What I'm Reading Now

I'm reading so many books right now -- what else is there to do? -- that I've really stopped keeping track. Many of them are re-reads anyway: since I can't get to the library every day, I'm reading what's on my shelves.

But here are some of the books I've read lately.


Geraldine Brooks, Year of Wonders

I am reading a lot of books about epidemics, because that is how I roll. This one is about the plague village in England, the one that, when they realized they had the plague, quarantined themselves from the rest of England to stop its spread. They were successful, but at the cost of nearly all their lives. One woman ended up burying her husband and seven of her eight children.

Brooks's novel is a lightly fictionalized version of their story. Nice writing, and I like the end a lot. But don't read unless you're really into books about epidemics.



Anne Tyler, Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant, and A Beginner's Goodbye.

These I read because I've been listening to BBC's World Book Club off and on, and one of the episodes had to do with Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant. At one point, this was one of my favorite books. Then I went off Anne Tyler almost entirely. I decided on a re-read, to see if I was right to give up on her.

It's not a bad book. Tyler isn't much on plots, which is why I think I lost interest in her. She's pretty good with characters, though. And the writing is nice. Mainly, though, I think I just got tired of (white, straight) middle-class characters leading dull and pointless middle-class lives. Obviously if that's what Tyler wants to write about, she should write about it. I've just read enough of that.


Sophie Hannah, Perfect Little Children

I always think I like Hannah's books, until I check them out and read them. I think my memory must have conflated her with some other writer, one I actually do like.

Anyway, this one is, as always, very readable, and pretty stupid. A woman has a fight with her best friend. Ten years pass. The woman stalks the friend (why?), and discovers A Mystery. Blah, blah, blah, stretching credibility, and not much of a payoff. Also the main character is repellent, and her husband a cipher.

I like one of the kids, though.


Jane Austen, Emma

I had to do a re-read, after seeing the movie. This is, as always, a wonderful book. Either this one or Mansfield Park is my favorite.

I'm thinking of re-reading Northanger Abbey, which I haven't read in literally years -- it's my least favorite Austen book. And meanwhile I re-read Jane Fairfax, by Joan Aiken, which is a sequel/co-equal to Emma,  and which I also recommend.


Annalee Newitz, Autonomous

This is another epidemic book, sort of. It's also delightful science fiction. A drug, manufactured and distributed by a giant pharmaceutical company, is causing a new sort of plague -- people who love their work so much they can't stop doing it. So a painter paints his apartment over and over and over again, until he dies of organ failure (because he loves painting so much he won't stop even to eat or drink). And a school girl keeps doing her homework, endlessly.

Besides the plague, we have the story of a boy and his robot, and of indentured (enslaved) children, and of corporate control of society (through lawsuits and by writing laws). The boy and his robot is probably my favorite part, giving us, as it does, a novel take on artificial intelligence.

The outlaw scientists are also very good, though.

This one is a lot of fun, besides being really good on both science and capitalism.


Jodi Picoult, Second Glance

As with Sophie Hannah, Picoult is a writer I always think I like, until I read one of her books.

It's hard to say what's wrong with Picoult. I mean, she's very readable, and her characters are good, and there are definitely plots in her books -- all the stuff I normally like.

I think might be the way she almost always has children-in-danger at the center of her books. Some kid is sick, or some kid is in a school shooting, or some kid has been kidnapped, whatever. Here, the kid-in-danger is a young boy who has a genetic condition that makes him allergic to the sun -- fatally so. I mean, this isn't a bad plot. It's just, she's pulling the same tricks in every book. And "endanger the kid" to ramp up reader's emotions gets a little obvious after the first few books. (It's the same reason I don't read books about murdered women. Obvious plot is obvious.)

But most of this book is about the kid's uncle, who is chronically depressed and also a ghost hunter. The other part of the book is about the ghost he falls in love with, and about the Native Americans all of these characters are involved with.

It's an interesting, if not a compelling, read, and certainly one of Picoult's better books.