What 📔book are you reading right now?

[Amon Rudh]

Still ploughing (trudging) through the bible plus The Lost Road and Other Writings. My wc (toilet time!) book is Victorian Science and Engineering portrayed in the Illustrated London News. Fascinating little snippets on various related subjects.

 

[Starbrow]

I just started Shackleton's Boat Journey by Frank Worsley.

 

[Deimos]

I just started Shackleton's Boat Journey by Frank Worsley.

I read Endurance by Alfred Lansing.
You will be so amazed at what that crew did to survive... and then be even more amazed at how they finally accomplished their own rescue.
Anytime specific "seas" or "Straits" or "passages" (like the Drake Passage**) are mentioned , take the time to look them up (Wikipedia will do fine for that info), also have handy a maplink to the Antarctic land mass and its bays,, inlets, islands etc.
It will help you visualize what you are reading about, and also put you in awe of what these men dealt with.

** Most especially the Drake passage

 

[Olorgando]

A 2011 German biography of Charles Dickens. Starting about 1830, the purely biographical part is interspersed with reviews of the writings Dickens produced in this time period. Have reached the point after his first visit to the US in 1842, with the review of "A Christmas Carol" being the next section to read.

 

[Squint-eyed Southerner]

Are these contemporary reviews, or modern ones by the book's author?

Contemporary reviews are fun -- I have an anthology of them about various people.

 

[Olorgando]

Are these contemporary reviews, or modern ones by the book's author?

Modern ones by the book's author, but quoting contemporary reviews all the time, and reviewing them in turn.

 

[Starbrow]

I read Endurance by Alfred Lansing.
You will be so amazed at what that crew did to survive... and then be even more amazed at how they finally accomplished their own rescue.
Anytime specific "seas" or "Straits" or "passages" (like the Drake Passage**) are mentioned , take the time to look them up (Wikipedia will do fine for that info), also have handy a maplink to the Antarctic land mass and its bays,, inlets, islands etc.
It will help you visualize what you are reading about, and also put you in awe of what these men dealt with.

** Most especially the Drake passage

I read Endurance about 5 years ago. It is a great book and one I recommend frequently to others. I can barely imagine what it was like to live through such constant danger and difficulties. It kind of makes me ashamed to think of my complaints about the weather here.

 

[Deimos]

I read Endurance about 5 years ago. It is a great book and one I recommend frequently to others. I can barely imagine what it was like to live through such constant danger and difficulties. It kind of makes me ashamed to think of my complaints about the weather here.

Did you have to look things up (like Antarctic maps, the seas, current etc?).
I found I had to because I knew absolutely nothing about that part of the world, from the southern-most part of South America on down to Antarctica.
(But I did know that some of the worst storms in the world are on the seas near Cape Horn.)

 

[Deimos]

I read Endurance about 5 years ago. It is a great book and one I recommend frequently to others. I can barely imagine what it was like to live through such constant danger and difficulties. It kind of makes me ashamed to think of my complaints about the weather here.

Kind of makes me ashamed when I complain about any "hardships" 🙄

 

[Starbrow]

I look at maps when I'm reading the books. But I don't think it really gives me a good sense of what it was like.

 

[Deimos]

I look at maps when I'm reading the books. But I don't think it really gives me a good sense of what it was like.

I have to have maps whenever a story (real or fiction) has "epic" proportions... and Endurance was most definitely "epic".
I read LOTR the first time using only the maps provided (glued) in the back of the [hardcover] books.
With the second reading of it, coming almost on the the heels of the first time, I promptly ordered Karen Fonstad's Atlas of Middle Earth.
Anytime miles /distances especially with respect the time to traverse is mentioned I have to have a map/maps.
Sea currents relating to a story would fall into the map need category as well.
And maps have always fascinated me... I pore over maps of the Lunar and Martian surfaces, and the surface maps of [Terran] weather, and sea currents)

 

[Vorondil]

I can now tell you that The Black Arrow is well worth the read, though the speech of the characters is quite hard to comprehend some times, with many a trow (think or believe), shent (to shame or scold), shog (to jolt or give someone a fright), yarely (nimble and lively), aroint (begone. (Aroint thee)). But I thoroughly enjoyed it, and highly recommend it. And if you should happen to read it, remember that the character Richard Crookback, really existed, and was one of my ancestors.

 

[Squint-eyed Southerner]

It's far too hot and humid here, so I put more "serious" reading aside, and picked up a thriller: The Ghost, by Robert Harris. It was made into a well-received film, though I haven't seen it:

 

[Ent]

Sigh. I really don't like this thread.
Now I need to add Endurance and The Ghost to my reading list. I suppose there's some movie out there based on Endurance too... certainly this one The Ghost Writer looks interesting...and has a couple actors who have a skill or two into the bargain.

Meanwhile I keep reading on Bombadil. 2 1/2 new books to go, and a whole lot of essays...then a review of all "the real material" at his root... then some writing of my own..

"Learning never ends, Watson. It's a series of lessons with the greatest for the last." (Sherlock Holmes.)

 

[Deimos]

Sigh. I really don't like this thread.
Now I need to add Endurance and The Ghost to my reading list. I suppose there's some movie out there based on Endurance too... certainly this one The Ghost Writer looks interesting...and has a couple actors who have a skill or two into the bargain.

Meanwhile I keep reading on Bombadil. 2 1/2 new books to go, and a whole lot of essays...then a review of all "the real material" at his root... then some writing of my own..

"Learning never ends, Watson. It's a series of lessons with the greatest for the last." (Sherlock Holmes.)

If they ever make a movie about the Endurance Expedition (and it would be a "docu-drama") I ain't watching it , no way, no how.
No scripted drama could ever come remotely close to what those men experienced, and would actually cheapen it, and commercialize it.

 

[Ent]

Cheapen Endurance

Yes, undoubtedly.
I've targeted 3 books I'm interested in on this. One by Frank Worlsey, captain of the Endurance at the time and first published 1931, Lansing's cited in the thread above, and Alexander's illustrated one which seems well received.
I doubt I'll ever get to them, but I'd love to do a study of the thing.

 

[Squint-eyed Southerner]

Now I need to add Endurance and The Ghost to my reading list.

Harris is a competent writer. One caveat on this one: it's set in "contemporary" times, i.e. 2007, and therefore a bit dated. If you haven't read anything by him, one of his historical novels might be a good place to start -- Enigma, about the WWII code breakers, or Fatherland, an "alternate" WWII story. I particularly enjoyed Pompei, where I learned a lot about Roman engineering. I read that one twice.

 

[Vorondil]

I'd just started The Hound Of The Baskervilles, when the next day, my brother saw a large dog on the edge of our dam, so about 20 metres away. Even weirder, it left no footprints! I can't believe the coincidence!

 

[Rivendell_librarian]

OK fine. Let me know when you’re finished, so i can share my opinion of this particular book.

I struggled with Stranger in a Strange Land by Heinlein. Since it was in distinct sections I took breaks between reading each section. I was secretly hoping the Martian old ones would discorporate Jubal Harshaw who I found to be the worst kind of pub/bar bore - pontificating at such great length - snooze! In fact, it seemed to me the Martian SF aspect was just a set up so that Heinlein could pontificate his own views via Harshaw - though he may have denied that. I can't be bothered to check. There was some similarity to Wyndham's Midwich Cuckoos but Wyndham's novel built the tension to an exciting conclusion, and Heinlein here did not.

I also found the overuse of the word "grok" greatly grating - especially towards the end.

It's in a book I have which lists the 1000 books one should read but it wasn't for me.

 

[Deimos]

I struggled with Stranger in a Strange Land by Heinlein. Since it was in distinct sections I took breaks between reading each section. I was secretly hoping the Martian old ones would discorporate Jubal Harshaw who I found to be the worst kind of pub/bar bore - pontificating at such great length - snooze! In fact, it seemed to me the Martian SF aspect was just a set up so that Heinlein could pontificate his own views via Harshaw - though he may have denied that. I can't be bothered to check. There was some similarity to Wyndham's Midwich Cuckoos but Wyndham's novel built the tension to an exciting conclusion, and Heinlein here did not.

I also found the overuse of the word "grok" greatly grating - especially towards the end.

It's in a book I have which lists the 1000 books one should read but it wasn't for me.

J Harshaw was a stand-in for RAH.....(not just my opinion; lots of people saw that)...and the older RAH fell into pontificating (or bloviating) a lot, beginning with SIASL.
I enjoyed, and still read, most of his juvenile stuff... Have Spacesuit, Will Travel being one of the best, if not the best. The "human race on trial" scene is epic.
Also some of his "adult" novels: Puppet Masters, Door into Summer, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, Revolt in 2100.
One of Heinlein's best "adult" novels is Double Star, I very much recommend it.

Addendum: Funny thing about my reading "Double Star"...
It was in one of those [SF] Book Club "multi-novel collections", along with Puppet Masters and Door Into Summer.
I read those two (PM, DIS) numerous times but never read Double Star, not even once.
I had read somewhere that it was "about an actor" and at the time it didn't sound like a very, ...ummm...compelling plot line. So I skipped it.
That was probably 25 years ago at least.
So about 5 years ago (after retirement) I thought, "I should just read it and get it over with, but I bet it's going to be the type of Heinlein story I hate, the pontificating RAH. And if it is, I'm not wasting my time to finish it. "

I could not have been more mistaken.
Since then I've read it at least a half dozen times. It's a very good story. 🙂