Books: And What Are You Reading?

[chengengaun]

Lights Out: Pride, Delusion and the Fall of General Electric. Still less than halfway through the book, but so far the emphasis seems to be on GE Capital. Will be interesting to see if there is discussion of GE Power.

 

[Deleted member 215]

Just picked up at the bookstore:

The Writing of the Gods: The Race to Decode the Rosetta Stone by Edward Dolnick

 

[lizkat]

Currently revisiting the start of our national nightmare with Midnight in Washington by Adam Schiff. Always fantastic to read about the turd that was president of these here United States.


I actually forgot some of the batshit crazy shenanigans by Mango and his sycophants. Currently reading the part about Devin Nunes carrying water for Mango weeks after he soiled the assumed office.

I got the audiobook version of Midnight in Washington, and Schiff's narration is one of the relatively few exceptions to my usual opinion that publishers should discourage authors from performing professional narrations. Schiff is always a good listen on TV, e.g. in the impeachment hearings, and I find him equally so in this audiobook

But, and unsurprisingly, the book didn't put me to sleep when I tried listening to it at night for half an hour max every night. It's been one to listen to downstairs in the daytime, at lunch or on a coffee break instead. And yes, I'm enjoying the sparks of recognition in Schiff's recounting of some of the insane antics of the prior admin and still-current GOP. At the time they occurred, I was mostly just rolling eyes and trying not to let the Trump crew's gaslighting get to me. Now I'm like "oh yeah I remember that, that was CRAZY."

 

[ronntaylor]

Schiff's narration is one of the relatively few exceptions to my usual opinion that publishers should discourage authors from performing professional narrations.

I am not fond of audiobooks. They always put me to sleep. Doesn't matter if it's fiction, nonfiction, history, etc. But I may give a 2nd listening once I finish reading the print version. I'll have some time at the end of the year, beginning of the year and plan to really relax and chill. My book reading this year has fallen off. A friend suggested trying audiobooks again.

 

[JamesMike]

Started reading John LeCarré's Silverview, I believe it is his last book before passing away.

 

[Scepticalscribe]

Started reading John LeCarré's Silverview, I believe it is his last book before passing away.

Let me know what you think of it, and do enjoy.

 

[lizkat]

Reading something well and truly left over by now from my 2020 summer's "deep dive" into literature in translation and issues encountered by the translators and authors... a project that will surely keep on giving me food for thought for much longer.

Anyway this book is a relatively new translation (2003) into English by the wonderful Margaret Jull Costa, of the savagely satirical and highly entertaining novel by Eça de Queirós about the effects of cascading corruption in the Roman Catholic church of the late 19th century in rural Portugal. A real keeper, the 1880 version of The Crime of Father Amaro: Scenes from the Religious Life was the third and last, and the version translated by Costa, whose skills I first encountered when reading her translation to English of Fernando Pessoa's The Book of Disquiet.

I could not possibly do justice in describing the sheer fun of immersing oneself in the Eça book, so I'll let the translator herself supply a few hints past the inevitable complications of the title's Father Amaro and the nubile village beauty Amélia.

The Crime of Father Amaro is an attack on provincialism, on the power of a Church that allies itself with the rich and powerful, tolerates superstition and supports a deeply unfair and un-Christian society, and more particularly, it is an attack on the absurdity of imposing celibacy on young men with no real priestly vocation.

From the first page, on which we meet Jose Miguéis, the 'exploding boa constrictor' of a parish priest, to our encounter on the final pages with the smug and pompous Conde de Ribamar and his vision of a Portugal which is 'the envy of the world', we are treated to a gallery of riveting minor characters: Father Natário is a man with a talent for hatred; the parish priest of Cortegaça is so in love with food that he even spices his sermons with cookery tips; Dona Maria da Assunção with her room full of religious images is agog for any hint of sex; Libaninho, who never misses a mass and flirts with all the girls, in fact has a penchant for army sergeants; the administrator of the municipal council spends from eleven o'clock to three each day ogling a neighbour's wife through a pair of binoculars; Canon Días cares only for belly and bed. Between them, the clerics and their devout followers commit every one of the capital sins.

[The novel is placed] in a specific historical context, the period before and after the 1871 Paris Commune, thus contrasting the smug stagnancy and backwardness of nineteenth-century Portugal --city and country-- with the social and political upheavals occurring elsewhere in Europe. The 1880 version [of the novel] goes further and has the unbearably self-satisfied Conde de Ribamar --Father Amaro's protector-- pontificate about Portugal as an ideal of peace, prosperity and stability. Father Amaro, Canon Días and the Count are standing, at the time, beneath the statue of Luis de Camões, Portugal's national poet, whose masterpiece The Lusiads celebrates Portugal's bold, heroic past. As Eça comments, 'a country for ever past, a memory almost forgotten'.

To be fair to Eça, who in turn was not one-sided in bringing authenticity to his tale of life in the village and Church of that time, the author and his translator show both Father Amaro and Amélia as complex characters and so as ordinarily human, and portray a true spiritual mentor of Amélia by introducing Father Ferrão as her travails become overwhelming. But one comes away remembering some extemely harsh takes on the clerics and Church of the era, which of course was precisely Eça's intent.

 

[yaxomoxay]

The Seven StoreyMountain (1948) by Thomas Merton.

One way to think and communicate about things is to compare them with previous experiences. “It tastes like chicken,” or “It’s like a Stanley Kubrik movie,” or “It’s as fun as Disneyworld” are ways to evaluate and recommend things, often to get abstract and subjective points across.

I’ve recently finished “The Seven Storey Mountain,” Thomas Merton’s autobiography roughly from his birth at the heights of the Great War in 1915 to about 1945. Merton is a peculiar character, and this book presented me the challenge of the comparison with some other work almost immediately. I thought long and hard about what other book could be even remotely compared to Merton’s book, just to find no answer.” The Steven Storey Mountain” narrates the true internal struggle of a young man that is both confused and in search for his vocation, all while WW2 is roaming, just to end up as a Trappist monk in a remote monastery with the intent of living a life of hard labor and, in general, asceticism as far away as possible from the so-called “world” and society. However, fate doesn’t like plans, so Merton ended up being a sort of celebrity that was then ordered to go to Asia to study the culture there, returning an incredible wealth of information, almost a conjunction between the philosophy of the West and the philosophy of the East.

At any rate, it was until I randomly stumbled across a book on a table at home that I thought I had no answer on which book could get close to Merton’s work. That book on the table that provided me the answer to the question is a work of fiction, it’s a short work, it has nothing to do with Christianity or the West, and it’s German; that is, at first glance it would appear that book has nothing to do with The Seven Storey Mountain. That book is Herman Hesse’s “Siddhartha.”

As with Hesse’s book, Merton’s book is the story of a man in search for something, at that something will inevitably cost the end of own’s identity in favor of a higher meaning. I believe that Merton’s book is among the best books I’ve ever read, and by far the best autobiography I’ve had the pleasure to encounter. I know that Merton changed with the passing of the years, for example his Asian Diaries (which I own and skim from time to time) are a clear reminder that the young man we encounter in The Seven Storey Mountain was unable to truly settle his search (arguably, it’s something that can’t actually be settled).

 

[User.45]

Started Altered Carbon audiobook for my walk to work. The series thus far did a pretty good job capturing the atmosphere of the book. When it comes to cyberpunk you never know whether what you're reading is junk until the last page.

 

[Huntn]

Started Altered Carbon audiobook for my walk to work. The series thus far did a pretty good job capturing the atmosphere of the book. When it comes to cyberpunk you never know whether what you're reading is junk until the last page.

I’m interested in this. Was/is the tv series good?

 

[User.45]

I’m interested in this. Was/is the tv series good?

The first season was one of the best cyberpunk I've seen on TV probably ever. The second season however lost all it's momentum.

 

[Clix Pix]

Just shot a photo for another (photography-oriented) site where the topic is "Books You're Reading," and realized that it would fit nicely into this thread as well!

Three books on display here..... Just finished Lee Child's latest Jack Reacher novel and thanks to the luxury of being retired and not having to get up early on a Monday morning indulged myself in reading the thing straight through until turning the final page in the wee hours of the morn..... It seems as though Lee is now moving away from writing full-time, as this and a previous Reacher book share writing credits with his son. His Jack Reacher character and series are also now featured on Amazon Prime as a TV series. I haven't watched any of those. The son has written other books under a different name, too, and it is pretty clear that the writing genes have been passed down from father to son.

Another book from the library is next in line for my reading pleasure, and after the photo was shot immediately found its way to the bedside table. The third book is one I bought a month or so ago, having decided that I need a bit of a refresher in some things when it comes to photographic technique and such, and this book, which is actually is a textbook meant for use in colleges/universities has been indeed very useful and helpful in filling in a few gaps in my knowledge and skills. I don't pore over it every night; usually I pick it up between novels or when I've got a specific question about something. It lives on the bedside table.

 

[User.45]

I'm reading Erich Kästner's Emil and the Detectives for my kids (mainly my 4-year-old). This was the first book I finished cover to cover when I was 7. I remember it was so exciting, I finished it in a day or two. It's still really good for my grown-up mind. It's interesting that as a kid, the nuance and gentle humor you've felt about the book subconsciously is absolutely there even now and even 90 years after it was written.

 

[SuperMatt]

The first season was one of the best cyberpunk I've seen on TV probably ever. The second season however lost all it's momentum.

I second this. Just watch the first season as a stand-alone and pretend the 2nd season doesn’t exist.

 

[Deleted member 215]

I recently read Second Place by Rachel Cusk. I enjoyed it more than I thought I would and as a result, picked up Outline as well.

Also add on Joan Didion's Slouching Towards Bethlehem. I hate that it took her death to finally get me to read this, but I had intended to read it a while ago. Sad to hear that she passed.

 

[lizkat]

Zadie Smith's Swing Time. I thought I would like it but didn't foresee I'd literally have to force myself to put it down when it was time to head upstairs for the night.

So many lines in this book have hit home to me as a woman, even setting aside the novel's provocative and intentional explorations of not only differences in gender but class and race. Yet despite empathy --and indeed a few deep friendships across racial lines-- I can still only imagine life as a biracial girl growing into womanhood, when so many doors are still only reluctantly opened even for white women to discover and develop their talents.

What's most admirable to me about this novel is its portrayal that despite all our differences, there is nothing more profound than the discoveries we make through a best friendship. The ranges of our mundane or startling but unique sets of memories, merged in the shared retellings of burdens and joys, are how we come to know what is human, even if and when we later drift apart or find our friendship permanently disrupted.

​

 

[Huntn]

I love the contrast between the elegance of the dinners/dances in the aristocratic "keeps" and the skulking, planning and plotting - not to mention the teaching and mentoring - of other parts of the story.

And, an aside, Sanderson does good fights, - actually, excellent fights - a sort of Baroque burst of pure violence - as well.

And, the heroes aren't improbably unscathed, either.

To my mind, the first book is by far the best of the trilogy.

I'll be interested to read your reactions.

Regarding Mistborn: The Final Empire this fantasy story is the first book in a long time where I was having trouble putting it down.

It’s in a medieval setting not unlike Game of Thrones, no advanced technology, but there is magic. The author as far as I can tell, defined several disciplines of magic involving metal. One allomancy, is the ingestion of metals which give physical powers to push and pull, strength and resilience, enhanced senses, mental powers to effect others emotions, and mystic abilities to see into the future and past.

There are interesting characters, a flamboyant male, a subdued female heroine who discovers her strength, nobles and peasants, palace intrigue, some romance, and a rebellion fueled by an oppressive magic endued ruler. There are a couple of magic duels that are riveting which I read through twice especially the story’s climax.

Onto the second book to see if it as depressing as some reports indicate!

 

[SuperMatt]

Regarding Mistborn: The Final Empire this fantasy story is the first book in a long time where I was having trouble putting it down.

It’s in a medieval setting not unlike Game of Thrones, no advanced technology, but there is magic. The author as far as I can tell, defined several disciplines of magic involving metal. One allomancy, is the ingestion of metals which give physical powers to push and pull, strength and resilience, enhanced senses, mental powers to effect others emotions, and mystic abilities to see into the future and past.

There are nobles and peasants, palace intrigue, some romance, and a rebellion fueled by an oppressive magic endued ruler. There are a couple of magic duels that are riveting which I read through twice especially the story’s climax.

Onto the second book to see if it as depressing as some reports indicate!

I like Brandon Sanderson’s novels. I really enjoyed “The Way of Kings” which is the first part in a proposed 10-novel series. I’ve read the first 2 books of the series now and I’m working on the 3rd. I believe the 4th book is out too and the 5th is underway.

 

[Scepticalscribe]

Regarding Mistborn: The Final Empire this fantasy story is the first book in a long time where I was having trouble putting it down.

It’s in a medieval setting not unlike Game of Thrones, no advanced technology, but there is magic. The author as far as I can tell, defined several disciplines of magic involving metal. One allomancy, is the ingestion of metals which give physical powers to push and pull, strength and resilience, enhanced senses, mental powers to effect others emotions, and mystic abilities to see into the future and past.

There are interesting characters, a flamboyant male, a subdued female heroine who discovers her strength, nobles and peasants, palace intrigue, some romance, and a rebellion fueled by an oppressive magic endued ruler. There are a couple of magic duels that are riveting which I read through twice especially the story’s climax.

Onto the second book to see if it as depressing as some reports indicate!

The second book is very good, (and yes, it does get depressing - Sanderson loves putting his characters through some serious if not traumatic punishment) but - to be honest, - I preferred the first book (The Final Empire), which I think is genuinely excellent; the third book is - to my mind - the most depressing.

However, Elend's growth and development in the second book are exceedingly well done, (in any case, I like Elend, and I also very much like his relationship with Vin), and I'm always appreciative of any scene that features Sazad.

Besides, I really liked the crew, especially Vin, (and I especially loved her training in all of the various disciplines, spy craft as much as magical warfare), the setting, the magic duels (brilliantly written), the balls in the various Great Houses, and the culture, economics, religion and politics of this world.

 

[lizkat]

Trevor Noah's Born a Crime. Finally it was my turn in the queue at the library for this book. I can't even remember when I put a hold on the thing, it was so long ago now. Anyway of course it's a good read and I can barely make myself put it down, but past that I've already learned some things about the detailed and essentially diabolical mechanics of South Africa's era of official apartheid that I was not even aware of.