As often happens when I have a huge pile of books I want to read I get diverted. I finished The Night Circus and while I loved the imagery and the idea of it the story just didn't meet up with the expectations of the description on the cover. I was also a little disappointed by the lack of depth to the characters but I am willing to over look it as well since Erin Morgenstern does  claim that her work is based in fairy tales and in any fairytale I have ever read the main character is somewhat glossed over in favour of moving the tale along. This works well in a piece of short fiction but in a novel length work I left the book feeling that there was a lack in the story. Having said that I agree with my fellow Orange Prize Reader and partner in this crazy reading adventure, that it would make a great movie.

• Island of Wings by Karin Altenberg 
• On the Floor by Aifric Campbell 
• The Grief of Others by Leah Hager Cohen - into the first Chapter
  
• The Sealed Letter by Emma Donoghue 
• Half Blood Blues by Esi Edugyan - Finished
• The Forgotten Waltz by Anne Enright
• The Flying Man by Roopa Farooki - Finished
• Lord of Misrule by Jaimy Gordon 
• Painter of Silence by Georgina Harding 
• Gillespie and I by Jane Harris 
• The Translation of the Bones by Francesca Kay- half way done
  
• The Blue Book by A.L. Kennedy 
• The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern - Nearly Done
  
• The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller
• Foreign Bodies by Cynthia Ozick - Finished
• State of Wonder by Ann Patchett
• There but for the by Ali Smith
• The Pink Hotel by Anna Stothard
• Tides of War by Stella Tillyard - On deck
• The Submission by Amy Waldman  - On deck

I did have a number of books that I had planned on starting after the Circus but as I said with a number of books to choose from the book I had thought to be well into is sitting in my bedside table and one that wasn't even listed as on deck last week is almost done.


I've started the Grief of Others and the prologue is breathtakingly beautiful and painful all at once. As the basis for what the rest of the book is built on I have high hopes for it. The Mother, having just given birth holds on to her newborn, refusing anyone else to hold him, she listens to his breaths and wishes to capture a breath in a tiny glass jar as her baby will not survive the day. The rest of the book tells the story of how the family deals with this loss.


Before I had a chance to continue with Grief I picked up Translation of the Bones and was immediately drawn in. I'm 100 pages in and finding myself invested in the characters and their lives. I'm not sure how deep they will embed themselves in my psyche but the subject is interesting to me as the Catholic Church and it's rituals are to be honest a mystery to me. What could possibly be a miracle that takes place in a small community's catholic chapel is the center from which the story flows outwards; the ideas of faith and belief are main themes.


Are you reading along the list too?