It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

It's Monday! What are you reading? is hosted by Sheila at Book Journey. For this meme, bloggers post what they finished last week, what they're currently reading, and what they plan to start this week.


CURRENTLY READING



Book cover synopsis:

Its 2013 and eighty-year-old Frances (part-time copywriter, has-been writer, one-time national treasure) is sitting on the stairs of Number 3, Chalcot Crescent, Primrose Hill, listening to the debt collectors pounding on her front door. From this house she's witnessed five decades of world history - the fall of communism, the death of capitalism - and now, with the bailiffs, world history has finally reached her doorstep. While she waits for the bailiffs to give up and leave, Frances writes (not that she has an agent any more, or that her books are still published, or even that there are any publishers left). She writes about the boyfriends she borrowed and the husband she stole from Fay, about her daughters and their children. She writes about the Shock, the Crunch, the Squeeze, the Recovery, the Fall, the Crisis and the Bite, about NUG the National Unity Government, about ration books, powercuts, National Meat Loaf (suitable for vegetarians) and the new Neighbourhood Watch. She writes about family secrets... The problem is that fact and fiction are blurring in Frances' mind. Is it her writer's imagination, or is it just old age, or plain paranoia? Are her grandchildren really plotting a terrorist coup upstairs? Are faceless assassins trying to kill her younger daughter? Should she worry that her son in law is an incipient megalomaniac being groomed for NUG's highest office? What on earth can NUG have against vegetarians? And just what makes National Meat Loaf so tasty?

PLAN TO START THIS WEEK

As a huge fan of Kate Mosse's previous two books LABYRINTH and SEPULCHRE - I have to read this one. I loved Labyrinth so much that I had to add a trip to  Carcassonne to our Bucket List. 

The Great War took much more than lives. It robbed a generation of friends, lovers and futures. In Freddie Watson's case, it took his beloved brother and, at times, his peace of mind. In the winter of 1928, still seeking resolution, Freddie is travelling through the French Pyrenees. During a snowstorm, his car spins off the mountain road. He stumbles through woods, emerging in a tiny village. There he meets Fabrissa, a beautiful woman also mourning a lost generation. Over the course of one night, Fabrissa and Freddie share their stories. By the time dawn breaks, he will have stumbled across a tragic mystery that goes back through the centuries.




WHAT I READ LAST WEEK

Book cover synopsis:

Tom Violet is 35 years old, but his life hasn’t turned out the way he imagined it. He thought he’d have followed in his father’s footsteps by now and become a famous author in his own right. Instead, he only has written one, unpublished novel that he recently completed after years of work. He has a beautiful wife, but their relationship is difficult at best. He’s unquestionably attracted to a young woman he works with, and his office job is at the worst sort of corporate hack of a company. As things just get worse and worse, Tom finally decides he has to take control of his life if he is ever going to find real happiness.

I LOVED this book!! It was so funny and witty that I was reading passages out loud to my husband. Having worked in a cube in the Corporate world I can complete understand his negative feelings for that environment.

I'm not a laugh out loud kind of reader but he got me.

His HR notes in his file are hysterical. Where I come from we call HR Human Remains as they are mainly useless in most organizations (apologies to any HR professionals reading this!). He covers the gamut of office workers including telecommuters. 

As the book opens he says:

"In most companies, no one really notices you until they need you. And even the, when someone wanders into your office or IMs you and finds that you are gone, they just assume you're doing something constructive.  Sitting in some pointless meeting. Stealing office supplies. Weeping gently in a bathroom stall on the fourth floor. Once you've established yourself as reasonably competent, you can pretty much come and go as you please."
He goes on the explain the exhilaration of "going over the wall" in the middle of the afternoon. That is when you just leave the office.


He talks about it taking six months before he even knew what his company does. "in a nutshell, my company helps other companies be better companies. We have courses and expert speakers and pie charts and business models and acronyms and PowerPoint presentations that throw around ear-splitting words like "synergy" and "best practices" and we have Webinars and binders of information and it's all designed to help you organization to work more efficiently". 
All of us can identify with that description.


He also has a very bad case of impotency which leads to some very funny scenes. His wife is very anxious to have another baby. At one point his mother is talking about how she loves domestic violets even though they are not as pretty as wild violets. She says "the Greeks believed they symbolized fertility and potency, you know."


I could go on and on about his hatred of the corporate world but don't want to spoil it for anyone. Suffice to say, again, I loved it.