What are you reading the week of Sunday, March 29, 2015?

[scarletwoman]

Hello, all!

Well, last week when I posted the weekly reading thread, I had just started on Smilla's Sense of Snow (I love that title!) and was thoroughly enjoying it. However, after about halfway in it started to get exceedingly weird and hard to follow. By the end I was, "WTF???". So, ultimately I can't really give it a fulsome recommendation. Maybe someone else would be able to get through the second part and enjoy it, it just didn't work for me. Oh well. I do still really love the character, Smilla, she was a wonderful creation no matter how weird the plot ended up.

As a palate cleanser, before taking on Moby Dick, I ordered and quickly got another old book that I had read many years ago, Wide Sargasso Sea, by Jean Rhys. It's a slim but fascinating novel, written in a dreamy, hypnotic style. It's Jean Rhys' imagined backstory for the "mad wife" who was locked in the attic in Jane Eyre. I loved it just as much the second time through as I did the first time, and it was still just as heartbreaking. If you've read Jane Eyre, then I think you would find Wide Sargasso Sea fascinating as well. Jean Rhys own life story is very interesting, too. I intend to read her earlier works if I can get them.

So, now I'm on good old Moby Dick. Not very far into it yet, it takes a lot of concentration to get through Melville's dense prose, and I guess my attention span isn't as sharp as it was when I was younger. Still, I have thoroughly enjoyed the first few chapters - there's some extraordinarily dry humor sprinkled here and there that set me laughing out loud several times. Still, setting the goal to read the whole thing again seems very like a quest - my own chase for the White Whale.

If I should lose heart, I have another old book on standby, At Play in the Fields of the Lord by Peter Matthiessen. This is a book I've meant to read for years and years, ever since I saw the fabulous, but little known, movie of the same name that came out in 1991. Among the actors in the movie: John Lithgow, Kathy Bates, Daryl Hannah, Aidan Quinn, Tom Berenger, and Tom Waits (woot!). I highly recommend the movie, if you can find it. And as I already know that Peter Matthiessen is a wonderful writer, I'm betting that I'll love the book, too.

So, what are you reading this week?

[shenmue]

1. "Night Film," by Marisha Pessl

It's really creepy.

[scarletwoman]

2. Thanks. I looked it up on FF.

Yup, sounds creepy.

[CrispyQ]

3. I started "Wicked" but I'm having a hard time getting into it.

Last week I finished "The Girl With All the Gifts." I didn't realize it was a zombie story until I got into it, but it was a good story. It was way better than the book I read the week before, "The Sunday Wife." I should have closed that one when I first thought, "I don't think I like this story."

I need to get to the library today.

[scarletwoman]

4. You didn't say who the author of "Wicked" is - is it this one?:

http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/a/jennifer-l-armentrout/wicked.htm

I hope you make it to the library!

[CrispyQ]

5. This one:

Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West
by Gregory Maguire

I loved the description of the baby looking like a pile of cabbage leaves. If I don't get to the library, I will probably continue to read it.

[scarletwoman]

6. Oh, good! I was hoping I had the wrong book - that one looked execrable.

Is Maguire's Wicked the one they based the Broadway musical and movie on? (I've seen neither)

[CrispyQ]

9. I think the play was based on the Wicked Witch of the West. I don't know about the movie.

Wicked is such a great word, I'm not surprised there are multiple titles.

[hermetic]

15. I love "Wicked"

I have read it 3 times now. I had already read Maguire's other books so was familiar with his style. When I heard about "Wicked" I bought it right away because The Oz stories have special meaning for me. The first time I wasn't sure about it for a bit. Then I became completely enchanted with it and now it's one of my favorites. A LOT happens. It's funny, it's sad, it's political. Tastes vary, of course, but I suggest you stick with it for a bit. It might end up in your "treasured" chest, too.

[dixiegrrrrl]

7. I know this is a fiction group..but may I?

I am reading a heavy book with tiny print, What It Takes: The Way to the White House.

The author, Richard Ben Cramer, is right up there with Robert Caro for lots of detail.

blurb:
As he recounts the frenzied course of the 1988 presidential race -- and scours the psyches of contenders from George Bush and Robert Dole to Michael Dukakis and Gary Hart -- Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Richard Ben Cramer comes up with the answers, in a book that is vast, exhaustively researched, exhilarating, and sometimes appalling in its revelations.

Good book for any political junkie.
Right now I am at the part where Bush '41 is figuring out how to handle--and take advantage of --Reagan's Iran-Contra expose.

today we know, of course, that Reagan probably was clueless as hell back then.

[scarletwoman]

8. I'm sorry. I shall have to turn you into a newt.

But you'll get better.

Seriously though, I'm sure it's an interesting book and there's no harm in bringing it up - some folks might be glad to know about it. So thank you.

[japple]

10. Wide Sargasso Sea is a big blast from the past. I read that probably 30 years ago and remember

how dreamy and beautifully written it was. I will have to put that on my list to read again.

Am still reading Margaret Atwood's Year of the Flood and hope to finish it this week.

I downloaded a book that I saw in a local bookshop after I read the rave reviews on amazon. It is titled, The Handler by David Cady and is "a story set along the Tennessee RIver, and reflects the eccentric problems of love, faith, and duty as experienced by a young mother trapped in a snake-handling cult, and the man, Matt Fagan, who is hired to find and rescue her from the clutches of a fanatical holy-man claiming to be a living god..." This writer sounds a bit like the early writing of Cormac McCarthy, but will share more as soon as I read this book.

[scarletwoman]

12. I had never heard of Wide Sargasso Sea until the movie of the same name came out in 1993.

I rented the movie from the local video store based solely on finding the cover interesting. It was after seeing the movie that I sought out the book. Until then, I had never heard of Jean Rhys. Re-reading the book last week has made me want to find out more about Ms. Rhys - she seems to have had a fascinating, but sad life.

The only two Margaret Atwood books I've ever read are Surfacing (1972) and The Handmaid's Tale (1985), both of them in the years they were published. To be honest, I'm disinclined to read anything else by Atwood at this time, just not really to my taste. I especially do not care for dystopian novels. I do, however, have nothing but the greatest respect for Atwood as a writer.

The David Cady book sounds interesting, I hope you'll give us your impressions after you've read it.

Thanks for checking in!

[Enthusiast]

11. Hello, everyone! Thank you for the thread, scarletwoman.

This week I'm reading Hide n' Seek by Ian Rankin.

Mrs. Enthusiast is reading The Source by James Michener. She enjoyed The Fires of Spring by Michener so much last week that she has continued with Michener. I read both a number of years ago, so long ago that they would be new to me if I read them today.

The Source, being typical of Michener, is so physically large that it has caused Mrs. Enthusiast some distress in her thumb. At first we didn't understand the reason for her discomfort. But the same thing has happened to me in the past. Once we understood the nature of the problem we elevated the book so she doesn't have to hold it up. Geez.

Wide Sargasso Sea sounds like it would appeal to Mrs. Enthusiast. Thank you, scarletwoman.

[scarletwoman]

13. Hi, Enthusiast! (I'm playing hooky from work today)

Glad to hear you're getting on with Rankin.

I'm also glad to know you solved Mrs. Enthusiast's thumb problem - good work! Michener was certainly a prodigious author. I love this bit about him from FF: Because his books tend to be fairly long, it is sometimes said that "Michener tends to write by the pound." I don't believe I've ever read any Michener, just never found myself in the mood for his "sweeping historical sagas". Maybe I'll amend that someday.

At least Wide Sargasso Sea won't cause any thumb problems for Mrs. E - it's a very slim little book, easily read in less than a day.

Have a great week!

[Enthusiast]

14. Enjoy your day off!

[hermetic]

16. Finished Grave Site

Really enjoyed it. I became very fond of the protagonist, and her brother, and felt genuine concern when things happened to them. Plus, it was a good mystery, right up to the end. Happy to see there are 2 more in this series.

But now I'm reading P. D. Jane's Original Sin. Wow. No wonder she's so highly acclaimed. Just like the cover says, "..a detective thriller in the grand manner, profoundly enriched by P. D. James's ability to evoke an atmosphere of suspense and to create characters whose psychology is plausible and gripping." True dat.

[scarletwoman]

17. I love PD James!

I read my way through her entire Inspector Adam Dalgliesh series in order a couple years ago and was much impressed with her writing, plotting, and characterization skills - wonderful books!

[pscot]

18. The Searunners, with a hat tip to you, scarletwoman

[scarletwoman]

19. Aw, thank you! But I really can't take credit, I just passed it along after it was passed to me.

I believe it was a poster named Rocks who first posted about The Sea Runners in a "what are you reading?" thread sometime back in February. Enthusiast picked up on it, and brought it up a couple weeks later. Another couple of posters (whose names escape me at the moment) chimed in with praise for the book. It took me another week or two to decide to order it from the library. It came in right away, I read it and was totally blown away.

This is what's so wonderful about this group - everyone sharing their reading experiences! I would have never found that book on my own, and I would have missed out on an amazing read!

I'm delighted that it's in your hands now. May you love it as the rest of us have!

[hippywife]

20. I loved Jane Eyre,

and I wish I could say I enjoyed Wide Sargasso Sea as much. It's not that it was a terrible book, I just didn't enjoy it as much as I would have hoped. (Don't ask me what it was that I didn't care for, because it's been a while and many, many books ago, so I don't remember. LOL)

[scarletwoman]

21. I get what you're saying.

I read Jane Eyre so long ago that it may as well have been in a past life! So, while I'm sure I loved it at the time - when I was utterly besotted with the Brontë Sisters and all their works - I read it as an unquestioning pre-adolescent, full of romantic illusions.

I think I might read it with a more jaundiced eye at this time in my life (a celibate old woman having outlived all the passionate loves of my life). Which is probably why I enjoyed Wide Sargasso Sea so much, as it shows up Rochester as a prig and a cad.

I AM the madwoman in the attic, and all my sympathies lie with her!

[hippywife]

22. Yes...

he certainly was both, and given this was a prequel it highlighted his many indiscretions, all of which came to dreadfully haunt him and for which he paid dearly in the end.

It may be the writing that I really didn't enjoy. Maybe had the story been spun out differently, I might have enjoyed it more. Nothing wrong with the story itself, just the way it was delivered, as I sort of recall.

[scarletwoman]

23. I can understand not enjoying the writing.

In some ways it was definitely hard to follow.

I loved it, myself, but I can see why others would not.

No problem, eh?

[hippywife]

24. Def not a problem, dear.

To each their own where any of the arts are concerned.