What 📔book are you reading right now?

[Ugluk]

I tend to go through books at a rapid pace.

This past week I have read the two latest of the Kydd series about war and sea during the Napoleonic era, Balkan Glory and Thunderer. Plus Robert Galbraith's murder-mystery The Ink Black Heart.

For work I have just finished Our Robots, Ourselves: Robotics and the Myths of Autonomy.

Currently on the go is a young adult time travel novel Lost in time and a history of the "Afghan" cameleers in Australia..

In the "to read" pile are the complete works of Edward Lear, and a book on the Black Summer fires in Australia (which I experienced first hand)

Re-reading the 2006 book by former Columbia University Professor Fritz Stern (1926-2016), "Five Germanys I have known", in the 2007 German translation.

That would be fascinating.

 

[Deimos]

I am rereading Emma by Jane Austen. I needed some "comfort food."

Emma, Pride and Prejudice, and Sense and Sensibility (not necessarily in that order)...good stuff

 

[CirdanLinweilin]

I'm reading The Hobbit but it is slow going as I am dealing with a horrible cold.


CL

 

[Ent]

Emma, Pride and Prejudice, and Sense and Sensibility (not necessarily in that order)...good stuff

@Starbrow as well - thanks.
I have always had Austen's works in my library, but wondered if they were worth the read. Perhaps I'll have time ere all is done.

 

[Ealdwyn]

Emma, Pride and Prejudice, and Sense and Sensibility (not necessarily in that order)...good stuff

Persuasion is my favourite Austen

 

[Squint-eyed Southerner]

@Starbrow as well - thanks.
I have always had Austen's works in my library, but wondered if they were worth the read. Perhaps I'll have time ere all is done.

Highly recommended, for anyone who enjoys exquisitely-written English prose.

I once read someone referring to "Jane Austen bodice-rippers" -- from someone who'd obviously never read her. 🙄

 

[Ent]

I confess: I had to look up "bodice-rippers".

 

[Squint-eyed Southerner]

She was clearly confusing Austen with the "steamy romance" genre of the last few decades.

 

[Deimos]

Highly recommended, for anyone who enjoys exquisitely-written English prose.

I once read someone referring to "Jane Austen bodice-rippers" -- from someone who'd obviously never read her. 🙄

Try "Middlemarch" by George Eliot. Some background for those unfamiliar with it.
One of the first books I read upon my retirement.
I thoroughly enjoyed it, so much so that I bought it. I typically read the library edition first; and if I like it, I will [eventually] buy it.
(I buy only those books that I am certain I will re-read, or will use for reference.)

She was clearly confusing Austen with the "steamy romance" genre of the last few decades.
View attachment 15707

And Barbara Cartland in the earlier half of the 20th C.

Good Lord, she could be Liberace's sister

 

[Squint-eyed Southerner]

Though my understanding is that she was against the "steamy" stuff, and stuck to the traditional sort of Regency Romance genre. Everyone kept their clothes on, in other words.

 

[Ent]

Try "Middlemarch" by George Eliot

Well, another I've had in my library for decades. (at least 2 I think.)
But I just grabbed her 'complete works'. Might as well.
My only concern is if I read all these that fit into the 'classics' categories, I might actually learn something..!

 

[Ent]

Everyone kept their clothes on, in other words.

Trust me, at my age this is a very good thing..!!

 

[Squint-eyed Southerner]

Well, another I've had in my library for decades. (at least 2 I think.)
But I just grabbed her 'complete works'. Might as well.
My only concern is if I read all these that fit into the 'classics' categories, I might actually learn something..!

You could do worse. I think I may have mentioned somewhere on an earlier page that I spent several months, a few years ago, catching up on all the Dickens I'd neglected for so long -- and also his buddy Wilkie Collins. Very rewarding reading.

 

[Ent]

Yes, Dickens and Collins I have... along with a few others. (Have I read them all? well, umnhhh.... nope. No wonder I'm a few bricks short of a full wall.)

I just discovered much to my dismay that all my Asimov has vanished...
Now... maybe I'm the only SciFi type reader here, but there are several I do enjoy. Asimov is one, though I had a much harder time getting into his Robot series than his Foundation series...

I like those where 'worlds' of some kind get built - like Terry Brooks' Shannara series (until the later books) and a few others. Dune wasn't too bad, though it got a bit ponderous after a time. And I liked old E.E. Doc Smith's Lensman series, just because it was kind of a 'forerunner' for others in some ways.

Anyway, I need to lay the Foundation series back in. Hankering to read it for some reason.

 

[Deimos]

Well, another I've had in my library for decades. (at least 2 I think.)
But I just grabbed her 'complete works'. Might as well.
My only concern is if I read all these that fit into the 'classics' categories, I might actually learn something..!

Following Middlemarch I read Silas Marner. It's pretty good but it takes a while to get pulled into it.
Following Silas Marner I attempted The Mill on the Floss...operative word here is "attempted".
Dear God, the first few chapters that set the stage were soooooooo depressing I put the thing down , knowing I would never pick it up again.
And I haven't, and have no desire to. Yet many many people like it.
And just for the record, I have never stopped reading a book (or failed to start one) solely because the story is depressing.

 

[ZehnWaters]

I'm jumping around The Nature of Middle-Earth. I need to get back to actually reading, though. I've a stack at this point.

 

[Deimos]

Though my understanding is that she was against the "steamy" stuff, and stuck to the traditional sort of Regency Romance genre. Everyone kept their clothes on, in other words.
View attachment 15709

HA! "Everyone kept their clothes on" in print!
She most cleverly (if not insidiously) left the rest to your imagination.

 

[Squint-eyed Southerner]

Now... maybe I'm the only SciFi type reader here,

Nope!

 

[Olorgando]

Now... maybe I'm the only SciFi type reader here, ...

No, I also have a few SciFi books, mainly Arthur C. Clarke:
the four "Oddysey" books,
the four "Rama" books (the last three were collaborations with Gentry Lee),
"The Hammer of God".

Douglas Adams is a somewhat special case, as his "Hitchhiker-Galaxy" books do (mainly) take place in outer space - and were a BBC4 Radio program before they were books. The two "Dirk Gently" books are an altogether different matter.

 

[Deimos]

You could do worse. I think I may have mentioned somewhere on an earlier page that I spent several months, a few years ago, catching up on all the Dickens I'd neglected for so long -- and also his buddy Wilkie Collins. Very rewarding reading.

Evelyn Waugh wrote a short story titled "The Man Who Liked Dickens". It's very ...ummm....disturbing.
I read it in a collection titled "Stories for Late at Night".
It's not scary, or at least not the way 'scary' is lately defined (think Freddy Kruger ).
It's scary when you start thinking what it would be like if you were in a similar situation.
In fact, just now thinking about it that way, it's a horrifying story (Waugh could be weird like that.)
There was a short dramatization made with Alec Guinness in the title role.
His performance captures the "disturbing" atmosphere of the short story.