What are you reading now?

[Ekugal22]

Currently reading Small Town Girl by LaVyrle Spencer. I've heard a lot of people say she's a great author.

[MorbidAwe]

Any Diana Gabaldon fans ou there?

[treemom]

I just finished the last book in the Day by Day Armageddon trilogy. I think the author wrote himself into a hole he couldn't get out of. I wasn't thrilled with the last book.

Reading Going Clear right now about Scientology. Really like it.

[keen23]

Young Adult novels mostly. I found a new author- Gina Diamico. She has two novels out, of a planned trilogy, about teenage Grim Reapers. Croak and Scorch. Really great books.

I'm also reading The City of Dark Magic by Magnus Flyte. I'm only 60 pages into it, but since the author has already used the word defenestration, I'm convinced this will be an amazing book. Plus, the main character picks her lovers based on how good they smell to her. Has to be fantastic, right?

[Peppercorn]

I have a zillion unread books on my shelves, therefore I'm re-reading the Kinsey Millhone mysteries by Sue Grafton. Just finished N is for Noose. She's taking too long between books these days!

Other recent reads were Into the Forest by Jean Hegland (love me some post-apocalyptical fiction, especially when it's about how to survive) and The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro.

[Peppercorn]

I'm also reading The City of Dark Magic by Magnus Flyte. I'm only 60 pages into it, but since the author has already used the word defenestration, I'm convinced this will be an amazing book. Plus, the main character picks her lovers based on how good they smell to her. Has to be fantastic, right?

I'm not much of a YA reader, but that does sound intriguing. I'll have to look it up.

I did read two of the Hunger Games books. Must remind my niece to bring me the last one when she comes up north for summer vacation.

Currently reading Small Town Girl by LaVyrle Spencer. I've heard a lot of people say she's a great author.

I read a few of hers quite a few years ago. More the contemporary ones. I liked her descriptive, storytelling, here's-a-big-warm-hug style of writing.

[MorbidAwe]

I have a zillion unread books on my shelves, therefore I'm re-reading the Kinsey Millhone mysteries by Sue Grafton. Just finished N is for Noose. She's taking too long between books these days!

I agree! She published a non-fiction one, "Kinsey and Me", recently. I tried the free preview on my Kindle, as much as I enjoy her fiction, this book just didn't appeal to me. Her next fiction novel, "W is for..." is supposed to be released this September! Yay!

[Marianne]

I am reading Swordpoint by Ellen Kushner.

This is really excellent fantasy. Style (at least the translation), is light, beautiful, thoughtful. Each key word reach the reader while maintaining a distance. There is a very delicate treatment of male homosexuality. captivating plot, yes, but it's really the characters - masterful in their discretion - and writing (congratulations to the translator ) that are awesome.

I think I'll buy Thomas the Rhymer by the same author.

[Vex]

I'm re-reading George R.R Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series. Also Closure Limited: And other zombie tales by Max Brooks.

[JesusFightClub]

Rereading Sheila Jeffreys' "Beauty and Misogyny"

I'm just about to start Denis MacShane's "Globalising Hatred - The New Antisemitism". Just from a flick-through I can see large parts of this I don't agree with, but it looks to be an interesting read.

[MorbidAwe]

Just finished "Not Without My Sister" by Kristina Jones, Celeste Jones and Juliana Buhring. The title, IMHO, is misleading and pedantic, but it was a very good read. It is the true story of 3 women who were born in to the Children Of God cult, which practiced open sexuality with children, and the stories of everything that led up to them leaving the cult.

I've been reading up a lot about cults, lately, including Gothardism.

[Gertie]

I'm reading "My Stroke of Insight" by Jill Bolte Taylor. Jill is a neuroscientist and had a stroke at age 37. Due to her background as a neuroscientist, she was able to observe the effects of the stroke as they were happening and also make interesting observations about her recovery. It's pretty cool (and also quite short). She writes a lot about "left brain" vs. "right brain" stuff, since her left brain was out of action for a while after the stroke.

[melk]

I'm reading some 8 week mindfulness plan book (title and author escape me) and also In the Beginning by Chaim Potok.

[Marianne]

I am reading Nobody Owens by Neil Gaiman, and I love it :digging: (If you haven't read the book, you can't understand this smiley)

[MamaJunebug]

Reading the book about Almina Carnarvon, the woman who ruled the castle known as Downton Abbey in the early 1900s. The author of this one is the current Lady Carnarvon, and to my surprise it doesn't follow Almina all the way to the end of her life.

So a very easy search shows that she pretty much had blown her fortune by 1950 (she was the only daughter of Alfred de Rothschild) and died in 1969 in her 90s, choking on chicken gristle.

The sanitized version (the one I'm reading) is pretty interesting, but I'd like nothing better than to also read one that's not easily available, published in Wales and purporting to uncover the goods on the sadder/seedier parts of her life.

Simply, I'd like to know how she went through a fortune of that size! Of course the book in my possession may well mention it, but still!!!! :wink-kitty:

[louisa05]

I just "accidentally" read a Christian novel. It was horrifying. I got it from the library's eBook site and neglected to check the publisher to make sure it was not Christian (my library's eBook consortium is heavy on Christian publishers). I didn't realize until about a quarter of the way through at the first overt God mention. So...details:

It was called "You Don't Know Me" and part of a series by this writer called "Deep Haven" because they are all set in a town called that. The main character is a 40ish woman with a husband and 3 kids who has, unbeknownst to the family, been in the witness protection program for 20 years. The guy after her gets out of or escapes from prison (not clear which) and an officer shows up to potentially move her and her family. Kind of an interesting plot had it been done well. But instead it was done fundy-lite.

The most horrifying part: her mother-in-law is developing a bit of romance with the witness protection officer. The MiL's sister shows up, totally randomly and for no other purpose, to inform her why she screwed up her first marriage. We have already been told that the husband (and father of our main character's husband) had been a drunk who cheated on her so she threw him out. The sister's wisdom about that? The woman destroyed her marriage by refusing to forgive the man. The mother-in-law then has some great conversion type moment in realizing that she ruined the marriage and even apologizes to her son for taking his father away. And if you didn't get the point that women should tolerate and forgive any behavior in marriage (because the purpose of marriage is to make us better more forgiving people not give us contentment or joy), the author preaches about it directly in an afterward at the end of the novel.

Horrifying all the way around.

[happy atheist]

I just "accidentally" read a Christian novel. It was horrifying. I got it from the library's eBook site and neglected to check the publisher to make sure it was not Christian (my library's eBook consortium is heavy on Christian publishers). I didn't realize until about a quarter of the way through at the first overt God mention. So...details:

It was called "You Don't Know Me" and part of a series by this writer called "Deep Haven" because they are all set in a town called that. The main character is a 40ish woman with a husband and 3 kids who has, unbeknownst to the family, been in the witness protection program for 20 years. The guy after her gets out of or escapes from prison (not clear which) and an officer shows up to potentially move her and her family. Kind of an interesting plot had it been done well. But instead it was done fundy-lite.

The most horrifying part: her mother-in-law is developing a bit of romance with the witness protection officer. The MiL's sister shows up, totally randomly and for no other purpose, to inform her why she screwed up her first marriage. We have already been told that the husband (and father of our main character's husband) had been a drunk who cheated on her so she threw him out. The sister's wisdom about that? The woman destroyed her marriage by refusing to forgive the man. The mother-in-law then has some great conversion type moment in realizing that she ruined the marriage and even apologizes to her son for taking his father away. And if you didn't get the point that women should tolerate and forgive any behavior in marriage (because the purpose of marriage is to make us better more forgiving people not give us contentment or joy), the author preaches about it directly in an afterward at the end of the novel.

Horrifying all the way around.

Ick. I would not have stuck with it. My tolerance for overt religiosity is extremely low. Which is why I hang out on FJ all the time, obvs.

[GolightlyGrrl]

I'm currently reading Daniel Golden's "The Price of Admission: How America's Ruling Class Buys Its Way Into Elite Colleges and Who Gets Left Outside the Gates." It's very eye-opening, and it's making me quite stabby. Still, it's a very important book.

[Rita]

Just finished "When She Woke" by Hillary Jordan. It was good; rec'd by keen23 in this thread http://freejinger.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=13742

I didn't think FreeJinger would be a good spot for reading recs, but yall are very interesting people...

[RosyDaisy]

"Low Pressure" by Sandra Brown. It's about a woman hiding her identity, is exposed, and tracks down her sister's murderer.

[RandomTrivia]

I'm speeding through the Rizzoli & Isles series by Tess Gerritsen - I'm up to Keepsake, which is the 7th of 10 books in the series, and Roger Ebert's Great Movies II and III (our library doesn't have I, go figure). After that, I've got some Monk novels based on the TV show, the Geek Dad and Geek Mom books, and I'm going to do a comparison of an original Nancy Drew mystery and the later revised version.

And there's a pile of random kids' books, including quite a few Christian young-adult novels from Moody Publishing - I found part of a Christian sci-fi series that I couldn't resist, just to see if it's any good at all.

[VaSportsMom]

I'm speeding through the Rizzoli & Isles series by Tess Gerritsen - I'm up to Keepsake, which is the 7th of 10 books in the series, and Roger Ebert's Great Movies II and III (our library doesn't have I, go figure). After that, I've got some Monk novels based on the TV show, the Geek Dad and Geek Mom books, and I'm going to do a comparison of an original Nancy Drew mystery and the later revised version.

And there's a pile of random kids' books, including quite a few Christian young-adult novels from Moody Publishing - I found part of a Christian sci-fi series that I couldn't resist, just to see if it's any good at all.

Have you read any of the "In Death" books by J.D. Robb?

[Rescinded and Mended]

I just finished 'Dead Ever After', the final book in the Sookie Stackhouse series, by Charlaine Harris.

Sadly, I feel that the ending was a bit of a letdown. Harris claimed that this was the ending she'd envisioned for Sookie since book 2, but if you read some of the author's interviews, it's clear that she's become resentful of the series and is sick of writing about Sookie. To me, it felt like Harris hurriedly killed off/banished too many characters, then put Sookie in a romantic situation that she might not really have chosen for herself, if Sookie was real. (I've never been a fan of the idea that a person chooses a partner after knowing that person for years and years - if the spark was there all along, why did it take her so long?)

[Joan of Snarc]

I just finished "Empire of the Summer Moon."

It was all right; a bit of a slog. Or, maybe I just couldn't get into because I spend so much time reading at Free Jinger.

:doh:

[Tangy Bee]

Hey folks! Just wanted to say that Free Jinger is my favorite place to read. I might read a novel 3 times a year which isn't much. Have any of you read,Room, by Emma Donoghue? I actually read it last year. "The story is told from the perspective of a 5 year-old boy, Jack, who is being held captive in a small room along with his mother. The novel begins on the 5th birthday of Jack, who live with his Ma in Room, a small enclosed space containing a small kitchen, a bathtub, wardrobe, bed, and a TV set. Since it is all he has ever known, Jack likes living in Room and believes that it constitutes the real world, while everything he sees on TV is completely separate and not real."

I thought about this book when I first heard about the little girl rescued along with 3 other women last week. The media has mentioned that this little girl did get to go out a few times. So she is aware of the world outside that house. But...how much does she really know? All of them have been through so much and now they have to catch up with all that was missed while held captive. Gas was $1.50 a gallon. Bush was still president. Cells had just started taking pictures. Of course there is so much more that has happened since they were kidnapped. I do hope the media will give them a break and at the same time, I hope to hear how they all are doing a few months from now. If any of you get to read, Room, please let me know what you think. I HIGHLY recommend it.