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What 📔book are you reading right now?
Well, sure, but they're comparatively mild. I mainly enjoy the entanglements old Harry gets himself into -- but you can learn a lot of 19th century history from the books. I have to say there's a sense of immersion I never got from Sharpe.
 
Yes, I agree ( I've a BA [from ASU] in History (Western Civ) and I enjoyed them (even the bawdy parts) .
Never read the Sharpe series..no reason...just haven't.
 
Culaeron said:
I'm looking it up right now. I love historical fiction, especially 18th and 19th century. Seems there are some really interesting character flaws with the protagonist. I'll definitely check out the series. Thanks!
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That, my friend, is perhaps just a teensy bit of an understatement
 
He's a character from Tom Brown's School Days --- specifically, the biggest bully and coward at Rugby, who gets drummed out at the end of the novel. Fraser wondered what might have happened to such a character, deciding that it would likely be the same as that for many otherwise useless sons of the (somewhat) upper classes of the day: purchase a commission in the army.

I'd recommend reading them in the order of publication, if possible; the first is set 1839, as young Flashy finds himself in the retreat from Kabul, during the First Afghan War. The guy always seems to have ended up in every military disaster of the 19th century, somehow not only surviving, but being-- totally undeservedly -- hailed as a hero. Fun stuff.
 
OK so this isn't something I'm reading right now, but wondering if I should lay in to the library.

I've never 'Ray Bradbury'd. Thought I'd give him a chance.
Is his 'Green Town Trilogy" which includes "Dandelion Wine", "Something Wicked This Way Comes", and "Farewell Summer" worth the scanning?
 
If you've never read Bradbury I would not start with any of those.
Bradbury has a style that takes a little getting used to. Granted that there are some folks who can jump right in and start with any Bradbury book.
(Probably the same folks who can jump [uninitiated] into Joyce's Ulysses or a Faulkner story with both feet and have no problems at all 😄)
Anyway, I would start with a collection of his short stories that would (indeed must) include The Martian Chronicles . But do not start with TMC.
Start with maybe the collections: R is for Rocket, The October Country, A Medicine for Melancholy, The Golden Apples of the Sun.
Sometimes the collections are reprinted in one volume ; for example the last two I mention can be found in a Volume entitled Twice 22.
After reading maybe 2 or more of the collections of short stories, go for The Martian Chronicles and also The Illustrated Man.

So, a couple of things to know/consider:
1) There are not a few "repeats" of some stories in the various collections. Pretty sure that publishers chose what stories to include in a collection, altho' it was likely that Bradbury was consulted. All the collections I've listed were published when RB was still alive.
2) If, after reading even a few of his short stories, you really don't care for his style, I can't see that you would enjoy reading his longer works.
Not trying to discourage you, but his style most definitely does not become less Bradbury-ish over time... in fact, it gets more so.
But I like him a lot....always have, since I was about 12. And I started with Twice 22 ( "Medicine..." and "Golden Apples...")
 
Deimos said:
If you've never read Bradbury
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So last question sir Deimos:
What about this 'fahrenheit 451' i note is his also, and i've heard many laud through the decades? may be (arguably) his most heralded book?
not for the 'bradbury beginner' either?

I was spying out several of those 'short story' collections as it turned out.... there are several. looked 'chewy' to me for the initial flavor-dip.
 
It is one of his best...dystopian society.
But what is really rather scary is, except for the outright book burning, that we are seeing right now what he describes in the story.
But his characteristic way of writing is still there.
And I know some people, despite being almost desperate to read the book, were put off by his style with a few chapters, if not a few pages, and so put it down.
Or they resorted to the CliffNotes/SparkNotes which (imo) is kind of like eating a cardboard cutout of a slice of apple pie instead of the real thing.
Anyway, you don't have to read 4 volumes of collections, but I strongly urge you to read at least one, and also the Martian Chronicles.
I just re-read Twice 22 over the summer (northern summer 😄) and enjoyed it just as much as always...and that was probably the 15th re-read at least.
(And I have read F-451 at least that many times, also.)
 
Reactions: Ent
OK thank you. I'm normally quite tolerant of different and 'odd' writing styles so I'm not too concerned about that... but I'll follow your advice.
I've also heard of the 'martian chronicles' from others...
there's no real reason that I've not approached him before... just that when it was time to 'select another to pursue' others seemed more attractive to me to pick up.
(Though the 'Thomas Covenant' series was a bit of a...well... i don't know. It could have been replaced with something more profitable I'm sure, but once I started it, in spite of my distaste for 'covenant' himself, i just decided to continue. Some parts of it were quite enjoyable. With a good pair of scissors and certain sections cut out for nausea's sake, it could even be worth a re-read perhaps.)
 
I have a lot Bradbury on my shelves...
Dandelion Wine is probably as close to an auto-biography that Bradbury ever wrote, but it is not high on my personal Bradbury reading list.
Others may disagree. But there certainly are sections of it that I enjoy very much, so even tho' I cannot say I've re-read the entire book a dozen times, I can assure you that I've re-read parts of it a dozen times.
In fact, whole chapters of it were lifted out to be included in one collection or another, as they were initially written as stand-alone short stories.
As for his novels: Fahrenheit 451 is his best. Something Wicked This Way Comes is next, which was expanded from a short story called Dark Carnival or (alternately) Black Ferris.
Another novel is The Halloween Tree. I didn't really care for it at first, but on a second reading I altered my opinion of it and have since re-read it a few times.
I like it enough such that "It stays" and will not go to the second-hand shops.

The Martian Chronicles, The illustrated Man and some other collections are sometimes called novels as they have been bound together with a common theme, TMC being the most obvious in theme, and also the most well known. It works very well with Dandelion Wine but much less so with The Illustrated Man.
But I would not call them novels (tho' the point could be argued with Dandelion Wine.)
 
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Deimos said:
Yes, I agree ( I've a BA [from ASU] in History (Western Civ) and I enjoyed them (even the bawdy parts) .
Never read the Sharpe series..no reason...just haven't.
Click to expand...
Most of the books were filmed as 100 minute stand alone episodes with Sean Bean as Sharpe.

Here's a excerpt from Sharpe's eagle. "Can you stand?"
Culaeron said:
I'm looking it up right now. I love historical fiction, especially 18th and 19th century. Seems there are some really interesting character flaws with the protagonist. I'll definitely check out the series. Thanks!
Click to expand...

You might be interested in the Kydd Series by Julian Stockwin. They trace the life and adventures of Thomas Kydd, a wig maker pressed into the Royal Navy in 1893 as war with revolutionary France breaks out, and his subsequent adventures. Unusually for such books, it is from a lower deck perspective, although Kydd eventually is promoted to an officer and eventually (so far) a Commodore. Such progression was not unheard of, and the books are meticulously written. I have read most of the series about war at sea in that era - Hornblower, Bolitho, Aubrey - and this is by far and away my favourite. The books contain much detail on the social and political context of the times, specially as Kydd progresses up the hierarchy. Be warned, there are 24 books (so far) in the series and it still only 1812. But they are very readable and meticulously researched https://julianstockwinblog.files.wordpress.com/2021/06/the_thomas_kydd_novels_216.pdf
 
I guess everyone that watched the LOTR (PJ) movies caught the little inside Joke when Boromir was wandering around Rivendell where he happened upon the Shards of Narsil and picked up the broken grip, and said?.....
 
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