What are you reading?

The Sandbox Movies/TV/Book/Music/Etc
102

My next book should be Sci-fi / Fantasy, that is the genre I have gone the longest without covering.

I am only reading my big books until I start travelling again.

That leaves King: The Cell, Four Past Midnight, The Tommyknockers. These are the only long Sci/Fi

The Lost World (Yes read JP), under 400 pages

Walker Percy: The Thanos Syndrome (under 400 pages), this is a book of the month club from 30 years ago I would like to clear off the shelf,

The Hunger Game, also not too long

The Martian: Better length, but as paper back a better travel book. Then again, my daughterā€™s, so do want to return at some point, then again it isnā€™t the only one of hers I have

Thoughts? I assume the majority would go Martian, but I am leaning towards King as I have four, and since I space out genres and authors, best to knock off the repeats. I have another Crichton or two as well. All the non-mentioned are paperbacks.

The Thanos Syndrome is large and not particularly long, never heard of it, but sitting on my self for 30 years I believe, so time to go.

Yes, I over think everything

103

Iā€™m guessing at the time (40 years ago) it might have been one idea of how cavemen lived, and how the introduction of a person of a different species would affect the group.
(Insert joke about GEICO ā€¦)

104

STILL reading ā€œMoby Dick.ā€ No sign of this whale. Iā€™m beginning to think itā€™s just a metaphor or something.
Also still reading that ā€œAmerican Nationsā€ book someone noted in Political(?) about a month ago. It is very fascinating.

105

It takes a long time before the titular whale shows up, yes.

(it does, eventually, show up)

106

Thanks for the reminder, I had forgotten the name. Added my card to the waitlist for it at the library.

Finished ā€œWidow-ishā€ on Friday. Currently reading ā€œHow to Be an Anti-Racistā€ and ā€œJew(ish)ā€.

107

Good to know.
Just finished that ā€œAmerican Nationsā€ book. Very good and the epilogue is a bit too prescient.

108

Iā€™m very interested in his two Greek mythology books (Mythos and Heroes).

109

So far in 2021, Iā€™ve read:
Mansfield Park by Jane Austen
Norse Mythology by Neil Gaiman (I read the Poetic/Prose Eddas in December)
The Sagas of Ragnar Lodbrok translated by Ben Waggoner
We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson
The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler
Beowulf: A New Translation by Maria Dahvana Headley
Call for the Dead by John le Carre
The House in the Cerulean Sea by TJ Klune

Currently reading the complete Borges (still), the Complete Compleat Enchanter (Iā€™ve read the first 2 of 5 novellas), going to listen to the MDH Beowulf, listen to/read Seamus Heaneyā€™s Beowulf, listen to/read Canterbury Tales, finish Faust Part Two. Just started T. Kingfisherā€™s The Twisted Ones (which was on my October list til I got sidetracked).

I added the George Smiley and Philip Marlowe series to my 2021 targets (along with Realm of the Elderlings, Dresden Files, Death Gate cycle).

110

Four Past Midnight - King

111

Iā€™ve read a few of those. Very good.

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112

I finished Slash and Burn, another Dr Siri Paiboun mystery. It was good except they relied on mystical stuff to resolve the climax of the book, which was a bit annoying.

Iā€™m starting The Sentence Is Death by Anthony Horowitz

113

I finished up Mythos, and now onto Heroes.

Some remarks:

  1. The footnotes are more for academic-ish connections (and some snarky remarks). This worked well in kindle version read on a kindle, but I got Heroes through my library (not on kindle) and it doesnā€™t play well with footnotes. I think the footnotes are interesting.
  2. When Fry actually gets into telling a story, itā€™s pretty good and he moves quickly. But he often drops non-story elements into the main text as well which slows everything down and takes you out of the story. He does more of that in Mythos than Heroesā€¦ I think he may have learned something from doing the first book, but also, the material for Heroes is more story-centered and less about how cities were founded, rituals started, how the elephant got his trunk sort of thing you get in Mythos. Just the nature of the beast.

I learned a few stories I hadnā€™t heard before, but most of them I was familiar with because I, too, had read Edith Hamilton, etc.

I hope heā€™ll do a third book just on the Trojan War & aftermath.

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114

I read 4 past midnight ages ago. I remember the Langoliers but have no recollection of the other 3 stories.

Iā€™m currently reading another collection of Kings novellas, If it Bleeds.

115

enjoying Langoliers, the first story It also contains Secret Window (though I think the story has a different name) that became a Depp movie

116

Iā€™m actually reading, not listening to, White Oleander by Janet Fitch. Published in 1999. Who knew LA already had Trader Joeā€™s and Whole Foods in 1999?

Iā€™m listening to Grishamā€™s A Time to Kill. Fun listening this time to a book I read 15 or more years ago. IIRC that was the book that got me back into reading after a long hiatus.

117

In the Casebook of Sherlock Holmes, I learned that ā€œnarkā€ was a British slang term from the 1850s [Holmes of course is much later, but they were still using the term] ā€“ meant police informant.

118

Huh. I guess I read Sherlock Holmes when i was still learning basic vocabulary. Does it not still mean that?

119

Iā€™m currently reading lots Lois McMaster Bujoldā€™s little Penric books. I guess they are novellas. Fun.

120

Oh it still means that, but it also means an undercover narcotics officer [Americans added that meaning]

121

Yes, itā€™s a funny pair of meanings, for sure.