What are you currently reading?

[QualityBookReviews]

An open discussion on what everyone is currently reading. Make recommendations to others, discuss what is new, hot, bestsellers, anything and everything related to books and the authors.

[Frank Gates]

My wife says he is a genius. She read the Japanese version

[Juri Nummelin]

Just finished late last night Simon Lelic's RUPTURE. Okay, but not great, very much jarred by the sentimental and upright ending.

[Brian Ray]

Reading "The Sculptor" by Greg Funaro and wishing I'd written it. A serial killer emulates Michelangelo and pursues a divorced art historian in that adorable I-love-you-I-want-to-kill-you kind of way. More details on my blog. Also just finished "Dexter by Design." Next up after Funaro: "Dexter is Delicious."

[Timothy London]

The Iron Heel by Jack London.  This book puts the lie to the idea that the wicked side of capitalism (IE: not the shopping) is a recent phenomenon. It so clearly states the state of the world that it could be used a reference book for an economics course.

 

Shame, then, that it's all wrapped in tight-assed Edwardian language, although the depiction of post-Victorian city life in the USA is unusual, depicting the transitional state of a rural nation into an industrial one.

 

Weirdly, there is, I think, meant to be a utopian answer to the years of oppression that stem from the events covered in this book.  But reading it now, in the depths of London's dark projection, this seems ludicrous.

 

I wonder about books and films that dwell on subjects like these: is there an element of opening Pandora's Box, mentioning the unmentionable?  Do you make it acceptable, prepare the ground even, for fascism and totalitarianism and soulless capitalism by talking and writing about it?

[Steve Anderson]

Timothy,

 

Good question. Thanks for reminding me about The Iron Heel. Read it years ago and loved it for many of the reasons you say. I'll have to pick it up again, especially with all that's happened in the world in the last ten years. 

[Suzanne]

I read Jon Loomis' HIGH SEASON and MATING SEASON.  Lots of fun.  Jon used to contribute here.  Anyway, here's to ya, Jon!

 DEAD IRISH by John Lescroart

CHASING THE DEVIL'S TAIL by Vanentin St. Cyr

Both okay, I'll probably read the next installments.

[Miriam Pia]

The book I most recently read was when I finished reading: The Only Thing Worth Dying For - which is nonfiction.

I presently reading The End of Honor by Lionel Alford

[Miriam Pia]

I just looked at what the other kids were doing and was left thinking my most intense reaction was to the guy who referred to some serial killer mystery suspense novel or something.  Creep Central.

[David DeLee]

Just started FIRST SHOT by Zoe Sharp. The first U.S. adventure for her Charlie Fox character.

[I. J. Parker]

I'm rereading all the R.D.Wingfield books , and relistening to all the O'Brien novels. (Having become disgusted with all the new authors I've been sampling lately).

[Suzanne]

In addition to the last Wallander book, I've recently finished Stuart Neville's COLLUSION, also a fine end to THE GHOSTS OF BELFAST.  I read another Archer Mayor, BELLOWS FALLS.  I sure like his main character, and his plots are complicated enough to keep the reader interested.  Last week I read THE THREE EVANGELISTS by Fred Vargas, just a wonderful book with charming characters.

[I. J. Parker]

I like Wallander a lot.  Don't care for Neville and Mayor (for different reasons), and have decided that Vargas writes comedy, not realistic police procedurals.