What Are You Reading Today?

What I'm Reading Now

By the time you are reading this post, I will be out in Alpine in far West Texas for our second vacation (sounds like a hobbit's second breakfast, doesn't it, in a greedy sort of way). I've only got pages to go in both Cloud Atlas and East of Eden, and I can see that The Night of the Comet is going to be one of those stories that I'll be up late, late finishing. The Society of Timid Souls, or How to Be Brave just arrived and I'm so intrigued with the premise (author Polly Morland investigates how to become a courageous person) that I couldn't seem to stop myself from jumping right in. So that's it from here, right now. 

What are you reading right now? Anything you'd recommend? 

Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell

From Amazon:   "David Mitchell combines flat-out adventure, a Nabokovian love of puzzles, a keen eye for character, and a taste for mind-bending philosophical and scientific speculation in the tradition of Haruki Murakami, Umberto Eco, and Philip K. Dick."

East of Eden
by John Steinbeck

From Amazon:  "California's fertile Salinas Valley is home to two families are fruitfully and fatally intertwined. Over the generations, between the beginning of the twentieth century and the end of the First World War, the Trasks and the Hamiltons will helplessly replay the fall of Adam and Eve and the murderous rivalry of Cain and Abel."

The Night of the Comet 
by George Bishop
From Amazon:  "For his fourteenth birthday, Alan Broussard, Jr., receives a telescope from his father, a science teacher at the local high school who's anxiously awaiting what he promises will be the astronomical event of the century: the coming of Comet Kohoutek. For Alan Broussard, Sr.--frustrated in his job, remote from his family--the comet is a connection to his past and a bridge to his son, with whom he's eager to share his love for the stars."

The Society of Timid Souls, or How to Be Brave

by Polly Morland

"With The Society of Timid Souls, or How To Be Brave, documentary filmmaker Polly Morland sets out to investigate bravery, a quality that she has always felt she lacked.  The book takes inspiration from a vividly eccentric, and radical, self-help group for stage-frightened performers in 1940s Manhattan, which coincided with the terrifying height of World War II and was called The Society of Timid Souls.  Seventy years later, as anxiety about everything from terrorism to economic meltdown continues, Morland argues that courage has become a virtue in crisis.  We are, she says, all Timid Souls now."

It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? is where we share what we read this past week, what we hope to read this week…. and anything in between!  This is a great way to plan out your reading week and see what others are currently reading as well… you never know where that next “must read” book will come from! I love being a part of this and I hope you do too! As part of this weekly meme Book Journey loves to encourage you all to go and visit the others participating in this meme.