Monday, October 25, 2010

It's Monday -- What are You Reading?


It's Monday - What are you Reading? is a weekly meme hosted by Sheila at bookjourney to allow us to share with others in the book-loving cyberworld what is on our reading plates.

This week I only finished one book:  Emma, by Jane Austen.  I didn't really like it, but it was a good book for our classics group discussion; I'm also told that it improves upon re-reading, so maybe one day I will go back to it.

Books in progress:
  • Fall of Giants by Ken Follett.  I'm about 2/3 of the way through and enjoy it very much.  This is the first book of an anticipated trilogy and I already am eagerly awaiting the next one.  Oh, and I really need to read The Pillars of the Earth and World Without End too.
  • Dracula by Bram Stoker.  I'm surprised at how much I'm enjoying this, as I don't normally go for the creepy, gothic stuff. 
  • At Home:  A Short History of Private Life by Bill Bryson.  I borrowed this from the library, but it is so full of interesting facts and trivia that I might just need to purchase this at some point. 
  • Best European Fiction 2010 edited by Aleksandar Hemon.  I wish I could read more literature in their original languages, but this anthology provides a broad sample of translated works of which we aren't too familiar in the US
Once I've one or two of these of of my plate I am very eager to start Hand Me Down World by Lloyd Jones.  I was very lucky to have received a signed copy from a Twitter giveaway (thank you Claire Armitstead and The Guardian!) and there will be a discussion of the book on Twitter with the hashtag #HMDWchat.  The book has a very interesting premise so I am looking forward to reading and discussing it.

What are you reading this week?

5 comments:

  1. Sounds like you've got some great books going. Dracula is quite the right week, of course. Hope you finish before Halloween. :-)

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  2. Congrats on finishing Emma :) I just finished Pride & Prejudice, and am wondering if I should reread it down the road. Have you read P & P & Zombies? It's supposed to be a great satire!

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  3. Dracula is an excellent book. I could do with a re-read of it. Not listed on my post are the ton and a half of peer reviewed journal articles I read. Here's what I'm reading this week.

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  4. I have not read Emma and I am so afraid that it will like Jane Eyre for me (my recent post on this book reflects my anguish.)

    Dracula is on tbr soon list :)

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  5. From Wikipedia-- The original 541-page manuscript of Dracula, believed to have been lost, was found in a barn in northwestern Pennsylvania during the early 1980s.[7] It included the typed manuscript with many corrections, and handwritten on the title page was "THE UN-DEAD." The author's name was shown at the bottom as Bram Stoker. Author Robert Latham notes, "the most famous horror novel ever published, its title changed at the last minute

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