I'm still on The Angel's Game which is excellent. What is everyone reading?

And Happy New Year to all!

Happy New Year!!

I need to finish Dan Brown's "The Lost Symbol" and then I can begin my 2010 Challenge reading...I just can't decide what to read first. 

I fniished Into the Wilderness by Sara Donati last night (making 10 books for December). It was very good, I will read the next few. I agree with I think it was Jennie it is no Outlander, but good in a different way. Interesting characters and supporting cast, paints a good picture of the time.

I started my first HF Challenge Book Conn Iggulden's Genghis Birth of a Nation, seems good so far.

Happy New Year to everyone.

Alice

An Echo in the Bone is my treadmill book, so I'm still reading it. Bet it'll last another month, too!

I'm finishing up a bunch in another genre and plan to start my first challenge book in the next couple of days. I haven't quite decided what it will be yet. So, I report back.

Just finished Far Bright Star by Olmstead -- a short and excellent book for those looking to fill the Habla Espanol category for the HF challenge. It's ostensibly about a seasoned soldier, Napoleon Childs, who leads a group of inexperienced cavalrymen in search of the elusive Pancho Villa in Mexico in 1916. But it's really about the toughness and resilience of the human condition. This book is not for everyone -- it reminded me of Cormac McCarthy's stories -- the reader experiences the brutality and harshness of the narrative in language that is spare and unsentimental.

Am now reading The Woman in White by Collins -- which serves the dual purpose of being one of my book club books and one of my Classics challenge books.

Well finally I am going to begin my challenge and I am starting Pirate Latitudes in a few minutes!!

Does everyone but me do challenges? I'd never make it something always sets me on a new path and upsets the whole applecart.

I'm going to finish up Young Bess by Margaret Irwin (it is YA) and then it's a toss up between London in Chains by Gillian Bradshaw or Savage Lands by her name escapes me at the moment. I wanted to dig into Prima Donna (set in old Seattle I believe) but I couldn't get parking at the library temp location and I must wait until the holiday is over. Grrr.

I finished Abide with Me by Elizabeth Strout.  Very spiritual and thoughtful about human nature.  Not sure if it qualifies as historical as it is set in 1959.

I finished A Serpent's Tale this morning.  I picked out the bad guy pretty early, and I was on the right track about his accomplice, but picked the wrong one.   Poor Adelia....destined to compete with God for her man.   I enjoyed the characters in this book more than the previous.  I guess that's the way it is with a good series....the first story gets you hooked and the further development of the characters keep you coming back.  This one seems a little more "descriptive" of the bodies and other medical stuff than the last one, but maybe it's just been awhile and I don't remember it.  I think I read some where that Ulf is more involved in Grave Goods.  I hope that is true because I missed him in this one.

Finished up a mystery late last night; then started, and read the first chapter of Sophia's Secret by Susanna Kearsley.  This is a book I've been very anxious to read for some time now, and thanks to my secret Santa, Mimi, it will be my first read of the new year.  I can already tell it will be wonderful. 

Linda

I'm still working on Heretic by Bernard Cornwell. I hope to finish by tomorrow.  It's my book for the "Continuing Saga" challenge, and I'll probably use it for the letter H in the other challenge.  Another winner from Cornwell!

After that I'm not sure what I'll go with.  Something for the challenge for sure, but I'm not quite certain what.  Guess I'll have to go with whatever speaks to me as I'm perusing my book shelf.

Happy New Year to all!

I'm rereading The Book Thief for Book Club, and then I'll finish up The Associate by John Grisham.

1/3 of the way into Hades' Daughter by Sara Douglass (R U Kidding Me challenge).

Well, it reads fast. That's about the kindest thing I can say about it. It's the first in a quartet (since there are no fantasy standalones anymore) about labyrinths & magic that protected ancient cities, and Ariadne unleashed evil when abandoned by Theseus - the eruption on Thera that sank Atlantis, a weakened Troy, plagues of Egypt, etc. blah blah. I've heard Douglass highly spoken of, but I fail to see much in this book beyond immensely unlikeable characters, details that are conveniently dropped into the story when needed, and a recurring section where the whiny female character Cornelia tells things from her point of view that have already happened, and so nothing new is revealed to the reader. (Nice way to prolong a book into 3, 4 or 10). Oh, and the rape, incest, sex, betrayal, adultery, sex, and sex. Oh yes, and sex.

The plot makes less sense than the David Gemmell Troy trilogy, but the writing is about the same quality and the characters are just about as shallow. This is one series that I will not continue reading.

I breezed through all 3 books of Anne Rice's Sleeping Beauty series this week - by the end I skipped quickly through the last book as really it was alot of the same.  Tonight I plan to starty Beverly Swerling's City of God, which is the 3rd in a series and one I plan to use for the "Continuing Saga" category in the 2010 HF Challenge.

Happy New Year everyone!

I have designated January to be my Classics month so I will be starting The Grapes of Wrath shortly.

So I was a good girl and started the challenge by reading my birthday book selection (Lighthouse by Eugenia Price, pubilshed 1972) and a not so good girl by throwing in a quick romance novel (Some like it Wild by Thereasa Meideros).

I am reading The Kings Man by Sharon Penman which I am taking my time and enjoying, but at the same time still reading The Other Bolyn Girl by Phillipa Gregory which I am not enjoying so much.  I know how the book ends so come on Henry...chop off her head already so I can go on to something else.

Josie

Gave up on Hades' Daughter & the challenge in general - never was good as resolutions. :-P  I'm reading a YA Civil War book now & afterwards will start on the subject of Candace Sams' Amazon implosion Electra Galaxy's Mr. Interstellar Feller. Woohoo! Can't wait. I need some lulz.

Oh boy Karla you have no idea what you're in for. What a riot, I'd love to see Mel Brooks put it to film :p

Pluto pillow mints, purple porpoises with glow fins and more.

I can't wait to start my first book of 2010, but I want to start the year off right, so I have to choose the perfect book. Oh, the pressure! Which to choose....

I'm about half done with McCullough's Fortune's Favorites.  I'll use it either for Pagan Past or Continuing Saga.  Then, I'm getting really low on credits, so I need to read a few that are wishlisted. Year of Wonders by Geraldine Brooks is probably next. (It will be Y on the alpha challenge.)

I just started Enemy of God by Bernard Cornwell last night.  Should be good if it's anything like #1, The Winter King.

I am also  reading Echo in the Bone, which I got for Christmas and then I am eather going to start the Into the Wilderness series or read Earlthy Joys and Virgin Earth...ooh or I also picked up Rhett Butler's People at Border's the other day so I might try that, even though it seems to have some mixed reviews on here.

I just finished Heretic, by Bernard Cornwell.  Woo hoo!  One of each of the 2010 Challenges complete!  I'm using it for the "Continuing Challenge" challenge, as well as for the letter "H" in the other challenge. 

This evening I'll start Pirate Latitudes by Michael Crichton, which will be for the "Where Dat At" and letter "P" challenges.  I figured I needed to move out of England/France for awhile, as the last several books I've read have all been set there.

Thank goodness I had New Year's Day off! I spent most of the day reading The Masqueraders by Georgette Heyer. I could barely put it down. What a rollicking adventure story, and SOOOOO romantic (sigh!) I love starting the year off right with a book I really enjoyed.

I started another Heyer, These Old Shades, today.

Does everyone but me do challenges? I'd never make it something always sets me on a new path and upsets the whole applecart.

Cathy, the same thing happens to me! I've sworn off challenges, at least for now. I signed up for the 2009 challenge here but didn't come close to completing it.

I stayed up until FAR too late last night reading The Angel's Game.  It is really excellent.  I'm about halfway through now.