The "I am currently reading" thread

[nikki-red 307]

I keep meaning to re-read The Dark Half by Stephen King.... I remember loving it at about the same age!

 

 

The Dark Half is a great book. I re-read The Stand before IT, another good one.

[lindylou53 18]

Anyone read Into The Water by Paula Hawkins? I found it a big disappointment after her previous book. Far too many characters to keep track of and an unbelievable plot. Love to hear other people's views.

[metalman 21]

I've nearly finished 'Best Thinking Machine detective stories' by Jacques Futrelle, in which Prof. Augustus S.F.X. van Dusen, the Thinking Machine of the title, solves a selection of seemingly impossible crimes, assisted by his reporter sidekick, Hutchinson Hatch, who does the legwork. These were written very early last century (about 1906-7 mostly) but still seem pretty ingenious now. The collection kicks off with a particularly noted and often reprinted classic story, The Problem of Cell 13, in which the professor is voluntarily incarcerated in a prison cell and devises a means of escape to win a bet.

 

Sadly Futrelle, who despite his name was American, didn't get to fulfil his potential because he went down with the Titanic in 1912; apparently he shoved his wife into a lifeboat but wouldn't get in himself.

[lectrolove 10]

A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth. An epic tale of India in the years following Partition. I've been on this for weeks and still less than half way through, not because it's heavy going (it isn't) but just because it's really, unbelievably, gob-smackingly, staggeringly long. The paper version must be like a brick and this book is an example of why God gave us Kindles.

[taxman 12]

Out by Natsuo Kirino.

 

An odd book about 4 Japanese co-workers who endure a bleak life of drudgery until one kills her husband and the others assist in dismembering him and scattering him around the city.

[nikki-red 307]

Out by Natsuo Kirino.

 

An odd book about 4 Japanese co-workers who endure a bleak life of drudgery until one kills her husband and the others assist in dismembering him and scattering him around the city.

 

 

I read this a few years ago and really enjoyed it.

 

'Odd' is definitely a good word to describe it tho!

[metalman 21]

'Great cases of the Thinking Machine' by Jacques Futrelle. This was the second collection of his stories to be published by Dover, but really they shot themselves in the foot by calling the first one 'Best Thinking Machine detective stories' and thereby implying that these weren't so good. I think they're right, mind you, but this lot aren't bad by any means.

[taxman 12]

I read this a few years ago and really enjoyed it.

 

'Odd' is definitely a good word to describe it tho!

 

"Odd" is an understatement for the last chapter....torture, rape and forgiveness..it was a bit too weird for me.

[feargal 21]

On now to "Conclave" by Robert Harris.

 

this was a very good read, and it wasn't what I was expecting it to be! I'm halfway through completely forgetable "thriller" called Hanging Wood. I lost my page the other night and its so bland I couldn't actually think of anything that had happened so far

Edited December 4, 2017 by feargal

[joinerisme 10]

The Road To Little Dribbling-Bill Bryson.A very entertaining read.

[focemal 10]

Killers of the king: The men who dared to execute Charles I by Charles Spencer. As it says on the tin and Charles II's wave of retribution against those responsible.

[metalman 21]

Just finished 'The lady in the morgue' by Jonathan Latimer. This is a hard-boiled detective novel from 1936, one of Latimer's series about private eye Bill Crane. If you're easily offended by politically incorrect language you'll probably want to give it a miss, as there are an assortment of derogatory term for black people and Italians bandied about; personally I think it's the language of the time and we should leave it that way.

 

Just started 'The girl in blue' by P.G. Wodehouse for a bit of lighter reading.