Duchess of Milan by Michael Ennis, it is of special interest to me, since I used to live in Milan and the people in this novel up until now hasn't been more than names to me, but in central Milan there are streets named after them. It's fascinating.
I'm currently working my way through 4 books. I have The Scarecrow by Michael Connelly, The Rules of Attraction by Bret Easton Ellis, Night Watch by Terry Pratchett and Tell All by Chuck Palahniuk. Then for my uni assignment I also have James Joyce's Dubliners. I've always quite enjoyed Michael Connelly's books, but this one has an extremely odd epilogue. It reveals its killer early on making a point to give only brief glimpses of what made him the way he is, then after all the action has finished there's an entire chapter devoted to wheeling out a clichéd origin story which hits every single point on the FBI criminal psych-profile. It felt very strange.
I just started A Tree Grows In Brooklyn by Betty Smith. And I'm still making it through London Fields by Martin Amis. The writing is excellent, but the plot and characters are lackluster.
I am reading The demoilished man by Alfed Bester. It seems pretty good, and has a big metaphor in the beginning going for that only hints to at the size of the plot.
This Blinding Absence of Light by Tahar Ben Jelloun. Hard to believe that people go crazy over some of the popular stuff out today and yet few seem to have heard of this writer and book. It's incredible and I highly recommend it, it's the type of story that can change your whole view on life.
The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald I'm in a 'classics phase' right now and enjoying it, because I haven't read many of them before. Only thing is it makes me a lot more conscious of my own writing...
Currently re-reading Maus by Art Spiegelmann, then I'll move on to Paradise Now by Jari Moate, then Ken Follett's Pillars of the Earth. The joy of reading groups -- I know what I'll be reading well in advance! I'm also reading Aping Mankind by Raymond Tallis and The Book of Books by Melvyn Bragg to keep my non-fiction fix going.
I took on "The Passage".. I knew little about the book but it was recommended to be my thriller/horror/SK fans. So far it's one of the more detailed books I have ever read. I normally read a lot of SK lately and he spends a lot of time developing characters and such in this books, the author takes painstakingly detailed time to explore pasts of characters and events. It's unique to me in that way. At first it was little hard to get into because of that but now I'm starting to really get invested in the story.
Asleep by Banana Yoshimoto. I picked it up because her name intrigued me. I'm only on some page 20, so far I rather like her style.
Having munched my way through such SF classics in the last few weeks as Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle's "The Mote in God's Eye", and Arthur C. Clarke's "The City and the Stars", I've now downloaded a sample of Tim Powers' "On Stranger Tides" for something a little different.
I just finished reading book two of George R. R. Martin's Clash of Kings from the Song of Fire and Ice series. I had passed it off as typical fantasy for a while with direwolves and probably had elves and wizards and blah blah blah... I only ever had passing glances at the TV series and scoffed at it for no apparent reason. After the book finally ended up in my hands I realized how wrong I was. Game of thrones is in a class of its own within the fantasy genre. Not necessarily A-typical fantasy, but it is very well written, exciting and full of intrigue. Oddly enough, it seems to have the most historically accurate version of feudal societies I have ever read within a fantasy book. Just great. On to book 3 now. W00t.
^ Book three is the best of the written books so far in my opinion. Myself, well I just finished Book two of the sword of truth: Stone of tears. Although I believe it to have been a good book I didn't enjoy the ending. Though I will continue with the series to see where it goes. At the moment though I started book two of the Hunger games series: Catching Fire.
Two books I just finished were: Post Office by Charles Bukowski (Which I loved) Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S Thompson (Had me lol'ing in places but wasn't that great as a whole)
I'm reading The Cranes that Build The Cranes by Jeremy Dyson. It's a selection of short stories to do with the human condition and it's really quite good I just finished The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, which I loved so much that I couldn't put it down. Literally, I stayed up all night. It took 5 hours.
Right now I'm reading "The Story of San Michele" by Axel Munthe. Recommended by my very cultured aunt.
Just Finished SPUD - Learning to Fly by John Van de Ruit. Wonderful book. Will be reserving the first one of this series. But for now, I'll be reading The Reckoning by Kelley Armstrong. Looking forward to it
I'm reading a translation of Romance of Three Kingdoms at the moment. It's interesting to see how fictional writing has changed over the centuries.
