Need to Talk About Kevin.

[foxydebs]

Just started James Herbert's creed, will get round to 48 one day, ive got it in a double book with the ghosts of sleath. If you cant guess James Herbert is one of my fave authors. Don't think there is many books of his I haven't read.

Have just finished reading Ma he sold me for a few cigarettes by martha long. A true life story of her childhood, with the way it finished I think there must be a book that follows on from it, but not come across it yet.

[Plain Talker]

Just started James Herbert's creed, will get round to 48 one day, ive got it in a double book with the ghosts of sleath. If you cant guess James Herbert is one of my fave authors. Don't think there is many books of his I haven't read.

Have just finished reading Ma he sold me for a few cigarettes by martha long. A true life story of her childhood, with the way it finished I think there must be a book that follows on from it, but not come across it yet.

 

I don't know if we aren't buckling under the weight of these "miserylit" books.

 

IMO, some tales, like Richard McCann's story are interesting, and can be helpful, in relating how they got through this, and came out the other side...

 

Others just seem to wallow in the "look how awful my childhood was" theme, with no actual closure, or advice about how to get through it.

 

I know a few people who could write these sort of stories, and then some (stories that would make your hair curl/ go grey overnight!) such as the tale of a friend from school who was sexually abused, by her father, with her mother's complicity, and who ended up having a child, when she was aged just fifteen, fathered by her own father (yes, I know, it reads like the plot of "precious")

 

I could tell you the tale of the lass (another schoolmate of mine) who lived on the end of our street who ended up "on the game" before we'd even sat our mock o'levels...

 

or there's the tale of another school-friend, who was beaten to within an inch of her life by her booze-head loser of a "father", on a regular basis.

 

There's also the history of a schoolmate of my sisters. As a baby-in-arms, his deadbeat, inadequate, *insert apt description of your choice*, parents threw him over their flat's balcony, landing on the concrete pavement below, leaving him with multiple skull fractures and brain damage/ learning difficulties.

 

Or what my vile next-door neighbours (from many years ago) did, to their tiny baby:- again, just a baby in arms, they swung her, like a sledgehammer, and smashed her head, repeatedly against a wall.

 

For some strange reason, they though it odd that the social worker seemed to think that this little precious really desperately needed to be taken away, immediately, under a place of safety order, to some-place, any place, that wasn't their flat, where she'd be protected from this sort of treatment.. (yeah... odd that, eh?)

 

(sorry, BTW, this is not meant to sound condemning, I'm just trying to illustrate that this sort of story is being played out on practically every street, somewhere.)

[taxman]

Death's Own Door by Andrew Taylor. A decent enough detective novel set in the 1950s

[emilyj]

The girl who kicked the hornets nest. Stiegg larsson