I have nothing to ramble on about here at the beginning of this post (I’m sure you’re all relieved)…let’s get right to the WWW of it all.
This meme was formerly hosted by MizB at A Daily Rhythm and revived on Taking on a World of Words—and shown to me by Aurore-Anne-Chehoke at Diary-of-a-black-city-girl.
The Three Ws are:
What are you currently reading?
What did you recently finish reading?
What do you think you’ll read next?
Easy enough, right?
What are you currently reading?
I’m slowly working and thinking my way through Kneading Journalism by Tony Ganzer. I just started Swamp Story by Dave Barry (which will probably not involve much thinking, but a lot of laughter). I should be wrapping up The Mostly True Story of Tanner & Louise by Colleen Oakley, Hillary Huber (Narrator) on audiobook, and I’m still trying to figure out what I think about it (but it’s generally positive).
What did you recently finish reading?
I just finished the compelling Larry Beinhart’s The Deal Goes Down and the utterly adequate Charlie Thorne and the Last Equation by Stuart Gibbs, Emily Woo Zeller (Narrator) on audio.
What do you think you’ll read next?
My next book should be the promising-looking Chain Gang All Stars by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah. My next audiobook should be a Kenzie and Gennaro novel that I’m fairly ambiguous about, Sacred by Dennis Lehane, Jonathan Davis (Narrator).
Are you working your way through anything good, compelling, or just vaguely interesting?
Allyson johnson
I’m currently nearly finished with Monica Ali’s “Brick Lane,” an atypical Booker Prize shortlister – it has a straightforward, chronological plot, interesting and relatable characters, and clear stakes at risk! What were they thinking! Also nearly finished with George Sanders’ “Memoirs of a Professional Cad”, which was amusing at first, but his coyness and cleverness is cloying by now. His comments on ex-wife Zsa Zsa Gabor and other Hollywood personalities are acidulously witty. And I’m working through Nadine Gortimer’s “Jump and other stories” one story at a time, because one at a time is all I can take, they are so laden with meaning, evocative detail, and feeling. A deserving Nobel Prize winner. And plodding along with Christian through John Bunyan’s “Pilgrim’s Progress” – I am not a sectarian Christian and expected to be fighting Bunyan part of the time, but his comments on the way society deals with religious belief are still spot-on.
I finished Jonathan Franzen’s “The Corrections.” I found it tedious, snide, repetitive, with stereotypical characters whom I could not care about, except for the Mother. Is this a reflection of my own narrow world view, or is this really a case where the reviewers (the book won a Pulitzer Prize, after all) were seduced by all the self-conscious cleverness and , like the courtiers who admired the Emperor’s wardrobe, were afraid to be the only ones who saw the sham?
Next I plan to read “Lessons in Chemistry” by Bonnie Garmun, but I’m way down the wait list at two local libraries. I may go for “The Lost” by Daniel Mendelsohn while I wait.
HCNewton
Have been curious about Lessons in Chemistry.
“his coyness and cleverness is cloying by now” very nice turn of phrase!! 🙂