Whatcha reading?

[NeverMarryAStripper 21920]

Dog Stars is an awesome book. After I finished it I thought I’d check out his other books, but he really hasn’t written anything else.

 

[4th&Five 41586]

he has a few and a new one coming in march.

[NBMisha 224]

Just finished Identity, by Francis Fukuyama.   He is such a clear writer.  I had heard him referenced often over the years, figuring him for some obscure academic.  I'll need to look into him a bit more.

Anyway, its a look into the cultural evolution, over the centuries, of the current idea of social and political identity, and the uncertain implications. He ends up linking Trumpkins, Islamists, and Multiculturlists in the same basket.  Anyone left?  

Its a slim little volume one can consume in a cross country flight.

[happyfunball 481]

Supposedly a writer’s writer. Complex structure and enjoyed the first half. So preachy that I wanted to stab the writer by the end

 

[happyfunball 481]

Good, easy read on market timing through cycles

[happyfunball 481]

Just stared but John McPhee is recently my favorite author and this is the third book that I am reading of his. 

[demos 3004]

Finished this one today. It is fascinating and terrifying.

[Post Oak 20256]

Turns out I'm not as smart as I thought.

[demos 3004]

First book finished in 2019; bought it today, finished today:

Been reading A Peace to End All Peace and Buchan comes up a lot, so picked this up today. Quick, enjoyable read.

Also finished Stephen Walt's The Hell of Good Intentions right before New Years Eve.

[Post Oak 20256]

 

[thrillhammer 684]

On 12/11/2018 at 8:56 PM, happyfunball said:

Just stared but John McPhee is recently my favorite author and this is the third book that I am reading of his. 

I've read that one.  Great book.  Try Basin and Range too, if you haven't read it already.

[wild_turkey 3181]

All The Light We Cannot See

From the highly acclaimed, multiple award-winning Anthony Doerr, the stunningly beautiful instant New York Times bestseller about a blind French girl and a German boy whose paths collide in occupied France as both try to survive the devastation of World War II.

This was a masterpiece IMO. Highly recommended for anyone looking for a good work of fiction.

Edited January 11, 2019 by wild_turkey

[Longhorn94 2457]

Finished the Alchemist (loved it), then read Fahrenheit 451 (couldnt put it down), and now reading Meditations by Marcus Aurelius and The Call of the Wild by Jack London. 

[WBT 20652]

I'm only three chapters in but pretty good so far.

[Angry Gorilla 1769]

I toured the Dachau concentration camp over the summer, so the liberation story really interests me.  Also, the author is a relative of one of my best friend's wife.

[TwiceHorn 31529]

 

It's a mortgage/credit crisis travelogue of Iceland, Greece, Ireland, and Germany.  The always-entertaining Lewis attempts to correlate banking practices and bailouts post-2008 to national cultures.

[midtown 3348]

Just started.

Sent from my Pixel XL using Tapatalk

[demos 3004]

Finished this:

Very interesting stuff.

Also recently finished Kurds and Kurdistan by Arshak Safrastiuan and Deadly Class Vols 1 and 2.

[PittsburghTiger 6195]

Last weekend on the trip to Germany I took, and read, Treasure Island. It was a fun easy read. Good for travel.

[happyfunball 481]

Depressing but engaging. Gives perspective on life.

[happyfunball 481]

I enjoy all his book. Half way through and always engaging. Not sure why I bought this one though.

[midtown 3348]

Started today

Sent from my Pixel XL using Tapatalk

[TwiceHorn 31529]

Interesting, but the author insists upon himself.  Insistently.

[Continental Op 3934]

About 50 pages deep in Perfidia by James Ellroy.  

[Longhorn94 2457]

Finished Call of the Wild and then read Blood Meridian. I loved Call of the Wild. I am still trying to figure out if i loved Blood Meridian or not. It was a page turner no doubt and created some great scenes and at least one incredible character. I am going to think about it for a few and then decide. I'm thinking of staying with a western theme and reading the Son next.

[PittsburghTiger 6195]

Today started reading this:

The Memoirs of Field-Marshal Kesselring

by 

Albert Kesselring, 

 

Kenneth John Macksey (Introduction)

, 

James Holland (Foreword by)

 3.90  ·   Rating details ·  41 ratings  ·  8 reviews

Field Marshal Albert Kesselring was one of Germany’s most capable military strategists. Originally a Bavarian Army officer, he transferred to the Luftwaffe in 1935 and became Goering’s deputy, commanding air fleets during the invasion of France and the Battle of Britain. In 1941 he was appointed C-in-C South, sharing the direction of the North African campaign with Rommel. As C-in-C in Italy in 1943-1944 his brilliant defense of the peninsula became legendary. In 1945, after the Ardennes offensive failed, Kesselring replaced von Rundstedt as C-in-C West. In his memoirs Kesselring describes his military training, his service in World War I, his work in the Reichswehr, his role in the founding of the Luftwaffe, and all aspects of his command in World War II. Concluding with Kesselring’s account of his trial and imprisonment for war crimes, these memoirs give a full picture of the whole military experience of one of Germany’s great commanders.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/277638.The_Memoirs_of_Field_Marshal_Kesselring

[demos 3004]

Finished these over the weekend:

Not much to read in Polar; mostly just visuals. Also read Death of Stalin recently.

Edited February 12, 2019 by demos

[Longhorn94 2457]

19 hours ago, OatmealRaisinCookie said:

Blood Meridian is my favorite book.

interesting. please elaborate. why is it your favorite book? i ask because i am having difficulty getting over there were no characters the reader could identify with or even really cheer for or just plain like. every character was a horrific human being. and second, where is the story? the arc? the build up, the suspense? the final resolution? a moral or lesson? or even a point? it was a story about a bloody ride from little town to little town doing the same things over and over again while riding through the same dusty landscape over and over again. who was the villain? hero? its a pretty pointless story about a meaningless hunt for scalps that led nowhere. but.... it was beautifully written but in an overly complicated way at times and certainly painted the picture of what it was like on the plains of texas/mexico in the mid 1800s. im still not sure what to make of it. im wrestling with it and that probably is a good thing. but when the story ended, it just kind of ended flat. and the judge? i dont even know where to begin. i think i hate him but not sure what he even is cause clearly he isnt a mortal man.

[SimonBolivar 10958]

Felt like a fun read this week.

 

It fits the bill.

[Longhorn94 2457]

41 minutes ago, OatmealRaisinCookie said:

Technically, the writing is amazing. Like what is said about Mozart's music; it was precision and a chord perfectly struck: "Displace one note and there would be diminishment, displace one phrase and the structure would fall". The scenery, description, pacing-- everything people usually associate with expert cinematography-- resonates here but with the writing. The amazing picture of the plains in the mid-1800's you describe is only possible with the biblical syntax mixed with long, esoteric prose that is closer to Shakespearean English than 1800 American English. 

What was the story? What was the arc, etc? I think of this book as an excerpt from a larger epic-- a book of the bible or a story from the Ramanya. There have been comparisons by smarter critics than me, but I think the Paradise Lost comp's are apt, and my feel is that the Judge is the Devil and why man is in need of a savior-- which is the overall moral or lesson or point, as you asked.

Death Hilarious, indeed:

 

 

 

 

i appreciate your response but not sure i agree. and again, this is me wrestling with the book and trying to figure it out in my way. but i dont think i agree with you on the whole structure falling if you remove one word. i could edit the book down to about 100 pages. im exaggerating but my point remains. he described the same things over and over again and in the same way over and over again that i was often tempted to skip ahead but refused to do so. i felt at times his descriptions setting the scenes were heavy handed and often threw in complicated phrases or obscure words just for the heck of it. it often took me out of the story and back to the realization that i was reading a book. and when he would drone on and on about the dusty white trail blah blah blah, i often thought that his publisher must have requested more pages because surely he understands that we get it by now. and even in the quote you listed, one of the most amazing scenes in the whole book, i was so excited about the horde from hell but alas, they were defeated on the side of a volcano in a flash back story. it was very much a let down as i hoped to see them battle glanton's group head on. 

 

i dont disagree that the judge was similar to his villain in no country for old men in that he seemed to play evil itself than just a man. but as far as a comp to paradise lost, i dont see that at all. this was not a story of man's downfall or rising up or both or anything. it was a story about a kid who got in with a group who hunted scalps and got drunk until they died. but the kid disappears for 100s of pages at a time but then shows back up at the end. maybe i am just missing it. there was no moral conflict. there was really no conflict or tragedy or risk at all. i wasnt invested in anyone living, dying, succeeding, failing or just invested in anyone or thing. it was just a story without any investment. we were just riding along with a really bad group of people who did a bunch of really bad things to other people, some of those good and some bad, and there was nothing really risked or gained or rewarded or balanced in any particular outcome or venture. it was unlike any other book i have ever read. and thats probably why its confounding me. the fact i am so passionate about it probably means i really liked it but i just havent figured out how to express it yet. 

[drewcifer 33]

After slogging my way through 2/3 of White Noise over about a two-month period and putting it on indefinite hiatus, I've gotten back on a regular reading schedule. 

I continued last year's Christopher Moore kick with his debut novel, Practical Demonkeeping... easy enough read, and similar to the "Love Story" and "Grim Reaper" series, but not quite as good.

My reading challenge included a category for Pulitzer Prize winners so I opted for The Grapes of Wrath, which I think I was supposed to read in HS but not sure I actually did. I'm enjoying the prose  -  the lush descriptions and heavy vernacular - as well as how he intersperses the Joads' arc with more general storytelling, but my library holds started coming through last week so I'm temporarily putting it on hold to get caught up. 

Over the last two days I knocked out Gaiman's The Graveyard Book (the reading challenge also called for a YA novel) and may try to get through The Dog Stars, by Peter Heller, before I resume Grapes.

[Longhorn94 2457]

21 minutes ago, OatmealRaisinCookie said:

I suppose we will just have to agree to disagree, with respect to the structure of the book and how it was written. Did it take some getting used to? Sure. Just like it took some time to acquaint with the prose of Infinite Jest or A Clockwork Orange or any other work that deviates far from genre writing. Which I think gets to the heart of the matter technically. I enjoy reading and have done it for quite some time, I've also done a fair amount of study-- undergraduate creative writing 101 learning the basics of the discipline to post-graduate writing workshops within a cohort-- and I've been published over a dozen times in everything from university publications to literary journals to magazines to long form novel. I say all that not to provide any sort of bona fides as to why my opinion is cool and good (Many, many people on these book threads are way more talented and awesome and I don't even write anymore anyways), but to say that I think it's a matter of philosophy and possibly divergent tastes:

Genre fiction uses a lot of what your expectations were wanting; conflict on every page, high stakes, the "hero's journey", Jungian dynamics of redemption, someone easy to identify to root for, some evil to overcome, etc. Some can argue these things are used to manipulate the emotion rather than to create authentic feeling from the reader, in modern literature. There has been a lot of psychological study that show that these are indeed things that people yearn for in the myths and stories we tell each other and have since we've learned to tell stories.

Literary fiction still employs these things. Conflict, emotional investment, etc. But beyond just being a salable story that follows a subconscious and recognizable formula (e.g. the unsuspecting hero finds a mentor and learns the things needed to overcome the big bad antagonist even if tragedy befalls), literary fiction is a work of art. There are literary rules of course, but those rules can be broken if you can break them well. The work stirs, it creates, it emotes and ultimately it stands on it's own. It says something about the human condition or tries to express something from the writer's soul. It uses words and syntax and structure, but sometimes even the physical pages or fonts or letters/words themselves (there is a book on antiquity that goes the entire length without using the letter 'e', for example). 

That Blood Meridian employed long, verbose prose of esoteric language that makes you work like you are reading Shakespeare intermixed with the short and pithy biblical language, is purposeful. The focus on the description and the material, the overly detailed minutia in what appears to be a story without a meaningful point (as you described it) all helped to drive home the utterly ordinary and mortal qualities of everyone existing in that terrarium by highlighting the supernatural qualities of the Judge. Like I said, for me, the book feels as if it is a short story excerpt of larger canon (e.g. Jesus 40 days in the desert being tempted by the devil is an excerpt from the Bible, Ravana loses his head in the Ramanya, etc.) and the story crafted is one that shows why a fallen wicked people in a fallen wicked land are in need of salvation. The Judge is the Lord of Death and Destruction and rules the badlands where man is born to fight, drink whiskey in soulless oblivion until they die or get killed.

He's laughing, he's dancing, and man is being raped, killing or killed. That strikes the human heart as fearsome because it's a certainty (where as Anton Chigruh in the much inferior "book" is more evil chaos than any sort of harbinger of evil certainty).

i don't disagree with anything you wrote other than "the story crafted is one that shows why a fallen wicked people...are in need of salvation." does it show that? does it even suggest that anyone there needs saving? i am more of the belief that it shows that when left to its own devices, man is wicked and evil and cruel and then dies. if he was setting out to write a work of art, i think he accomplished his goal. some of the scenes painted were some of the more memorable i have ever read. the story was brought to life without any doubt. Thank you for the discussion.

[Longhorn94 2457]

6 minutes ago, OatmealRaisinCookie said:

As you said-- the emotions and thoughts; the electricity and blood flow and synapses firing and all of that, created in you some feelings and ideas and at the end of the day, isn't that what art is meant to do?

I've not read the Harold Bloom stuff or the companions you can buy for this book to hear what other people think about this work (McCarthy himself has not expounded), so my interpretation and opinion and feeling is mine alone. And really we aren't so far apart-- I agree with you that "left to its own devices, man is wicked and evil and cruel and then dies", I just extend upon that thought with the step further that, being as that is the case, then we see that man cannot do for himself (especially when supernatural evil exists among them as literal boots on the street next to them), and thus...man is in need of saving.

there is no doubt it inspired emotion, thought, and reaction. 

next up is Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises and then The Son.

[Longhorn94 2457]

14 minutes ago, OatmealRaisinCookie said:

How old are you?

interesting question. Why do you ask?

Edited February 13, 2019 by Longhorn94

[usmc0331horn 964]

I'm starting Parkland by Dave Cullen, who wrote a fantastic book on Columbine. Gotta love multiple school shootings being written about by the same journalist/author but here we are.

[Longhorn94 2457]

20 hours ago, OatmealRaisinCookie said:

Just curious. Have you ever seen the movie Birdman? When the girl asks Ed Norton's character what he would do with her? And he responds.. "I'd rip your eyeballs out of your eyesockets..............[she's annoyed/disgusted].....then put them in my eye sockets, so i can see this street again like I did when I was your age."

I'm just saying, your first time reading Blood Meridian and now The Sun Also Rises which was a book that stirred within me thoughts and even a life, I didn't know I could have. Other books, too, but these especially and these you mentioned, I'm just curious at what age, what season of life you are walking in that this is where you are for the first time. I'm guessing mid-20's.

Gotcha. I am catching up on the classics that I never read for whatever reason. I have always been a big reader but i somehow missed a lot of the greats. I am in my early 40s but  am making up for my misses now. 

[hobbs 243]

On 2/11/2019 at 3:14 PM, Longhorn94 said:

Finished Call of the Wild and then read Blood Meridian. I loved Call of the Wild. I am still trying to figure out if i loved Blood Meridian or not. It was a page turner no doubt and created some great scenes and at least one incredible character. I am going to think about it for a few and then decide. I'm thinking of staying with a western theme and reading the Son next.

The Son was really good.  Went on a Western binge recently and it was one of the best I read, along with The Sisters Brothers and Butcher's Crossing.

Edited February 14, 2019 by hobbs

[MillerEP 30494]

I've been reading the entire "The Last Kingdom/Saxon Stories" series. It's 11 books long now, and I just finished Book 9. Highly recommended for anybody who likes Historical Fiction and/or the Netflix series.

[Hornstrader 179]

1 hour ago, MillerEP said:

I've been reading the entire "The Last Kingdom/Saxon Stories" series. It's 11 books long now, and I just finished Book 9. Highly recommended for anybody who likes Historical Fiction and/or the Netflix series.

I felt like the story got a bit repetitive in some of the early books but overall I have really enjoyed this series as well. The 1st 3 seasons of the BBC/Netflix series have done a good job of adapting the books. 

[Red Five 40881]

[happyfunball 481]

How is it? Curious to hear your take.
After having read both Portnoy's Complaint and American Pastoral (and his interview before his death last year and seen the The Wife which Stephen Pryce based his performance on Roth), I'm just kinda "meh" on Roth as a masterful writerly legend. He's more an icon, but his work I can give or take.
 

Good but wouldn’t seek it out if you have already read other novels by Roth. The perspective on life is unique but again not something I would recommend unless someone has a real desire to read in this genre or author.

Good book overall but not worth time if there are other books on your to read list.

[Rimbo 26051]

The Mongol Empire: Its Rise and Legacy by Michael Prawdin. This scene, almost verbatim, is on page 60:

 

 

 

 

[kevwun 15854]

I've started A History of the Arab Peoples.  It's a bit dry so far.  I'm hoping it gets better.

[wild_turkey 3181]

A Gentleman in Moscow

It took me a little bit to get into it, but I really enjoyed it by the end.

Edited February 25, 2019 by wild_turkey

[Bogeywon 2519]

I drive a lot for my job so I listen to audio books.  I need a new one any suggestions?

love music WWII books

[CDAK 216]

On 2/19/2019 at 2:39 PM, kevwun said:

I've started A History of the Arab Peoples.  It's a bit dry so far.  I'm hoping it gets better.

You could try some Arab fiction.  I'm reading The Televangelist by Ibrahim Essa right now.  I think it's my first foray into Arab fiction.  I'm about halfway through and am really enjoying it.  It's about a popular sheikh in Cairo with a television show (hence the title) who gets involved in two government issues, one of which is a young man connected to the President's son through marriage who attempts to convert to Christianity (Coptic Orthodox).  The author delves succinctly and interestingly into a lot of Arab and Egyptian history, particularly religious history.  It's assuredly not a replacement for a lengthy history of the Arab people, but it's a good read and I recommend it.

[Rimbo 26051]

On 2/19/2019 at 2:39 PM, kevwun said:

I've started A History of the Arab Peoples.  It's a bit dry so far.  I'm hoping it gets better.

boooooooooooooooooo

[SimonBolivar 10958]

1 hour ago, Bogeywon said:

I drive a lot for my job so I listen to audio books.  I need a new one any suggestions?

love music WWII books

Not WWII, but The Looming Tower by Lawrence Wright (and read by the author) is a great audiobook. 

[SimonBolivar 10958]

 

Because I've never read it.

[TexasMan 10963]

Never got around to reading this. Good time now that it’s the off-season.