"What book are ye reading ritemeow?"

Kevin Mokracekwrote:

Surprised by Hope, by NT Wright

not an author I expected to see on the proj..but glad to see it

Just finished reading Watership Down aloud to my partner.  Very good. Ordered Shardik by same author from thriftbooks.com.  

Wizard of the Upper Amazon by F Bruce Lamb was the book club choice of mine we all just finished. Served squirrel tacos, brisket, and venison chilli at the meeting. Very good true story. Highly recommended! 

Suprise, Kill, Vanish by Annie Jacobson is ths current read about the CIA.  Pretty good, very detailed. 

Roper's Camp 4 book. Surprised it took me so long to finally start this one, it's great. 

Service Model Adrian Thaikovsky

Kevinmurraywrote:

Just finished Killers of the Flower Moon by David Grann about the Osage oil boom and murders in the 1920's. Never saw the movie so really had no background on it. Now reading Surburban Dicks by Fabian Nicieza. comedy drama by the co-creator of Marvels Deadpool series so that is a hint of the way it is written.

Never saw the movie either but wow that book was so sad.

Desiring a big fat book, I recently got a paperback copy of Armor of Light, a new one by Ken Follet. It takes place in the same area as the Pillars of the Earth books, but now it is set in the late 1700s. Good so far, but I'm only about 80 pages in, out of 800. 

Damn OLH that is a doorstopper! If they keep one's interest it is a pleasant journey. Can be tricky to hold and turn pages. 

San Miguel by TC Boyle.

Old lady Hwrote:

Desiring a big fat book, I recently got a paperback copy of Armor of Light, a new one by Ken Follet. It takes place in the same area as the Pillars of the Earth books, but now it is set in the late 1700s. Good so far, but I'm only about 80 pages in, out of 800. 

I couldn't get into the Pillars of the Earth, his sex scenes felt so weirdly placed it took me out each time. I enjoyed his writing style otherwise.

M Awrote:

I couldn't get into the Pillars of the Earth, his sex scenes felt so weirdly placed it took me out each time. I enjoyed his writing style otherwise.

No sex, so far, lol! The Jean Auel books were notable, to me, for long descriptions of every bush and plant, some narrative moving along, then suddenly there's sex. Well okey dokey.

If sex scenes in books are very short, I mean we all know what happens, it can be ok but I skip over them because usually they are poorly written and don’t add much to the book. Now I do like gratuitous nudity in movies. 

Old lady Hwrote:

Desiring a big fat book, ...

Shantaram comes in a tad shy of 1k pages for those is need.

Recently finished River of Doubt.. pretty wild stuff and probably one of the better reads in a while.

Currently reading a book on beavers which presently is falling a bit flat.. was hoping for history interwoven with a tale such as American Buffalo

The Teddy Roosevelt thing? In Rondonia? I read this. A sad tale of woe. ^

Oh big fat books. I liked The Terror, (Dan Simmons I think) speaking of protracted misery. Another long one maybe two. Same author, (maybe) Black Hills or was it Paha Sapa and some weird sci Fi about AI Illiad on Mars. 

JF Mwrote:

The Decameron, by Boccaccio, in translation. Baudy Italian stories in a frame narrative. Pretty good for a classic. The movie The Little Hours is an adaptation of one of the tales in the book. Not my usual fare. I’m with many of the others here- I go for sci fi mostly.

I just had to revive this. One of the funniest sentences I've ever read.

Paul Morrisonwrote:

I just had to revive this. One of the funniest sentences I've ever read.

I kinda get it. A lot of classics are sort of unapproachable, and it can be hard to understand why they are considered “classic” if you don’t go in assuming that you’ll need to do a close read on every single passage, or have a mountain of research at your fingertips to understand why it’s such a perfect encapsulation of middle-late-post-annunciation-Georgian-prior-to-breakfast Uzbek life in the 12th century or whatever.

And it’s made worse if it’s a translation, because the way the idioms are converted is entirely up to the translator’s sense of what best captures the sense the author was going for, and it’s not like you can go ask Boccachio what he really meant with any given turn of phrase.

All of this to say, what makes a book “classic” (as in, an important part of the written language, worth studying) and what makes it “enjoyable” *right now* can be wildly at odds. So when a person says “good”, it might be an exclusive “or” between the two options.

@Cory N and @Ira OMC 

Just finished Player Piano, and definitely enjoyed it more than the other works of Vonnegut that I've read. I related more to the characters, and some of the sections toward the end were more thrilling than I expected. I'm a sucker for double-crosses and saboteuring. I love seeing themes from one author appear in another author's works. There was a lot of that going on and it's so tasty being able to feel the authors of the time discussing ideas with each other through their writing (such as 1984, which was published 3 years prior to Player Piano). 

Since you said that Salem's Lot is more of a retelling of Dracula, I've decided to just read Dracula rather than reading the "cover" version first. Unless I've consumed the story in a different form of popular media by accident, I don't really know what to expect. I'm looking forward to (hopefully) being caught off guard!

Salems lot is a good vampire story but the original Bram Stoker is great. 

Agreed, Dracula is a classic. Almost all vampire stories derive from that source ..  

I'm a big Stephen King fan, even if I think at least 50 percent of his stuff is garbage. I'm a fan of the man himself, his passion for reading and writing, his humor... Reading a book of his is like talking to an old friend. And some of his stuff is really pretty damn good. Happy to recommend my favorites if anyone's interested. 

I'm currently reading The Girl Who Played With Fire, second book in the series following girl with The dragon tattoo.... Pretty good books, lots of layers to the plot line, good characters and page turners which is perfect for me right now; working 12 hours a day and sleeping in my truck. If I'm excited to get back to my book it means I drink less .. 

philip bonewrote:

Service Model Adrian Thaikovsky

I have one of his books in my pile! Looking forward to it. 

Yes, yes per Thaikovsky, for sci-fi fans. Reading a neo-western now Wild Girl, (I think). Rousing romp in the Sierra Madre.