So what is everyone reading right now? Any good mysteries or knitting novels you’re into?
If you like mysteries I just finished Rough Country by John Sandford. ***** (5 stars) Not sure what’s next…
Reading
[COLOR=“DarkOrchid”]Hi Jan,
I am reading “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo”[COLOR=“DarkOrchid”].[/COLOR] I’m almost 200 pages into it and so far I find it well written and really good. It was written in Swedish and then translated into English.
I have read several of John Sanford’s books. Like his Prey series.[/COLOR] [COLOR=“DarkOrchid”]Give me a good mystery any day and I’ll be a happy camper![/COLOR]
Right now I am reading [I]Tinkers[/I] by Paul Harding. It is not a mystery, but won a Pulitzer prize and was recommended to me by my high school English teacher (yay, Facebook). My ability to handle “real literature” was burned out of me by my 3rd year of college, and now I usually prefer quick, easy, satisfying smut novels, but every once in a while I feel the need to read something heavy.
I’ve got about 10 books in my “to read” pile and I’m really excited about the next one, [I]The Strain[/I] by Gillermo Del Toro and Chuck Hogan. None of those sissy Twilight vampires for me! This book is supposed to be more horror/suspense.
I’ve decided that I need to start buying audio books. I get home from work every day and agonize over whether I want to knit or read more. If I had books on tape, then I’d be able to do both AT THE SAME TIME! Genius!
I love the John Sandford Prey Series! My DH and I have been reading from the first one and now we are at the last when we can get it from the library. The one I mentioned was a Virgil Flowers mystery…he works with Lucas Davenport and they are just as good.
Smut novel? What the heck is that? I don’t consider anything I read smut. :??
Ha! “Smut novels” are what my mom calls “romance novels.” I have quite the collection of Nora Roberts and Karen Marie Moning.
Oh I see! I don’t usually read those. I prefer mysteries or knitting novels. 
I’m currently reading [I]Await Your Reply [/I]By Dan Chaon. I’m not too far into it but it hasn’t totally captured me yet…I don’t dislike it but it’s one of those books where there’s more than one main character involved so each chapter covers a character…Gets kind of annoying sometimes because you get so wrapped up in the character you’re reading about that you have to go back to refresh your memory as to what was going on with the previous character/s…lol…It has, however, kept me interested enough to keep picking the book up…I’m also reading, kind of…lol, [I]The Story of Edgar Sawtelle[/I] By David Wroblewski…While I was relatively interested in the book, other crap got in the way and I put it down and eventually kind of lost interest in reading for a while…lol…Once I finish [I]Await Your Reply[/I], I’ll pick up this one again and probably have to start it over…lol
You know that is one of the things I like about my Kindle app. I make can make a note of basic points about each character and it’s just a quick look at my bookmarks (you don’t lose your page) and I can see that “Joan Smith” is a detective with ABC Agency or whatever. It’s very handy when I try new authors and I’m not familiar with the characters. 
Right now I am reading an awesome book called The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin.
"A highly inventive mystery begins when sixteen unlikely people gather for the reading of the very strange will of the very rich Samuel W. Westing. They could become millionares, depending on how they play the game. All they have to do is find the answer- but the answer to what? The Westing game is tricky and dangerous, but the heirs play on- through blizzards, burglaries, and bombings…"
It is a winner of the Newbery Medal. *****(5 stars):yay:
I recently downloaded an e-book from Amazon onto my desktop e-reader (free). The book is [B]THE HELP,[/B] by Kathryn Stockett.
It is fabulous. Read it almost non-stop til done!
Here are two reviews, as seen on Amazon:
[B]From Publishers Weekly[/B]
Starred Review. What perfect timing for this optimistic, uplifting debut novel (and maiden publication of Amy Einhorn's new imprint) set during the nascent civil rights movement in Jackson, Miss., where black women were trusted to raise white children but not to polish the household silver. Eugenia Skeeter Phelan is just home from college in 1962, and, anxious to become a writer, is advised to hone her chops by writing about what disturbs you. The budding social activist begins to collect the stories of the black women on whom the country club sets relies and mistrusts enlisting the help of Aibileen, a maid who's raised 17 children, and Aibileen's best friend Minny, who's found herself unemployed more than a few times after mouthing off to her white employers. The book Skeeter puts together based on their stories is scathing and shocking, bringing pride and hope to the black community, while giving Skeeter the courage to break down her personal boundaries and pursue her dreams. Assured and layered, full of heart and history, this one has bestseller written all over it. [I](Feb.)[/I]
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
[B]From The Washington Post[/B]
From The Washington Post's Book World/washingtonpost.com Reviewed by Sybil Steinberg
Southern whites' guilt for not expressing gratitude to the black maids who raised them threatens to become a familiar refrain. But don't tell Kathryn Stockett because her first novel is a nuanced variation on the theme that strikes every note with authenticity. In a page-turner that brings new resonance to the moral issues involved, she spins a story of social awakening as seen from both sides of the American racial divide.
Newly graduated from Ole Miss with a degree in English but neither an engagement ring nor a steady boyfriend, Eugenia "Skeeter" Phelan returns to her parents' cotton farm in Jackson. Although it's 1962, during the early years of the civil rights movement, she is largely unaware of the tensions gathering around her town.
Skeeter is in some ways an outsider. Her friends, bridge partners and fellow members of the Junior League are married. Most subscribe to the racist attitudes of the era, mistreating and despising the black maids whom they count on to raise their children. Skeeter is not racist, but she is naive and unwittingly patronizing. When her best friend makes a political issue of not allowing the "help" to use the toilets in their employers' houses, she decides to write a book in which the community's maids -- their names disguised -- talk about their experiences.
Fear of discovery and retribution at first keep the maids from complying, but a stalwart woman named Aibileen, who has raised and nurtured 17 white children, and her friend Minny, who keeps losing jobs because she talks back when insulted and abused, sign on with Skeeter's risky project, and eventually 10 others follow.
Aibileen and Minny share the narration with Skeeter, and one of Stockett's accomplishments is reproducing African American vernacular and racy humor without resorting to stilted dialogue. She unsparingly delineates the conditions of black servitude a century after the Civil War.
The murders of Medgar Evers and Martin Luther King Jr. are seen through African American eyes, but go largely unobserved by the white community. Meanwhile, a room "full of cake-eating, Tab-drinking, cigarette-smoking women" pretentiously plan a fundraiser for the "Poor Starving Children of Africa." In general, Stockett doesn't sledgehammer her ironies, though she skirts caricature with a "white trash" woman who has married into an old Jackson family. Yet even this character is portrayed with the compassion and humor that keep the novel levitating above its serious theme.
Copyright 2009, The Washington Post. All Rights Reserved.I read [B]The Help[/B] on my kindle app and loved it! :yay:
LOVE this book…have read it several times since i was in elementary school and everytime i rediscover it on the book shelf i read it again!!!
Aww, awesome! That would surely come in handy, especially with this book…I’m actually starting to get a tad bit frustrated with it, the way its written seems a mess…I’m still not totally turned off of the book just yet, but, something better happen soon! Over 100 pages into it and nothing significant has happened, just a lot of character background, really…and it’s getting to the point where it’s kinda starting to drag on…lol
I just reserved Dragon Tattoo from my library - I’m #245 on the reserve list! I wonder how long it will be before it’s my turn?
I’m making my way thru the Outlander series by Diana Gabledon (sp).
Omigosh…I’ve done that! It seems like you’ll never get it! You check every day and wow…you’ve moved up ONE…at that rate… :lol:
I’m reading [I]Girl with the Dragon Tattoo[I]as well. Its taken me a while to get into it, but its picking up. Everyone is raving about this series, so I hope I’ll like it as well as others do.[/I][/I]
The Help was an awesome book! I read it in about 3 days. Couldn’t put it down!
The second picks up quicker but I haven’t read the third yet
Is it any good? I keep starting the first one, but I’m having trouble getting into it. The books are huge and the series is long and I’m afraid to start to invest myself if it’s going to end in disappointment.
Also, I think I accidentally biased myself against liking it already because I’ve read Gabaldon’s blog a few times and I don’t really like [I]her[/I] very much. The entire time I’m reading it, I’m not thinking about the character, I’m thinking about the author.
This happened to me with [I]The Lovely Bones[/I], unfortunately. I started reading it about a week after the commercials for the movie started running and everytime there’d be a scene in the book with the dad, all I could think about was Mark Walberg’s God-awful haircut in the movie :ick: It just totally killed it for me, uhgh!
So morally of the story: [I]Outlander[/I]- worth it or no?
Just finished Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood. Dystopian literature is pretty cool.
Just started both the Girl With the Dragon Tattoo and the first book in the Lumby series.
I think after those series, I’m going to start a Russian literature kick. Crime and Punishment, Anna Karenina, etc…