What 📔book are you reading right now?

[Amon Rudh]

It's a translation of course. I got this one
I'd say it's initially heavy going and eventually you get into the style and format the more you read. I have to look up fewer words as I go through it. In mine there's a helpful summary of the following Canto. I am reading one Canto per day after a chapter of The Two Towers. It flows on surprisingly well!

 

[Deimos]

Augustine's City of God ...in English.
Once I get through it in English I'll tackle it in Latin.
It will be good practice for keeping my Latin sharp less sloppy.🙄

 

[Deimos]

I've never attempted a book that old, how does Dante's Divine Comedy read?

~~~
I'm reading the Sillmarillion currently, courtesy of Erestor.

Like all "old" lit it helps a great deal if you are familiar with the era and culture of the writer/poet.
Dante lived in politically interesting times (don't we all tho'? ...😉) so you may want to read about Dante and his writing of the Divine Comedia before actually reading the work itself.

And just an aside: if more people (most people?) did that, to wit, familiarize themselves with an author AND his era and culture (like , maybe JRRT 😉....?), there would be a lot less indignation and accusations about the person's assumed racist, sexist, homophobic, colonialist and (insert any pejorative epithet currently in vogue ) by modern readers and reviewers afflicted with historical ignorance.

 

[Deimos]

@CheriptheRipper ...no need to look surprised😄.
I don't intend to read the full 3 Volumes in either English or Latin.
Almost all translated versions are edited such that what is left is equal to about a single Volume.
Augustine made a lot of digressions and went down not a few rabbit holes that had nothing to do with his main theme.
The full work is available but almost no one reads it in its entirety except maybe Classics scholars (and I am no man scholar 😉)

 

[Ent]

Well. While you all dwell in the realms of 'wow', I'm just happy to say my copy of 'Tree and Leaf' arrived today so I can tackle On Fairy-Stories, Leaf by Niggle, Mythopoeia, and The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth Beorhthelm's Son.

Having read the Introduction, I'm about to begin On Fairy-Stories.

 

[Deimos]

Well. While you all dwell in the realms of 'wow', I'm just happy to say my copy of 'Tree and Leaf' arrived today so I can tackle On Fairy-Stories, Leaf by Niggle, Mythopoeia, and The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth Beorhthelm's Son.

Having read the Introduction, I'm about to begin On Fairy-Stories.

It's dense... Tolkien was gifted with an incredible imagination, along with the intellect to fully develop and utilize it.
I've read On Fairy-Stories twice and still haven't completely digested it.
A third reading will take place in the not too distant future.

 

[Ent]

It's dense...

So it's NOT Ent that's dense..!! (well, maybe not.) Whew. I've re-read several passages already trying to get things stuffed into their appropriate slots.

 

[Rivendell_librarian]

For some comfort winter reading, I'm reading Dickens' David Copperfield. Not my favourite when I first read it years ago, but I'm really enjoying it this time. His writing is just so clever and witty e.g.

"In his attempts to be particularly lucid, Mr. Barkis was so extremely mysterious, that I might have stood looking in his face for an hour, and most assuredly should have got as much information out of it as out of the face of a clock that had stopped,"

 

[Squint-eyed Southerner]

In addition, his portrayal of the streets of London in that book as the entrails of a great beast is one of the things that led to his being regarded the "Father of Steampunk".

 

[Rivendell_librarian]

In addition, his portrayal of the streets of London in that book as the entrails of a great beast is one of the things that led to his being regarded the "Father of Steampunk".

This I did not know.

 

[Squint-eyed Southerner]

Actually, I guess it's more pronounced in Oliver Twist. For his influence on Steampunk and other fantasy genres, see the discussion about it here:

https://sf-encyclopedia.com/fe/steampunk

 

[Ugluk]

Just finished my last two items of reading relevant to my current work (which finishes today). Lunar outfitters about the design and construction of the ILC Dover Apollo space suits, and Across the airless wastes covering the development and use of the Apollo lunar rover used on the last three missions. Three weeks holiday coming up, not sure what I will read next. Much hangs on whether I can get my e-reader off she-who-must-be-obeyed

 

[Ealdwyn]

Andrew Miller's Ingenious Pain. It's the third book of his that I've read. I really like his work.

 

[Rivendell_librarian]

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.

 

[Starbrow]

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.

Have you read Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage to the Antarctic?
I am in awe of what those men accomplished. I will have to read Worsley account to see how it differs.

 

[Squint-eyed Southerner]

You may also like to try this aptly-titled memoir by a member of Scott's ill-fated expedition.

 

[Deimos]

Earlier this year I read Endurance by Alfred Lansing (July 21, 1921 – 1975)
"Lansing was an American journalist and writer, best known for his book Endurance (1959), an account of Ernest Shackleton's Antarctic explorations."
There are only two books considered the most complete account of Shackleton's ill fated attempt to cross Antarctica: Lansing's and... uh, someone else's
(I can't remember the name of the other author🙄)

The reason Lansing's account is considered one of the best is that he interviewed the surviving members of the expedition.
Also his book uses the photographs taken by the photographer who went on the expedition ...at least 90% of the photos in the book are from the expedition.
(How so many of the photographic plates were saved from the sinking ship-- but many were still lost---makes for a somewhat harrowing tale)
Lansing is an excellent writer and first rate story teller. You come to know every member of the crew intimately.
I finished the book in two days and very much recommend it.
It really is an engrossing story; "riveting" (as they say).

Addendum: I did not select the Alfred Lansing book by pulling [author] names out of a hat.
There have been so many written (and dramatized?) accounts of the Shackleton expedition I didn't know which one to read.
So I read a lot of book reviews. What made it easy to choose the Lansing book was the fact that he had primary source info; the "eye witness" stories of surviving crew members and also primary source photographs.
(Go ad fontes whenever possible 😉)

 

[Deimos]

Just picked up a copy (through Inter-Library Loan) of The Romance of the Forest by Ann Radcliffe (who also authored The Mysteries of Udolpho)
It's another Gothic novel (1791).
This novel, like Mysteries was mentioned in Austen's Northanger Abbey so, of course, I put it on my reading list.
And now I have it (until 3 January... no renewals allowed for ILL books) and I intend to thoroughly enjoy it 😁

And if I really do like it I will hunt down my own copy of it.
Still trying to locate a particular and affordable edition of The Mysteries of Udolpho, but that edition, even not in the best condition, is priced in the hundreds of dollars. 😱
I hope that is not the situtation with The Romance of the Forest 😬....(but it probably is 🙄)

 

[Deimos]

For some comfort winter reading, I'm reading Dickens' David Copperfield. Not my favourite when I first read it years ago, but I'm really enjoying it this time. His writing is just so clever and witty e.g.

"In his attempts to be particularly lucid, Mr. Barkis was so extremely mysterious, that I might have stood looking in his face for an hour, and most assuredly should have got as much information out of it as out of the face of a clock that had stopped,"

I read David Copperfield for the first time last year, even tho' that one, too, has been sitting on the bookshelves for about 20 years.
I very much liked it.... a re-read is definitely in the cards 🙂

 

[Squint-eyed Southerner]

Our Mutual Friend, one of his most complex novels, opens with perhaps the grimmest scene in all his works -- as well as introducing a character who gave us the term "podsnappery".