What are you reading?

I just started Lit by Mary Karr. This is the third of her memoirs, the first two being The Liar's Club and Cherry, neither of which I've read...yet. Her life was so different from my own, which is the kind of biography/autobiography that I like to read. Beautifully written and heartbreaking. Here's the summary from Amazon:

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The Liars' Club brought to vivid, indelible life Mary Karr's hardscrabble Texas childhood. Cherry, her account of her adolescence, "continued to set the literary standard for making the personal universal" (Entertainment Weekly). Now Lit follows the self-professed blackbelt sinner's descent into the inferno of alcoholism and madness--and to her astonishing resurrection.

Karr's longing for a solid family seems secure when her marriage to a handsome, Shakespeare-quoting blueblood poet produces a son they adore. But she can't outrun her apocalyptic past. She drinks herself into the same numbness that nearly devoured her charismatic but troubled mother, reaching the brink of suicide. A hair-raising stint in "The Mental Marriott," with an oddball tribe of gurus and saviors, awakens her to the possibility of joy and leads her to an unlikely faith. Not since Saint Augustine cried, "Give me chastity, Lord-but not yet!" has a conversion story rung with such dark hilarity.

Lit is about getting drunk and getting sober; becoming a mother by letting go of a mother; learning to write by learning to live. Written with Karr's relentless honesty, unflinching self-scrutiny, and irreverent, lacerating humor, it is a truly electrifying story of how to grow up--as only Mary Karr can tell it.

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Just started "Castles" by Julie Garwood, and will soon follow that with "There Goes the Bride" by M. C. Beaton (an Agatha Raisin Mystery).

Starting Mudbound by Hillary Jordan

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Originally Posted by Ger;3758973;

I think I might be the odd ball here cause I like to read books by Nora Roberts, Mary Higgins Clark, Fern Michaels and have not seen where any of you seem to be into books by these authors.But anyway right now I am reading the newest book by J D Robb which is the pen name for Nora Roberts who writs this series.

I also love reading the sister hood series by Fern Michaels and she just came out with a new Series and the first book is out called the Scoop which was very good.

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I happen to love Mary Higgins Clark. I've seen her in person several times now; the latest at my local branch library.
She's still the Queen of Suspense for me.

I just started When to Speak Up and When to Shut Up by Dr. Michael Sedler. Should balance out watching the classic holiday shows on tv!

I finished Lit this morning after staying up late to read and then waking up this morning and picking it back up again. Really fantastic read! I'm definitely going to pick up her first two memoirs now.

I just started The Swan Thieves by Elizabeth Kostova. I enjoyed The Historian, so I'm looking forward to this one:

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Psychiatrist Andrew Marlowe, devoted to his profession and the painting hobby he loves, has a solitary but ordered life. When renowned painter Robert Oliver attacks a canvas in the National Gallery of Art and becomes his patient, Marlow finds that order destroyed. Desperate to understand the secret that torments the genius, he embarks on a journey that leads him into the lives of the women closest to Oliver and a tragedy at the heart of French Impressionism.

Kostova's masterful new novel travels from American cities to the coast of Normandy, from the late 19th century to the late 20th, from young love to last love. THE SWAN THIEVES is a story of obsession, history's losses, and the power of art to preserve human hope.

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The official release date isn't for another month or so, but I'll be interested to hear what other FoRTers think about it, since there were a lot of differing opinions about The Historian.

Just finished Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, and before that, Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters. The "co-authors" were different, and the sea monster one was better, but they were both a fresh, entertaining way of reading Austen.

Started The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo last night at the gym.
Everybody, including the guy who loaned it to me, has recommended it so highly that I sure hope it lives up to the hype.
I do have to say it was a bit hard to get into it, but I expect that may be due to the fact that it was translated from the Swedish language. Often times, as a result, it can suffer in the translation.
The basic premise, though, seems a good one. So, hopefully, I'll be able to give a positive review at the end.

Keep going! I was so glad I started it as an audio book in the car last summer when I was driving my daughter to work and back every day. I don't know if I would have made it past the beginning if I had been reading it. But once I was hooked, listening in the car wasn't enough so I downloaded it on my Kindle and went straight to the sequel within a minute of finishing the first one. Really good.

Thanks, Gut, for the recommendation and the gentle push. ;)