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What are you reading?

I am reading Foundation prior to giving it away. Probably last read it 50 years ago. It was published in '53.

It's still brilliant, but had to notice that the only female presence was "wives and children" and the first specific reference to a woman was "his mother" on page 106.

I know Azimov grew up with the rest of us, after the 50s, but it really stands out now.
 
spikepipsqueak said:
I am reading Foundation prior to giving it away. Probably last read it 50 years ago. It was published in '53.

It's still brilliant, but had to notice that the only female presence was "wives and children" and the first specific reference to a woman was "his mother" on page 106.

I know Azimov grew up with the rest of us, after the 50s, but it really stands out now.
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I acknowledge the social differences since Asimov authored this series, but I still enjoy reading them. I think sometimes we place too much emphasis on societal changes displayed in literature and think less of books which reflect former status quo mores instead of just enjoying the good writing.

My current read is the newest Jana DeLeon Miss Fortune book - Marsh Mystics. Pure froth and fun, nothing serious about it at all. I have purchased every book in this series at full price except the first one which was a Kindle freebie, and it is rare that I do that for any series. But every book in this series makes me laugh and lightens my mood.

Ruth
 
I'll keep an eye out for that series.

Asimov created Susan Calvin. He was writing this in the 50s when the prevailing view in his country was the one in that book. I wasn't criticising him ,I was laughing at how noticable it is, now.

I'm on page 163. No woman has yet been named, though somebody's daughter has been mentioned as a probable rape victim. I am aware of the debt I owe to women in the 60s. Never been quite so aware of it.

When I read these the first, and subsequent times, I don't remember noticing.
 
spikepipsqueak said:
Was it well realised for the screen?
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It was a great series.

As far as the book goes, I'm only up to where he is kidnapped and sent to the lab in the alternate world...which, so far, relates quite well.

I twigged at the point where he goes to the pub, leaving his family at home, brilliant at physics, told he had not realized his full potential.

The series is well worth watching.
 
One Writer's Beginnings (1983) by Eudora Welty
This gemlike (104 pp.) memoir is composed of three lectures Welty gave about her early years. She carefully curates the details she wishes to share about her family and her beginning as a writer of short stories.
Here are three quotations that show her at her best.
Here she describes a visit to the well at her grandmother's house, in West Virginia:
"It took the mountain top, it seems to me now, to give me the sensation of independence. It was as if I'd discovered something I'd never tasted before in my short life. Or rediscovered it -- for I associated it with the taste of the water that came out of the well, accompanied with the ring of that long metal sleeve against the sides of the living mountain, as from deep down it was wound up to view brimming and streaming long drops behind it like bright stars on a ribbon. It thrilled me to drink from the common dipper. The coldness, the far, unseen, unheard springs of what was in my mouth now, the iron strength of its flavor that drew my cheeks in, its fern-laced smell, all said mountain mountain mountain as I swallowed."
(I cannot decide what she meant by 'long metal sleeve'. At first I wondered, is she talking about the well shaft itself? But would that be lined with metal? Is she describing the dipper, or some implement connected to the dipper? I love the passage even though her wording at that point baffles me.)
A few pages later:
"It seems likely to me now that the very element in my character that took possession of me there on top of the mountain, the fierce independence that was suddenly mine, to remain inside me no matter how it scared me when I tumbled, was an inheritance. Indeed it was my chief inheritance from my mother, who was braver. Yet, while she knew that independent spirit so well, it was what she so agonizingly tried to protect me from, in effect to warn me against. It was what we shared, it made the strongest bond between us and the strongest tension. To grow up is to fight for it, to grow old is to lose it after having possessed it. For her, too, it was most deeply connected to the mountain."
(Whew!! That sentence starting with "To grow..." packs so much into 19 words.)
At the end of the book:
"Of course the greatest confluence of all is that which makes up the human memory -- the individual human memory. My own is the treasure most dearly regarded by me, in my life and in my work as a writer. Here time, also, is subject to confluence. The memory is a living thing -- it too is in transit. But during its moment, all that is remembered joins, and lives --- the old and the young, the past and the present, the living and the dead."
 
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About that 'long metal sleeve' quote: a little internet digging shows me that some old water wells used long metal cylinders -- still called 'buckets' -- to retrieve the water. They are made of galvanized steel. The Amish make and use these today. That's probably what Welty remembered.
 
Has anyone ever read other novels by George Orwell? I highly recommend "Coming up for Air" (a bored middle aged man visits his childhood home in the days leading up to WWII), "Burmese Days" ( semi-fictional view of the latter end of colonial occupation in India) and "Homage to Catalonia" (1938 memoir about Orwell's experiences fighting in the Spanish Civil War for the POUM militia against the Fascists.) Homage to Catalonia is unexpected - and interestingly why Orwell died so young (he was shot in the neck).
 
I have three Blake Crouch novels but haven't started them. Going to as soon as I finish my current read.
 
Finished Stalingrad by Vassily Grossman - a fictionalized account of the attack and siege of Stalingrad written by a Soviet journalist who witnesses the event. This panaromic epic follows the lives of Soviet civilians and soldiers, along with German civlians and soldiers. It has been compare to War and Peace in scope. It is very well-written (at least the English translation). IMO, it portrays the solidarity, resistance, affection, cynicism, heroism, stoicism, loyalty and patriotism of the Russian people. Many of the characters are truly compelling. The Shaposhnikov family and their friends are the center of the story, but there are so many people, it is hard to keep track. I don't come across this often, but some of the scenes and passages were so moving that they brough tears to my eyes.

Some of the characters are fierce communists, others are simply patriots. But the pride they have in their work and country shines through every page. While you might think this is a puff propaganda piece, the author had to fight censors for years to get it published.

The size of the book is daunting (961 pages of text plus endnotes), but I found it well worth the time and effort. The second part of the story - Life and Fate is also long (850+ pages).

Since I try to alternate nonfiction with fiction, I am taking a break from the siege of Stalingrad for a memoir - Waiting for Snow in Havana by Carlos Eire about a young boy's life in Havana in the the late 1950s and early 1960s.
 
I finally started reading, "The Origins of Cool". It's very interesting that the concept of modern cool was started in the 1920s primarily by a few jazz musicians. They were black guys who had to pretend they were something they weren't just to please their white audiences. There are a lot of things in the book that indirectly teach one about the extreme racism during the early decades of the 20th Century.

The book goes into a lot of detail about Lester. Young, and though I have a huge collection of jazz, I couldn't find any of his music, so I ordered an album of his stuff. The guy was really cool. In fact, some claims are made that he was the creator of modern cool. He often spoke in Black slang and even created a lot of Balck slang. Anyway, I've only read a few chapters, but it's pretty "cool". :cool:
 
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