What are you reading now?

[Linda and "Toby"]

It will be fun to share books we love! 

[Nancy, Ned, Clancy, and Charlie]

Of course,  LOVE Hillerman.

[Christine & Camus]

Thanks Nancy.  I'm going to update my to-read list.  I forgot about the Kellermans - I loved that series.  My reading is, well I guess eclectic is the best word to describe my reading habits.

[Nancy, Ned, Clancy, and Charlie]

I will read anything but horror or the romance books like Barbara Cartland.  My DH and daughter adore horror.

[Christine & Camus]

I agree with you on both counts. The closest I got to what may qualify as horror is Rosemary's Baby and The Exorcist, but it was frustrating because I would get scared and close the book, reading only a few pages at a time.  So no horror for me and I have never read a romance novel. I've read many of Primo Levi's books, which are not horror novels, but history is sometimes more horrible than fiction. Mysteries are a great escape.

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

I just got Russell Banks' new book Lost Memory of Skin from the library. I'm nervous about reading it. I love Banks, but he's definitely not a light read.

I highly recommend his book The Sweet Hereafter. I wouldn't be a fan if I hadn't read that one first. Wonderful, wonderful book.

The movie didn't do it justice.

[F, Calla & Luca]

What's it about? I know the Sweet Hereafter got great reviews a s a movie but I neither saw it nor read it.

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

Oh F, read it! It's wonderful. It's set in a small town in upper NY State and it's about a school bus accident and its aftermath. Each chapter is narrated in a different voice, the driver, one of the kids, one of the parents, the lawyer...hard to describe, Banks is such a unique writer. But it won't make you cry or keep you awake at night, and it's really an uplifting book, in the end.

I guess you'd say it's about the "human condition".

[F, Calla & Luca]

Sounds good. What's the new one about?

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

Sex offenders; specifically, a lost boy, latchkey kid, a virgin if you can believe it, who gets into trouble by getting addicted to pornography on-line and lumped in with the real criminal sex offenders who are apparently living under a bridge in an area of Miami because there's nowhere else for them to go. There is or was such an area in Miami apparently. Not really my kind of material, but I first read the review in the NY Times book review and then heard Banks interviewed about it on NPR, and it piqued my interest. If he weren't such a good writer, I wouldn't even try it.

[F, Calla & Luca]

Sound dicey. Let us know.

[Sandi]

Sounds a bit like Jodi Picoult, is that true?  I do enjoy most of her books.

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

Banks is not much like Jodi Picoult. He's deeper and much more descriptive,  yet more detached;  he presents you with clearly drawn situations, characters, circumstances, and lets you form your own opinions of all of them.  I can't really think of anyone I could compare him with, each one of his books is so different from the next.

But he's a wonderful writer and The Sweet Hereafter is one of my all time favorite books.