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What 📔book are you reading right now?

Book discovered in a box in the garage.
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Finally started reading The Battle for Middle-earth. Need to get it done for some upcoming writing.
Should be able to give a bit of a review on it in a little while.
 
I'm reading Irish footballer, Roy Keane's autobiography 'Keane'. Its funny and quite nostalgic even though I'm in the blue half of Manchester. Books like this make easy reading between more taxing books. Recommended if a football fan.
 
All the Light We Cannot See

I have heard of this book...though I can't recall where or why from my heartwood cells.
Do let me know your thoughts about it when done please. There has to be a reason it stuck with me.
 
Just started reading Sir Ernest Shackleton's The Heart of the Antarctic. This is an account of the 1907-9 expedition in the Nimrod in which Shackleton turned back short of the pole and thus saved the lives of the men under his command. There was also a fair bit of scientific research. Shackleton was not a scientist but appreciated its value.

I am also reading a biography of Charles Dickens by Peter Ackroyd. He is good at making the connections between Dickens' own life and his novels. I found out that the south wall of the infamous Marshalsea debtor's prison still exists at Angel Place, Southwark. It can be seen on Google Maps.

And for end of summer fun I'm reading Carry on Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse.
 
I just finished a reread (after many years) of 'Heart of Darkness and Selected Short Fiction' by Joseph Conrad.

The movie Apocalypse Now was based (somewhat) on Heart of Darkness. A steamboat goes up the Congo to an encounter with Mr. Kurtz, the manager of a remote outpost engaged in the ivory trade. Mr. Kurtz has gone a little over the deep end, but he brings in lots and lots of ivory.

The book includes three short stories: "Amy Foster", "Youth", and "The Secret Sharer". All about adventures at sea or adventures adjacent to the sea.

I enjoyed the short stories very much. Heart of Darkness was very thought-provoking, at times disturbing, and full of highly descriptive language. A great story.
 
A week under a heat dome having baked my brain, I had to fall back on "comfort reading" -- namely The Big Sleep. Heat relented, but I was sucked in once again: finished Farewell My Lovely and am well into The High Window.

Third time through the series. The man had a way with words.
 
A week under a heat dome having baked my brain, I had to fall back on "comfort reading" -- namely The Big Sleep. Heat relented, but I was sucked in once again: finished Farewell My Lovely and am well into The High Window.

Third time through the series. The man had a way with words.
Great story, and yes, he did indeed have a way with words.
 
Currently reading Cosmic Clouds by James Kaler, a quite in depth book about birth, death and recycling in the cosmos. It's much better than expected and I wish I'd read it sooner! Bought it about 7 years ago on a recommendation from a fellow amateur astronomer.
 
I've been working my way through The Battle for Middle-earth" by Rutledge.
His approach in my view is terrific,* starting at The Hobbit and walking right through all LoTR in order, pointing out things he feels lead to his 'take' on Tolkien's work.

With a sub-title of "Tolkien's Divine Design in The Lord of the Rings", one can pretty easily surmise what his high-level perspective is for the book.

I can say I feel he takes things well beyond anything Tolkien really purposed, yet the work has some intrigue from several angles.

Mostly I'm appreciating Rutledge's significant inclusion of the Scripture references Tolkien would have been well familiar with, Rutledge feels have crept into the work, unaware or otherwise - and quotes by Tolkien from Letters. And he makes some few statements I'll be referring to in some of my own work(s).

Conclusion: this is a book for those with sufficient stamina to tolerate a work with much to consider, and much to offer in terms of a deep comparison of TH and LoTR to Scripture - while keeping in mind everyone has an 'opinion' and that opinion comes from the particular 'universe' they have chosen to define for themselves, and apply to any given situation.. (And for some people, those 'universes' are far from static, and seem to be applied 'situationally'.)
 

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