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What are you reading?

 
 
 
After finally finishing a book that I really enjoyed, "Gender through the eyes of a Primatologist", a couple of months ago, I'm still reading, "And there was Light", an interesting read about the Lincoln era. It goes into extreme detail as to the many facets of Lincoln as well as a lot of other things that happened before, during and I assume after then Civil War. It's a long book that I only read at night, so at the rate I'm going, I'll be finished by the end of the year. It's amazing how much research Meacham did for this book.

And, in addition to a few others that I read on and off, I started one called, "White Trash" by Nancy Isenburg. It goes into detail as to how Europe's elitists, more or less made indentured servants out of huge numbers of white people who they considered worthless. They used and exploited them for a variety or things. So, after reading numerous books about racism, and the exploitation of Black people, it's time to get a better understand about the history and exploitation of poor white people.

The author is trying to explain how a lot of the Trump cult was created, out of their feeling of worthlessness, that they at least partly blame on liberal elites who have a lot of influence and control over things. I haven't read enough of it yet to have a good opinion, but that seems to be her goal. The book was written shortly after Trump won in 2016.
 
A compilation of Judith Merril;s short stories, prompted by an excellent anthology of early science fiction written by women, The Future Is Female. There's a spectacular story in that one called the Conquest of Gola, but a forgotten author named Leslie F. Stone who quite honestly sounds awesome.

Rob
 
The first Cylinder - Joseph Dougherty.

The War of the Worlds from the Martian perspective. An invasion planned by a committee, hilarious.

''The tale has become part of our cultural memory, but Wells didn' t tell the whole story. He never gave us the Martian side of the conflict. Now, Joseph Dougherty, the Emmy-winning writer who combined Raymond Chandler and H. P. Lovecraft to create the cult movie Cast a Deadly Spell, reports on the invasion of Earth from an up-close-and-personal Martian point of view.''
 
Miles Davis: The Definitive Biography - Ian Carr

The Sociology of Norbert Elias - Steven Loyal

Underground Empire: How America Weaponized the World Economy - Henry Farrell
 
The Solid Form of Language - Robert Bringhurst

Stages of Meditation - Dalai Lama

Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind - Shunryu Suzuki
 
I am reading a book of Irish short stories.

Everybody needs to read The Majesty of the Law. By Frank O'Connor. If the world ran its affairs on those principles it would be a much better place.
 
You convinced me to pull O'Connor's Collected Stories off the shelf -- I'll get to Majesty soon. He wrote wonderfully. I see by my check marks on the ToC that I only read 8 of the stories, leaving me dozens to explore. The one I read years ago that got me started on O'Connor was My Oedipus Complex, a warm and comic story that left me with a most pleasant impression of communing with the author and understanding his deep humnanistic impulses. O'Connor did for Eire what Bashevis Singer did for old time Poland.
 
Thank you.

I will track down more of his stuff.

The book I'm reading is a multi author compilation. I'm starting to suspect that the Irish are weirder but more civilised than the rest of us.
 
spikepipsqueak said:
Thank you.

I will track down more of his stuff.

The book I'm reading is a multi author compilation. I'm starting to suspect that the Irish are weirder but more civilised than the rest of us.
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That was my experience when travelling in Ireland.

I suspect that centuries of being declared stupid by the English is part of the reason. Irish people seem to make far more effort than most to be educated and well informed on a wide variety of subjects.

When I was there, there was a scandal concerning the funding of a new sports stadium in Dublin, and I heard a talk radio show that had listeners calling in with their opinions. Literally every single one seemed to have a solid grasp of the facts, and a respectful (if forceful) opinion on what should be done. I have never heard such a thing on talkback radio anywhere else.

Irish drivers are polite to the point of completely disregarding the road rules in their efforts not to impede each other, which takes a lot of getting used to, but is very relaxing once you do.
 
Sebastien Roch by Octave Mirbeau, translated by Nicoletta Simborowski. 266 pages

Before reading this amazing novel from 1890, I thought Great Expectations had the best depiction of boyhood and adolescence in 19th Century lit. Now, I'm not sure. Mirbeau's title character has at least tied Dickens in depicting a boy's inner life. The story tells of Sebastien, son of a bourgeois tradesman, being sent to a boarding school run by Jesuits. There his spirit is mauled, first by the rejection of his peers, and later by a sexually predatory priest.
Simborowski's translation is beautiful; I can only guess at how powerful Mirbeau's prose is in the original. The subject matter is brutal. How did this get published in a Catholic country 130 years ago? I have googled book and author but have so far not discovered if there was outrage from critics and clergy, or attempts to suppress the book.
It is a tough read in its depiction of the ill-treatment of Sebastien, but it is also filled with lovely descriptions of the boy's aesthetic appreciation of nature and the arts. If the book has a weak aspect, it is in Part II, the last 80 pages, which jumps ahead to chronicle Sebastien's life at age 20. This section seemed like a tag-on that diluted the book's power. I also had reservations about the ending Mirbeau chose.
The book should be better known. I read about it a few years ago and just this month decided to read my copy.
 
Mediancat said:
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.

Really.

Rob
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I own the 3-volume version from Modern Library. Is that what you have? I've only dipped into it as a resource, when, for instance, some event from Empire times is described in a book I'm reading. Are you far in? I've heard that Gibbon is worth reading for his style alone. Are you finding this true? Pretty amazing that the work is now about 250 years old and still being read.
Are you reading the complete version -- and how much of a time commitment do you think it involves? (It's one of those works like In Search of Lost Time that I dread starting, because I think it will take months to complete.)
 
I have an edition that is comprised of all the bits about Christianity exclusively. Makes for an interesting abridgement.
 
I own that version; I was fortunate enough to pick it up from a book sale for $2 per volume. One of the best bargains I ever got.

I'm about halfway through the first volume -- close ot the end of gibbon's original first book. It involves a significant time commitment, and I read quickly. It's not difficult to read, but it is densely packed with information.

Rob
 
The Forth Wing

High fantasy: dragons and such. Plus romance, far too much romance.

It starts out cute, engaging, fun. A young woman has trained to be a scribe, but is suddenly thrust into a combat role. She has to learn to ride dragons in battle. Think of the first Harry Potter book, or the first Stephanie Plum book: young person schooling in difficult new skills.

The romance is unintentionally humorous at first. Oh, the curve of his lip. Oh, the "bump of his nose." Oh, the chiseled features. How she breaths, and her heart beats, and just on and on for pages.

But then we come back to the engaging story, so it was okay.

But eventually, the romance scenes just got too long. I started skipping ahead.

And then came the battle scene. Worse than the sex stuff, the battle seemed interminable. It wasn't too clear what was happening. Description was lacking; the opposing beasts were called wyverns, but we never did find out what they were like in this universe.

There was something weird about the enemy people's eyes. You could see that they were bloodshot no matter how far away you were. Imagine flying over a town and noticing that some of the people in the town have bloodshot eyes. That needs explaining. Is there something magical about the bloodshottedness? Or is the author just not paying attention to point of view? I'm guessing the latter.

Then there was the overwrought death scene. Imagine a chaotic battle that could go one way or the other, just desperate, and when one of our team members is mortally injured, several of us gather around for a painfully long series of expressions of love and trust and regret and revelation of plot points and so on, while the desperate battle rages around them.

By the end, I was disgusted.
 
Notes from a Small Island by Bill Bryson (1995)
Bryson has become one of my favorite writers based on this book, the first of his that I've read. It's his description of a seven week tour of England, Wales and Scotland, told with great humor. Bryson is American by birth but now has dual citizenship. He loves the Brits, their slang, their pubs, their temperament, their little villages, the whole panorama. To give you an example of Bryson's style and wit:
"The towns along the way all had names that sounded like a cat bringing up a hairball: Llywyngwril, Morfa Mawddach, Llandecwyn, Dyffryn Ardudwy." Here's another:
"The colonels were all shortish, round men with tweedy jackets, well-slicked silvery hair, an outwardly gruff manner that concealed within a heart of flint, and, when they walked, a rakish limp. Their wives, lavishly rouged and powdered, looked as if they had just come from a coffin fitting."
Wonderful stuff. I didn't want the book to end.
 
ideologyhunter said:
Notes from a Small Island by Bill Bryson (1995)
Bryson has become one of my favorite writers based on this book, the first of his that I've read. It's his description of a seven week tour of England, Wales and Scotland, told with great humor. Bryson is American by birth but now has dual citizenship. He loves the Brits, their slang, their pubs, their temperament, their little villages, the whole panorama. To give you an example of Bryson's style and wit:
"The towns along the way all had names that sounded like a cat bringing up a hairball: Llywyngwril, Morfa Mawddach, Llandecwyn, Dyffryn Ardudwy." Here's another:
"The colonels were all shortish, round men with tweedy jackets, well-slicked silvery hair, an outwardly gruff manner that concealed within a heart of flint, and, when they walked, a rakish limp. Their wives, lavishly rouged and powdered, looked as if they had just come from a coffin fitting."
Wonderful stuff. I didn't want the book to end.
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I read A Walk In the Woods some years back. It's well written and entertaining. I just noticed there is also a movie that looks a bit fluffy. I'll have to watch it just the same.
The book reminded me of the first time I went hiking. A friend and I both read the same book on backpacking and building a lean-to to sleep under and that was all we needed or so we thought. We went to Seven Springs, PA. Boy, does it get cold there at night.
 
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