What Are You Reading?

Susan here -- running a little late, with apologies! And much in need of a break after some crazy weeks of family stuff, unexpected stuff (the sort we all encounter now and then...), high-pressure whirlwind writing, and a head cold. My head is also crammed with historical research on about a dozen topics at the moment. So if some of you are in a similar place, let's give our heads a little rest and take a short break in Wenchland to play a reading game, something we like to do now and then on the blog.

"What Are You Reading Today?"

Maybe (like me) you're reading several books at once, fiction, nonfiction, research, contemporary, historical, mystery, etc. . . . use more than one book to play if you like!

Please pick up the book (or e-book) that you've been reading most recently, and turn to page 11. Choose the first sentence of the first full paragraph (if it's an unnumbered e-book, tap through 11 screens or choose a page early in the book). Then -- type that sentence (or two) into the Comments area and post it to share with us. Please include the title and author. 

The fun of this are the endless variations in what we're all reading. I love a quick peek inside books that I might not have known about or considered otherwise. And since it's a game - there's a prize! I'll send an autographed copy of Mischief and Mistletoe, the Wenches new holiday anthology, to a winner chosen at random from the comments area. 

I’ll go first, with more than one book - these are all in the active reading stack:

Page 11 of Clockwork Angel by Cassandra Clare:

"Nothing you need worry about," said Mrs. Black, who had already climbed inside and had her skirts spread out across one of the comfortable-looking seats. The inside of the carriage was richly decorated with plush purple velvet bench seats facing each other, and gold tasseled curtains hanging in the windows."

Page 11 of The Maid and the Queen: the Secret History of Joan of Arc by Nancy Goldstone:

"At first, Raymondin, lost in his own grief, failed even to notice Melusine, but she soon succeeded in securing his attention by calling him by name and recounting the source of his sorrow, much to his astonishment."

Page 10 (because pg. 11 is a chart!) of The Time Traveler's Guide to Medieval England by Ian Mortimer:

"It is here, among the city's shops, that your preconceptions of medieval England will begin to fall apart. Walk into the center of any large town or city and you will be struck by the extraordinary range of costumes, from russet-clad peasants to richly dressed merchants and esquires and their wives, and maybe even a knight or nobleman."

And page 11 (e-book) of Tess of the D'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy (I try to keep at least one classic in play):

"Nick-knock, nick-knock, went the cradle; the candle-flame stretched itself tall, and began jigging up and down; the water dribbled from the matron's elbows, and the song galloped on to the end of the verse, Mrs Durbeyfield regarding her daughter the while. Even now, when burdened with a young family, Joan Durbeyfield was a passionate lover of tune." 

Now it’s your turn! What are YOU reading?  There could be a giveaway book in it for you - we all could use just one more book, right? :)

~Susan

 

Comments

[Nicola Cornick]

Oh, I like this game, Susan! Here we go:

Page 11 of The White Darkness by Geraldine McCaughrean (which is a brilliant YA book):

"But apparently the tickets were valid only on the eight o'clock. When the doors finally closed, Victor and I were on the inside with the suitcase. Mum was on the outside, her arms full of her own freshly ironed holiday clothing. It dangled from her grasp and she stooped awkwardly to stop the silky blouses slithering to the ground. She looked like a marble Madonna holding someone dead on her lap, head cocked sideways in grief."

[Louis]

Been rereading a favorite of mine.

From "To The Hilt" by Dick Francis....

"The reason for the silence and the absence of attackers was immediately obvious: my jeep was gone.

Top of page 11.

[Jenny Haddon]

Page 11 of The Horror of Love by Lisa Hilton (about Nancy Mitford and Gaston Palewski, wartime aide to de Gaulle in his London exile and the original of Fabrice de Sauveterre in The Pursuit of Love:

'There remained also a disturbing current of anti-Semitism in French society, which created an atmosphere of danger, a sense of a precarious existence lived permanently on the brink of poverty and persecution.'

[Carol Cork]

This is great fun! Did a similar thing on a Goodreads Group but it was the opening few sentences of the book.

I've just finished 'Forbidden" by Nicola Cornick (not trying to curry favour, this is the honest truth!)

From Page 11:

"This time, Henry Wardeaux did laugh. "And from this den of thieves comes Lord Templemore's grand-daughter and heiress," he said."

[Shannon McEwan]

This is a dangerous thread - I've already been seduced by Jenny Haddon's offering.

Here's mine (it's a re-read) - p.11 from Edmund De Waal, 'The Hare With Amber Eyes', (Vintage, 2011)

"Most of them are signed - that moment of ownership when it was finished and let go."

[Pamela Hartshorne]

Am always intrigued to see what everybody else is reading! This is p.11 from my upstairs book, The Lady's Slipper by Deborah Swift:

"Alert now, she cast her mind back to the night before, and the orchid. Had she really stolen it?"

Downstairs I'm reading The Fishing Fleet by Anne de Courcy, about the young British women in the Raj who went out to India in search of a husband. Page 11:

"There were compelling demographic and social reasons for a girl to try her luck in this huge, exotic country."

Which sounds a bit dry, but the recollections of the women who went out are fascinating.

[ELF]

Emma Wildes' "Ruined by Moonlight": "There was something very civilized about pouring a cup of tea, even in the middle of a 'very' unconventional conversation, and though it had taken some effort, she'd actually gotten her husband to abandon the paper" (a delightful historical romance)

and: Anna Frost's "The Fox's Mask": "I didn't want to be rude." Yuki paused, but the silence did not last. "I heard that in the Fox clan, the first slaying f a demon serves as a coming-of-age ceremony." (a lyrical debut novel)

[ELF]

(sorry, should have read: ...slaying of a demon...)

[Nicola Cornick]

Oh, this is great fun! Carol, thank you! Louis, I love my Dick Francis re-reads too. And Pam, I am going to look out the Deborah Swift book on the basis of that quote. I'm intrigued. The Fishing Fleet is on my wish list.

[Carla (@CassiaDeWarren)]

What a captivating game!
I'm reading "The Hobbit" in order to be ready for the movie, out next December. Pag 11 is the very beginning in my edition:
"IN A HOLE in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort".

[Deborah Swift (@swiftstory)]

I'm reading The Witch and her Soul by Christine Middleton an 80 year old debut author. It is superb historical fiction about The Pendle Witches.
"John, you neither speak nor stir. Neither will you ever read these words. But how my piety then would have pleased you now."

I'm also reading several non-fiction books about WWII - but I won't bore you with those!

Thanks to Pamela for posting about The Lady's Slipper, too!

[Shannon McEwan]

Forgot to add, I have my own copy of Mischief & Mistletoe on its way - count me out of the draw.

ELF - a kitsune story - how fabulous!!!

[Jo Beverley]

What fun!

Here are my contributions.
Fiction -- The Drop by Michael Connelly.
Page eleven is a new chapter. "The Open-Unsolved Unit shared access to the two fifth-floor conference rooms with all other units in the Robbery-Homicide Division. Usually detectives had to reserve time in one of the rooms, signing on the clipboard hooked on the door. But this early on a Monday, they both were open and Bosch, Chu, Shuler and Dolan comandeered the smaller of the two rooms without making a reservation."

Not a sparkling bit of writing, but I enjoyed the book.

Non fiction. I recently picked an old book from my shelves and I've been dipping into it.
Varieties of Literature, John Henry Brady, 1826

It mostly consists of short paragraph excerpts and this one tops page 11

"THERE IS A LADY DONE FOR YOU." Cheshire.
Sir John Done, Knight, hereditary forester and keeper of the forest of Delamere, Cheshire, died in 1629. When that Nimrod James the First made a progress in 1607 he was entertained by this gentleman at Utkerton etc.He married Dorothy, daughter of Thomas Wilbraham Esq. of Woodhey; who left behind her so admirable a character, that to this day, when a Cheshire man would express some excellency in one of the fair sex, he would say, "There is a Lady Done for you." From Pennant's Journey from Chester.

Jo

[Minna]

I'm reading The Quantum Thief by Hannu Rajaniemi. Hannu Rajaniemi is a Finn who writes in English, although I found quite a few Finnish words from the book (I'm reading it in English), not to mention some Finnish Gods and Goddesses.

[joanna bourne]

This is so wonderful. I'm deeply impressed by the quality of everybody else's reads.

Mine. Mary Balogh. Then Comes Seduction.

They proceeded to a discussion of the monetary details of the wager.

Interesting, looking just at a fragment. It's more like hearing three notes out of an aria than tasting one teaspoon of soup from the pot.

[Diane Eberly]

Sounds like fun. Am reading "A Wicked Wench" by Anne Herries.

Pg 11
Lady Mary saw the glance and laughed huskily. 'The house is mine. I suppose I might sell it and live comfortably in obscurity, but I own that I detest the country. Diane

[Ella Quinn]

I'm reading Eloisa James's The Ugly Ducessess.
“Oh, they can put dukes on trial, all right,” James said heavily. “You embezzled the dowry of a girl entrusted to your care since the time she was a mere infant. Her mother was married to your dearest friend. Saxby asked you on his deathbed to care for his daughter.”

[Susan]

Love ALL the great and various Page 11 samples! Like a smorgasbord of reading nibbles, a little of this, a little of that. I'm making a list to find some new favorites, and to look again at some older favorites.

The Hobbit - Carla, what a great idea to reread that, I haven't picked it up for ages. The oh so familiar first sentence lures me right back in. . .

Susan

[LilMissMolly]

I'm reading Miss Hillary Schools a Scoundrel by Samantha Grace and I'm really enjoying it. I love finding new authors!!!

[Karenmc]

From The Last Duke (1995), by Andrea Kane:

"Just outside the stands he spotted his mark and bore down on him."

Thus begins the interactions between the swoon-worthy hero (really, people, he's an angsty dreamboat) and his nemesis, a wretched nobleman completely firm in his belief that he can beat his wife and daughter (the heroine) whenever they displease him.

[Sia]

I just finished the anthology The Betting Season by Ava Stone and three other authors. I really like anthologies since the stories are shorter and easy to read in one sitting. The variety of different authors and stories are quite enjoyable!

Here's from page 11 of Ava's story in the anthology, "By any other name":

“  Looking for me?” Jason drawled as he assumed a carefree stance. Whatever madness propelled Berkswell to his door, Jason wasn’t about to let the marquess think him flustered.

[Jo Banks]

What a great idea I'm in to The Duke is Mine by Eloisa James
Page 11 "I know I know!"Olivia exclaimed,before Georgiana could speak."Vulgar,vulgar,vulgar.All the same,I loved the part about the nursemaid costume."

[Lyn S]

Step 5 -- Analyzing the Data and Reporting Results: Once researchers collect data, they next have to make sense of the information supplied by the individuals in the study.
From Understanding Research: A consumers guide. by Vicki Plano-Clark and John Creswell. Prepping for my comprehensive exam for my doctorate in education, but I keep reading romance novels to stay sane even though everyone else in my class has given up fiction. I always love to reread Dick Francis for some reason the plot is never spoiled by rereads and I found the Eloisa James fairy tale series by accident on my Nook, so I have recently read them too. But I am really trying to be good and not read Mischief until I get my Problem Statement written.

[Cara Elliott/Andrea Penrose]

Chiming in late, Susan, but what a fun post. Okay, here's my entry: pg 11 from Anna Campbell's Seven Nights In A Rogue's Bed:

"You'll get used to it." His hands brushed along her shoulders, feeling trembling tension beneath the saturated wool. "Before we're done, you'll get used to a great deal."

[Dee]

On Kindle: "Ciara Macquarrie. She's made a good fist of her Mystic Scotland tour company." Reread of The Burning Glass by Lillian Stewart Carl

Book#1: I am a sucker for the idea of a time machine, and sometimes I look at my unmoving truck and quite unoriginally wish I could have been the guy to whom the salesman handed the keys in 1951. I'd like to get a look at the country back then, the big changes coming in, but still a lot of dirt roads over which to roll. -Truck a love story, Michael Perry (author of Population: 485)

Book#2: It had not been a comfortable thirty years. Reggie had grown up in that atmosphere of mutual hatred and scorn. - a Matter of Class Mary Balogh. (Fun book. Recently recommended to me.)

[j prince]

Hector had left Barbara fifteen years ago, after impregnating nineteen-year-old Beth Harbison. Helen was born seven months later. Meghan, Barbara and Hector's youngest, was born four months after Helen, and Helen had no trouble doing that math. - And When She Was Good by Laura Lippman

[Margot]

I'm reading Tempting the Bride by Sherry Thomas.

"Or a Venus flytrap, full of delicious nectar, but woe was he who thought he could dip a proboscis inside and sample her charms. Instead, she would digest him in place, stupid sod."

[Donna]

England's Perfect Hero - Suzanne Enoch:
"Rising awkwardly to bring the teapot to Lucinda, Georgiana chuckled."

The Treasure of Montsegur - Sophy Burnham (a novel about the crusade against the Cathars):
"When Esclarmonde had left, Giulietta put her arm around Jeanne's shoulders and drew her back to the window seat. She whipped out a white linen kerchief and wiped the young girl's eyes."

New York - Edward Rutherford: (a novel about the history of New York)
"The London Tom encountered was on the cusp between two worlds: the medieval and the modern. With Britain's overseas domains expanding, London's busy merchants had many opportunities to make their fortunes."

Family of Secrets: The Bush Dynasty Russell Baker
"Not only was the man findable; he was still on the U. S. government payroll. By 1988 this George Bush was working as a claims representative for the Social Security Administration.

Wonderful fun, but more books to be added to my "to be read" list! ;-) And just wondering, are you a numerologist as eleven is a sacred number?

[Susan King]

Fantastic reading choices - I think we're all making lists from these very enjoyable selections!
Donna, you've got quite the reading stack there! I chose page 11 because it's a number I like -- my birthday (10-11), my husband's birthday (11-11), our anniversary is an 11, our first apartment was #11, the house number where I grew up was an 11 - the list goes on. Eleven sticks to me, so I hope it's a good number. ;)

[Janice]

"Reacher smiled at the subtlety."
Page 11 of Without Fail by Lee Child - the sixth book in the Jack Reacher series.
(Can't believe a shorty like Tom Cruise is playing Jack in the movie).

Lee Child brings new meaning to the "can't put it down" book; more than once I've stayed up way late to finish one. I like his hero because he's different; he isn't right all the time, or right away; sometimes he seems less than bright, but it's a good portrait of a person who may be sidetracked or a bit slow, but gets there in the end. He's a wanderer, a knight errant, but he has real feelings for women (I so hate those bimbo du jour sorts of series where it's kiss the hero and die because there has to be a new fresh testimony to his manhood in the next book and room must be made).

Lee Child could teach a course in how to structure a mystery plot where the hints are there but wheat has to be separated from chaff to find a solution. He's British, and his hero Jack is American but the occasional Britishism creeps in, but that's so minor I can disregard it.

Before that, for contrast, I read a Louise Allen novella in a Harlequin Christmas anthology. It was an okay story but left me wondering if now EVERY couple MUST have sex before marriage, even if the author has to shoehorn the scene in somehow whether it's reasonable in the circumstances or organic to the story, or not. There is such a sameness to knowing EVERY hero and heroine will road test their sexual relationship before the wedding without regard to society's customs or their own characters as previously shown. I long to be surprised again.

[Sue Stewart]

Whispers Under Ground -- the latest of Ben Aaronovitch's brilliant Peter Grant series: "I'd asked Nightingale about this, but he said he hadn't spent a lot of time at the Folly in those days. Out and about in the Empire and beyond, he'd said. I asked him what he'd been doing.
'I remember writing a great many reports. But to what purpose, I was never entirely sure.'"

[Janice]

Ooh, that sounds good, Sue! I see he's a Doctor Who writer. It's gone on my list :)

[Donna]

Susan - Eleven is a sacred number in numerology. Interesting that it shows up so much in you life!

[Susan King]

Wow. I predict, given these comments, that I'll be spending lots more time in the reading chair! Lovely choices. Thank you for these great recommends!

Janice, I haven't read Lee Childs, so haven't tried the Jack Reacher books. "Bimbo du jour" - LOL - great phrase, and I so agree. I'll look for the first in this series!

(Donna, that's very cool to know about all the elevenses!)

Susan

[Artemisia]

He climbed to his feet and took off the jacket of his crumpled linen suit, which like all his clothes, was a legacy or more than a decade in the Far East. Before next winter, he reflected wryly, he would have to get something warmer. - from Where Death Delights a new forensics series by Knight Bernard. I didn't care for it at all. Kindle book from the library.

[Kitty]

Well, I remember Bisa in his wheelchair going this way and that. He never got out of the thing and 'round about St. Peter's Day, too--in the watering trough, splashing around to his heart's content.

The Wars of Our Ancestors by Miguel Delibes

[Heather W]

I am reading Tempting the Bride, by Sherry Thomas. From page 11:

"Would she ever forgive him if he did?
He sat up straight. A pair of giggling guests were coming up the stairs. He recognized their whispering voices: a man and a woman, married, but not to each other."

[Marie]

Coincidentally I just started reading The Nonesuch by Georgette Heyer with forward by Mary Jo Putney; it's my first time reading it!
"He looked up to find that Waldo was watching him, the faintest hint of a question in his eyes."

[Mike]

I just finished reading the whole Harry Potter series. I want from the first one all the way to the last one in the series. It took me a couple months but it was worth it.

[Artemisia]

@Mike: Congratulations! I read them aloud - twice through - to my unsighted Aged Parent. Towards the end of the second round she had begun to forget the thread. I see you are a beekeeper. Now you must start on Laurie King's Holmes/Russell books!