What 📔book are you reading right now?

Maedhros_Nelyafinwë said:

Maedhros, post-Thangorodrim! I started it before I even joined this site, actually.

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Awesome! I'd loved to see it!

Me too! 🙂

The original Swedish version is fantastic - watched it a few years ago with my wife. I still haven’t read the book but have been meaning to since watching the film and on my wife’s recommendation. I will add it to the list for this year!

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I finished A Man Called Ove last night. You can add my recommendation to your wife's.

Rivendell_librarian said:

Also reading Shackleton's Boat Journey by the captain of the Endurance: Frank Worsley. Wonderful descriptions of Antarctic hardships with temperatures in Fahrenheit and a great sense of exploring the unknown with little previous knowledge of how to do it - rather like the Apollo moon programme.

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Just finished now - so exciting! Some truly beautiful descriptions of the harsh landscapes. Worsley was obviously a huge admirer of Shackleton as a leader of men, and of his overwhelming concern for their safety. It could be argued that the most dangerous part of the journey was the trek over mountainous icy South Georgia to the whaling stations on the opposite coast: done partly in darkness because of rations and weather. Shackleton chose the three fittest men who were roped together because of the danger of crevasses. Oddly, afterwards each of them reported that they sensed the presence of a fourth person during the trek.

Their appearance was so off putting when they reached one of the whaling stations that it took a while before they could communicate who they were and what they had done. Afterwards a large number of the whalers wanted to hear their story and shake their hands. "These are men" one of them said.

Suffering from heart problems probably made worse by what he had endured, as described in the book, Shackleton tried to volunteer (over age) for the western front. He was involved in a war mission to Spitsbergen and as a military adviser in the British intervention in the Russian civil war. Afterwards he could have settled down to the lecture circuit and writing, but he had to go on one "last" expedition and died of a heart attack on South Georgia. His wife asked that he be buried in the Grytviken cemetery in South Georgia.

Has anyone ever read any of the novels by H. Rider Haggard?
I read King Solomon's Mines (KSM) and also She** when I was about 20 (a looong time ago).
I've never re-read She but I've re-read KSM several times; I'm about to commence another re-read.
Haggard has written other novels but I've never read any of those; just these two.
I don't remember much of She but I recommend KSM for anyone who like adventure stories.

** Fun factoid: The novel She is the source of the phrase "She Who Must Be Obeyed" (aka SWMBO) uttered often by Rumpole in "Rumpole of the Bailey".
The SWMBO description is actually the way the character Ayesha is referred to in the story.

Working my way through the Number 1 Ladies detective agency series. There are some new titles not there when I was last reading them

Deimos said:

Has anyone ever read any of the novels by H. Rider Haggard?

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I read the two you mention, plus Alan Quatermain, a number of years ago. I have copies of Nada the Lily and The World's Desire (a collaboration with Andrew Lang), but haven't read those.

Tolkien was an admirer. And here's an interesting project I just learned of:

Currently about halfway through the Silmarillion and I gotta say, with every passing page I'm starting to dislike the elves more. For all their supposed wisdom they sure aren't showing it.
I think I'll just read Dune Messiah before finishing this.

Almost finished with my re-read of the 2016 German translation of Richard Dawkins's autobiography (the English original was published in two volumes 2013 and 2016).

The Moon is a Harsh Mistress by Robert Heinlein

Squint-eyed Southerner said:

I read the two you mention, plus Alan Quatermain, a number of years ago. I have copies of Nada the Lily and The World's Desire (a collaboration with Andrew Lang), but haven't read those.

Tolkien was an admirer. And here's an interesting project I just learned of:

Amazon.com

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Never knew that Tolkien read Haggard but, in retrospect, I see that I shouldn't be surprised. **
I'll have to look into that particular edition of She that you mentioned; maybe it's time I re-read that one 😄.

** I wonder if he also read any Verne or Wells. He doesn't mention either author in his Letters so apparently no one asked him about it.
Just a surmise but I think he would have preferred Verne to Wells. Then again, he might have detested both as he had no great love for machines and metal and wheels.

Erestor Arcamen said:

The Moon is a Harsh Mistress by Robert Heinlein

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First time or a re-read?

Currently on a P.G. Wodehouse binge

Nova4029 said:

Currently on a P.G. Wodehouse binge

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Squint-eyed Southerner, does that like mean that you too are a Wodehouse fan? Because until now, I have never met anyone who has even heard of him outside of Wodehouse fan pages.

Nova4029 said:

Squint-eyed Southerner, does that like mean that you too are a Wodehouse fan? Because until now, I have never met anyone who has even heard of him outside of Wodehouse fan pages.

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Wait, does that mean yes or no? 😅

Nova4029 said:

Squint-eyed Southerner, does that like mean that you too are a Wodehouse fan? Because until now, I have never met anyone who has even heard of him outside of Wodehouse fan pages.

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I have two Wodehouse books on my shelves. Just not a super-big fan.

I'm just surprised; he's well-known as an instant mood enhancer.

"He drank coffee with the air of a man who regretted it was not poison".

Deimos said:

I have two Wodehouse books on my shelves. Just not a super-big fan.

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That 1920s era British dry wit.....totally understandable, it's definitely not everyone's cup of tea

Deimos said:

First time or a re-read?

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First! I've read a few others but not this one.

Squint-eyed Southerner said:

I'm just surprised; he's well-known as an instant mood enhancer.

"He drank coffee with the air of a man who regretted it was not poison".

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"He looked like someone had poured him into his clothes and he forgot to say when"......."If not actually disgruntled, he was far from gruntled." Hehe I love it

Wodehouse could convey a vivid image of someone in a few words-- like his aunt's husband, who looked like "a pterodactyl with a secret sorrow".

Or his aunt's silver cow creamer: " Merely looking at it took one into a different, and horrible world".

Nova4029 said:

That 1920s era British dry wit.....totally understandable, it's definitely not everyone's cup of tea

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Oh, I'm a very big fan of British dry wit; just not a big fan of the Wodehouse stories that contain it.
Chesterton. Shaw, Bierce, E. Nesbit, Dorothy Sayers...all pretty witty British fellows (and ladies).
And I prefer them all to Wodehouse. Nothing wrong with P.G... just (as I said ) not my favorite.