What are you currently reading?

[bwv 1080]

[Karl Henning]

As informative and enjoyable as I had expected.

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[Henk]

Started reading this book.



It's a historial thriller, in Dutch. About the Dutch colonial past in Indonesia. First pages truely great. Going to be a long read, since it's a thick book and I am a slow reader, but might read longer each time I dive into it.

[Henk]

Gonna try to read this book by Derrida, parallel and related to my course about the design of technology (and society and technology).



"In Archive Fever, Jacques Derrida deftly guides us through an extended meditation on remembrance, religion, time, and technology—fruitfully occasioned by a deconstructive analysis of the notion of archiving. Intrigued by the evocative relationship between technologies of inscription and psychic processes, Derrida offers for the first time a major statement on the pervasive impact of electronic media, particularly e-mail, which threaten to transform the entire public and private space of humanity. Plying this rich material with characteristic virtuosity, Derrida constructs a synergistic reading of archives and archiving, both provocative and compelling."

[ritter]

Starting Hermann Broch's Demeter:

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This is the third and final (unfinished) version of Broch's Bergroman ("Mountain Novel"), after The Seducer and The Spell (neither of which I have read). Broch tells the story of the apparition of irrational forces in a small alpine village (as a parable of the ascent of nazism).

I very much enjoyed (years ago) The Sleepwalkers and his essay Hugo von Hofmannsthal and his Time, but I remain intimidated by his magnum opus The Death of Virgil, which stands unread in my bookshelves since...ever. 

[SimonNZ]

^I've also had The Death Of Virgil sitting on my shelves unread for far too long.

CR:



Compelling, if rather unstructured, mix of politics, history and travel narrative surrounding the troubled and tragic stories of Sierra Leone and Liberia.

[Jaakko Keskinen]

I started reading Les Miserables, this time unabridged. This may take some time.

[Ken B]

Tom Sawyer
By Mark Twain

Never read before this actually.

[Jaakko Keskinen]

Tom Sawyer
By Mark Twain

Never read before this actually.

That was the first book from Twain that I read.

[Ken B]

That was the first book from Twain that I read.

It is for a lot of people, and the second for most of the rest! It's an old hole in my reading. Quite funny so far.

[NikF]

I'm rereading 'Princess Mary' from this in anticipation of rewatching 'Un cœur en hiver.'

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[bwv 1080]

Most SciFi is set tens or hundreds of years in the future, this is set 6 million years or so from now

[Jaakko Keskinen]

Most SciFi is set tens or hundreds of years in the future

Of course there is that one particular scifi franchise which takes place a long time ago in a galaxy far far away... Yes, I noted the word "most" in your post, just messing around.

[bwv 1080]

Of course there is that one particular scifi franchise which takes place a long time ago in a galaxy far far away... Yes, I noted the word "most" in your post, just messing around.

should have qualified it with 'hard' scifi

[Jo498]

It is for a lot of people, and the second for most of the rest! It's an old hole in my reading. Quite funny so far.

It was the first by Twain for me when I was around 8 or 9 and together with "Treasure Island" which I read at about the same time it was probably the first book I read that could qualify as a "great book" or at least claim to transcend children's literature.

But I definitely was too young for "Huckleberry Finn" and I am not even sure I finished the latter when I tried it a year or so after Tom Sawyer. I was considerably disappointed because I had expected something much closer to a typical sequel of Tom Sawyer. (When I read Huckleberry Finn again a few year ago as an adult and in the original I found that the bits that try to bridge back to Tom Sawyer, especially the ending, are actually the weakest ones.)

[Jaakko Keskinen]

Also started reading The Gilded Age, collaboration between Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner.

[Karl Henning]

Also started reading The Gilded Age, collaboration between Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner.

I've not read that.  (Yet.) 

[Jaakko Keskinen]

I've not read that.  (Yet.) 

The beginning seems promising enough. Who knows, maybe this will become my choice for the greatest American novel? 

[Karl Henning]

(* chortle *)

[Ken B]

It was the first by Twain for me when I was around 8 or 9 and together with "Treasure Island" which I read at about the same time it was probably the first book I read that could qualify as a "great book" or at least claim to transcend children's literature.

But I definitely was too young for "Huckleberry Finn" and I am not even sure I finished the latter when I tried it a year or so after Tom Sawyer. I was considerably disappointed because I had expected something much closer to a typical sequel of Tom Sawyer. (When I read Huckleberry Finn again a few year ago as an adult and in the original I found that the bits that try to bridge back to Tom Sawyer, especially the ending, are actually the weakest ones.)

Ironically Moby Dick is now often sold as a children's book! I was asked by a prof once if he should get it for his kid aged about 8. I boggled. But I have seen it, unabridged, unaltered, on sale in the children's section!