What 📔book are you reading right now?

[Amon Rudh]

Currently reading Book of Lost Tales concurrently with Diary of a Young Naturalist (Dara McAnulty). Enjoying both!

 

[Deimos]

I had to read Great Expectations in High School and actually really liked it, so much so that I reread it once so I could at my own pace that time.

I read both Great Expectations and David Copperfield in the last 2 years (COVID quarantine reading 😄).
First time for both, tho' they had been sitting on my bookshelves for years.
I liked them very much, perhaps DC a bit more.
Next up is A Tale of Two Cities to which I am very much looking forward, but it is not on my shelves, so I must first locate a copy.
Also on the immediate "short list" is Kipling's Kim.

It's been a while since anyone's responded, but I really like this thread, so I'll go next.

I'm currently reading Descartes' Meditation on First Philosophy like the philosophy nerd I am. I also realized that the whole idea of nothing being new (i.e. everything "new" we come up with/imagine is just a rearrangement of different parts of things that were before) has a very Ent-like vibe to it. Does anyone else see that?

Well....yes.
More than 2000 years ago (approx 450-180 BC...there is some dispute about the time) a very wise man noticed exactly that "phenomenon" 😉

What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done; and there is nothing new under the sun. -- Ecclesiastes 1:9

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The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Bronte.
About three quarters of the way through it.
My God, but Arthur Huntingdon is a first class rake, a most profligate villain!

Finished it.
Yep, Arthur is one of the most reprehensible, most villainous characters I have come across.**
He definitely deserved what happened to him.
(And Anne Bronte was a most trenchant observer of typical Victorian behaviour and mores)

**On second thought, Uriah Heep is right up there with Arthur 😬...difficult to say which one gets the trophy.

Finished it.
Yep, Arthur is one of the most reprehensible, most villainous characters I have come across.**
He definitely deserved what happened to him.
(And Anne Bronte was a most trenchant observer of typical Victorian behaviour and mores)

**On second thought, Uriah Heep is right up there with Arthur 😬...difficult to say which one gets the trophy.

Seconding my "second thought" ...
Uriah Heep gets the trophy.
Arthur Huntingdon is a villain, for sure. But his evil behaviour is rooted in an extreme narcissism and selfishness.
He is emotionally driven and behaves like an overindulged petulant child, forever wanting his own way to satisfy his rather base appetites.
Uriah Heep, tho', is pure unadulterated evil: cold, calculating, driven not by emotion but by the lust for power.

 

[CheriptheRipper]

Brave New World.
1984 was something alright.

 

[Deimos]

Brave New World.
1984 was something alright.

Depressing to say the least. **
But also very enlightening. He explains quite well the structure of totalitarianism, and (given the right circumstances) why it works.
It's not for nothing that he is still quoted more than 50 years after he wrote it.

**Yet I have read it at least a half dozen times, the most recent being last month.

 

[CheriptheRipper]

Depressing to say the least.
But also very enlightening. He explains quite well the structure of totalitarianism, and (given the right circumstances) why it works.
It's not for nothing that he is still quoted more than 50 years after he wrote it.

I'm glad I decided to read it as much as I wish I wouldn't have.
I don't have the words for it man, don't even know who to blame for having me believe I could expect anything 'positive' from it.
I'm surprised Orwell managed to put this all together as well as he did, assuming he was in bad health because he died the year after or even because he didn't grow up anywhere resembling its ideas.
Honestly for all it contains I think the angle on Newspeak and how it's supposed to erase 'feeling' (among many other things) the most intriguing.
Anyway I'm gonna have to ask you for a recommendation soon enough Deimos cause picking these books up on my own hasn't been going too well.

 

[Squint-eyed Southerner]

Uriah Heep

One of my favorite characters. A 19th century Eddie Haskell.

 

[Deimos]

One of my favorite characters. A 19th century Eddie Haskell.
View attachment 21226

Oh.My.God. ...I forgot about Eddie Haskell!
Beats Arthur Huntingdon and Uriah Heep and Darth Vader ....and... and... and even Morgoth himself! 😱😱😱
Aiiiiiiieeeeee!!!!!
(Eddie Haskell always made me cringe; which is testimony to both the writing of the character and Ken Osmond's talent )

I'm glad I decided to read it as much as I wish I wouldn't have.
I don't have the words for it man, don't even know who to blame for having me believe I could expect anything 'positive' from it.
I'm surprised Orwell managed to put this all together as well as he did, assuming he was in bad health because he died the year after or even because he didn't grow up anywhere resembling its ideas.
Honestly for all it contains I think the angle on Newspeak and how it's supposed to erase 'feeling' (among many other things) the most intriguing.
Anyway I'm gonna have to ask you for a recommendation soon enough Deimos cause picking these books up on my own hasn't been going too well.

Uhhh forgive my puzzlement.... why do you say picking your own books "hasn't been going to well"?
So, refresh my memory.... list (if you don't mind) what you have read recently, or even not so recently.
If you prefer not to mention some things that is OK.

 

[Erestor Arcamen]

Brave New World.
1984 was something alright.

I've only read Brave New World once and from what I remember, it was a real trip lol

 

[Deimos]

I've only read Brave New World once and from what I remember, it was a real trip lol

“A gramme is better than a damn” .

 

[Olorgando]

Brave New World.
1984 was something alright.

Depressing to say the least. **
But also very enlightening. He explains quite well the structure of totalitarianism, and (given the right circumstances) why it works.
It's not for nothing that he is still quoted more than 50 years after he wrote it.

**Yet I have read it at least a half dozen times, the most recent being last month.

I've only read Orwell's "Animal Farm", which became hugely relevant as of 1990, much more so than during Orwell's lifetime.

 

[Olorgando]

The German translation of "The Human, the Orchid and the Octopus", published 2007, a collaboration between Jacques-Yves Cousteau (1910-1997) and journalist / author Susan Schiefelbein. Apparently they began collaborating on what was to become this book in the early 1970's, and continued up to Cousteau's passing away in 1997. The subtitle (I translate back from German) is "My life-long dedication to the Exploration and Preservation of our Environment", so something of a legacy of his conservation efforts rather than a straightforward biography (I've just started reading).

 

[Deimos]

"Kim" ...by Rudyard Kipling
Oxford edition, good into notes and glossary (essential for understanding some of the native words Kipling uses)
Engrossing story, moves along at good pace.
Considered Kipling's best work. Gives an accurate and intimate portrayal of 19th C. India under British colonial rule.

 

[Þráinn Þórhallsson]

Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton .

 

[Olorgando]

Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton .

I read Critchton's 1969 "The Andromeda Strain" way back pre-1975, and his 1980 "Congo" some time in the 1980's. I also saw both film adaptations - in both cases on TV - and in both cases I liked the books better.

 

[Deimos]

If you want a different type of Michael Crichton story, read his "Eaters of the Dead".
It's his adaptation of Beowulf, made into a "historical account" as related by Ahmad ibn Fadlan a 10th C Muslim traveler.
Ahmad ibn Fadlan was a real person who did chronicle the lives of Volga Vikings.
Crichton wove his fictional "Beowulf Tale" with Fadlan's writings.
It's a very entertaining story and one learns a lot about the 10th C Vikings.
I've read it several times.
And it was made into a rather forgettable movie called (IIRC) The 13th Warrior.

 

[Squint-eyed Southerner]

I enjoyed that movie.

 

[Deimos]

I enjoyed that movie.

There's no accounting for taste

I had read the book several times long before I happened to hear about a movie, the plot of which "sounded vaguely familiar".
I read about it and concluded that it was based on Crichton's book.
The I decided to rent it at Blockbuster (which tells you how long ago this was) and tried to watch it.
The cinematography wasn't too good and because I had read the book I thought the [screenplay] plot and characters were a bit thin.
The scene in the cave was incredibly dark...literally...again bad cinematography.
If you haven't read the book, you might find it better than the movie.

 

[Squint-eyed Southerner]

I did read the book. I enjoyed both.

 

[Vorondil]

The Secret Invaders by Bill Strutton and Michael Pearson, and then will start Death In The Long Grass by Peter Capstick.

 

[Elbereth Vala Varda]

One Million Digits of Pi:

Real page-turner.