What are you reading in October 2013?

My active list at present includes Joseph Campbell's The Hero with a Thousand Faces and, on the slower track, At Home, by Bill Bryson; God Is Not Great, by Christopher Hitchens; and Sexual Personae, by Camille Paglia.

That's a pretty heavy list. I need another novel.

What's on top of your reading pile?

I'm currently reading another Kerry Greenwood cozy Australian mystery, with two Lindsey Davis mysteries sitting beneath it. But I just got a notice from the library that my requested copy of Ocean at the End of the Lane is now available, so I'll be picking that up in a day or so. I'll feel obliged to read and return it quickly since there's quite a waiting list. When I requested it a couple of months ago, I was number 79 on the list.

Well, an hour or so ago I tossed The Old Ways onto my pillow. I may pick it up to read when I go to bed, or I may start one of my earlier proposed projects. I suppose I could even read a novel.

Robert

Mr.Durick, I read that last month and so enjoyed it I brought, and just finished, Andrew Eames' Four Scottish Journeys. I also just finished, far too quickly, after a thirty year wait, Paddy's brand new volume III The Broken Road, Patrick Leigh Fermor. I have just given up on a Cyril Connolly and am now reduced to waiting for the mailman.

I'm reading Moon Over Soho, the second in the Rivers of London series. I liked the first better, but Moon is still enjoyable (for those who enjoy urban fantasy). I have Free Fall by Chris Grabenstein, the most recent of the John Ceepak mystery series, waiting in the wings, with The Millionaire and the Mummies, a nonfiction book about an American robber baron's foray into Egyptian archaeology in the early 20th century, second in line.

I'm about halfway through Edith Wharton's The Reef. Back to something by Scott when I'm done. Then maybe Ben Hur.

Son of the Morning Star a history of General Custer & the Little Big Horn by Evan S. Connell

I've been on an epic fantasy kick. last year I read the five books (so far) of George R.R. Martins The Saga of Fire and Ice (AKA Game of Thrones). I'm now working my way through Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series (on book #4 The Shadow Rising

I am on book 11 of Debbie Macomber's Cedar Cove series... going for the 12 and last. Good Series. See my currently reading collection in my library; I think there are 7 books in the currently reading collection. Loving to read still in my mid sixties.

Just finished #2 of the Maisie Dobbs series, Birds of a feather, the first book of The Riyria chronicles, The crown tower and my 2 outstanding ERs, Hutch : baseball's Fred Hutchinson and a legacy of courage and You gotta have heart. Also re-read Shoot an arrow to stop the wind. Have started The UltraMind solution, my "go review this book" selection Monty Python's The life of Brian (of Nazareth) / Monty Pythons Scrapbook and the next Riyria book The rose and the thorn which is as good as the Riyria Revelations.

Now I have to write the 2 reviews that still need doing. I obsess so it takes me a while before I am satisfied and put them on LT.

I'm enjoying Georgette Heyer's The Nonesuch. I do like her romances ~ so erudite and amusing with great dialogue and characters.

And The Nonesuch is one of the best!

Oh! I just this minute finished it (The Nonesuch) and couldn't agree with you more! It's probably my favorite so far. What great characters! And the humor! It's probably going to be a reread someday.

I read (and re-read) Byron's Road to Oxiana long ago but have just finished and reviewed his earliest work Europe in the Looking Glass and have nearly completed his masterwork of Athos, Phoenix: The Station: Athos: Treasures and Men. To counteract, as an antidote to all that Greek and Byzantine culture I re-read all seven volumes of Len Deighton, the Bernard Samson novels.

I had to put Wharton's The Reef down for a few weeks, picked it back up last night, hope to finish today, then on to Ben Hur and with luck, back to Scott.

Connemara, Tim Robinson
Beyond Meditation: Expressions of Japanese Sin Buddhist Spirituality, Michael Pye, ed
The Platform Sutra, Hui-Neng, Red Pine, trans and commentary
Tariki, Hiroyuki Itsuki

I finished the Campbell, Bryson, and Hitchens and went for a spate of cozy mysteries. Currently active:

The Nine Tailors, by Dorothy L. Sayers
The Day of the Triffids, by John Wyndham
Bleeding Edge, by Thomas Pynchon
Sexual Personae: Art and Decadence from Nefertiti to Emily Dickinson, by Camille Paglia

Meredy I love the idea that Sexual Personae is a "cozy mystery". But of course, to me, it is!

Just finished my trilogy by Robert Byron on Greece, but that led me straight to Mani and now Roumeli by "Paddy" Leigh Fermor.

18: Oops, that's not what I meant to suggest! The spate of cozy mysteries that was before me (though not yet in view) at the start of this thread is now behind me. The Paglia work is on the slow track and will take me months. To me it's in a class by itself.

It's OK Meredy. I understand. Cozy mysteries mixed with Wednesday Is Indigo Blue: Discovering the Brain of Synesthesia and Personae for the lighter touch?

Nothing like waiting until the last minute to report my reading for the month. Here it is.

133. Hounded byKeven Hearne (304 pp.)
134. The Hopfield Tales by Mike Evers (194 pp.)
135. Ad Eternum by Elizabeth Bear (96 pp.)
136. A Great and Terrible Beauty by Libba Bray (403 pp.)
137. Gooseberry Bluff Community College of Magic by David Schwartz (416 pp.)
138. Cyteen: The Betrayal by C. J. Cherryh (359 pp.)
139. Zealot by Reza Aslan (272 pp.)
140. The Convenient Marriage by Georgette Heyer (252 pp.)
141. Ghost Ship by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller (328 pp.)
142. Dragon Ship by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller (373 pp.)
143. Cyteen: The Rebirth by C. J. Cherryh (248 pp.)

The Heyer and the two Lee and Miller books were rereads, although Ghost Ship was for a discussion group.

Currently reading Cyteen: The Vindication and Fundamentalism and American Culture.

I'm getting ready to start Code Name Verity, which has received a lot of good press from the 75 Book Challenge group.

20: Something like that. I usually have several tracks running at different speeds, some in the vein of sheer entertainment and some that are more like work. In between are the more serious works of fiction and the popular nonfiction. I think of them, more or less, as my basic literary food groups. My reading journal shows how this habit plays out over time. The ones that require some effort--the epic of Gilgamesh, for example, and the book about Japanese cinema--generally proceed in parallel with the light, fast reads but may take weeks or even months to get through.