What Book Are You Currently Reading?

[Platypus]

In the last week i've read 'The Hunger Games', which was a reasonably good page turner with zero heft; 'Enchanted Glass', Diana Wynne Jones' last book, which was not up to her standards to be frank; and finished the three-month process of going tgrough the second book from 'Game of Thrones', which I am rather enjoying.

I'm currently 1/4 of the way through 'One Hundred Years of Solitude', and 3/4 of the way through 'The Boys From Brazil', with 'Stephen Fry in America' next on the list.

[Platypus]

Currently reading 'The Coup' by John Updike. Not what I was expecting, to be honest.

[Platypus]

Focussing on One Hundred Years of Solitude, it's not good. Wool is pretty good though, reading that on my tellingphone.

[Platypus]

Does anyone have any good suggestions that I could bring up for the next meeting of my international book club? The last book we read was a looping polemic that turned out to have been chosen solely so that the libertarians in the club could use it as a jumping off point to spread their gospel. The next book is Niall Ferguson's "The West and the Rest", and I can already tell that I won't like it. I desperately need to be equipped with a good suggestion the next time around. We want some more women to attend the book club so ideally it would be a book that would attract some more women. I am thinking of Nicholas Kristoff's 'Half the Sky' but I wonder if that is too explicitly feminist. Another book that I like is Mara Hvistendahl's 'Unnatural Selection'.

Markus Zusak: The Book Thief.

[Platypus]

The Lady and the Peacock: The Life of Aung Sang Suu Kyi

I was thinking of getting that, is it worthwhile?

[Platypus]

Not true; you need to read him to get a piece of paper.

[Platypus]

Stephen Fry in America.

[Platypus]

Three new books to start:

"Lodgers", about the Bosnian civil war. Cousin told me it's both informative and hilarious, which is always a good mix.

"My Brilliant Career", which I've been vaguely meaning to read for years.

"Persuasion", cos I'm on a chick--lit-kick, but only the good stuff. I used to hate Austen, but now I'm really enjoying her.

[Platypus]

Burma by Benedict Rogers.

[Platypus]

Finally started reading The English Patient, but I don't like it much.

[Platypus]

Frondizi and the Politics of Developmentalism in Argentina, 1955-62 by Celia Szusterman

Dear god why? Argentinean politics in the 1950s is probably the least accessible subject ever.

[Platypus]

Does nobody else ever read for pleasure? I reckon about 80% of the books in here are academic, intellectual, or technical. What's so bad about sayng you're reading Twilight?

Well, OK, bad example. But maybe some Tom Clancy? Bridget Jones' Diary? Jeffrey Archer?

[Platypus]

"Speechless", James Button's account of his time as Kevin Rudd's departmental speech writer and a bit of a memoir of being a son of the ALP. A good read, and particularly good for people who were in Canberra at the time, either on the firnges of the mess, like I was, or more centrally, like Polnut.

[Platypus]

Suzy Zeus Gets Organized

Very, very funny and rather touching.

[Platypus]

"My Family and Other Animals" by Gerald Durrell. Entertaining enough, but I won't read the sequels.

[Platypus]

I've read (well, read bits of) the Karen Armstrong book, I found it very informative but also very dull. But I find religion off-putting at the best of times.

I'm currently reading (very slowly) through this:



Most notable for it's incredible ability to ignore that everyone ignores international law.