What 📔book are you reading right now?

Ashley · Dec 26, 2024

I'm reading The Screwtape Letters and Unfinished Tales. I got them both for Christmas.

Squint-eyed Southerner · Dec 26, 2024

UT is filled with good stuff! One thing I'd suggest: if you feel yourself getting bogged down in one section, skip to another; @Elthir will frown, but I had a hard time getting through all the Galadriel variants. On the other hand, "Cirion and Eorl" nearly had me in tears.

Ashley · Dec 26, 2024

Squint-eyed Southerner said:
if you feel yourself getting bogged down in one section, skip to another

I normally like to read straight through, but if it's seeming particularly challenging, I'll take your advice.

Idril Celebrindal · Dec 26, 2024

I'm reading Inheritance, the last book in the Inheritance trilogy. I'm interested to see how everything finishes. A friend told me part of the ending, though...

Deimos · Dec 26, 2024

Ashley said:
I'm reading The Screwtape Letters and Unfinished Tales. I got them both for Christmas.

The Screwtape Letters is very good... but the situations/people Lewis describes harkens back to a time more than 80 years past.
So a little [mental] "chronological adjustment" might be needed.
Where the little book shines tho' is his description of fallen human nature (with all its faults and foibles in dramatic display), which doesn't ever change.
(Achilles' and Agamemnon's faults are just as common now as 3000 years ago)
You can't do much better than Lewis' book in getting a lesson or three in that. 🙂

Ent · Dec 27, 2024

I stumbled on Charles Dickens' The Life of our Lord while preparing to catch up on his writing. I was a bit surprised, not knowing he had written such a book.
It does help to understand some of the other things he wrote elsewhere, however.

So - I'm reading that along with a couple others at present.
He slaughters theology a bit in it, but we need to keep in mind he's writing it for his (fairly) young children. (He had 10 of them.)

.

Elthir · Dec 27, 2024

Squint-eyed Southerner said:
. . . but I had a hard time getting through all the Galadriel variants.

I'm going to pretend I didn't hear that.

Squint-eyed Southerner · Dec 27, 2024

I expected no less. 😁

Radaghast · Dec 27, 2024

Squint-eyed Southerner said:
One person's take:
View attachment 39077

Also, minus skill 😇

Radaghast · Dec 27, 2024

Radaghast said:
Finally finished this. Sheesh, what a groaner. Again, less for its derivation of Tolkien than the flowery and cloyingly descriptive writing style. One thing I forgot to mention is that this started as a proposed sequel to The Lord of the Rings (which the McKiernan started writing while recovering a motorcycle accident). Doubleday tried getting the rights to publish but were denied by the Tolkien estate (I guess Simon Tolkien was too young at the time to have any say?), so the author changed details of the story (I guess this could explain why there's not Gandalf equivalent).

Anyway, I started reading this.
View attachment 38813
I saw it in a "Take a Book, Leave a Book" box on the curbside, so I figured, what the heck (unfortunately, I didn't have a book to leave, but the box was nearly full anyway).

Finished reading The Lightning Thief about a week ago. Apparently, this series is very popular, but I wouldn't be the one to tell you why, at least not from reading the first book (and I am not going to read any further into the series). The world-building and story-telling seem rather rushed sloppy to me, even though the mythology is all there to draw from. There're also the unavoidable comparisons to Harry Potter.

Anyway, I've started Something Wicked This Way Comes thanks to @Ashley's post.

Deimos · Dec 27, 2024

I [quite seriously] await your opinion. Not everyone can take Bradbury's style.
(I of course have no trouble with it at all, 😇 as evidenced by my bookshelves...):

Laurë · Dec 30, 2024

I finally finished The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss after procrastinating the last hundred pages for about a month. It's amazing what a fantastic motivator getting a few new books for Christmas can be 🤣

It was very good, I absolutely loved it and it definitely scratched that low medieval period based fantasy itch I get sometimes. The prose was beautiful, the characterization was lovely, and the framing of the story was unique and interesting. I definitely recommend it if your looking for something that maybe has less action.

I've already started Wind and Truth by Brandon Sanderson, and I'm going to try and plow through most of it while I'm still on break for class, we'll see how far I get.

Idril Celebrindal · Dec 31, 2024

I just finished Inheritance, I thought the end was a bit... odd. The rest of it was good, though. I'm now reading Roverandom. I'm also reading Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets to my younger sister.

Starbrow · Dec 31, 2024

In honor of the season I'm reading The Nutcracker and the Mouse King, which was the basis for The Nutcracker ballet by Tchaikovsky.

Ent · Jan 1, 2025

Ent said:
I stumbled on Charles Dickens' The Life of our Lord while preparing to catch up on his writing. I was a bit surprised, not knowing he had written such a book.
It does help to understand some of the other things he wrote elsewhere, however.

So - I'm reading that along with a couple others at present.
He slaughters theology a bit in it, but we need to keep in mind he's writing it for his (fairly) young children. (He had 10 of them.)

.

Quick book report having finished this, for anyone interested in Dickens' work.

Apparently he wrote this book to his own children, and they read it at each Christmas time. He strictly forbad it to be published during his lifetime, and adjured his sister-in-law to insure none of his family even allowed the manuscript to be taken out of the house.
It was first published in 1934, 64 years after his death.

I can recommend the book for those wanting to read something well written at an age and awareness level of his intended audience. (His own young children.)

I cannot recommend it however for its understanding of Biblical theology, or fidelity to the biblical text - nor for its Christology, or proper soteriology.

It DOES reveal much about Dickens himself, his particular understanding of Jesus, and the way his theological grasp works its way out in his works, so has great value (at least to me) from that perspective.

Ericamaples38 · Jan 1, 2025

Elendil3119 said:
I'm currently reading LotR (again ) and The Canterbury Tales, by Chaucer. What about you guys?

The silmarillion

Idril Celebrindal · Jan 5, 2025

A friend let me borrow some star wars books by Paul Davis and Hollace Davis. One of them is called The Glove of Darth Vader. The writing is very simple and the characters are very one-dimentional, but I find myself enjoying the books anyway.

Elwing the White · Jan 5, 2025

I'm reading Around the World in Eighty Days by Jules Verne.

Elbereth Gilthoniel · Jan 7, 2025

I'm currently reading The Silmarillion and The Song of Roland.

Ugluk · Jan 9, 2025

Just finished The Cruel Sea (Montserrat). Powerful as ever

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