The "I am currently reading" thread

[Suffragette1]

The Night of the Mi'raj by Zoe Ferraris, a crime novel set in Saudi Arabia which has given me even greater insight into the appalling and lowly status of women there and how daily life and even the most mundane of tasks are hampered by the strict segregation between the sexes, the total lack of autonomy that women have to endure and various religious rituals.

 

It's summed up well by Joan Smith here:

 

As the truth about Nouf’s death emerges, the stifling atmosphere in which even wealthy Saudi women exist is laid bare, along with the risks some are prepared to take in order to escape. Ferraris’s remarkable debut is a tense psychological drama, and a riveting portrait of everyday life in a society with paranoid attitudes towards women and sex.

 

Ref

 

More here:

 

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/the-night-of-the-miraj-by-zo235-ferraris-792455.html

 

Insightful and frustrating.

[Plain Talker]

I've just finished the three books in the Milennium Trilogy:- "The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo", (Millennium I ) "The Girl Who Played With Fire" (Millennium II ), and "The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet's Nest" (Millennium III ). The story, as woven across the three books had me gripped.

 

The three books deal with a very hard subject (violence against women). Indeed, in the original Swedish, Dragon-Tattoo was called "Men Who Hate Women".

[Suffragette1]

Just started the new John Irving novel, The Night at Twisted River. This time it's about a father son relationship and hasn't really gripped me yet, but I'm only a few pages in.

[RichJay]

Just starting to read The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid.

[Chris_Sleeps]

Started: To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee.

 

Read it before but it's a wonderful book so i'm having another go.

[RichJay]

I finished reading The Reluctant Fundamentalist last night. It's a monologue of a young man, born in Pakistan, educated in America and living back in Pakistan. He is telling his life story to an American stranger. It's a fairly short book and easy to read.

 

I'm now reading Cause of Death by Patricia Cornwell.

[taxman]

I'm just about to start Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel

[Suffragette1]

I'm just about to start Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel

 

Good luck with that, what a tome. I started it ages ago and never got round to going back to it. I found it strange how the speech was in the present day vernacular.

[panda-monium]

the visual effects white papers

[Plain Talker]

I finished reading The Reluctant Fundamentalist last night. It's a monologue of a young man, born in Pakistan, educated in America and living back in Pakistan. He is telling his life story to an American stranger. It's a fairly short book and easy to read.

 

I'm now reading Cause of Death by Patricia Cornwell.

 

I do enjoy Cornwell's Kay Scarpetta novels, but am now starting to find them a bit formulaic.

 

I lent some of the earlier ones to my dad, and he wasn't keen. he grumbled "She's bluddi paranoid. 'er.... they's allus sumb'dy coming after her. Bluddi paranoid!"