Tuesday, August 10, 2010

What are You Reading Now?

Sunset over Comerica Park in Detroit.


What did you just finish? What will you read next? What are you reading now?

Now: TRUE GRIT, Charles Portis/HARDBOILED HOLLYWOOD, Max Decharne.

LAST: THE IMPERFECTIONISTS, Tom Rachman


NEXT: LET THE THE GREAT WORLD SPIN, Colum McCann/THINK OF A NUMBER. John Verdon

45 comments:

David Cranmer said...

Now: QUARRY IN THE MIDDLE by Max Allan Collins and H.G. Wells: THE COMPLETE SHORT STORY COLLECTION

LAST: DESERT JUSTICE by Paul S. Powers and THE AFFAIR OF THE WOODEN BOY by Mel Odom.

NEXT: MURDER IS MY BUSINESS by Brett Halliday

Anonymous said...

Just finished Jim Lehrer's Mack to the Rescue and Super. Both were just OK, not his best. (His best were the two non fiction books.) Before that was Agents of Light and Darkness, the second in Simon R. Green's Nightside series.

Currently: Warren Adler's short stories Never Too Late for Love (set at a retirement community in South Florida) and Jamie Freviletti's first thriller, Running From the Devil, which is outstanding so far.

Next: Bill Pronzini's latest Nameless book and Shamini Flint's Inspector Singh Investigates: A Most Peculiar Malaysian Murder.

Jeff M.

Anonymous said...

Patti - Love the photo!

Last: Andrea Camilleri's The Terra-Cotta Dog

Now: Deon Meyer's Dead at Daybreak, and sort of re-reading Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö's Roseanna.

Next: Not sure yet, to be honest...

pattinase (abbott) said...

You know, David, I have never read a short by H.G. Wells.
Oh, I will have to get that Adler book. I've been thinking of trying to do that as I have several already.
Truthfully, what I am going to read next usually changes before I get there, Roseanna is one of my favorite books--as are all the Martin Becks.

Ron Scheer said...

Now: RAW GOLD (1907), Bertrand Sinclair

Last: AN OBITUARY FOR MAJOR RENO, Richard Wheeler

Next: Maybe DUST DEVILS, James Reasoner

sandra seamans said...

Now: The Last Frame by Jim Wright

Last: Time Storm by Gordon R. Dickson

Next: Probably The Crossing by Cormac McCarthy or The Beekeeper's Apprentice by Laurie R. King

Randy Johnson said...

Now. Unaccustomed As I Am To Public Dying(ebook)by Larry Maddock

Last: Quarter Share by Nathan Lowell

Next: Plunder Squad by Richard Stark(Donald Westlake)

Jerry House said...

NOW: Who Made Stevie Crye? by Michael Bishop

LAST: The Complete Chester Gould's Dick Tracy, Volume Nine: 1944-1945 (not, by the way, complete: two of the daily strips are missing because of a production error)

NEXT: Logan: A Trilogy by William F. Nolan (I've already read Logan's Run, but I'm eager to get to the other two novels in this omnibus, Logan's Search and Logan's World)

R/T said...

Caveat: Boring to some people but invigorating to me:

Now: The Professor's House by Willa Cather.
Last: A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams.
Before the Last: The Kindness of Strangers (a biography of Tennessee Williams by Donald Spoto)
Next: The Lost Lady by Willa Cather.
Also Next: Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett.

(Oops! Dear me! I suppose my professorial,class-planning slip is showing.)

Anonymous said...

I picked up the 10 Martin Beck books last year to reread. Haven't started yet but they're there when I'm ready.

Jeff M.

mybillcrider said...

Currently reading The Life and Times of Little Richard, the Quasar of Rock.

George said...

Now: A STAR NAMED HENRY by Roddy Doyle.

Last: THE TUESDAY CLUB MURDERS by Agatha Christie.

Next: OH, PLAY THAT THING! by Roddy Doyle.

Charles Gramlich said...

Now, Hunt at the Well of eternity and flashforward.
Last: A kiss before dying.
Next: who knows. I make my choices purely in the moment.

Richard R. said...

LAST: The Case of the Caretaker's Cat by Erle Stanley Gardner (Perry Mason # 7, 1935)

NOW: The Silver Menace by Murray Leinster (Black Dog Books)

NEXT: The Bird of the River by Kage Baker (as soon as the library finishes "processing" it) or Desert Justice by Paul Powers

Kieran Shea said...

Tie-ins. Goldberg brothers and Collins to help my rhythm.

ABUNDANCE OF KATHERINES by John Green

THE RIPOFF by Jim Thompson

pattinase (abbott) said...

Haven't been able to read a Doyle since THE WOMAN WHO WALKED INTO WALL, but I should go back because I loved his first few. Dust Devils is a favorite of mine. I have a Wheeler book on my TBR pile I have only read Laurie King's first novel so I am way behind with her. My friend adores here sciency books. Hunt was fun and I loved A KISS.
Little Richard-I bet that's lively.
I read the ESGs as a kid because they were the few books on my mother's shelves but have never revisited.
I have never read a tie-in. Should try one.

MP said...

Now: "The Whisperers" by John Connolly.

Last: "Faithful Place" by Tana French.

Next: Probably "A Cool Breeze on the Underground" by Don Winslow, my new favorite crime novelist.

Naomi Johnson said...

Finished Don Winslow's SAVAGES, started Charlie Newton's CALUMET CITY. Life is good!

Scott D. Parker said...

Last: Dr. No, Splinter of the Mind's Eye

Now: Goldfinger, Hondo, Death on Treasure Trail

Next: The Stars My Destination

pattinase (abbott) said...

Winslow is in the zeitgeist for sure. How do the Bonds hold up? I keep getting mixed reviews about the Tana French-either her best or worst book.

MP said...

"Faithful Place" is a very good mainstream novel about a wildly dysfunctional family. The problem is that it's marketed as a crime novel and has been evaluated as such. And as such it's just average. I'd recommend it as long as you know what you're getting, but I preferred her first two.

Anonymous said...

Bill, I read that Little Richard book. Was that the one where he tells about taking Buddy Holly to the orgy?

Jeff M.

pattinase (abbott) said...

Now I am intrigued, Jeff.
Seems like the reviewers like the third one more than the readers.

Sandra Scoppettone said...

Last: Mr. Peanut-Adam Ross
Now: Faithful Place-Tana French
Next: The Hanging Tree-Bryan Gruley

pattinase (abbott) said...

I really enjoyed STARVATION LAKE but the ending was certainly telegraphed midway through. Other than that, a great first novel.

Frank Loose said...

Now: WOMEN AND OTHER ANIMALS, by Bonnie Jo Campbell.

Last: THE HOTEL MAJESTIC, by Georges Simenon

Next: TBD. Like Charles Gramlich, I wait till it's time and pick according to mood du jour.

Eric Beetner said...

Just finished The Cold Kiss by John Rector and it rocked! I'm starting The Friends of Eddie Coyle in my usual one contemporary, one classic pattern of reading.

Dana King said...

Just finished CLOCKERS by Richard Price.

Currently reading THE LITTLE SISTER, Raymond Chandler.

Up next (probably): GHOSTS OF BELFAST, Stuart Neville

pattinase (abbott) said...

Let me know about the Campbell book, Frank. Loved the ones I read.
I keep hearing great things about the Rector book and CLOCKERS was just great.

Anonymous said...

One correction: it's Freveletti, with three 'e's.

Jeff M.

Dorte H said...

I am reading Australian crime: Leah Giarratano, Black Ice. It is quite hard to get through because the environment is so bleak and fearfully realistic. I want some escapism!

michael said...

Now: Where Angels Fear by Rebecca Levene and Simon Winstone

Last: Cast a Yellow Shadow by Ross Thomas

Next: Big O by Declan Burke

pattinase (abbott) said...

Escapism. Read the Hoke Mosley books or Westlake's Dortmunder.
Wasn't Ross Thomas great?

michael said...

pattinase: Ross Thomas remains my favorite of all thriller writers, but I had one problem with Cast a Yellow Shadow. When Mac talked to his kidnapped wife she always said basically the same phrase,"I am so tired". I started wondering if his wife was giving him a clue to where she was. I spent most of the book screaming at Mac is that a clue and it distracted me for the rest of the book. Sometimes the writer mistake is the reader's fault (it was not a clue to anything but she was drugged)

Steve Oerkfitz said...

Last:Last Talk ith Lola Faye by Thomas H. Cook
Now:The Glass Rainbow by James Lee Burke
Next:Black Hills by Dan Simmons

Chris said...

Last: A Fighter's Heart by Sam Sheridan

Now: The Song is You by some Abbott character's daughter

Also Now: The Black Sun Set by Lee Thomas (novella)

Next: The Cold Kiss by John Rector

Deb said...

Just finished: FURIOUS LOVE, the story of the Liz Taylor/Richard Burton love affair and marriage.

Currently reading: HEADLONG by Michael Frayn, a novel with an impulsive, feckless, and unreliable narrator who is convinced his neighbor is in possession of a long-missing painting by Bruegel.

Up next: FIVE OF HEARTS by Patricia O'Toole, about the friendships that surrounded Henry Adams and his wife.

pattinase (abbott) said...

Dying to read FURIOUS LOVE. About a thousand people ahead of me at the library. I loved HEADLONG. And also SPIES by Frayn.

Photographe à Dublin said...

Winterland by Alan Glynn.

It's riveting, in every sense. The presence of Dublin as a modern city is central and the characters (apart from the baddies) are likeable. Corruption in high places is the main theme and this may have contributed to the book's success. It has been hailed as an analysis of Post-Boom Ireland, where the Celtic Tiger is dead.

Emerald noir is very fashionable, it seems.

Kent Morgan said...

Last: The Hanging Tree by Bryan Gruley

Now: In the Heat by Ian Vasquez
and Lakeland: Journeys into the Soul of Canada by Allan Casey

Next: Stuff To Spy For by Don Bruns or Into the Story by David Maraniss, both of which I just picked up from the library.

pattinase (abbott) said...

What did you think of THE HANGING TREE?

Kent Morgan said...

Patti:

As you know, one area I collect is sports fiction. I was very impressed by Gruley's first novel, Starvation Lake, but was surprised that it got the raves that it did. Thought the amount of hockey content might turn off some readers. As for The Hanging Tree, he's come up with another winner. I enjoyed it at least as much as his first book and think that readers who liked Starvation Lake will be pleased with Gruley's second effort. I'm predicting that whenever book three is published, Gruley will have scored a hat trick.

pattinase (abbott) said...

Yes, despite not being a sports fan really, I enjoyed it. Perhaps the Michigan setting won me over. And it was an extremely sure-footed first novel. I don't normally read second novels anymore, but I may make an exception.

Cap'n Bob said...

Last-THE LAST DOG SOLDIER, By Joseph A. West

Current--Stryker's Revenge, by Ralph Compton (ghosted by Joe West)

Next--Murder in the Air, by Bill Crider.

pattinase (abbott) said...

I've been wondering when you'd return from you fourth of July celebration.