What 📔book are you reading right now?

Vorondil said:

I've just started reading Dracula for the first time.

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omg... that book is terrifying, especially the rides in the carriages through the Carpathians.
I've read it about 3-4 times now... and it's terrifying every time.
One annoyance... the broken English "pidgen" manner of speaking Van Helsing uses.... Coppola wisely had his van Helsing (Anthony Hopkins) speak normally.
And it really does get annoying....yet it fades into the background too... kind of like watching a foreign film subtitled in English..
Your brain starts making allowances for the intrusions such that after a time it's just "part of the scenery".

Starbrow said:

I'm listening to Project Hail Mary before I see the movie.

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Like you I want to read the book before I see the movie.
I put in a request at the library (for the book)...i'm 54th in line 🙄

Rivendell_librarian said:

2 books I've read this year:

1. Can You Forgive Her by Anthony Trollope. A long 830pp English Victorian novel
It's the first of his political Palliser novels but istr I bought it second hand because it seemed like good value in pages per pence. Well actually it was pretty good. The story features three women who choose between Mr Safe but Boring and a more exciting risky rake - Hardy's Gabriel Oak vs Sergeant Troy though in this case the Gabriel Oaks are well off to rich but none are called Frank. One of the women is already married to Mr Safe but feels she was forced into it by society - and we are talking very high society here.

The polite language and subject matter invites obvious comparisons with Jane Austen but these were themes that other Victorian novelists wrote about - and there is more latent edge to this novel than with Austen. Also the main women characters are treated in greater depth than the men. By the end one feels one knows them.

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So you recommend it?
I'm not afraid of long novels; I've read Middlemarch...twice.
(And will probably read it at least one more time before I decamp to the far side of the grave.)

Halfway through The War With Hannibal by Livy...

... and I'm pronouncing everything in my head in Elvish

Solace House by Will Maclean. Doesn't actually come out till October but having a spouse who has a bookstore has its perks . She went to a book convention in Pittsburgh and got a whole pile that authors were giving out. This one sounded interesting and it's very god so far.

She got review copies? Or galleys?

Squint-eyed Southerner said:

She got review copies? Or galleys?

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Review copies. A lot of authors go to some of these conventions and just give them out. The conventions are a bit expensive unless you belong to the ABA (American Bookseller's Association) which is why they give them out so freely, 90% of the people there either are in the ABA, which you have to meet requirements to join, or pay a very large admission fee.

I recently read Dandelion Wine by Ray Bradbury, and am now going for The Odyssey (the T.E. Lawrence translation). I've been wanting to read it for a while (mostly due to Epic the Musical), and what with my friend recommending it and the movie coming out soon, it seemed like a good time to read it.

Idril Celebrindal said:

I recently read Dandelion Wine by Ray Bradbury, and am now going for The Odyssey (the T.E. Lawrence translation). I've been wanting to read it for a while (mostly due to Epic the Musical), and what with my friend recommending it and the movie coming out soon, it seemed like a good time to read it.

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What did you think of Bradbury's DW?

Deimos said:

What did you think of Bradbury's DW?

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I didn't feel like Bradbury captured the essence of childhood, if that makes sense. But then, that's the way with a lot of adult authors who write child characters. Something just feels off, the way the kids think and talk just isn't quite right. They either act too young or too old. For example, when I was 12 no way would I have thought that a wax witch was real, nor would anyone of my age whom I knew. But maybe that's the point, maybe Douglas is supposed to be just pretending or something like that. Or I could just be missing something. I'll have to re-read it before I can say for sure, my opinions on books often change the second time reading them, especially with intricate books like this one.

I'm not saying it was a bad book, though, I really enjoyed it, and I love the way Bradbury writes and describes things. That's actually what got me to read Dandelion Wine, I really liked Fahrenheit 451 because of the way that he writes, it's poetic even when he's writing prose.

And I liked the underlying theme of the book, the way Douglas realizes that he's leaving childhood, and everything that that realization entails. And also the scene where Tom is absolutely terrified after realizing that his mother is scared of something. That really stuck out to me. So yeah, overall I really enjoyed it, and I want to read more of Bradbury's books.

Deimos said:

So you recommend it?
I'm not afraid of long novels; I've read Middlemarch...twice.
(And will probably read it at least one more time before I decamp to the far side of the grave.)

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I recommend the Trollope movel.

Rivendell_librarian said:

I recommend the Trollope movel.

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Someone else also recommended it.
Since you also endorse it, two people's opinions (whom I respect) is good enough.

The Dark is Rising by Susan Cooper

Dawn by Octavia Butler

I finished reading The Martian Chronicles a few minutes ago.

I think I may just have a new favorite book.

Just arrived in the mail , HB (used): In the Realm of Terror by Algernon Blackwood
Pub 1957 by Pantheon Books, and it has a stitched binding ....yesssss! 😄
"8 Haunting Tales" , seven of them originally published by Eveleigh Nash (London)

1. A Haunted Island (1906)
2. The Empty House (1906)
3. The Strange Adventures of a Private Secretary in New York (1906)
4. The Willows (1907) .... willing to bet Tolkien read this and it influenced his using malevolent willows
5. A Psychical Invasion (1908)
6. An Episode in a Lodging House (1908)
7. The Wendigo (1910)
8. The Man Whom the Trees Loved (1912) ... different publisher: Amalgamated Press (London)

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I have this pair by Spring Books, from the 60s.


Apparently went through several printings. Somewhat garish DJ art.

Squint-eyed Southerner said:

I have this pair by Spring Books, from the 60s.
View attachment 48483
View attachment 48484
Apparently went through several printings. Somewhat garish DJ art.

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Is there "overlap" in what each book contains or are all the stories different?

Idril Celebrindal said:

I finished reading The Martian Chronicles a few minutes ago.

I think I may just have a new favorite book.

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Bradbury wrote some "Mars" stories that aren't included in the Martian Chronicles but clearly belong in the "history" of the humans colonizing it.
Try to find online "Dark They Were, and Golden-Eyed",** and also "The Exiles".
The Exiles is a bit different but since you have read "Usher II" it will make more sense.
And if you've read Fahrenheit 451, The Exiles will make a lot of sense.

** It was first published as The Naming of Names.. but for some reason Bradbury and the publisher used that title for a short "bridge piece" (2 pages) in the Martian Chronicles. The short story (about the Bittering family) was later titled "Dark They Were...." ... it can be found in the collection A Medicine for Melancholy (and maybe in other collections: I have it in A Medicine for Melancholy).

Edit: found a PDF on a French lit website:... Dark They Were....
Also a PDF for The Exiles

Deimos said:

Is there "overlap" in what each book contains or are all the stories different?

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Different. I'm too lazy list the contents, but they can be found online. He was a very prolific writer; he did a whole series about a sort of psychic Sherlock Holmes-type detective.