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What 📔book are you reading right now?

Rereading Matthieu Pageau's Language of Creation. It builds up this symbolic framework to help us understand how ancient peoples might have interpreted/perceived reality, events and narratives. It's presented through the stories of the book of Genesis, but it's not limited to the Bible. You can look at any traditional story and get something extra out of it through this lens (or sometimes completely change how you read it). You even start seeing some of the patterns described in your daily life. It's written very technically like a math course, but there's diagrams everywhere to help you understand what the author is getting at.
 
Great Tales of Terror and the Supernatural edited by Herbert Wise and Phyllis Fraser.
A collection of short stories from the 18th, 19th, and [early] 20th C., published in 1944.

I bought it at a book sale maybe 35 years ago; paying a whopping 25 cents (still visibly penciled on the first blank leaf) for a somewhat battered 2 inch thick hardbound volume (spine is sewn, thank heavens or it would have fallen apart long ago).

It's been sitting on my shelves all this time, and I have yet to read all 50+ stories contained therein.
So I am reading maybe 3 or 4 that I have not yet read and, of course, a half dozen or so that I have previously read.

A good horror story never gets old...it's still scary, no matter how many times you read it and already know how it ends.
To read is to embark on a journey, which is often more enjoyable (and important) than mere arrival at a terminus.
 
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To read is to embark on a journey, which is often more enjoyable (and important) than mere arrival at a terminus.
Respectfully request to borrow, alter ever-so-slightly, and employ, sir Deimos.
 
Respectfully request to borrow, alter ever-so-slightly, and employ, sir Deimos.
I get a share in any forthcoming royalties, right? 😉
jk....borrow as you like...it's not an original thought anyway.
 
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.it's not an orignal thought anyway.
yes, I've seen similar before... just didn't want to do so without advance notice, lest the Universe collapse on a lowly ent just trying to get by in the forest someplace. 😁
 
Books of course:

1. A well written, well illustrated book on the artist J M W Turner by Andrew Wilton. At a time when travel was far from straightforward he went on so many intrepid journeys including being caught in a snow drift (twice) crossing the Alps - sketched at the time and painted later of course.
2. An art theory book by a French author (Nadeije Laneyrie-Dagen)
3. In Search of the Dark Ages by Michael Wood: a book that goes further than the BBC TV history series.
4. Stranger in a Strange Land - I'm finding it a bit odd and slow moving but I have no idea how it will end so no spoilers please!

Turner is in this painting. Can you work out where without looking it up?
Messieurs-les-voyageurs-on-Their-Return-fro-Italy-in-a-Snow-Drivt-on-Mount-Tarrar-Joseph-Mallo...jpg
 
I'm reading I, Robot by Isaac Asimov. It's interesting how parts of it can be so dated (frequent mention of slide rulers) and still be relevant for current topics, such as automation replacing jobs.
The follow up volume to I, Robot is The Rest of the Robots.
I read both books when I was in my 20s, or was it my 30s? (Too long ago to be certain🙄😄 )
Some of the stories are good.
However, his robotics scientist/creator Susan Calvin, well, her character suffers mightily at the hands of Asimov (imo), and Asimov had his own (shall we diplomatically say) "problems with women".
But the Three Laws are genius and (IIRC) almost every story involves those laws.
I'd be very interested to read your opinions of the stories.
I've jettisoned all the Asimov from my shelves except for the original three Foundation books, a small volume of short stories (Nine Tomorrows), and a book of mysteries titled (surprise!) Asimov's Mysteries.
Yes, he wrote mysteries. He liked the genre, and was himself a member of the Baker Street Irregulars for many years.
 
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I'm reading I, Robot by Isaac Asimov. It's interesting how parts of it can be so dated (frequent mention of slide rulers) and still be relevant for current topics, such as automation replacing jobs.
Talk about things dated anachronistically.... 300 years hence (in universe) from when this was first shown in 1966



Progress.jpg
 
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Just finished John Scalzi's Red shirts - very clever - and the book of Psalms (twice through in a year). Currently reading a collection of Zenna Henderson's short stories (some of which I have not read for 50 years) and have started Isaiah.
 

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