What Are We Currently Reading?

[blackwing]

11 minutes ago, dubbel zout said:

I'm now reading The Thursday Murder Club, and it's DELIGHTFUL. Exactly the sort of book I need to be immersed in right now. It's all I can do to not stay up all night to finish it. I dread finishing it because I'm enjoying it so much. Thank goodness Richard Osman is writing more in the series.

I've been eyeing this one, good to hear!  Will put it on my list.

[sugarbaker design]

1 hour ago, dubbel zout said:

I tried to read a Dunnett book ages ago but couldn't get into it, either. I don't know if it was the subject or the writing. Probably a bit of both.

I'm now reading The Thursday Murder Club, and it's DELIGHTFUL. Exactly the sort of book I need to be immersed in right now. It's all I can do to not stay up all night to finish it. I dread finishing it because I'm enjoying it so much. Thank goodness Richard Osman is writing more in the series.

#2 is already out!

[peacheslatour]

On 10/11/2021 at 7:04 AM, sugarbaker design said:

Someone had posted they were going to read this a few months ago (Peaches?).  I read it when it first came out.  I was a huge fan of Bayard's Mr. Tim, so I was looking forward to TPBE.  I loved it when I first read it.  I loved the contrasting ledger entries from the main character and Poe, how Poe's entries were full of purple prose, and the main character's entries were strictly meat and potatoes.  I was enthralled by the plot, and I was surprised by the ending.  I actually re-read it after reading that post, It still holds up.  I'm a big fan.

Oh boy! I can't wait to start reading it. Thank you.

[dubbel zout]

46 minutes ago, sugarbaker design said:

#2 is already out!

I know! I'm so excited. I buy only paperbacks, so I have a bit of a wait. (I know I should use my local library, but the branch isn't super convenient to me and it's a mess. Sorry, NYPL.)

[proserpina65]

On 10/10/2021 at 5:33 PM, isalicat said:

I love that none of the Shetland TV episodes seem to based on any of the books so I can enjoy both without spoiling/overlap).

The Raven Black episodes were based on the book, but apparently very loosely.  I do know that the scene with the two girls visiting the hermit with the raven is how the book starts, because that was all the farther I got into it before I had to return it to the library.  (At least I think it was that episode - it's been awhile since I've seen it.)

I just finished The Postscript Murders by Elly Griffiths, a loose follow-up to her other standalone book, The Stranger Diaries.  It includes one of the main characters from the earlier book, and was an excellent read.  The characters were all fully fleshed-out and the mystery was pretty clever.  I did figure out part of it, but it didn't quite unfold the way I'd expected.  It was definitely better than her Ruth Galloway mysteries, except for The Outcast Dead, but then, there isn't anyone nearly as awful as Nelson in it.

Up next is the next Ruth Galloway book.  The last one was less exasperating, in that Nelson was wrong, wrong, wrong about the murders, so I thought this one might be okay, too.  Twill depend on how much Nelson and whether or not Ruth spends a lot of time agonizing over him.  God, I hope not.

[GaT]

6 hours ago, dubbel zout said:

I tried to read a Dunnett book ages ago but couldn't get into it, either. I don't know if it was the subject or the writing. Probably a bit of both.

I'm now reading The Thursday Murder Club, and it's DELIGHTFUL. Exactly the sort of book I need to be immersed in right now. It's all I can do to not stay up all night to finish it. I dread finishing it because I'm enjoying it so much. Thank goodness Richard Osman is writing more in the series.

Yes, I really enjoyed it too. I have The Man Who Died Twice up next on my to-be-read pile. I hope it lives up to book 1.

[Mindthinkr]

I just finished When the Stars Go Dark by Paula McClain. It was an absorbing look into predators and child abductions. Sometimes not easy to read. Well written it gripped me until the end. 

[Luckylyn]

I’m reading The Ex Hex by Erin Sterling.  A nineteen year old witch who was new to practicing magic curses her ex after getting her heart broken.  She doesn’t believe it will actually work because she and her cousin are drunk, they didn’t use a legitimate spell, and they used a candle from Bed Bath and Beyond.   Nine years pass and when her ex returns to town the curse takes effect causing harm not only to her ex but also the whole town.  Now she and her ex have to work together to reverse the curse.  So far it’s a light, entertaining romance with humor.

[dubbel zout]

3 hours ago, Luckylyn said:

they used a candle from Bed Bath and Beyond

*snerk*

I finished The Thursday Murder Club, alas. It was such a soothing read, though it wasn't complete fluff. The retirement complex in the book kind of reminds me of the one an aunt of mine was in. She and my uncle moved in rather reluctantly, thinking they'd never find people who shared their interests and tastes, and who does she meet almost immediately? Mamie Eisenhower's 101-year-old social secretary!

As someone who is probably in late middle age (depending on how you want to score), I appreciated the message that the older generations still have a lot to offer, if only you take them seriously. One thing Osman never does is patronize his characters. If they play addled oldz, it's for a very specific reason and you're always aware of it.

[sugarbaker design]

3 hours ago, dubbel zout said:

One thing Osman never does is patronize his characters.

Good to know.

[blackwing]

I finished Falling by T.J. Newman.  This book was very hyped as an exciting thriller from a new and exciting writer.  Frankly, I thought it was utter garbage and a complete waste of time.  

The plot involves an airline pilot who receives a message mid-flight enroute from Los Angeles to New York that his family has been taken hostage.  He is given a choice.  Either crash the plane or his family will be killed.

This book has a promising premise, but it quickly devolves into a cliched and mundane story.  The plot was predictable and quite boring.  The dialogue is awful and clunky.  Think about every cliche involving an airplane and a hijacking situation, and it's here.  The pilot who refuses to negotiate with terrorists.  The wife who won't give up and will do anything to protect her children.   The Middle Eastern terrorist who just wants his voice to be heard.  The young headstrong FBI agent who defies authority.  The FBI agent in charge who refuses to listen and just wants to shoot the plane down because that's the protocol.  The older female flight attendant who loves her job and views the passengers as her charges that she cannot fail.  The gay male flight attendant who is a walking stereotype and who the others call "Big Daddy".  The Middle Eastern passenger viewed with suspicion by the flight crew.

It seemed to me that the author was already envisioning selling this script to a movie studio, because every scene seems like it came straight out of a bad action movie.  Then at the end, the book became excessively preachy when the author actively attempts to make readers sympathise with the terrorists by having the characters discuss their motives in a "you might have done the same if you were in their shoes" understanding of the situation.

For me, the book really went downhill after it was revealed that

Spoiler

the Middle Eastern co-pilot was one of the terrorists.  Like, really?  All pilots wouldn't have undergone extensive background checks before being hired?  Nobody uncovered the fact that this guy was from Kurdistan and his entire family was killed in a bombing and he and his brother blamed the United States for not helping? 

From a plot perspective, everything from that point on made ZERO sense. 

Spoiler

If the goal was to crash the plane and make a statement, he already had a gun.  I kept wondering why he didn't just shoot the pilot immediately and crash the plane himself.  He stated already that he expected to die one way or the other that day.  Also, why did the terrorists need to use Sarin gas on the passengers?  They already said that it wasn't about controlling the pilot.  It was all about getting noticed.

I wish I had read reviews of this book before I started it, so I could have skipped it.  At least it was a quick read.

Edited October 14, 2021 by blackwing

[Mindthinkr]

13 minutes ago, blackwing said:

Spoiler

 

I wish I had read reviews of this book before I started it, so I could have skipped it

Thank you for saving me from picking it up! It does sound like a treatment for a movie. 

[dubbel zout]

Universal won the movie rights.

[blackwing]

12 minutes ago, dubbel zout said:

Universal won the movie rights.

Wow.  Amazing.  I just looked this up, and she got a contract for $1 million for two books and sold the film rights for another $1 million.  She got rejected by 41 literary agents before finding one who took her.  I'd say those 41 agents were spot on.

The fact that this awful writer can make $2 million for this piece of trash should give hope to the aspiring writer in all of us.  Never give up.  Never surrender.

[Ohiopirate02]

46 minutes ago, blackwing said:

Wow.  Amazing.  I just looked this up, and she got a contract for $1 million for two books and sold the film rights for another $1 million.  She got rejected by 41 literary agents before finding one who took her.  I'd say those 41 agents were spot on.

The fact that this awful writer can make $2 million for this piece of trash should give hope to the aspiring writer in all of us.  Never give up.  Never surrender.

Hey, publishing is a business.  All major publishers put out books that are utter dreck, they know they are utter dreck, but it doesn't matter because there are enough people out there who will purchase that dreck to make it profitable.   The upside is those profits are funneled back into the company to pay for better quality works to be published.  

[GaT]

Just started The Man Who Died Twice by Richard Osman, the 2nd book in The Thursday Murder Club series, & it caught me with the first chapter. Hopefully the rest of the book is as good, & that this turns out to be a long series if it is.

[Starleigh]

After reading recent posts, I quickly logged into my library account to put The Thursday Murder Club plus sequel on hold. Then I realized I actually bought it a few months ago and my copy is sitting halfway down my "to be read" thread😆 so, I cancelled the request, but kept it for the sequel (I'm only request #37 so that gives me time to read the first book lol).

In other reading news, I picked up the Hayley Mills book at the library & plan to begin it this weekend.

 

[Mindthinkr]

10 hours ago, Starleigh said:

In other reading news, I picked up the Hayley Mills book at the library & plan to begin it this weekend.

Please let me know what you think of it. I’m considering it. Thank you. 

[Luckylyn]

I am reading The Taking of Jake Livingston by Ryan Douglass.  Jake is a high school student who can be socially awkward and feels stress from being the only black kid in his class.   Jake also can see ghosts.  The dead he sees linger in time loops where they recreate their deaths over and over.  For the first time one ghost breaks free of his death loop, begins killing people , and terrorizing Jake.   Sawyer is an angry ghost who killed his classmates and then himself.  Jake has never been afraid a ghost could hurt him until now.  The book alternates  between Jake’s pov and excerpts from Sawyer’s diary before the murder/suicide.  It’s heartbreaking because Sawyer is aware he needs help but he doesn’t have the support system to get it.  It doesn’t justify his actions but makes me understand how things got so bad.  I see Jake and Sawyer as two sides of a coin because both are socially awkward, get bullied by people,  and struggle making friends but Jake doesn’t have the urge to do harm. 

[proserpina65]

On 10/14/2021 at 11:58 AM, Ohiopirate02 said:

Hey, publishing is a business.  All major publishers put out books that are utter dreck, they know they are utter dreck, but it doesn't matter because there are enough people out there who will purchase that dreck to make it profitable.

Thus existeth the career of Dan Brown.

 

So I finished the latest Ruth Galloway mystery last night (The Night Hawks), and I'm off two minds about recommending it.  The mystery itself was pretty engaging although there was little actual archaeology involved, unlike most of the other books in the series.  (Ruth mostly sits around complaining in her head about the paperwork required for her new job as head of department.)  I actually preferred the sections which focused on Nelson (!) and his team because they actually moved the plot forward.  It rolled at a good pace, was twisty without being convoluted, and had scattered hints here and there without being so obvious that I could guess the murderer halfway through.  Indeed, I didn't guess the murderer's identity at all, and neither did Nelson.  And quite importantly, to me, it didn't contain vast stretches of angst between Ruth and Nelson; it wasn't free of that, but kept it on a low boil rather than being the prime focus.

However:

Spoiler

This will be the last book of the series I read because of the last chapter, where Nelson's very Catholic mother is basically convincing him to divorce his wife and be with Ruth.  UGH.

Last thing I want is to read book after book of them actually together after spending so much time reading about his toxicity, both in the workplace and in his personal relationships.  He's already done such a number on her mindset, and has absolutely no respect for any part of her life that doesn't help him, not her job, education, where she lives or why.  Hell, he can't even call their daughter by the name Ruth gave her.

And he is a terrible boss who pits members of his team against each other to compete for his approval and calls that teamwork.  The super who's trying to get him to retire is absolutely correct: he's a dinosaur and his day has passed.  He didn't even solve the murder.  Judy did that.

If only he had died when he got shot, I'd have been a happy camper because then maybe Ruth could finally move on, but no such luck.  So I'm out.  Which is a shame, because the first several books were really good and used the archaeology angle quite effectively.

 

Okay, rant over.

[Angeltoes]

The Boys: A Memoir of Hollywood and Family by Ron and Clint Howard about their childhood growing up as Hollywood actors.  I'm 100 pages in and so far have really enjoyed it because they both have a good sense of humor.   I have an admiration for their parents and how they parented the boys.

[Crs97]

Finally read The Good Sister by Sally Hepworth.  Quick, enjoyable read, but I thought Rose was too much a derivative of [the name of the character will spoil the plot so be warned!]

Spoiler

Amy in Gone Girl.

Fern’s perspective was well done, though.

I also finally read Lucy Foley’s The Guest List.  Another entertaining, quick read that is a decent comparison to Agatha Christie.

[Starleigh]

On 10/15/2021 at 7:41 AM, Mindthinkr said:

Please let me know what you think of it. I’m considering it. Thank you. 

Finished it today. Overall it was an interesting read. The first half was the best, the part I most enjoyed was her description of working with Walt Disney and on the Disney movies. 

The last part was very vague. She briefly mentioned certain things but then dropped them or just kind of ignored, which is totally her prerogative for privacy reasons ( her mother's alcoholism, an eating disorder, her divorce, the father of her second son) but kind of disappointing to the reader.

It did make me want to go on a movie watching marathon and rewatch (or watch for the first time) all 6 of her Disney movies.

[Haleth]

11 hours ago, Angeltoes said:

The Boys: A Memoir of Hollywood and Family by Ron and Clint Howard about their childhood growing up as Hollywood actors.  I'm 100 pages in and so far have really enjoyed it because they both have a good sense of humor.   I have an admiration for their parents and how they parented the boys.

I saw them interviewed on The View.  It was so refreshing to hear two Hollywood kids talk about their parents and childhood in such loving terms.  They seem like a lovely family.

[Starleigh]

Just reserved the Howard boys' book at the library. I'm #14 on the list which is surprisingly low, so it shouldn't be too long of a wait. I hadn't heard of their book anywhere till I saw it here, so I'm wondering if there just hasn't been a lot of pre-buzz about it? There are also only 7 copies total in my library system which isn't very many for a memoir by famous celebrities.... 

[Spartan Girl]

4 hours ago, Haleth said:

I saw them interviewed on The View.  It was so refreshing to hear two Hollywood kids talk about their parents and childhood in such loving terms.  They seem like a lovely family.

They are! I’m reading it right now and I loved all the stories about how straight the Howards tried to be with their kids about even the most awkward of subjects (namely the facts of life). Also, it turns out their dad Rance kind of helped influence the relationship between Andy Griffith and Opie; in the early days of the show, Rance told Andy that Opie came off as too much of a smartass, and thought that it might be better for the show if Opie respected his dad. It says a lot about how much Andy respected the opinions of others that he was willing to listen and implement the changes into the show.

[Luckylyn]

I am a fan of Nalini Singh’s Psy/Changling series and have decided to give her Guild Hunter Series a try.  I am reading Angel’s Blood where Elena is a vampire hunter.  She searches for vampires who attempt to escape their Angel masters who created the vampires. The world building is intriguing.  I’m not getting attached to the characters as strongly as I have with the Psy/Changling books but the story is compelling.  

[Crs97]

I’m starting Anderson Cooper’s book on his family.  Vanderbilt: The Rise and Fall of an American Dynasty is very interesting, and I am only 30 pages in.

[Bookish Jen]

I'm finishing up singer/songwriter Amy Rigby's memoir "Girl to City." Damn it's good. 

[sugarbaker design]

On 6/17/2021 at 2:25 PM, SusieQ said:

Yeah, Westlake books are hard to get from my library, too. I bought up lots of them from Better World Books. BWB if you're not aware buys up "discarded" library books and sells most for under $5, with free shipping. All the books that libraries used to sell at their used book sales now seem to go to BWB. I've got books from libraries across the country. Kind of fun.

Again, thanks for the recommendation, I just read The Hot Rock, it was a hoot!

[bmasters9]

You Are Looking LIVE! by Rich Podolsky (2021 retrospective on how The NFL Today on CBS w/Brent Musburger, et al. changed sports broadcasting as we know it)

[SusanM]

Based on posts here I got samples of The Boys and Vanderbilt: The Rise and Fall of an American Dynasty on my kindle.  Well the samples totally hooked me in and now I've bought them.  I'm pretty cheap with regard to books on kindle so paying the full ticket price for these was not something I would normally do but wow! both are so good!  

 

Edited October 20, 2021 by SusannahM

[SusieQ]

10 hours ago, sugarbaker design said:

Again, thanks for the recommendation, I just read The Hot Rock, it was a hoot!

Glad you liked it. My favorite John Dortmunder books are "Good Behavior" and  "Drowned Hopes". I love the whole gang of thieves. I'm sort of like Stan, but instead of talking about car routes I figure out the best NYC subway lines to take :)

[Minneapple]

15 hours ago, bmasters9 said:

You Are Looking LIVE! by Rich Podolsky (2021 retrospective on how The NFL Today on CBS w/Brent Musburger, et al. changed sports broadcasting as we know it)

This looks interesting! I am a huge NFL fan and The NFL on CBS was required viewing for me growing up. Imagine -- a time when only one network had a pregame show, and it was only a half-hour long.

I just finished As Good As Dead, the finale of Holly Jackson's A Good Girl's Guide to Murder trilogy. It's very very good, but quite a bit darker than the other books. Pip is messed up, clearly suffering PTSD. But I still love her and Ravi and the morally grey parts are very understandable.

I do wonder if this series has been optioned for a streaming movie or TV show. One of Us Is Lying is on Peacock right now and it's a fairly decent adaptation.

[grommit2]

OK.  I just had to delve into one of the contemporary hot-button issues...slavery. 
I wanted to understand much more about it than what was available in the contemporary media.
So I picked up Slavery: A World History, by Milton Meltzer, a legitimate historian. 
Thorough, balanced, well-documented, used a wide range of original sources.
Half-way through and so far I've learned that slavery can be traced back to 5,000 BC in Mesopotamia, Greece, Rome, Northern Africa...just picture the entire known world, and it had slavery. Most slaves were acquired through war (gads, another persistent topic).  But war was not the only source.  And skin color had nothing to do with it...slavery was an equal opportunity employer.  
Anyway, I may need to balance this by watching a bunch of cat videos on youtube. 

 

[peacheslatour]

After finishing Crooked House, I have begun The Pale Blue Eye. I must say after reading Ms. Christie's straight forward writing, Mr. Bayard's somewhat flowery prose is taking a while to get used to.

[bmasters9]

10 hours ago, Minneapple said:

This looks interesting! I am a huge NFL fan and The NFL on CBS was required viewing for me growing up. Imagine -- a time when only one network had a pregame show, and it was only a half-hour long.

And the cover image was what I grew up around when I was a boy; that image is also inside the book (forget what page); the caption on it shows it as being from 1980, but that is not entirely correct, as the CBS Sports logo on the jackets of Musburger, Greek and Cross started in 1981, so this is, again, from when I was a boy.

[Anduin]

I just finished Tolkien's Tales From the Perilous Realm. It's a collection of short stories, poetry, and an essay he wrote. Frankly, I'm not especially fond of this book as a whole. I don't know what I was expecting, but not this.

Roverandom is a child's story, for a certain kind of story in a certain kind of time and place. I'm not a child, I'm not in the right time and place. It just comes off as silly.

The Bombadil poems. I appreciate the idea of Tom Bombadil, this enigmatic and unknowable being who gets up to all sorts of adventures. However, I don't like poetry. Never have. Sorry.

Farmer Giles of Ham is all right. To my mind, nothing special. Smith of Wooton Major is pretty good. Certainly owes something to the big ones, LOTR and the Silmarillion. Not the first author to borrow from himself, I bet. Certainly not the last. Worth reading.

And then we have Leaf by Niggle. This one is the star of the collection! It's about an artist who knows he's onto something, but keeps getting distracted and called away. You can sense Tolkien's anxiety about his writing. He keeps getting distracted by life, and is wondering if he'll leave any impact on the world when he's gone.

Every politician who derides the arts, talks about cutting funding, needs to read this story. Sadly, I don't think they'd understand it. Still, it needs to be done. Some kind of Clockwork Orange style treatment with the audiobook, if necessary. Yes, this is extreme. But I feel that desperate times call for desperate measures.

There's a reason I come back to an author who died before I was born. This is the reason. If you track down just this one story, it won't take you long. No more than an hour or so. And yes, it's that good. Leaf by Niggle. Tolkien. It's worth your time.

Finally, an essay based on a lecture he once gave. On Fairy-stories. Sorry, not a winner. It just comes off as too long, with too many threads in different directions.

All in all, the good outweighs the bad. Smith and then Leaf by Niggle are good enough to make up for the rest of it.

[Haleth]

3 hours ago, Anduin said:

I just finished Tolkien's Tales From the Perilous Realm. It's a collection of short stories, poetry, and an essay he wrote. Frankly, I'm not especially fond of this book as a whole. I don't know what I was expecting, but not this.

I saw this at the library yesterday and as much of a fan as I am, I passed.  I thought it would be another tedious examination of his writing, something that was already done over and over by Christopher.  But did they really publish Roverandum, Leaf, and Giles again?  They were all previously published as stand alone books.  Talk about milking it for all it's worth!

I stayed up late to finish TJ Klune's Under the Whispering Door.  Like The House on the Cerulean Sea it's a story of a lonely man who finds a purpose.  In this case, unfortunately, it happens after the man dies.  It is a delightful story of finding love and a family even after death.  Sweet ghost story.  I think the whimsey of these two books would appeal to grown up Harry Potter fans.

 

Edited October 21, 2021 by Haleth

[JustHereForFood]

1 hour ago, Haleth said:

I stayed up late to finish TJ Klune's Under the Whispering Door.  Like The House on the Cerulean Sea it's a story of a lonely man who finds a purpose.  In this case, unfortunately, it happens after the man dies.  It is a delightful story of finding love and a family even after death.  Sweet ghost story.  I think the whimsey of these two books would appeal to grown up Harry Potter fans.

I have already ordered this one. Glad to hear it is as good as Cerulean Sea.

[Anduin]

3 hours ago, Haleth said:

I saw this at the library yesterday and as much of a fan as I am, I passed.  I thought it would be another tedious examination of his writing, something that was already done over and over by Christopher.  But did they really publish Roverandum, Leaf, and Giles again?  They were all previously published as stand alone books.  Talk about milking it for all it's worth!

Who's the bigger offender of recycling content: Christopher Tolkien or David Day? Anyway, Cook and Leaf are very good, well worth a read.

[Rushmoras]

Still reading the sixth Witcher book (hooray, that only one more remains). Now, I can more clearly understand why I don't particularly like the writing style (that makes me read very slow in comparison to other novels). You see, there are sentences, which are written in modern language fashion, but there are whole passages that are written in freaking 19-20th century rural dialect, which is very hard to read (and, no, I'm not talking about English, but my own language) and after each semi-chapter forces to put down the book.

Spoiler

Also, a vampire, who does not like violence. Why is he even there, if he's basically useless for the whole team? Jesus fucking Christ.

 

Edited October 21, 2021 by Rushmoras

[BlackberryJam]

Listening to State of Terror by Hillary Rodham Clinton and Louise Penny. So far, it's really good. I can see how Hillary's knowledge of politics, national and international and Louise's ability to draw create characters.

I've given up on listening to The Sandman (sorry nephew) even with the sexiness of James McAvoy's voice and incredible production value. Each "episode" has enough story for about 6 solid sentences and the rest is dull filler. Maybe the show will be visually stunning and well-acted. I'm gonna give it a go, but they need actual story for it.

Read the most recent Her Royal Spyness novel from Rhys Bowen and while I recall enjoying it, I can't actually recall it. I read it less than 6 days ago.

My library doesn't have the Podolsky yet, but I did reserve Bill Cowher's book.

And wow, do I careen from genre to another. 

[Danny Franks]

I'm reading Post Office by Charles Bukowski and... holy shit, the casual, callous misogyny is really a treat.

Women described as "a good piece of meat", a woman who cries rape but enjoys it, the apparent absence of them as thinking creatures with lives of their own.

Maybe Bukowski was just acerbically skewering attitudes of the time but... probably not, given what I know about him.

Thank god this book is short.

[peacheslatour]

12 hours ago, Danny Franks said:

I'm reading Post Office by Charles Bukowski and... holy shit, the casual, callous misogyny is really a treat.

Women described as "a good piece of meat", a woman who cries rape but enjoys it, the apparent absence of them as thinking creatures with lives of their own.

Maybe Bukowski was just acerbically skewering attitudes of the time but... probably not, given what I know about him.

Thank god this book is short.

I get that. I went through a Raymond Chandler phase and the casual misogyny and racism was very difficult to deal with.

Edited October 22, 2021 by peacheslatour

[nodorothyparker]

Every pseudo- or quasi-intellectual dudebro I used to drink with back in the day loved Bukowski. Go figure.

I had a similar experience last year when the periodic classic lit read I assigned myself was Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, which I somehow missed in college.

All the underpinnings of Western lit and white pop culture are there in sometimes great sometimes florid 19th century prose in a way that I found oddly reminiscent of finally seeing Star Wars as an adult where I knew all the parodies and references before ever seeing the original. But dear gods, all the savage natives tropes and writing about Africans like nameless interchangeable beasts were ... a lot to take in.

 

[Danny Franks]

15 minutes ago, nodorothyparker said:

Every pseudo- or quasi-intellectual dudebro I used to drink with back in the day loved Bukowski. Go figure.

I had a similar experience last year when the periodic classic lit read I assigned myself was Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, which I somehow missed in college.

All the underpinnings of Western lit and white pop culture are there in sometimes great sometimes florid 19th century prose in a way that I found oddly reminiscent of finally seeing Star Wars as an adult where I knew all the parodies and references before ever seeing the original. But dear gods, all the savage natives tropes and writing about Africans like nameless interchangeable beasts were ... a lot to take in.

 

Yeah, I think The Catcher in the Rye falls into a similar category of 'seminal reads' that, unless you read them in your teens, you just won't get the appeal of.

My English Lit teacher in sixth form chose One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest instead of Salinger's classic, and I'm grateful for it. But I tried to read when I was in my twenties and found it unbearably self-absorbed and navel-gazing.

[nodorothyparker]

I had the same experience with One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. I did go through a phase in my 20s where I was working my way through many of the Beat writers that I notice I haven't returned to as I've gotten older because I don't imagine some of the more self-absorbed stuff would hold up well.

I do have a weird soft spot for Catcher in the Rye, but I also read it when I was 19 and struggling with what I wanted my adulthood to look like. I haven't revisited it in years either.

[Ceindreadh]

Just finished The seven husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid

It has been so long since I read a book that I enjoyed this much.  I was reading it on my commute a few mornings and wished that I could just stay on the tram to finish it.  I didn't go in any direction that I'd thought it was heading, but I really enjoyed it.  And I may even have to re-read it sooner rather than later. 

[Luckylyn]

I’m reading Something In the Blood: The Untold Story of Bram Stoker by Davi Skal.  I was on the fence about reading it at first because reviews were divided.   Some people really enjoyed it and others felt the author  spent too much time discussing other contemporaries of Stoker particularly Oscar Wilde.  Since I was interested not only in Stoker but others I decided to read it.  I am   37% through according to my Kindle and am finding interesting.  The authors tangents work really well at making me understand the time period but sometimes he does go on a little too much about others  and Stoker gets a bit lost.  The author really is pushing the parallels between Oscar Wilde and Stoker.  They do have people in common but so far don’t interact directly.  So my feelings are mixed.  The information is engaging but sometimes the tangents are a bit much.