Book(s) you are currently reading.
- Thread starter LionJim
- Start date
Yea I saw that and Denzel is good (as he always is) but he's not who I pictured playing Easy.There was one ...
I had multiple starts and stops with it until I finally powered through.
One thing that helped me a lot was reading these chapter summaries and analysis after each chapter. I loved the writing from the moment I first started reading it, but it's such a challenge to make sense of the plot. This helped a lot:
Infinite Jest Chapter Analysis
That's an excellent article, it really sums up the rewards and downsides of reading it.@yeahtoasty This might be paywalled; I am reading it from the actual magazine I got in the mail fifteen minutes ago.
“Infinite Jest” Has Turned Thirty. Have We Forgotten How to Read It?
David Foster Wallace’s novel, in all its immensity, became the subject of sanctification and then scorn. But the work rewards the attention it demands.www.newyorker.com
I wasn't aware of its popularity with incels/misogynists until after I'd read it. I recommended it to a female friend, someone who's incredibly well-read and enjoys reading challenging stuff -- she looked at me and said, "Nope, no way, not today, not ever" just based on the bro-popularity of it. It's a shame, really, that it's gotten that reputation.
I picked a book by Mosley. Down the River Onto the Sea. Very good read. Kind of like a more philosophical Bosch.
That one was pretty good. I thought there would be more with Joe Oliver.
Walter Mosley is a pretty interesting guy. He's written some interesting and down right strange books. He has a few Sci-Fi, Blue Light and The Wave, RL's Dream. They were just ok, I don't think I really understood what he was saying.
But I think his mysteries are terrific.
Easy Rawlins
Fearless Jones
Lenid Mcgill
Socrates Fortlow
are all very good with some cross overs. Highly recommended.
Also did a pretty good one called The Man in my Basement. That one was going to be a movie until Jonathan Majors decided to blow up his career.
I am in the midst of Mark Twain's hilarious "adventures" in Roughing It. If you need a break from political craziness and want a laugh or three, I can practically guarantee that it will having you laughing out loud. I estimate that I did that on 80-85 of the first 100 pages. He is a master of satire, sarcasm, ridiculous exaggeration, and commentator on human nature. I think that he is our country's greatest storyteller. Boy, would he have fun today!
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Two of my favorite lines: “I am a part of all that I have met,” and “Come my friends, ‘tis not too late to seek a newer world.”
I enjoyed Walter Mosleys' Gray Dawn, (Easy Rawlins) novel so much I went back to the beginning with Devil in a Blue Dress and am starting over.
It’s never a waste to re-read the greats, read their complete works.
While Huck Finn is considered to be of more literary merit, I've always preferred Tom Sawyer. I first read it in grade school and I used to reread it about every two or three years. I read it again over the winter break for the first time in several years and it was even better than I had remembered. Twain must have been a helluva dinner companion.
Yea I'm that guy that has re-read The Stand in its unabridged form about 3x.
And yes i do consider King one of the greats.
It’s a thought-provoking…the only fiction that I read…probably because his stories have so many historical and local lore references.
Currently finishing the first novel by Donna Tartt, “ The Secret History “. She is a brilliant writer and takes ten years or so to complete a novel. “The Goldfinch” was a pure joy to read. This book is just as enjoyable. Really great. Big recommend.
en.wikipedia.org
Donna Tartt - Wikipedia
Currently finishing the first novel by Donna Tartt, “ The Secret History “. She is a brilliant writer and takes ten years or so to complete a novel. “The Goldfinch” was a pure joy to read. This book is just as enjoyable. Really great. Big recommend.
Donna Tartt - Wikipedia
She’s still about five times faster than I am. But then again, she is brilliant and I am not.
The Goldfinch is on my burgeoning To Read list.Yeah, it’s a big book with lots of words but boy is it fly by the seat of your pants riveting.She’s still about five times faster than I am. But then again, she is brilliant and I am not.
There is a 1949 film based on the book. I saw it years ago while sitting in on a cinema course.
Volume 1 of Churchill's History of World War II; "The Gathering Storm" details the sad miscalculations leading to Volume 2, "Their Finest Hour".
When asked about how history would portray him as a leader during WWII, he replied, "History will be kind to me for I intend to write it." He did, six huge volumes. I am reading Volume 1 to gain insight about how seemingly small events that could have been avoided lead to world-changing consequences. I compare it to Thucydides' "History of the Peloponnesian War", which I read many years ago and is still considered the most authoritative study of how wars begin. It is a classic still studied in many military academies.
When asked about how history would portray him as a leader during WWII, he replied, "History will be kind to me for I intend to write it." He did, six huge volumes. I am reading Volume 1 to gain insight about how seemingly small events that could have been avoided lead to world-changing consequences. I compare it to Thucydides' "History of the Peloponnesian War", which I read many years ago and is still considered the most authoritative study of how wars begin. It is a classic still studied in many military academies.
A friend’s son recently left for college, sparking a nostalgic conversation about the books that helped us bond with roommates back in our day. My pick was Wanda Hickey’s Night of Golden Memories by Jean Shepherd. Having just reread it, I can confirm it’s still a timeless masterpiece that perfectly captures that era of life. Fragile - must be Italian.
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Yeats, “To a Child Dancing in the Wind,” (1914).
Dance there upon the shore;
What need have you to care
For wind or water’s roar?
And tumble out your hair
That the salt drops have wet;
Being young you have not known
The fool’s triumph, nor yet
Love lost as soon as won,
Nor the best laborer dead
And all the sheaves to bind.
What need have you to dread
The monstrous crying of wind?
Dance there upon the shore;
What need have you to care
For wind or water’s roar?
And tumble out your hair
That the salt drops have wet;
Being young you have not known
The fool’s triumph, nor yet
Love lost as soon as won,
Nor the best laborer dead
And all the sheaves to bind.
What need have you to dread
The monstrous crying of wind?
Edwin Arlington Robinson, “Hillcrest.” I’m going to see if I can put the whole poem down from memory, punctuation aside. (Edit: close but no cigar.) I like this one very much, with its theme of no fear. “Who sees enough in his duress May go as far as dreams have gone.” This goes way way back, from my American Lit class at PSU, 1975.
No sound of any storm that shakes
Old island walls with older seas
Comes here where now September makes
An island in a sea of trees.
Between the sunlight and the shade
A man may learn til he forgets
The roaring of a world remade,
And all his ruins and regrets;
And if he still remembers here
Poor fights he may have won or lost,-
If he be ridden with the fear
Of what some other fight may cost,-
If, eager to confuse too soon
What he has known with what may be
He reads a planet out of tune
For cause of his jarred harmony,-
If here he venture to unroll
His index of adagios,
And he be given to console
Humanity with what he knows,-
He may by contemplation learn
A little more than what he knew,
And even see great oaks return
To acorns out of which they grew.
He may, if he but listen well,
Through twilight and the silence here
Be told what there are none may tell
To vanity’s impatient ear;
And he may never dare again
Say what awaits him or be sure
What sunlit labyrinth of pain
He may not enter and endure.
Who knows today from yesterday
May learn to count no thing too strange:
Love builds of what time takes away,
Til death itself is less than change.
Who sees enough in his duress
May go as far as dreams have gone;
Who sees a little may do less
Than many who are blind have done;
Who sees unchastened here the soul
Triumphant has no other sight
Than has a child who sees the whole World radiant in his own delight.
Far journeys and hard wandering
Await him in whose crude surmise
Peace, like a mask, hides everything
That is and has been from his eyes;
And all his wisdom is unfound,
Or like a web that error weaves
On airy looms that have a sound
No louder now than falling leaves.
No sound of any storm that shakes
Old island walls with older seas
Comes here where now September makes
An island in a sea of trees.
Between the sunlight and the shade
A man may learn til he forgets
The roaring of a world remade,
And all his ruins and regrets;
And if he still remembers here
Poor fights he may have won or lost,-
If he be ridden with the fear
Of what some other fight may cost,-
If, eager to confuse too soon
What he has known with what may be
He reads a planet out of tune
For cause of his jarred harmony,-
If here he venture to unroll
His index of adagios,
And he be given to console
Humanity with what he knows,-
He may by contemplation learn
A little more than what he knew,
And even see great oaks return
To acorns out of which they grew.
He may, if he but listen well,
Through twilight and the silence here
Be told what there are none may tell
To vanity’s impatient ear;
And he may never dare again
Say what awaits him or be sure
What sunlit labyrinth of pain
He may not enter and endure.
Who knows today from yesterday
May learn to count no thing too strange:
Love builds of what time takes away,
Til death itself is less than change.
Who sees enough in his duress
May go as far as dreams have gone;
Who sees a little may do less
Than many who are blind have done;
Who sees unchastened here the soul
Triumphant has no other sight
Than has a child who sees the whole World radiant in his own delight.
Far journeys and hard wandering
Await him in whose crude surmise
Peace, like a mask, hides everything
That is and has been from his eyes;
And all his wisdom is unfound,
Or like a web that error weaves
On airy looms that have a sound
No louder now than falling leaves.
