What Are You Reading? 1/21/13

Guess what's coming up?  My absolute favorite blogging event from last year, Dewey's 24-hour Readathon.   One of the hosts, Andi at Estella’s Revenge, posted about it in this entry last week.  I was a reader last April and a cheerleader in October, and it was a blast.  You can participate even if you don’t have your own blog through the Dewey blog, Facebook, or Twitter. Stay tuned for more information.

What I'm working on:

1.  Strange Affair (Peter Robinson) -- Another in the Inspector Banks series I posted about last week.  Another reader advised me to go back to #1 in the series, but I decided to pick up the next book after the one I finished and read from there instead.

2.  Empire of the Summer Moon: Quanah Parker and the Rise and Fall of the Comanches, the Most Powerful Indian Tribe in American History  (S. C. Gwynne) -- Extremely well written nonfiction about the Indian Wars in western Texas circa 1830-70’s.  This was a Pulitzer Prize Finalist.

3.  The Terror (Dan Simmons) -- A reread chunkster about the stranded Franklin expedition, two ships looking for the Northwest Passage through northern Canada.  They are not only stuck, they are being stalked by something …..  oooh ….. scary!

4.  Shakespeare Stories (Leon Garfield)  -- A children’s treatment of Shakespeare.  Garfield boils down the plot of twelve of the Bard’s most famous plays into single chapters.  I like reading a synopsis before diving into the real thing.

What I finished:

9.  Final Voyage: A Story of Arctic Disaster & One Fateful Whaling Season  (Peter Nichols)

What I abandoned:

 Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell is going back on the TBR pile.  I just don’t like it.

Quote for the week:

"Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe.”  Albert Einstein

Thanks to Sheila at Book Journey for hosting this weekly meme!