It's Monday! What are You Reading?

It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

Share what you (are, have been, are about to, hope to be) reading or reviewing this week. Sign Mr Linky at Book Journey and visit other Monday reading roundups.

The sections of this template:

Intro (here)
My Week in Review (list of books finished and links to bookish posts in the previous week)
Reading Now (my current reading list broken up into NF and Fiction)
Upcoming (scheduled reviews and blog tours and list of finished books awaiting reviews)
Recently (links to bookish posts in the last few weeks)
New Arrivals: (lists of recently acquired ARC broken up into snail mail, email and Net Gallery)
ARC in waiting (a list that is getting shamefully long)

My Week in Review:

Flesh by Khanh Ha  Review posted last Wednesday.

Flesh is a very dark and disturbing story and yet, still, suffused with hope like a sandy shore on the edge of a dank jungle shimmering under a full moon....The prose often has the cadences and imagery of poetry and shifts between scenes having the surreal quality of dreams and those with fast-paced action. Khanh Ha's meticulous attention to detail in every scene, his dedication to bringing all five of the senses into play is yet another way he engages with the theme and in this way draws the reader in and tethers them by the sinews and fibers of their very flesh. This story grips and won't let go even after the last page is turned.

Be sure and check back this Friday for an Author Guest Post on the subject of fiction writing.

Friday Forays in Fiction: The Modern Word  In which I shared a favorite web site devoted to modern and post modern literary fiction--meta fiction, magic realism, surrealism and other types of pushing against the envelope of form and function--the writers like Joyce, Garcia Marquez, Borges, Pynchon and Byatt who know how to put the zing in amaze.

Finished reading:

Flesh by Khanha --a novel--January.  Review  Jan 16 and Author Guest Post Jan 25

Reading Now:

Non-Fiction:

Most of these I plug way in at a snail's pace--a couple pages or chapters per week as that is my preferred way to read non-fic.  It sticks with me longer. I'm closing in on the finish line for several but as I get close on one I tend to add two or three more. There are some not listed here because I don't read in them weekly.

Hooked: Write Fiction That Grabs Readers at Page One and Never Lets Go by Les Edgerton (Part of my ROW80 reading in craft list)
Get Your Loved One Sober by Robert Meyers (Research for a fiction WIP)
What to Do When There's Too Much to Do by Laura Stack (Part of my attempt to organize my life around my priorities. So part of my ROW80 reading list)

And So It Goes by Charles J. Sheilds a bio of Kurt Vonnegut.  (I've posted about this biography of Kurt Vonnegut several time in a kind of reading journal. It is past time for another.  Part of the fun I'm having reading this is in stopping to read the stories he wrote as the narrative reaches the point where he writes them. Since this is an author bio this will also be on my ROW80 reading list )
This Mobius Strip of Ifs by Mathias Freese (I've posted a reading journal post for this collection of personal essays also.  It is past time for another.)

What Matters in Jane Austen? by John Muller Net Galley a NF that purports to answer many puzzles in the Austen novels. Since this discusses writing and tecniques of fiction I'll be adding this to my ROW80 reading list
Trust the Process: An Artist's Guide to Letting Go by Shaun McNiff So part of my ROW80 reading list. Am temporarilly putting a strikethru on this as I left it at home so won't be reading in again until mid February
Jung and the Tarot: An Archetypal Journey by Sallie Nichols Since I'm reading this for an understanding of character type and the language of symbol understood by our unconscious this will be on my ROW80 reading list
13 Ways of Looking at a Novel by Jane Smiley  This was one of the 24 items I checked out of the Longview library on my sister's card last Thursday.
The Exegesis of Philip K. Dick.  Who knew.  Dick was a mystic.  I've only read one of his novels and a few short stories but now I've got to try to find and read everything!

Fiction:

A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness  (audio from library)  Was listening to this while working on this Xmas crochet project and have not gotten back to it since Christmas.  If I wait too much longer I'm going to have to restart it yet again.  Or at least back up a ways to reorient.
After: The Shock by Scott Nicholson  This is post apocalyptic horror with zombies.    I anticipated enjoying this even tho zombies are not my favorite horror theme because I really enjoyed his The Red Church and I am but probably not to the same degree.
Losses by Robert Wexelblatt
The Civilized World by Susi Wyss (another a Tree book ARC that got lost in the mix before I'd finished it.  Have not posted a review for this one either and can't remember when I received it but it had to be at least a year ago before I started packing for our move and likely before 2011 NaNo when I typically stop reading fiction while I'm so intensely writing it.  This is a collection of interlocking short stories set in South Africa and I remember I was quite enjoying it.  I've had to start it over.)
Lulu by Nancy Friday from NetGalley  I started this one when I realized the ARC was about to time out on me.  And then didn't finish it in time.  That is a frustration with NetGalley for me.  Will have to hope one of the libraries I have access to has a copy now.
The Monsters of Templeton by Lauren Groff.  This is one of the library books I checked out at the Longview library two weeks ago.  I started it last night.
A Light in the Window by Jan Karon.  Book two of the Mitford series.  I started reading the first book aloud to Mom last spring and after I left they tracked down an audio book of it and Mom finished listening to it and then my sister discovered her friend had the whole set in paperback and she borrowed this one and started reading it aloud to Mom at bedtime.  They were on chapter five or six when I first got here and I was supposed to catch up and then take over but I had too much ARC reading on my plate. Now they are on chapter 11 and I've just started it.  I also found the audio book at the Longview library and put it on hold for my sister to pick up this week

Seriously.  I need to reinstate the rule of one novel at a time.

Upcoming:


Blog Tours:

Flesh by Khanha --a novel--January.  Review  Jan 16 and Author Guest Post Jan 25
Scammed by Art Maines   Review  January 30.
The Eighth Wonder by Kimberly S. Young.  A novel.  Review Feb 6
Before You Say I Do Again by Benjamin Berkley  Review Feb 8
Against My Will by Benjamin Berkley Review  Feb 20
Creature Features by Tim Rowland  Review Mar 12



Books I've Finished Awaiting Reviews:

At Home in Mitford by Jan Karon  (the ebook I was reading aloud to my Mom while staying there in March and April. These short little lighthearted chapters are almost like stand-alone short stories with beloved characters and make great bedtime reading for adults wanting pleasant dreams)

The Land of Decoration by Grace McClean
Imagine: How Creativity Works by Jonah Leher.
The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg   Part of my attempt to organize my life around my priorities. So part of my ROW80 reading list.   I discussed this in such detail in my mid-week ROW80 check-in post it was practically a review and I'll probably copy/paste much of what I said there into the review.


The Tragedy Paper by Elizabeth LaBan This was a Net Galley ARC.  It will be archived on Net Galley on January 8th it's pub date and tho I finished it last week I was unable to get the review posted and now I have the two blog tour posts to put up this week so for the third or forth time I'm not going to get my feedback recorded at Net Galley before the feedback page for the item is closed to me.  tsk tsk tsk.

Never Give in to Fear by Marti MacGibbon  This was a NetGalley ARC but later I picked it up for Kindle when it was free on Amazon.  I began it in Adobe Digital Editions and when that timed out on me switched to the Kindle for PC.  This was a memoir of an addict's decent into the abyss and rise back out again and was quite engrossing.


Recently:

___Reviews and Bookish Posts:


My Journey As a Combat Medic by Patrick Thibeault  A memoir.  My review from Tuesday Jan 8 and the author interview on Wednesday Jan 9.

A History of the Present Illness by Lousie Aronson --Net Galley. It reads like literary NF a bit like Oliver Sacks but Net Galley lists it as Fiction. It is a collection of short stories set in medical care facilities in the SF Bay area.)

Another bookish post: Friday Forays in Fiction: The Role of the Library  In which I discuss the importance of the library for story lovers both readers and writer and bemoan the still truncated hours of our local library system and scold those who would argue that libraries are becoming obsolete and thus funding for them less important.

Later on the same theme: Do We Still Need Libraries?



The Adventures of Tilda Pinkerton by Angela Shelton

 This was one of my favorite ARCs of 2012.

If Dr. Seuss had written a novel it would be just like this--whimsical, charming, colorful as an artist's palette, with moral values wrapped in parables like peaches in whipped cream, with epic struggles of good against evil and full of the wonder and wisdom only ever comprehended by the heart of a child.  This story will speak to every child heart aged 8 to 88.

New Arrivals:

By snail mail:

Before You Say I Do Again by Benjamin Berkley

By email:


from NetGalley


ARC in waiting:

Tree Books:

The Variations by John Donatich
The Inquisitor by Mark Allen Smith   My husband read this and loved it and is after me to read it so he can talk about it.
The Hunger Angel by Herta Muller  Nobel winner!!
Skios by Michael Frayn
How Should a Person Be? by Sheila Heti
The Sadness of the Samurai by Victor del Arbo
Me, Who Dove into the Heart of the World by Sabina Berman
Winter Journal by Paul Auster a memoir from an American literary figure that really excites me.
We Sinners by Hanna Pylvaine.   It's another story exploring the impact on family life of a fundamentalist religion.  One of the themes I'm drawn to like Pooh to honey.
Our Harsh Logic: Israeli Soldiers' Testimonies from the Occupied Territories, 2000-2010 compiled by The Organization Breaking the Silence
A Possible Life by Sebastian Faulks


Ebooks:

____By email:

After: The Shock by Scott Nicholson
Losses by Robert Wexelblatt  This arrived a couple months ago but I somehow neglected to put include it in this list before


____From Net Galley:


A Thousand Pardons by Jonathan Dee
What Matters in Jane Austen? by John Muller
Never Give in to Fear by Marti MacGibbon
The Secret Keeper by Kate Morton
Unloched by Candace Lemon-Scott
Sticks and Stones: Defeating the Culture of Bullying and Rediscovering the Power of Character and Empathy 
by Emily Bazelon
APE: Author, Publisher, Entrepreneur: How to Publish a Book by Guy Kawasaki and Shawn Welch
With or Without You A Memoir by Domenica Ruta

The Beautiful Thing That Awaits Us All by Laird Barron

The Book of Why by Nicholas Montemarano

If anyone reading this states a preference I may let it weigh my decision as to what I begin next from the above list.