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.

[Karen from AustCrime]

I haven't played on this thread for a while so I thought it was about time.

I just finished a couple of good books - Dreamland by Tom Gilling a brand new Australian crime fiction author and Disco for the Departed by Colin Cotterill - a series I just love and probably a standout book in the series into the bargain.

I've just picked up a real treat though - the new one from NZ author Paul Cleave - Cemetery Lake. Happy happy happy dance.

[Daniel Hatadi]

I love that this thread is STILL going!

At the moment, I'm reading THE ROAD by Cormac McCarthy and having a mixed experience. It's beautifully bleak poetry but has a number of points that bug me. Hmm, I might start a blasphemous discussion on it.

[Neil Plakcy]

I'm reading Craig Johnson's newest, ANOTHER MAN"S MOCCASINS, and I'm loving the chance to get back to Absaroka County. As soon as Sheriff Walt Longmire walked into Dorothy's Busy Bee Cafe, I felt like I was meeting up with old friends again.

[Suzanne Epstein]

I just finished reading Blue Heaven by C. J. Box. This is not a series book. It is set in north Idaho, where a lot of Los Angeles police officers have moved after retirement. I really enjoyed the complexity of the plot and the basic decency of the main character, rancher Jess Rawlins. I've enjoyed all of Box's books and this is no exception.

[Naomi Johnson]

I'm about 50 pages into Duane Swierczynski's SEVERANCE PACKAGE, and maybe this is a strange reaction or maybe the author intended it, but I'm giggling a lot. And sometimes I can feel my eyebrows going up and my eyes widening. I think I'm going to co-opt for future use the last sentence of the first chapter: "Well, this is ahead of schedule."

[Karyn J. Powers]

Winter Study by Nevada Barr. Just when I thought our North Woods winter was finally over, murdering Windegos On Lake Superior's Isle Royale have me stumbling around in minus 17 degree weather. Winds blow, wolves howl, wolf researchers begin to go missing. Ice dancing in Sorrels. It's June in Wisconsin!

[Joy Calderwood]

Edgar winner OLD BONES by Aaron Elkins. My sister picked it out of a garage sale and let the family graze from a bagful of books. I'm thinking I'm going to have to go back to chapter 2 and make a diagram of the characters, to keep track of them.

:-) But that will have to wait until I stop working on A JOLLY GOOD FELLOW, Stephen Masse's medal winner, to which we have acquired the e-rights. It didn't look at all my type when I started it, because of the street language, but I ended up loving it. It's all about the relationship between a con-man Santa and his little kidnapping victim.

My most recent read was a character exploration about a stuck-in-the-mud teacher and how he relates to his past. TEACHING DAEDALUS is a reference to Daedalus the maze-builder. Mr Monk has hidden, inside a maze, the parts of his life that matter personally. This stuck in my mind for days after I finished it. Monk's relationships are as interesting as his mysteries.

[Naomi Johnson]

I've just started MOONLIGHT DOWNS by Adrian Hyland. It's a 180-degree turn from Swierczynski's SEVERANCE PACKAGE (which I began with great enjoyment, but eventually I was disappointed by it). MOONLIGHT DOWNS does not begin with a bang, but is slowly building. Witty, at times. And the modern aboriginal culture is so far from what I've encountered that I can't help being intrigued.

[Loretta Wheeler]

... what have you normally encountered that you find different from the Aboriginal culture you experienced before? I've just returned from Australia, and have one perception of it over all, but did meet a few who were more assimilated into the western lifestyle...

Loretta

[Naomi Johnson]

I guess I worded that poorly. I have NO experience of Aboriginal culture so everything in the book is new & interesting to me. Probably because none of my reading of stories set in Australia were ever depicted from an Aboriginal POV. It's always good to see the other side of the coin.

[Karen from AustCrime]

Adrian writes a very realistic / informed viewpoint of outback Aboriginal culture as well in Diamond Dove / Moonlight Downs. (Adrian isn't Aboriginal himself incidentally).

He spent a considerable number of years in the real life town that is set up as a fictional location for that book, working within community and he's really really nailed a lot of the joys of Aboriginal culture as well as the difficulties. As with all indigenous cultures, Aboriginal Australia is as diverse as non-Aboriginal Australia.

[Naomi Johnson]

I finished the book last night, and I can hardly wait for more from this author. He has a truly unique voice. And writes women very well (as opposed to, say, John Grisham and James Patterson).