A Week of Bookish Memes on Thursday

This week's Musings Monday question:

Do you have a set reading time (before bed, perhaps)? Do you read more at night or during the day? Is there a day of the week, perhaps, that you set aside to catch up on reading?

June gloom has settled in this week. The sky is covered in gray clouds and the sun is no where to be seen. The week is nearly over. My week of vacation. I had planned to schedule more reading time in, but it did not work out so well. There was company to entertain, errands to run, household chores that couldn't be put off any longer, movies to watch, and all the other stuff that comes up; and, while you would think spraining my ankle (yes, again) would keep me down, not a chance (maybe that's why I'm in this predicament, perhaps?).

I have been fitting in reading time before I drift off to sleep at least. Though, only once this week has my husband had to pry my book from underneath me, save my place and set my book aside. One of my favorite times to read is right before bed, actually. I like to curl up under the covers and read a bit before I can no longer keep my eyes open. My dog settles in for the night in his bed and the cats curl up on mine. It's such a peaceful time. Sometimes my husband will join us and read in bed too, but more often than not, he is still at his computer, typing away.

The weekends trump bedtime reading. If I can swing it, I can sit for hours reading, stretched out on the couch or sometimes even on top of my bed. More often than not though, I snatch an hour or two here and there, in between whatever else I have going.

I also read during my half hour lunch breaks at the work. My staff have gotten into the habit of asking me each day where I am headed. They don't mean the breakroom or my car or even an empty cubicle where no one can find me. No, they want to know what adventure my book will take me on that day.

It is not unusual to find me sneaking a moment with my book here and there: while waiting in line or for an appointment, for example. These moments aren't nearly as fulfilling, but they are rewarding in their own way.

When all is said and done, I never feel as if I have enough time to read. An extra few hours in the day just for reading would be nice. Hours without the distraction of computers and such, included.

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Hosted by MizB Should Be Reading

A little tease from where I was:

When Lilia was very young the entire world seemed composed of motel rooms, strung like an archipelago across the continental United States. Island life was fast and transient, all cars and motel rooms and roadside diners, trading used cars at sketchy lots on the edges of places, long rides down highways in the sunlight, in the rain, talking to waitresses who thought she was too young for coffee, nights spent under the scratchy sheets of cheap roadside motels, messages written secretly in motel-room Bibles. I don't want to be found.
[pg 91, Last Night in Montreal by Emily St. John Mandel, ARC]

A little tease from where I am:

He took my jaw in his hand, and I jerked away. But his hands were firm, and he turned me back, ran a thumb over my broken lip and the other ropy scars, and told me I was the prettiest girl he'd ever seen. I called him a lying dog.
[pg 91, Sweeping Up Glass by Carolyn Wall, ARE]

A little tease from where I will be:

Every time Club Kids showed up on TV, new young converts from middle America would be inspired to run away to New York to join them. Alig let them believe that in his world, they could become freakish superheroes. It was liberating and boundless.
[pg 88, Chemical Cowboys: The DEA's Secret Mission to Hunt Down A Notorious Ecstasy Kingpin by Lisa Sweetingham]

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Hosted by Jill of Breaking the Spine

This book caught my attention as I was catching up on my BookBrowse recommendations.

Brodeck by Philippe Claudel
Translated by John Cullen
Release Date: June 23, 2009

Book Description: Forced into a brutal concentration camp during a great war, Brodeck returns to his village at the war's end and takes up his old job of writing reports for a governmental bureau. One day a stranger comes to live in the village. His odd manner and habits arouse suspicions: His speech is formal, he takes long, solitary walks, and although he is unfailingly friendly and polite, he reveals nothing about himself. When the stranger produces drawings of the village and its inhabitants that are both unflattering and insightful, the villagers murder him. The authorities who witnessed the killing tell Brodeck to write a report that is essentially a whitewash of the incident.

As Brodeck writes the official account, he sets down his version of the truth in a separate, parallel narrative. In measured, evocative prose, he weaves into the story of the stranger his own painful history and the dark secrets the villagers have vigilantly keep hidden.

Set in an unnamed time and place, Brodeck blends the familiar and unfamiliar, myth and history into a work of extraordinary power and resonance. Readers of J. M. Coetzee’s Disgrace, Bernhard Schlink's The Reader and Kafka will be captivated by Brodeck.

What's your "waiting on" pick this week?

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There are certain types of books that I more or less assume all readers read. (Novels, for example.)

But then there are books that only YOU read. Instructional manuals for fly-fishing. How-to books for spinning yarn. How to cook the perfect souffle. Rebuilding car engines in three easy steps. Dog training for dummies. Rewiring your house without electrocuting yourself. Tips on how to build a NASCAR course in your backyard. Stuff like that.

What niche books do YOU read?

At first thought, my response is that I do not read niche books, not of the variety the questioner refers to. While I focus mostly on fiction, I read such a wide variety that there is no particular area that stands out for me more than another. I read an awful lot of crime fiction. Perhaps that could be considered a niche. But I also really enjoy reading fantasy of just about every kind. I read and enjoy quite a bit of general and literary fiction as well. The classics and the contempories. Historical time periods: I am especially interested in the World War II era, but I am also interested in other historical time periods too as well as other wars. And locations. Anything overseas. I love to learn about other cultures and people. I also enjoy reading about books set in my own backyard. I enjoy reading series books and non-series books, genre and non-genre. I read a variety of nonfiction when I do read it, although I suppose you could say that my niche in nonfiction is human interest stories--and those come in a variety of forms. That's not so unusual though, is it? When all is said and done, I am just your average reader with no out of the ordinary reading tastes and interests.

Although, I do occasionally pull down the pet medical advice book when I am looking for a specific answer to a question. And I sometimes will read professional journals related my line of work, but not very often (terrible, I know). Does that count?