What Book Are You Currently Reading? (2.0.)

[Aurelius2]

Now reading John McPhee's Annals of the Former World.

[Хahar 🤔]

Just read The Moviegoer. Excellent and very existential book, and one I think forum dwellers might especially like. Binx Bolling's narrative voice reminded me of Xahar lol.

Well, I can't think of a more pleasing way to have a book recommended to me than this.

Trigger warning: In a book which is otherwise highly specific geographically, Percy has many of his characters come from an unspecified "Feliciana Parish."

That didn't particularly bother me, but I looked up where Bayou des Allemandes is and it would be impossible for that to be on the way when driving from Bay St. Louis to New Orleans. I've never been to New Orleans (the sum total of my life experience in Louisiana is a weekend at a wedding in Baton Rouge five years ago), so the city I pictured in my mind was St. Louis, which is probably close enough.

I did read the whole book. The comparison to me isn't entirely flattering—the narrator comes off as peevish, although I suppose I am too—but I can see the resemblance, and not just because I see four movies a week at the theater. I was struck by how many names the book tosses off that I've mentioned in conversation just in the last week: Rupert Brooke, Dick Powell, Audie Murphy. All it would really need would be some contemporary ballplayers. I won't be thirty for another month and I have religion and I don't like girls, but those are all insignificant differences. Already I can feel my own internal monologue working in the staccato rhythms of the book. I liked it a great deal.

[Sol]

Just read The Moviegoer. Excellent and very existential book, and one I think forum dwellers might especially like. Binx Bolling's narrative voice reminded me of Xahar lol.

Well, I can't think of a more pleasing way to have a book recommended to me than this.

Trigger warning: In a book which is otherwise highly specific geographically, Percy has many of his characters come from an unspecified "Feliciana Parish."

That didn't particularly bother me, but I looked up where Bayou des Allemandes is and it would be impossible for that to be on the way when driving from Bay St. Louis to New Orleans.

I did read the book. The comparison isn't entirely flattering—the narrator comes off as peevish, although I suppose I am too—but I can see the resemblance, and not just because I see four movies a week at the theater. I was struck by how many names the book tosses off that I've mentioned in conversation just in the last week: Rupert Brooke, Dick Powell, Audie Murphy. All it would really need would be some contemporary ballplayers. I won't be thirty for another month and I have religion and I don't like girls, but those are all sort of small differences. Already I can feel my own internal monologue working in the staccato rhythms of the book. I liked it a great deal.

I hope you didn't find the comparison offensive -- I certainly wouldn't characterize you as peevish! I was struck by how Binx and you both have sort of a specific, analytical, and sociogeographically minded way of looking at things.

Anyway, I'm glad you liked it.

[💥💥 brandon bro (he/him/his)]

Now reading John McPhee's Annals of the Former World.

Funnily enough I just finished McPhee's "Rising From the Plains" (which I assume is part of or at least related to this book) today. I've been looking for a pop-geology book for years. He is a gifted writier. and this definitely was fun to read, but you can only do so much with a geology text.

Anyway I usually save this for the end of the year but here is my list so far:

John McPhee - Basin and Range
Ashley Ford - Somebody's Daughter
Oprah Winfrey - The Path Made Clear
Anne Proulx - Fen, Bog, and Swamp
Garrett Graft - The Only Plane in the Sky
Matthew Desmond - Poverty by America
Roxane Dunbar-Ortiz - Red Dirt
Cal Newport - Digital Minimalism
bell hooks - The Will to Change
Bill Bishop and Robert Cushing - The Big Sort
Charlotte Weber - Tell Me What You Want
Sebastian Junger - Freedom
Jill Levoy - Ghettoside
Erika Sanchez - Crying in the Bathroom
Jennette McCurdy - I'm Glad My Mom Died
Rachel Aviv - Strangers to Ourselves
CJ Hauser - the Crane Wife
bell hooks - Ain't I a Woman
Joshua Prager - The Family Roe
Katie Worth - Miseducation
Richard Reeves - Of Boys and Men
Deborah Copaken - Ladyparts
Isaac Fitzgerald - Dirtbag, Massachusetts
Lawrence Wright - God Save Texas

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

Finished Notes from Underground, an excellent novel that I found timeless and disturbing. The unnamed main character is uncanny in how much he resembles people you might not know or even elements of yourself.

[Mexican Wolf]

Finished reading the Native American Almanac the other day. Now starting on Shielded: How the Police Became Untouchable by Joanna Schwartz.

[Brother Jonathan]

Just started American Pastoral

[junior chįmp]

Late Bloomers by Rich Karlgaard

[PSOL]

Going through Agatha Christie's best known sleuth

[Sol]

Going through Agatha Christie's best known sleuth

Which one are you reading now? I'm a big time Christie enjoyer so curious to hear your thoughts.

[Aurelius2]

"Young Men and Fire", by Norman MacLean.

[LBJer]

I'm more than three-quarters of the way through Sidney Shapiro's translation of Pa Chin's novel Family.  Set in the city of Chengdu circa 1920, it paints a vivid picture of major elements of Chinese history during this period, and demonstrates how oppressive--often brutally so--the old order was for a younger generation eager for more freedom.  

The novel starts out somewhat slowly but really picks up later on.  I highly recommend it.  I always look forward to reading it, and that's the sign of a good book. 

[Mexican Wolf]

I'm a little more than halfway through The Last Island: Discovery, Defiance, and The Most Elusive Tribe on Earth by Adam Goodheart. It's a broad-ranging history of the peoples of the Andaman Islands and the many, many attempts the British and Indian governments and private individuals have made to establish communication with, exert control over, or protect the health and culture of the North Sentinel Islanders. Goodheart also describes a few mostly unsuccessful visits he made to North Sentinel Island in order to study their native inhabitants.

He also writes some pretty good introspective passages about why "uncontacted" tribes like the Sentinelese fascinate outsiders so much and how successful and unsuccessful efforts to create and develop relationships with these tribes have positively and negatively affected the lives of native and non-native peoples living in the Andaman Islands.

I also appreciate how he dives into and challenges long-standing beliefs that the North Sentinelese are less developed or civilized than other modern people due to their relative isolation from the world and their use of bows and arrows as their main weapons.

Overall, it's a deeply fascinating book about a unique area of the world.

[Mr. Smith]

America: The Farewell Tour by Chris Hedges

[King of Kensington]

David Christian, Maps of Time: An Introduction to Big History

[King of Kensington]

About 60% through Maps of History, just getting to the formation of states.  It's a really thorough and engaging book, though some topics are more interesting than others depending on the person.   Each chapter has good summaries and further readings which is also helpful.

[Pericles]

A People's Tragedy on the Russian Revolution by Orlando Figes. Very bulky but great analysis and depth to it, it's definitely the best thing I've read on this huge historical event.

[retromike22]

Some recent reads:

Destiny and Power: The American Odyssey of George Herbert Walker Bush
Jon Meacham

A very enjoyable book, Poppy was truly the last of his kind. You really get the sense that he would have been better suited to being a Secretary of State than a President.

Victoria: The Queen
Julia Baird

Fascinating but sadly, due to her own daughter burning so many of her personal diaries and letters, is more vague towards the end.

The Rise and Reign of the Mammals
Stephen L. Brusatte

The sequel to the dinosaur book I read previously. Very fun!

From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler
E. L. Konigsburg.

I read this book by choice when I was around 10 or 11, and a few parts of it have lingered with me since, so I decided to give it another read. It's still enjoyable, although understandably much shorter than I remember. However, the illustrations are strangely very sloppy and almost grotesque on how bad they look.

[retromike22]

The Lord of the Rings
J.R.R. Tolkien

I somehow never got around to reading this, and I really regret not reading it earlier. It was thoroughly entertaining and fascinating, and I greatly enjoyed almost all of it. I amusingly noticed that the story slowed down in the beginning of the Fellowship of the Ring, the middle of the Two Towers, and in the ending of Return of the King.

After finishing each part, I decided to watch the films, which I had not seen in about a decade, just to compare with the story. I strongly disagree with how the Two Towers was divided from the Return of the King, and I feel that the story of the Two Towers was stretched out in the film needlessly.

[HillGoose]

The Fractalist: Memoirs of a Scientific Maverick by Benoit Mandelbrot

One of the greatest scientists ever in my opinion, I've been obsessed with his work since college, but somehow never got around to reading his memoirs until now.

[retromike22]

The Godfather
Mario Puzo

Initially as I started reading this, I was surprised at it's somewhat simplistic style. It felt more like a book for young adults than for adults. However, the story was deeply engaging and all the characters were well developed. I highly recommend it.

[retromike22]

I just finished this, it was a wonderful read.

An Immense World: How Animal Senses Reveal the Hidden Realms Around Us
Ed Yong

[Agonized-Statism]

Rites of Spring by Modris Eksteins, a cultural history following the emergence of modernism as the primary mode of discourse with World War I. It's exactly how I would write a history book.

[LBJer]

Having finished Pa Chin's (or, in an alternate transliteration, Ba Jin's) novel Family, which I discussed in an earlier post on this thread, I'm now reading (again in translation) another novel of his called Ward Four, published in 1946.  This work depicts conditions in a Chinese hospital during the Sino-Japanese War (1937-45).

[King of Kensington]

Ursula Le Guin, The Dispossessed