What Are We Currently Reading?

[JustHereForFood]

I finished reading On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century by Timothy Snyder. For those who don't know, he's a historian who specializes in Eastern and Central Europe and he wrote this book after the 2016 US election, mentioning parallels between the political situation today and back in the 1920's, 30's and 40's in Europe.

I know how it looks, but I actually bought the book a while ago and started reading it before I knew how much it would be relevant again. But it certainly resonated a lot right now. Honestly, I would recommend this book as a required reading in schools in every country that wishes to remain democratic. It's not just a problem in the US, so many countries in Europe are having a crisis of democracy and honestly, It's even more shameful for us, since we went through all of that really not that long ago. One would think that humanity is at a stage when we are able to learn from our own history, but sadly it looks like we are still so damn stupid.

That being said, the book is not really that depressing. The author gives us tips what to do to keep our integrity and stand against tyranny, even as regular people. Small things, like being kind to people, donate to what we believe in, support independent journalism, etc. If I have any complaint, it's how short it is, just around 100 pages.

I've already started his new book, On Freedom, which is quite longer, we'll see if I like it just as much.

[sugarbaker design]

13 hours ago, JustHereForFood said:

I finished reading On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century by Timothy Snyder.

I got this a Xmas gift from my bro in 2017.  It's one of my favorite non-fiction books, I dare not lend it out.

I've been taking a leave of news-related podcasts for my mental health.  I recently discovered, after years of subscribing to Spotify, that audiobooks are available (Duh!).  I've only really listened to books that I've already read.  I'm looking for that comfort factor.  Since election day I've listened to Bel Canto, and I'm halfway through Death In Holy Orders by PD James.  It's been a godsend.

[Rushmoras]

I'm almost at the end of James Clavell's Tai-Pan.

Spoiler

Right now, the heroes of the story are facing a typhoon.

Overall, I like it less than Shogun, primarily because it seems that it's more drama than action. Struan is all talk, but when push comes to shove nothing happens or his enemies are dispatched off screen by other forces.

Spoiler

Like, I have yet to read the battle against Vu Kvok pirates, but it seems that he's been dealt with off screen, and there's only like 30 or so pages left to the entire story.

 

[Zella]

I started Ruth Downie's Gaius Petreius Ruso series and have been enjoying it. The books are murder mysteries set in Roman Britain and feature a legion's doctor as the sleuth. They're surprisingly funny. 

Also been reading about the Borgias. First Christopher Hibbert's The Borgias and Their Enemies, which was fun, and now Paul Strathern'sThe Borgias: Power and Fortune. It's a more substantial history. Also have both their books on the Medicis and contemplating reading those next.

Also debating whether I want to read all the Ruso books now or reread Frank Tallis's Viennese murder mysteries because I am rewatching Vienna Blood. LOL 

Edited November 20 by Zella

[Bookish Jen]

I'm finishing up "The Nutcracker Chronicles: A Fairytale Memoir" by Janine Kovac. I was able to interview Ms. Kovac for my blog and she sent me an advanced copy of her book to review for my blog. It's about her life as a ballet dancer and her involvement with the iconic Nutcracker ballet. She also connects this with her life as a girl, growing up, marriage, raising children, and working outside of the world of dance. I really like it. It's very charming.

 

 

 

[grommit2]

Lucky Loser by Buettner and Craig (both won Pulitzers for other works). The title is poorly chosen.  But, the book is the best so far about the Trump family business successes and failures. Thorough description of the elder Trump's successes as a developer. And then we get into the myriad Donald projects. Say what you want, but the guy was a significant player in various businesses, not just as a builder, but also as an entrepreneur.

[Rushmoras]

Started re-reading J. R. R. Tolkien's Hobbit: There and Back Again, the last time which I've read was probably in middle school, so more than twenty years ago. The first chapter, of course, talks about how Bilbo Baggins consented to an adventure -

Spoiler

journeying to the Mountain with thirteen dwarfs in order to figure out a way on how to break-in to the Mountain, steal back the treasures from the dragon, and kill the dragon in the process.

Um, rereading this as an adult - man, Gandalf is an asshole:

Spoiler

the dude comes out of nowhere, acts snarky to Bilbo for saying good morning to him, then carves a symbol on Bilbo's door for the dwarves to believe that Bilbo is a master thief, and the next day - all thirteen of them unannounced barges in, demands to be wined and dined, and then ropes the poor sucker in to an adventure.

But Bilbo is no better,

Spoiler

after hearing what the dwarfs think of him, he tries his best to make them believe that he can do his job even though he clearly does not want to. 

Though, it is interesting to read that not all of Hobbits are (were) pacifistic lazy type of persons -

Spoiler

one of them killed themselves a goblin in some local hill type war.

 

[Anduin]

Yep, Gandalf really seems to have 'the ends justify the means' attitude. 'Let's uproot his whole life and send him into dangers he doesn't even understand.' What makes it worse is that he's right! Bilbo's actions do lead to Smaug's death, a stable situation, and denying Sauron a resource for the upcoming fight. Yeah, Tolkien retconned that that was Gandalf's goal all along.

Though Corey Olsen, the Tolkien Professor, once said that the unspoken joke of the Hobbit is that Bilbo is too polite not to agree to these strangers turning up on his doorstep, and furthermore not going on adventures. If he'd just had more strength of will at the start, the whole book wouldn't have happened.

[Spartan Girl]

Read Cher’s memoir. Whew, her family backstory is a lot. Compared to her mother’s tumultuous love life, her own doesn’t seem as dysfunctional—and hers was pretty dysfunctional. Already can’t wait for part 2!

[Cloud9Shopper]

Currently reading Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell. I’m well out of the age demographic for the book (it’s a young adult novel), but I’ve written fanfic and gotten caught up in the fandom world and the good and bad of it, so I wanted to check it out. The author does a good job of worldbuilding and describing the college setting, and the main character’s anxiety and neuroses hit hard and are vivid at first, but the story is a little cringe in parts. Like the MC reads her fanfic to her love interest. At first I was like oh this is so sweet; he supports her passion, but it was cringe the longer it went on. She also reads to him when he doesn’t read The Outsiders in time for a class quiz, but it comes off as really infantilizing that she is reading to this kid like he’s a toddler and then they end up sleeping together. It makes no sense.

Then she is upset on Christmas and feels tearful and defensive when her sister doesn’t get her fandom related shirts. The author kind of drops that and we don’t know why it bothered the MC so much to not get fandom shirts. It made her look selfish and a bit unhinged for an 18 year old. It’s not really the look at someone engrossed in the fandom world and how she tries to move past it and branch out with her writing and life experiences that I was hoping for.

I’ll probably finish the book, though. Aside from the fandom stuff there is a good subplot about her family life and her twin sister’s eagerness to be a whole new woman in college, which is more interesting to me than someone who keeps retreating into the fanfic world. 

[Zella]

1 hour ago, Cloud9Shopper said:

Currently reading Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell. I’m well out of the age demographic for the book (it’s a young adult novel), but I’ve written fanfic and gotten caught up in the fandom world and the good and bad of it, so I wanted to check it out. The author does a good job of worldbuilding and describing the college setting, and the main character’s anxiety and neuroses hit hard and are vivid at first, but the story is a little cringe in parts. Like the MC reads her fanfic to her love interest. At first I was like oh this is so sweet; he supports her passion, but it was cringe the longer it went on. She also reads to him when he doesn’t read The Outsiders in time for a class quiz, but it comes off as really infantilizing that she is reading to this kid like he’s a toddler and then they end up sleeping together. It makes no sense.

Then she is upset on Christmas and feels tearful and defensive when her sister doesn’t get her fandom related shirts. The author kind of drops that and we don’t know why it bothered the MC so much to not get fandom shirts. It made her look selfish and a bit unhinged for an 18 year old. It’s not really the look at someone engrossed in the fandom world and how she tries to move past it and branch out with her writing and life experiences that I was hoping for.

I’ll probably finish the book, though. Aside from the fandom stuff there is a good subplot about her family life and her twin sister’s eagerness to be a whole new woman in college, which is more interesting to me than someone who keeps retreating into the fanfic world. 

I've never read Rainbow Rowell's work, but just yesterday, one of my coworkers at the library where I work has been reading Rowell's latest and wanted to talk about it. She said something along the same lines, and another coworker chimed in to agree. They both said they like her books but find certain storylines or moments incredibly bizarre. 

[Cloud9Shopper]

Finished Fangirl tonight. It took me about a month to read, and Goodreads is limiting/blocking me from leaving a review right now, so I'm going to do so here. Overall, I would give it 3/5 stars.

The good:

The first half of the book moved quickly, and the author does a good job at describing the atmosphere of the dorms and the dining hall. I felt like I was in the setting with Cath (the main character), even though my college days were 20 years ago or so. (Gosh, already...)

I liked the background and motives of Cath's twin sister, Wren, to want an entirely new college life and have some independence of her twin. It was very realistic and understandable for someone moving away from home for the first time. 

Cath eventually becoming friends with her roommate Reagan. I would've never thought they'd want to live together next year as well. I like how Reagan calls her out on not being willing to leave her room and her laptop and basically drags her out at points. 

 

The bad:

The second half felt kind of all over the place and boring. This book was 433 pages. It probably could have been shorter. Some plotlines don't seem resolved or had more potential, like Cath and Wren's mother reappearing after abandoning the family when the twins were eight. She says a few lines when 

Spoiler

Wren is hospitalized with alcohol poisoning and Cath acknowledges that she's not much of a parent, but then Laura is never really heard from after that and Wren seems to stop reconnecting with her. 

 

Cath's first-year class mistakes are frustrating. She turns in fanfiction for an original fiction writing class she had to get special permission to take. She also fails to write her final project that her professor gave her a full extra semester to do until the last minute. And somehow, at the end of the book, 

Spoiler

we find out Cath won an award for this piece of writing she rushed out at the last minute. I skimmed to read the final essay because I was just bored by then, and couldn't tell how she won an award, especially because the excerpt was only a few paragraphs and we don't get any insight from her professor or anyone judging this contest how she rose above all the other entries. 

For a book I bought because I too have had varying experiences in fandoms and wrote fanfiction, I was disappointed that it didn't really touch on the culture, whether the good, bad or ugly. I also got the impression that Cath didn't mature or grow a whole lot or show any desire to move away from this world. There is nothing wrong with wanting to only write fanfic, but then maybe she shouldn't have chosen a major where she'd be expected to write her own stories and not borrow otherc characters. 

 

The downright WTF:

I was really put off by the use of Cath reading her fanfiction as some sort of turn on for her romance with Levi, her love interest turned boyfriend. It felt infantilizing for both of them. Cath reads her fanfics and The Outsiders (when he needs to read it to pass a quiz) to him, out loud, and some of these excerpts go on, and on, and on. She's even reading it to him right before they get hot and bothered. (He actually takes her waist at one point and says "Read to me, sweetheart.") I almost closed the book and gave up at that point. Plus, she is a freshman and this guy is in his 20s...I can't see how he would be attracted to someone so emotionally stunted and with less romantic experience than him. It seems like he would eventually cheat on her or bail as soon as he got attracted to a woman closer to his own age. He also seems a bit aggressive at times, not in the abusive way, but in the showing up outside her dorm in his truck and not leaving until she comes down. That just felt too "try hard" for me. They have one fight toward the end of the book and make up about 10 minutes later. The story basically ends with 

Spoiler

Cath reading him the last part of her fanfiction. 

 

Overall:

I think I've aged out of this style of writing. I would've liked to see more growth from Cath in her writing, like having fun writing her fanfic while still learning to spread her wings and try to create her own world. Or exploring new majors after realizing she cares more about the fanfic world than actually being a novelist. 

I also don't believe Levi is the perfect boyfriend as the writer and some other reviewers on Goodreads and Amazon made him out to be. Yeah, it's nice at first when he shows interest in her fanfiction, but the whole thing with her reading to him probably could have stopped after one or two times. And I don't think I'll ever get over the use of fanfic as a device to get horny. I have only told a small handful of people in my real life that I write fanfic. No way would I want a guy I was dating to be so dumb that I needed to read to him. 

[Rushmoras]

Completed Hobbit: There and Back Again and thought of re-reading LOTR next, but a couple of days ago went to my local book-store and there was a discount for Beren and Luthien, so I bought it, and yesterday began reading. The first 20 or so pages are dedicated to how this book came-to-be, and are written by Christopher Tolkien, how, he for many years, tried to from various manuscripts that his father had left in his estate, piece together coherent stories. He was piecing together "History of Middle Earth" (for his own enjoyment, according to the author, and not meant for publishing, because that would never have been economically feasible since he talks about thousands of pages of text, which in many places contradicts itself), but he did manage to piece together a story for the legend of Beren and Luthien (which, IIRC, is briefly mentioned in LOTR, and in Children of Hurin and/or Silmarillion [have to re-read those some day as well]).

And, yeah, as Chistopher mentions, the characters in the story are, how do I say this, archetypes that gradually evolve, because in places, for example, Beren is called a gnome, in other places an elf, while Luthien is a fae.

Spoiler

Anyways, the story begins with Beren witnessing Luthien dancing in the forest and is captivated by her. He then goes to ask her father Tinvelint for her hand, however, Tinvelint says to Beren that he will allow them to wed should Beren bring a Silmaril from the crown of Morgot. Furious, Beren leaves to do just that, and in the end, finds himself slaving away in the kitchens of Tevild (a giant cat, which is a real world manifestation of a malevolent spirit serving Melkor). Luthien, who for her wishes to aid Beren, was previously locked up by her father, through magic (here, I guess, Tolkien took inspiration a bit from Rapunzel) weaves herself a cloak of sleepiness from her own hair, and manages to escape her confinement, and go search for her beloved. I'm right at the part where she meets a giant dog named Huan, who is an enemy of Tevild, and he agrees to help her free Beren from captivity.

So far, I'd say it's decent, it's more akin to Hobit, then LOTR, because it's more of a fairytale turned prose than straight up fantasy like LOTR.

Edited December 15 by Rushmoras

[Anduin]

5 hours ago, Rushmoras said:

Completed Hobbit: There and Back Again and thought of re-reading LOTR next, but a couple of days ago went to my local book-store and there was a discount for Beren and Luthien, so I bought it, and yesterday began reading.

And, yeah, as Chistopher mentions, the characters in the story are, how do I say this, archetypes that gradually evolve, because in places, for example, Beren is called a gnome, in other places an elf, while Luthien is a fae.

  Hide contents

 

I've read the version from the Silmarillion, and really liked it. While I have the standalone version, I haven't read it.

Yeah. The elves were originally going to be called gnomes, after gnomic wisdom. But the garden gnome craze caught on at some point, so he went with elves. Even though elves at that point were closer to the fair folk or christmas elves, it clearly just worked.

[grommit2]

The Court vs The Voters...Clear, concise.  Strong arguments for how the Supreme Court is revising constitutional law to fit their current beliefs, most of which are ... curiously questionable.

[Haleth]

On 12/15/2024 at 9:58 AM, Rushmoras said:

Completed Hobbit: There and Back Again and thought of re-reading LOTR next, but a couple of days ago went to my local book-store and there was a discount for Beren and Luthien, so I bought it, and yesterday began reading. The first 20 or so pages are dedicated to how this book came-to-be, and are written by Christopher Tolkien, how, he for many years, tried to from various manuscripts that his father had left in his estate, piece together coherent stories. He was piecing together "History of Middle Earth" (for his own enjoyment, according to the author, and not meant for publishing, because that would never have been economically feasible since he talks about thousands of pages of text, which in many places contradicts itself), but he did manage to piece together a story for the legend of Beren and Luthien (which, IIRC, is briefly mentioned in LOTR, and in Children of Hurin and/or Silmarillion [have to re-read those some day as well]).

And, yeah, as Chistopher mentions, the characters in the story are, how do I say this, archetypes that gradually evolve, because in places, for example, Beren is called a gnome, in other places an elf, while Luthien is a fae.

  Hide contents

Anyways, the story begins with Beren witnessing Luthien dancing in the forest and is captivated by her. He then goes to ask her father Tinvelint for her hand, however, Tinvelint says to Beren that he will allow them to wed should Beren bring a Silmaril from the crown of Morgot. Furious, Beren leaves to do just that, and in the end, finds himself slaving away in the kitchens of Tevild (a giant cat, which is a real world manifestation of a malevolent spirit serving Melkor). Luthien, who for her wishes to aid Beren, was previously locked up by her father, through magic (here, I guess, Tolkien took inspiration a bit from Rapunzel) weaves herself a cloak of sleepiness from her own hair, and manages to escape her confinement, and go search for her beloved. I'm right at the part where she meets a giant dog named Huan, who is an enemy of Tevild, and he agrees to help her free Beren from captivity.

So far, I'd say it's decent, it's more akin to Hobit, then LOTR, because it's more of a fairytale turned prose than straight up fantasy like LOTR.

I love this story most of all. It’s perhaps the most fairy tale-like story he wrote, with a stalwart hero, beautiful (but certainly not helpless) princess and their epic quest. 

Spoiler

Naturally both Aragorn and Arwen are descended from them.