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What are you reading?

 
 
 
I saw The Wicked Wit of the Royal Family for 10c and thought it might be fun. It wasn't. Just about worth every cent.

Near the end of James Clavell's Taipan ($3 in the same place) and enjoying it. Not to the same extent as I remember being absorbed by his Shogun.
 
Our local library has a cart near the front door in which they give away free books. Most of them are crap, but some are gems.

I just picked up The Teachings of Buddha , which I have read before, but what made this book so interesting is that it is bilingual: The left page is in English, the right page in Japanese. It is a Japanese publisher.

Now I want to see if I can fire up my aging neurons to learn Japanese.

Also picked up from the cart The Aeneid, which I read in college, but not sure if I have the energy to reread it.

Once had The Canterbury Tales with the Middle English on the left page and the modern English on the right. Amazing differences, but the Middle English is still parsable. Wonder what English will look llike in another 700 years, assuming people are still around.

Once I was trying to teach myself Russian — never got that far — but I had Gogol’s The Nose (Hoc in Russian; no articles in Russian) with English on the left page and Russian on the right. I was able to slog through it without too much translation. Wish I had pursued this, but at the time I had no time.

Once I had a volume of Abraham Lincoln’s speeches published in 1865 (!) that I picked up from some obscure bookstore somewhere. Lost it in some move or other. :sadcheer: A beautiful little small, hardcover volume. Wish I still had it.
 
Just started How I Won A Nobel Prize by Julius Taranto.

University providing a sanctuary for all the rejects of woke society, provided they have a good brain.

I think I'm going to enjoy this.
 
I'm reading too many books at the same time to keep them all straight, but I did finish one last week. "Nonsense from the Bible" by Brian Baker. The author was a former Australian Pentecostal minister who began doubting his beliefs, studied the Bible in detail and realized it was all bullshit. I mentioned the book in another thread. It's a great, easy read. I just wish more Christians would read it to see how silly their beliefs are.

I might try to return to "The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals" today. I've read almost half of it which is pretty good for me. I also read a little bit of "Are we Smart Enough to know how Smart Animals are". yesterday. That's a book I read on and off now and then. ( No, we aren't smart enough to know how smart animals are imo )

For something light, short and funny, I've read "A Dog"s Guide to Humans" by Karen Davidson to the residents where I do volunteer work. It's a cute funny book for all ages imo.
 
I'm reading 'The Complete Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy'. 5+ books in one volume. From the library.
I read the first 4 books when they came out. Got them autographed by Adams when he spoke at UofR. He said "Oh, you have the British editions." I replied "I'm bilingual, I can read British." Got him to laugh. *
I have forgotten so much, it's like reading them for the first time. Most of what I do remember is voices and sights from the vids. And 'So Long, and Thanks For All The Fish' is completely new to me. There are 2 shorts at the end: 'Young Zaphod Plays It Safe' and 'Mostly Harmless' that I am looking forward to.

* Me and the UofR are in the US. The British editions were my second copies, bought at a convention, so unexpected.
 
I am reading the Aeneid. I recently finished the Emily Watson translations of the lliad and the Oddesy, both of which are excellent, so the Aeneid was next. This the Stanley Lombardo translation. I wanted a side by side translation, but that's much too expensive. I'm halfway through and this read is a slog compared to the Watson books. The fall of Troy was very good, but the narrative drags once Aeneas meets Dido in Carthage. I guess I can sum it up with, Virgil was good, but he's no Homer.
 
A biography of John Barrymore. The siblings father had a very very public meltdown. First, in a , he not only couldn't remember the lines, he couldn't even fake it..

Then, on stage in new york, he had a total public breakdown, going from complaining about an actors Union to complaining about "the great Jewish conspiracy" to literally declaring himself the Messiah, and one of his fellow actors as god. John had to end up committing him for the rest of his life, but as it turned out there was a physical cause for all of this. Syphilis. Still, it was a public collapse, and instead of being able to keep things quiet, everything short of the syphilis was splashed over the news pages. Fascinating stuff so far.
 
Bronzeage said:
I am reading the Aeneid. I recently finished the Emily Watson translations of the lliad and the Oddesy, both of which are excellent, so the Aeneid was next. This the Stanley Lombardo translation. I wanted a side by side translation, but that's much too expensive. I'm halfway through and this read is a slog compared to the Watson books. The fall of Troy was very good, but the narrative drags once Aeneas meets Dido in Carthage. I guess I can sum it up with, Virgil was good, but he's no Homer.
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I prefer the Robert Fitzgerald versions of Virgil and Homer. And Virgil wrote my favorite line in all poetry:

Quadrupedante putrem sonitu quatit ungula campum

If pronounced correctly, you can hear the horsies' hooves galloping.
 
It may have been a mistake to read Bill Bryson's Thunderbolt Kid at the same time as Herman Wouk's Inside, Outside.

They are similar enough in subject matter that I keep getting whiplash when I pick up the "other" one.
 
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