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What 📔book are you reading right now?
Salem's Lot is my favorite book by him that I've read so far. I started The Stand last year but couldn't get through it, way too long and boring for me.
 
My wife liked 'salem's Lot but said she liked The Shining even more although it doesn't top Misery her favourite ever.
I am reading them all from the beginning as I am with Tolkien. With King it's publication order with JRRT in world order within reason.
 
Current read: Still The Battle for Middle-earth, Rutledge.
The following lineup:
... Tolkien & Faith: Smith
... Tolkien Dogmatics: Theology through Mythology..." Austin
... Sanctifying Myth: Birzer
... Tolkien's Faith: A Spiritual Biography: Ordway
... Finding God in the Lord of the Rings: Burner & Ware
... The Gospel according to Tolkien: Wood, Ralph
... The Road Goes Ever On: A Christian Journey Through The Lord Of The Rings: Frailey
... Theology and Tolkien: Estes, Editor (with others)
... The Lure of the Ring: Power, Addiction & Transcendence" Strachan and Coster
... Tolkien's Ordinary Virtues: Exploring the Spiritual Themes..." Smith
... Defending Middle-earth: Tolkie, Myth and Modernity: Curry (This one is of a little different flavor, but should be fun.)

These are all research for my upcoming writing of course...

I'm sure they're all 'good works' in their own right... but from my brief reviews, they may also all well be coming from their own perspective and viewpoint of Tolkien's faith, interpretation and intent, rather than 'getting into his shoes' appropriately so they're coming from his.

In some cases, I also think some of them are seeking to extract milk from rocks.

My work will be twofold... to try to show where Tolkien really came from, and how that draws a different line through his works than many are trying to present.

We'll see where it all goes when the research is done.

I may not have time to read any book 'just for pleasure' again before I look at rose roots rather than rose petals... we'll see.
Fortunately, I take great pleasure in research and writing itself. Otherwise I would probably go nuts. (Who knows... maybe I already am. The one who is nuts never really knows it, they say.)
 
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That’s what I’ve been doing too. I loved The Shining as well. I didn’t finish The Stand but am going to keep going. I already read The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon also and it was equally awesome.
 
Currently reading The Long Walk by Stephen King, very good so far and much better to read than The Stand.
 
Over two months later and I'm still only about halfway through David Copperfield. It's not what I'd call a page turner; I've been trying to force myself get through at least a chapter a day, which means I won't be done with this book for at least another month 😕

But I've decided to give it a break while I read The Shining, which I've been compelled to read after catching parts of the 1980 movie on cable a few times. I feel it fails as an adaptation but I'm not sure it really satisfies as a movie either. It seems to leave too many blanks and there is no chemistry between any of the characters. I read the book a long time ago but don't remember many details. I do remember, however, that the Stanley Kubrick movie doesn't do it justice, and I as I'm reading the book again that is becoming more and more evident.

Anyway, it's fitting I read the book now since Stephen King is a topic being discussed here currently. Also, it's Halloween season, which makes it even more apropos. And I just happened to watch The Simpsons parody "The Shinning" today, which does just about as good a job as Kubrick did in telling the story, in a fraction of the time 😝
 
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Reactions: Ent

Having recently finished David Copperfield I got started on this one (and am about a third finished). It's a story that uses Copperfield as a framework or template and many of the major story beats are basically the same. Also, many of the characters are based on characters from the Dickens novel including, of course, the titular character. The writing style could not be farther from Dickens, which makes it all the more interesting; also the setting is Virginian Appalachia in the 1990s instead of mid-19th century England. I got both books as a birthday gift; I'd never have read either book otherwise (though I did start David Copperfield a long time ago as I previously mentioned).
 
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Random thriller/mystery/whodunit called Please Tell Me by Mike Omer. Not bad, kind of junk reading until I get into something large/interesting again.
 
Re-reading a 2011 edition of the 2003 Biography of Douglas Adams by Nick Webb titled "Wish You Were Here", with apparently a brief additional introduction by Webb dated June 2011 as the sole change.
 
In God’s Name by David A. Yallop. It’s about the Vatican Bank, its scandals, and the possible murder of Pope John Paul I, who was trying to clean things up.
 
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Michael Crichton's Jurassic Park. Decided it was time to re-read it (it's been many a year) and compare it to the movies. Never done that yet...
Just the first chapter shows me there was a substantial amount of 'grab here, slap there, and make a bit of a new story out of it.'
OH... much like every other movie ever made from a book.
I'll finish the read... his writing isn't too bad, and I really don't recall the 'real story' from the one read moons ago. (And he's not driving me nuts with 'unnecessary thats' in the work.)
 
Erestor Arcamen said:
In God’s Name by David A. Gallop. It’s about the Vatican Bank, its scandals, and the possible murder of Pope John Paul I, who was trying to clean things up.
Click to expand...
That would be David A. Yallop. I have that 1984 book in German translation, and his 1993 To the Ends of the Earth: The Hunt for the Jackal in the original.
 
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