What are you reading right now?

Gershun, is that novel tortuous and scary
I love to read but not if I feel I have just become greatly unsettled

Not to me Riverdale. But I wouldn't recommend it to someone who internalizes things too much.

Ugh. I'll be honest. I am reading "Howard Stern Comes Again." It's a collection of his interviews, I don't know what possessed me to buy it. And in hardcover! But it is making me laugh. That's my bedtime reading.

On my Kindle, I am reading a book called "Three Women" by Lisa Taddeo, about 3 women's lives and desires. It's excellent!

Just finished reading "The Lewis Trilogy" by Peter May. These books really grabbed me. Now on to Book 2 of the Hamish Macbeth series "Death of a Cad" by M.C. Beaton.

Classes start tomorrow and back to teaching. Been reading new textbooks on retirement planning and family financial planning.

Gershun, I love those Chicken Soup books.   There are a few that I've read repeatedly:   Tough Times, Tough People, and another on challenging situations  One on Ocean and marine life is so moving that I've read it 3 times now.

They're so relaxing, inspirational and motivating.


I've just reread the 6 books of the Griffin and Sabine series, was initially captivated as I was when I first read them years ago, but was disappointed in the last book, which seemed to be created more quickly, with less thought, and didn't really explain some of the mysteries in the whole series. 

Somebody here put a bug in my ear about Victoria Holt, so I took a break from Taylor Caldwell to re-read “Mistress of Mellyn.” I see the characters so differently as a 65-year-old woman than I did as a 16-year-old virgin reading the book for the first time. Now I find the heroine a bit of a priss, and the only character I really like is dead...I think. But it’s good light reading.

DizzyBritches, I'm positive I read that same novel, decades ago when I was reading a lot of Victoria Holt's novels.    Read a few a few years ago and saw them in such a different light, still a decent read, story and character development, but so opposite from other genres that were very fast paced and more contemporary.  But they're nice for a different perspective.

I Love my Comic books I still have,Richie Rich,Casper,Archie,Little Lotta,Dot,the "girly"kind so I'm rereading all those again.

Garden Artist, it is a nice break from heavier fare.

Luckylu, I had forgotten Dot and Little Lotta! I read all kinds of comic books when I was a kid. My uncle was a bus driver, and he would bring home all the comic books people left on the buses. When I visited my cousins I’d bring an entire haul home with me! I was as greedy as Scrooge for those things!
My other uncle worked for an airline and he would bring home books people had left on the planes.
Lol, my dad was a software developer, and all he brought home was swag from the latest IBM course his employer had sent him to.

I bet you had all the great ones DizzyBritches~Remember the ads in the back where you could order Christmas cards to sell and order jokes ,like fake casts?
I got my Comic books from my Dad.Every Friday night,he'd take me up to Git n Go for an Icee and let me get some comic books and some penny candy too.

Comic books were not permitted in my house growing up. 😢

Gosh glad,that's too bad. My parents wouldn't allow The Enquirer,The Globe or Star in our house.Said they we're "trashy".

I think the reason for no comic books was that they were not educational and trashy. I loved Nancy Drew and any biography.

For anyone wanting to read an amazing book about caregiving (vodka bottles behind the seat in the car) read Death in Slow Motion, my Mother's descent into Alzheimer's by Eleanor Cooney. An amazing read. Ms. Cooney's Mom had been a wonderful author in her own right.
This book was written in 2003 and you can find it cheap on Amazon I think in the used books. I would not let this one out of my library EVER.

AlvaDeer,
Thank you for mentioning that book "Death in Slow Motion".I googled it and read an excerpt from the book and it was great.I'm gonna try to find a copy at the Library.Thanks alot~

I wasn’t allowed comics either. But I always read Nancy and Peanuts in the newspaper. Always went to the library every Saturday. Nancy Drew, Hardy Boys, Little House books, and my two favorites Caddie Woodlawn and Charlotte’s Web.
My first degree in college I majored in English. I loved the literature classes, but Children’s Literature was my favorite. We had to do a 200 book bibliography. I gave it to my granddaughter last year. She’s over half way thru reading the books.

Just finished A Woman is No Man by Etaf Rum. Liked it so much we had leftovers for dinner because I wanted to finish it. It’s the authors first book and she did very well, definitely recommend

Scanning down the comments, Victoria Holt and Sergeanne Golon were two authors whose books my mom and I read, enjoyed and discussed ... :)

Latest book I read was Laurie R. King's Island of the Mad and it's a winner. It's set in 1925 Venice, mostly, and Cole Porter is a main supporting character, as is Elsa Maxwell. It's partly about the rise of Mussolini's Black Shirts, too.

I love Victoria Holt! Wonderful gothic novelist! I remember reading The Shivering Sands as a teenager. I reread it a couple of years ago. Still good!

Oh, Menfreya in the Morning is another wonderful Victoria Holt!

I'm almost wishing it were Winter so I could dig out my Victoria Holt novels as well as others written under pseudonyms and enjoy some nice cold weather reading.

Barb, I'm sure that I read Manfreya  in the Morning, but I can't remember anything about it now!   

It's interesting that Holt can create mysteries and anxiety through a slow buildup, through innuendos, and by raising questions in the reader's mind, while the action mystery writers (such as Clive Cussler) have a totally different, more aggressive (and more violent) method of creating mystery. 

Cussler's books do address contemporary issues as bases for his mysteries.  One of his books addressed fracking, another an AI singularity.

I just completed a James Patterson novel entitled Ambush. Not one of his better attempts in my opinion. I read it through even though I wasn't enjoying it. I have this guilty feeling if I don't complete a book even if it's a stinker! Occasionally I'm glad I did cause the book gets better. It didn't get better in this case. Good thing I'm a fast reader.

GardenArtist, it already feels like winter here in Vancouver. It became instant fall as soon as September rolled round. I'd dig out your Victoria Holt novel's anyway. Why wait? Although I do know that cozy feeling of curling up under a comforter with a good book on a wintry day.

Gershun, must be quite a bit colder in Vancouver;  I kind of envy you!    We're still in the fluctuation stage - 89 earlier this week, cooling off now, with a wonderfully cool rain yesterday and tonight.  I was actually chilled being outside today, but I know it's a harbinger for the cold weather to come when it won't be as pleasant to be outside.

I've read a few of James Patterson's books but also found more recently that they weren't that readable.  In fact, I think they deteriorated.    The last one I tried to read wasn't even worth finishing.    I'll try again, but if the result is the same, they go into the donation pile.

Yes, James Patterson's work is definitely going downhill. After reading this last one, I may give him a pass for a while.

Where exactly do you live again Garden. I forgot.

It's definitely Fall here now. I have at least six months of rain to look forward to.
We rarely get snow here. I wish we did. I love the way things look and how quiet it gets when it snows.

I used to be like you Gershun but I've just abandoned three books in rapid succession (of course it helps that they are library books so I didn't actually pay for the). I'm in a bit of a slump right now, I've pretty much read everything ever published by my favourite authors and I haven't been able to find anything that really piques my interest.

I never got into James Patterson novels but there are others who keep churning out books that sell well despite having lost what made their early books desirable - Patricia Cornwell and Laurell K Hamilton are two that come to mind.

Gershun, I'm in SE Michigan, a growing and crowded literal metropolis of multiple cities, too much traffic and too much development, but unfortunately still somewhat subject to the decline of Detroit, which affects some of the surrounding area.   

I've noticed that one city on the county border line has been in the news more recently with crime issues.   That's always been a concern, that the crime and blight of Detroit move north.

CWillie, good way to categorize the repeat authors of "churning out books".   Some have such common themes that I know immediately there were will subterranean sections, dark, dank unpleasant areas that remind me of Indiana Jones movies, but with none of the panache or creativity of his adventures.

I think their creativity peaks, but they just keep grinding out the books, like cars on an assembly line.

That's one aspect that I never saw in Margaret Truman's crime novels; her creatively and complexity improved with each novel.  

That's what makes me cross with John Grisham, Garden. His publishers pat him on the head and give him candy as long as he keeps to the profitable formula; and the reason that I really *mind* this is that there is a genuinely terrific writer chained inside him somewhere. Long time ago now so my recollection of it is thin, but I read "A Painted House" and was charmed.

Then there was one about class actions which COULD have been brilliant - he began with the makings of an original and important perspective on the concept. Too difficult, too uncertain to sell, too time-consuming to work out or whatever: it then slumped back into hero lawyer wins through blah blah blah. I was not charmed, I was livid.