Brain Food, II

I have been reading! Of course. After finishing "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" last week (review coming up hopefully), I had to make some decisions. 

I cheat on books, with other books. I usually have a small pile of "currently reading" next to bed. As a rule, it contains books from different genres, to match different moods, situations and brain energy levels. For example, right now the pile consists of 

• a collection of Chinese short stories (in Estonian);
• a non-fiction book on psychology;
• a non-fiction book on medical condition that I have;
• a sci-fi novel;
• a fantasy novel;
• a 19th century classic novel;
• a contemporary magical realism novel.

The books I am reading actively are George R.R. Martin's latest "A Dance With Dragons", Wilkie Collins's "The Woman in White" and Murakami's "1Q84". In itself, it is a pretty nifty list, leaving aside the fact that all these three are complete chunksters! 1178, 728 and 1156 pages, respectively. That means I should take another book to go aside... a slim one. Something that I would be able to finish in less than 1+ week. *sigh*

Anyhow, on to some books I hoarded since the last brain-food post. 

Left - 

• Orson Scott Card "Ender's Game", "Speaker for the Dead", "Xenocide", "Children of the Mind" - back when I was small, I read "Ender's Game" in Estonian. Of course, this book was hit by the fate as many others of the genre at the time - they only translated first of the series, and that was it. I still remember how I practically gulped it down, and figured it would be nice to do that again, + some extra.

Right, from top to bottom - 

• Jodi Picoult "My Sister's Keeper" - totally out of my usual comfort zone this, but I want to read more female authors, and the plot of this one picqued my interest. I will attack Picoult with great apprehension and carefulness, however. It might not be my cup of coffee at all.
• Erin Morgenstern "The Night Circus" - hmph. Another one of those books I got based on introduction of the story. + allegedly the writing style is to be admired. We shall see.
• Francis Scott Fitzgerald "Tender is the Night" - I have read "The Great Gatsby" twice and was always drawn to the title of this one (it's even better-sounding in Estonian).
• Robin Hobb "Ship of Magic" - I like Robb's soapish style of fantasy, and the (perfect) ending of the Farseer's trilogy made me forgive her all the naiveties, plot holes and stupid twists she might have taken along the way. And made me give her another chance.