What 📔book are you reading right now?

[Ent]

Ent is rereading The Hobbit in a bit of a deep dive. Preparing Part II of a 3-part article he's submitting to be considered for publication. (Sent Part I in on Saturday, finally.)

 

[Ashley]

I’ve recently started the Lightbringer series by Brent Weeks. So far, it’s been an absolute blast! I finished the first book within three days. It’s a fantasy series based on a really intriguing magic system, where certain people, drafters, can use light and turn it into physical substances they can manipulate. The books follow the Prisim, one of the leaders of the land, and the only person who can draft all colors of light, as well as certain people associated with him, as turmoil rises.

 

[Rivendell_librarian]

I recently read The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne which I gather may have been or still is a set school book in some US schools. Well it has a strong central character and a fascinating plot but ... oh I found it so slow and ponderous. Now one might say that's what you get with 19th century novels but I strongly disagree. I'm curious to know what others think about this novel.

 

[Squint-eyed Southerner]

I enjoyed his House of Seven Gables more. I'm thinking of a reread.

 

[Starbrow]

I recently read The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne which I gather may have been or still is a set school book in some US schools. Well it has a strong central character and a fascinating plot but ... oh I found it so slow and ponderous. Now one might say that's what you get with 19th century novels but I strongly disagree. I'm curious to know what others think about this novel.

I read it in high school, but that was many, many moons ago. I don't remember liking it, but it made such a strong enough impression to me, that I remember it much better than many other novels I had to read.

 

[Deimos]

I wrote this in another post ( I think it was part of this thread)

...I wish they [my high school English Lit class] had offered the "other" Hawthorne novels: House of the Seven Gables and The Blithedale Romance; I would have preferred either of those to The Scarlet Letter. I didn't read SL until last year (tho' I knew the entire plot). I still think it is inferior to his other two novels I mentioned (both of which I have read twice... and "House..." maybe even a third time.

I am still of the above opinion... Try the House of the Seven Gables.
I think the Blithedale Romance is the best of the three.
Even tho' it is fiction it deals with the real situation of "Utopian societies" that were popping up like mushrooms in the 19th C.
Anyone who thinks group living in a society where everything is shared should read this,.
It is loosely based on his real-life experiences at the utopian socialist commune Brook Farm
The real [experimental] societies (e.g. the one in Oneida NY) fell apart for the reason that all such societies fail...fallen human nature.
"A river can't rise higher than its source."

 

[Idril Celebrindal]

Project Hail Mary and East of Eden

 

[Squint-eyed Southerner]

Try the House of the Seven Gables.

The discussion has reminded me that I've started The Marble Faun two or three times. I need to get back to it

 

[Deimos]

The discussion has reminded me that I've started The Marble Faun two or three times. I need to get back to it

I have never heard of that novel. Never.
Anytime Hawthorne is discussed it's always The Scarlet Letter (meh), The House of the Seven Gables👍, and The Blithedale Romance 👍

 

[Starbrow]

The Fall of Gondolin

 

[Deimos]

Fonstad's Atlas of ME ...actually I'm not reading it at the moment.
I got tired of replacing my softcover copy (currently abusing copy #3) so I looked for and found a hard copy on ebay.
Very good condition, one blemish. But no writing , underlining or highlighting.
So the HB version I will use just "for reading" and the soft cover version for repeated reference.
Which means soft copy #3 will eventually give way to copy #4.
But that is OK because now I have a Good Copy. 🙂

 

[Deimos]

Project Hail Mary and East of Eden

Great story.... I thoroughly enjoyed it. 🙂

I read East of Eden about 20 years ago. Lots of folks read it in high school.
Every Steinbeck novel I've read I've found soul-numbingly depressing.
I think I've read four or five of his works, East of Eden being the last one.
I will never read another Steinbeck story.
Nor have I re-read any of those five books. And never will.

 

[Erurávennë]

Came across this:

"The lover of books may be distinguished by one trick which betrayeth him. If he is in a strange house he makes straight for the shelves: before anything else he hastened to take stock of the library; blue china cannot turn him aside, nor pictures detain him...
However large his own library may be, every other man's library is an object of curiousity to him for the strange and unknown wonders it may possess."


Cracked me up 😂

 

[Idril Celebrindal]

Great story.... I thoroughly enjoyed it. 🙂

I read East of Eden about 20 years ago. Lots of folks read it in high school.
Every Steinbeck novel I've read I've found soul-numbingly depressing.
I think I've read four or five of his works, East of Eden being the last one.
I will never read another Steinbeck story.
Nor have I re-read any of those five books. And never will.

I only got 1/10th of the way into East of Eden and stopped, I didn't like it much either. It felt very cynical. Not a huge fan of Grapes of Wrath either, but I'll probably finish that since I've already read a good amount.

 

[Deimos]

I only got 1/10th of the way into East of Eden and stopped, I didn't like it much either. It felt very cynical. Not a huge fan of Grapes of Wrath either, but I'll probably finish that since I've already read a good amount.

The least depressing one I read was Of Mice and Men.
Still depressing but only a 5-6 on the Depress-O Meter (aka The Literary Gloom-Gauge)

 

[Greenleaf2024]

I have been working my way through The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien. But seriously, one of these days I need to take a break from fanfiction and go reread the Silmarillion and LoTR.

 

[Squint-eyed Southerner]

Are you reading the new edition of the Letters?

 

[Rivendell_librarian]

Recently re-read the Odyssey, while also taking the Hillsdale online course on it. I'd say it was better the second time over, if that's possible. I'm about to start The Illiad while also doing the Hillsdale course on that.

Also reading The Great American Story: A Land of Hope and taking (you guessed it) the Hillsdale online course.

@Erurávennë , I'm still only halfway through Seven Pillars of Wisdom 😅. I'll take a break from it and finish some other things on my list first. Might also start it from the beginning again, and make notes and stuff to keep better track of what's going on. Right now I'm having trouble remembering who's fighting who and where everyone is going... It's like reading The Silmarillion again for the first time.

My loan on Grapes of Wrath expired, but I want to read that again once it's free.

Oh, and I'm also reading the Little House series with my younger sister. It's nice to return to it, I used to read it a lot when I was little.

I recently read Seven Pillars of Wisdom. It was odd how I kept prefacing it with "The" but there is no "the". Yes there are lots of names of people and places and I found myself referring many times to the maps. I did find some of Lawrence's philosophising passages hard to follow but his strong intention to minimise casualties comes across well and his descriptions of the landscape are quite beautiful. I would have liked my edition to have some modern colour photos of the landscape as well as the rather grainy photos from the period. The book is quite different from the film which is more hyped up and has some important inaccuracies - most of the time they were blowing up the Hejaz railway and its bridges rather than engaging in pitch battles.