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 last week was crazy -- I came down with a summer cold that made me feel rotten, but not rotten enough to stay home from the piles of work that seem to have amassed in my office.  Thankfully I feel much better, but the piles of work aren't going away .... however there is a LONG WEEKEND coming up so that is something to look forward to.

  I did manage to finish the following books this week:
                        Honeymoon in Tehran by Azadeh Moaveni
                        The Book of Negroes by Lawrence Hill
                        The Carrion Vine by Erane Elizabeth Scully


  Books in Progress:
                       Ulysses by James Joyce
                       True History of the Kelly Gang by Peter Carey
                       The Tower, The Zoo and The Tortoise by Julia Stuart

  After that -- ?  My to-read piles are growing and growing so I can't complain about having nothing to read.  The complaints come when I have to make the decision about what to read next.

What are you reading this week?

Book Beginnings on Friday

Book Beginnings on Friday is a meme hosted by Becky at Page Turners. Anyone can participate; just share the opening sentence of your current read, making sure that you include the title and author so others know what you're reading. If you like, share with everyone why you do, or do not, like the sentence.

This week's beginning is from Peter Carey's True History of the Kelly Gang (won on Becky's blog -- thanks again!):

By dawn at least half the members of the Kelly gang were badly wounded and it was then the creature appeared from behind police lines.

It seems like this is the end rather than the beginning of the story, but there is an element of suspense (what is the creature?).  I know very little about Ned Kelly, other than he was an infamous Australian outlaw, so I'm looking forward to reading further.

The Book of Negroes by Lawrence Hill

I don't know how any of us in the twenty-first century can begin to comprehend what it was like to have been forced into slavery.  Sure, we complain about being overworked and underpaid, but for the most part we are able to move wherever and whenever we choose.  We are free. 

Aminata Diallo's story, as told in Lawrence Hill's fantastic novel The Book of Negroes (known in the United States as Someone Knows My Name) is one that is sad, shocking, and yet inspiring at the same time.  Kidnapped from her village in Africa as a young girl, Aminata endures the long walk to the ship that will take her across the ocean, that terrible voyage to America, and the hard, unimaginable life as a slave; all the while remembering where she came from and longing to return. 

Aminata's story travels a full circle - physically, from Africa, to South Carolina, to New York, to Nova Scotia, to London and back to Africa; and emotionally in a similar way.  She encounters many people in her life -- good and bad, black and white -- that help her keep her on the path to what becomes her ultimate goal:  becoming and remaining a free woman.

Lawrence Hill has written a wonderful novel and I am impressed with his ability to create such a wonderful female character.  It is at times not easy to read, but I am glad that I did. 

This is my second book completed for the Canadian Book Challenge 4.

Ulysses Wednesday #11

 Welcome to Ulysses Wednesday, where I track my progress reading James Joyce's tale of a day in the life of Leopold Bloom.

 Status: page 534 of 783

 Another short post today -- I'm still in the chapter representing a play, and as I read it I am convinced that Mr. Joyce must have been smoking some wacky tabacky while he was writing this.  Bloom has been declared a virgin, he has declared that "I so want to be a mother" and then he becomes a woman - or perhaps a girl - before turning back to a man in time to be beaten by a madam and some of her "girls".  I think. 

  It's interesting to discover how different Leopold Bloom's character is than what I perceived before I started reading the novel.  Since I thought Ulysses was about him, I just assumed that he would be in all the action and that he would be a much stronger character.  Not so.  The novel follows Bloom's wanderings through Dublin, but it doesn't entirely focus on him; and in fact when he is involved in the plot I sometimes don't notice that he's even there.  Perhaps that was Joyce's point? 

 

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.

  It's been a while since I've participated in memes but I'm back! 

  I won't go into all the books I've read since my last Monday post -- I can't remember any of them being overly wonderful anyways -- but in the last week I've read:

• The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain (for my classics book group)
• In the Heart of the Sea:  The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex by Nathaniel Philbrick (for my non-fiction book group)

  Books in progress:

• Ulysses by James Joyce (about two-thirds of the way through!)
• Honeymoon in Tehran:  Two Years of Love and Danger in Iran by Azadeh Moaveni
• The Book of Negroes by Lawrence Hill (for thelittlereader's readalong and for the Canadian Book Challenge 4)

  Up next:

• The Tower, The Zoo and The Tortoise by Julia Stuart
• The Carrion Vine by Erane Elizabeth Scully.  I just attended a reading given by the author and I cannot wait to read this book.  It is an account of her and her mother's time in a Siberian prison camp during World War II; her mother kept a secret journal during this time and made her daughter promise to make their story public.  Mrs Scully is well into her eighties and this is her first published work so I can't but admire her tenacity.

What are you reading this week?

Ulysses Wednesday #10

Welcome to Ulysses Wednesday, where I track my progress reading James Joyce's tale of a day in the life of Leopold Bloom.


Status: page 474 of 783

  So I'm in a chapter now that is reading like a play, and it feels like a dream sequence.  Bloom is chasing after Stephen Dedalus as they walk down the street (in what seems to be a dodgy area) and then all of a sudden the scene turns into a courtroom and poor ol' Leopold is on trial for sexually harassing a maid and some society ladies.  I'm not finished with this chapter yet, but Paddy Dignam has returned from the dead to vouch for Bloom's character, so I wonder what else will pop up in this little fantasy.

Happy Birthday to Me!

  So I just returned from a quick visit up to my hometown of Winnipeg to visit with family and friends and to celebrate my xxth birthday with my niece Ryane who turned four on the same day.  I also had the chance to sneak out on my own and visit the bookstore, to pick up some birthday presents for myself:

  I found that I needed to stock up on some Canadian books for the Canadian Book Challenge, and since I'm ashamed to admit I have not read any Margaret Laurence novels, I picked up two of her best known, along with a novel by another great Canadian author, Gabrielle Roy (I think I may have been assigned part of the French version of The Road Past Altamont in university).  The Bishop's Man won last year's Giller Prize, and was conveniently just released in paperback, and Good to a Fault was one of this year's Canada Reads selections.  King John of Canada seemed to have a funny premise and was on the clearance table, so I thought I'd give it a go.

  

  And yes, I know that The Slap is not a Canadian book, but it has been on my to-read list for some time and honestly I haven't seen it anywhere in the stores here so I picked it up.  It is on the long-list for this year's Man Booker Prize, and I am attempting to read at least some of them before the winner is announced.