What 📔book are you reading right now?

[LaurelinBearsFruit]

Still making my way through the Trilogy for the sixth time. Just got to The Window on the West. Faramir is such a great character.

 

[Ivan_M]

Still making my way through the Trilogy for the sixth time. Just got to The Window on the West. Faramir is such a great character.

PJ really did him dirty in the movies. He's a completely different character in the book.

Currently reading Arthur C. Clarke's 'Rendezvous with Rama'

 

[LaurelinBearsFruit]

PJ really did him dirty in the movies. He's a completely different character in the book.

Currently reading Arthur C. Clarke's 'Rendezvous with Rama'

Agreed his character change is my biggest gripe with the movies. The whole Osgiliath side adventure was really unnecessary too.

Just finished Two Towers and starting Return of the King tonight!

 

[Ent]

Well since you asked (although I note nobody did), my primary read right now is "Ten Myths About Calvinism: Recovering the Breadth of the Reformed Tradition"... continuing a particular study I've been working on for 35 years.

This work shares some of the differences held within and between those originally propounding what is called the "Calvinist doctrine" (though he was not the first to hold them), with a bit clearer citations of what they are, who held them and when, etc. (and questioning why we so strongly associate them with Calvin given the facts) into the bargain. A good work leading me to other sources to continue the study afterward.

Along with that I'm reading snippets a bit at a time of Crichton's Jurassic Park and Lewis' Mere Christianity.

 

[Vorondil]

Having sadly just finished The Hunger Games (Really good books by the way, I couldn't stop reading), I decided that as I enjoyed the Lost World, I might as well try another of Conan Doyle's books, so I've started The Adventures Of Sherlock Homes.

 

[Amon Rudh]

Talk about things dated anachronistically.... 300 years hence (in universe) from when this was first shown in 1966



View attachment 23082

No WiFi reception 🤣

 

[Amon Rudh]

I'm currently reading the Bible (five chapters per day), plus 'What does the Bible really Teach Us?" (this is a JW viewpoint) plus Choosing and Using a Refracting Telescope.
I'm atheist but have always wanted to read the main religious texts (Quran, Torah and Book of Mormon to come in due course). Partly due to my interest in Tolkien and others inspired by their faith but also to try to understand what brings people to beliefs of various kinds.
I'm not particularly enjoying it but am determined to plough on.

 

[Tyelkormo the Fair]

I'm currently reading the Bible (five chapters per day), plus 'What does the Bible really Teach Us?" (this is a JW viewpoint) plus Choosing and Using a Refracting Telescope.
I'm atheist but have always wanted to read the main religious texts (Quran, Torah and Book of Mormon to come in due course). Partly due to my interest in Tolkien and others inspired by their faith but also to try to understand what brings people to beliefs of various kinds.
I'm not particularly enjoying it but am determined to plough on.

Coming from an ex-muslim I think you'd enjoy alrahman chapter,the only section that I really liked.

 

[LaurelinBearsFruit]

I'm currently reading the Bible (five chapters per day), plus 'What does the Bible really Teach Us?" (this is a JW viewpoint) plus Choosing and Using a Refracting Telescope.
I'm atheist but have always wanted to read the main religious texts (Quran, Torah and Book of Mormon to come in due course). Partly due to my interest in Tolkien and others inspired by their faith but also to try to understand what brings people to beliefs of various kinds.
I'm not particularly enjoying it but am determined to plough on.

You should read the book Autobiography of a Yogi by Paramahansa Yogananda. Really fascinating book that goes right to the heart of the power of faith both as a philosophical/theological concept and also as a practice for connecting with other people and the universe around us. Cuts right to the core.

 

[Amon Rudh]

You should read the book Autobiography of a Yogi by Paramahansa Yogananda. Really fascinating book that goes right to the heart of the power of faith both as a philosophical/theological concept and also as a practice for connecting with other people and the universe around us. Cuts right to the core.

Cheers! I'll add it to my list 🙂

 

[Squint-eyed Southerner]

Finally getting around to reading Dracula for the first time.

 

[Amon Rudh]

One of my wife's faves. Been to Whitby Abbey a few times 🙂

 

[Squint-eyed Southerner]

 

[Deimos]

Finally getting around to reading Dracula for the first time.

Oh, I love that story.....Harker's initial journey through the Carpathians is emotionally harrowing ... scared me half to death....I loved it.
Everything that happens at the castle is at minimum unsettling, increasing to creepy, then alarming, and then terrifying.
One thing (not a spoiler) Stoker has van Helsing speaking a kind of pidgin English.
It's a bit annoying, but after a dozen or so re-reads it ceases to bother me.
In Coppola's Dracula Anthony Hopkins wisely eschewed the pidgin and spoke regular (British) English.
Anyway, I hope you enjoy the whole story.

 

[Fingon_Findekáno]

Finally getting around to reading Dracula for the first time.

This is a very good book! I found it a little hard to understand in some parts because of how it tries to capture the speech as it would sound for characters that don’t speak perfect English, but otherwise I thoroughly enjoyed it! That detail still adds to the book, giving your mind a sense of different accents and dialects for different characters, which enhances the experience.

Overall, I liked the format of how it’s written, as a compilation of various characters’ journal entries, letters, and recordings that altogether create a well-formed narrative. The cast of characters was quite engaging as well! I think Nina Harker and Van Helsing were a couple of my favorites, but I loved most of the characters quite a bit as well.

Hope you like the book, S-eS!

 

[Ent]

I've just come into possession of a really good, insightful translation and work on the Hebrew/Aramaic of the Old Testament... 20 years in the making, after the fellow's numerous years of training, years of extended study, philology, etc. It's putting some of the things I've wondered about into appropriate perspective... and bringing to light some of the internal Hebrew interaction helping understand what the text is really saying. Will be an exceptional addition for the book I'm about to start writing. It's already showing up confirmation of what I suspected were 'hidden gems' on the Hebrew side in some places. I'm a good bit weaker in the Hebrew/Aramaic languages than the Greek, and I'm not much in the Greek either... just enough to be dangerous. So I'm always confirming things with others to be sure I'm not driving off the cliff looking backward.

Will certainly be my primary focus now, moving "10 myths of Calvinism" I mentioned somewhere above to 2nd place. (Though I'm sure even then, I'll finish "10 myths" before I start my book.)

 

[Squint-eyed Southerner]

I'm also reading The Coming of the Third Reich, by Richard J. Evans.

 

[LaurelinBearsFruit]

I'm also reading The Coming of the Third Reich, by Richard J. Evans.

In that vein, have you ever read or heard of the book Ordinary Men by Christopher Browning? It looks into the incremental steps that occurred during the interwar period into the first stages of WWII that made it possible for people who had previously been regular, law-abiding German citizens to become psychopathic killers. Very interesting cautionary tale about how susceptible human beings are to external influences.

I recently read Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankel, and that was super interesting as well. He was a holocaust survivor that lived through Auschwitz and had many interesting insights afterwards.

 

[Squint-eyed Southerner]

I've heard of Ordinary Men, but haven't read it.

 

[Tyelkormo the Fair]

Just started The red Queen's war series,the first book being prince of fools