What are you currently reading?

[SimonNZ]

[SimonNZ]

[aligreto]

Hesse: Strange News from Another Star





This is an interesting collection of short stories from Hesse. They are stories, in the form of modern Fairy Tales, that explore levels of the subconscious and deep emotional thought.

[Brian]

Like a total maniac, I am reading five books at the moment:

A History of Western Philosophy - Bertrand Russell
My winter project read, begun January 1 but pausing between sections. Finished the classical era, decided to read another book as a palate cleanser, and then all chaos broke loose as I started 4 more books instead of one.

Under the Glacier - Halldor Laxness
I really enjoyed his oddball fable Paradise Reclaimed, so got all his other novels for Christmas. (At least, the ones available in English.) However, this one is a little extreme in the odd absurdism department, so it's best in small doses. I am enjoying the second half more than the first, but after about 30 pages, I need a break from the eccentricity.

Pirate Libertalia - David Graeber
Started this while taking a break from Laxness while taking a break from Russell  It is a mere 150 pages, a short little text about the mid 1700s pirate communities in Madagascar and their experiments with proto-democratic, egalitarian societies. Interestingly, the arrival of the pirates was incredibly empowering for the local women, who were able to marry into money and control the pirates' interactions with the locals. They even had a sort of polyamory where if their pirate husband sailed on a voyage, they could shack up with another man until the pirate came back and paid her a return fee!

Four Lost Cities - Annalee Newitz
Very quick, easy, but absorbing read about the histories of Catalhöyük, Pompeii, Angkor, and Cahokia, and lessons we can learn from those cities' declines. Newitz also does a great job updating the inaccurate things we learned in school (Angkor was not suddenly abandoned; people still lived there when the French "discovered" it).

Winning Fixes Everything - Evan Drellich
A history of the Houston Astros, Boston Red Sox, and other lying cheating baseball teams trying to win at any cost. This one only barely counts as an ongoing read, because my preorder copy arrived and I read the introduction before getting back to Newitz and Graeber. Will get to this after finishing those and Under the Glacier.

Also upcoming: two novels, The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead and The Mark and the Void by Paul Murray.

[SimonNZ]

The author's experience of growing up in Hoxha's Albania, and of living through the fall of communism and the chaos that followed.

[Brian]

Under the Glacier - Halldor Laxness

Pirate Libertalia - David Graeber

Four Lost Cities - Annalee Newitz

Finished all three of these in one productive afternoon.

Simon, that memoir looks really interesting (and has a striking cover design).

[SimonNZ]

Finished all three of these in one productive afternoon.

Simon, that memoir looks really interesting (and has a striking cover design).

Three books in one afternoon!!

I got through three excellent books last week, but that was only because each was only a little over 200 pages. My reading speed is only slightly faster than if I was reading aloud.

Turns out the cover image above relates to one of the anecdotes in the book.

[Brian]

Three books in one afternoon!!

I got through three excellent books last week, but that was only because each was only a little over 200 pages. My reading speed is only slightly faster than if I was reading aloud.

I was halfway through all of them. In total it did come to about 200 pages today but I was lucky to only need to make lunch and do dishes.

[ritter]

Starting Jean-Paul Sartre's La Nausée....

[Valentino]

Maus by Art Spiegelman

Found it accidentally in Norwegian on sale. Read it first in English some thirty years ago. It is as good as I remember it.
Btw: Did they ban it in Tennessee or did common sense prevail?

[ultralinear]

Terrible title.  Much better book.

[SimonNZ]

Started both of these:

[Florestan]

Terrible title.

Terrible translation, actually. The original French title is Fort comme la mort and it quotes from the Song of Solomon (8:6)  L'amour est fort comme la mort, et la jalousie est dure comme le sépulcre (love is as strong as death, jealousy as cruel as the grave). Hope this helps.

[Dry Brett Kavanaugh]

Hesse: Strange News from Another Star





This is an interesting collection of short stories from Hesse. They are stories, in the form of modern Fairy Tales, that explore levels of the subconscious and deep emotional thought.

Didn't know about the book. Maybe the stories were influenced by Carl Jung, who gave therapies to HH. Hesse admired Freud first, but later converted to Jungian psychology, and re-converted to Freud later.

[LKB]

My First 79 Years, Isaac Stern's memoirs, written with Chaim Potok.

I'm about 20% of the way in and I've not yet been bored, a good sign.

[aligreto]

Hamsun: Mysteries





A very eccentric stranger decides to disembark from a boat at the last minute. He is attracted by the festivities in the town. The novel becomes the tale of his interactions with and his effect on the locals in the town. However, the novel focuses on the psychology of the main protagonist. The inhabitants are shocked and disturbed by his speech as he continually endeavours to convince them that he is a genuine person. I found it interesting but odd. It reminded me of how I felt when reading Kafka.

[aligreto]

Didn't know about the book. Maybe the stories were influenced by Carl Jung, who gave therapies to HH. Hesse admired Freud first, but later converted to Jungian psychology, and re-converted to Freud later.

Thank you for the background information. 

[SimonNZ]

Started:

[aligreto]

Salinger: Catcher In The Rye





This is my third time to read this novel over a span of a number of decades. I know that this is regarded as a cult American classic but I have to admit that I have never seen it thus, even as a young man reading it initially. I have never understood the appeal of the work. However, I decided, in my more mature years, to give it another read in order to see if my understanding and appreciation of the novel had changed.

My ultimate finding was that my opinion of the novel had deteriorated with the passage of time. I find both the writing and the pretext of the novel to be puerile. I fully understand that it is written from the point of view of a young man. However, I do not even see it as one of those "rite of passage" novels. For me, it does not have the depth or insight to be regarded thus. I honestly felt that the protagonist was very immature in his thinking, analysis and outlook. Perhaps the protagonist's cynical, sardonic and contemptuous view of the then current values is the appeal.

I, however, this time around in my latter years, found it to be so boring that I had to force myself to finish it.

No doubt, someone will enlighten me as to the error of my ways.

Perhaps it is just a cultural issue on my part.

[Dry Brett Kavanaugh]