What are you currently reading?

[Karl Henning]

HARPO SPEAKS!

...and others.

I need to read that 'un.

[Beorn]

I need to read that 'un.

Yes, I recommend it.

[Gold Knight]

Christopher Tyerman--God's War: A New History Of The Crusades

[Karl Henning]

Yes, I recommend it.

I still had some of my gift card left, so I've bought the Nook edition!

[Beorn]

I still had some of my gift card left, so I've bought the Nook edition!

Excellent! Last night, I was reading about his adventure in 1933 USSR.

[Karl Henning]

Thanks, I should read that one. I think the only Faulkner I've read to date are Light in August and The Sound and the Fury.

[Florestan]

The only Faulkner I've read was Absalom, Absalom! --- a masterpiece and a tour de force in multidimensional points of view. Highly recommended.

[Karl Henning]

Well, the term had to be used somehow before there was an Internet . . . . (j/k)

[kishnevi]

In high school,  our class read As I Lay Dying and Light in August.  In my twenties,  I read Absalom, Absalom and Sound and the Fury and apparently didn't understand half of what I was reading.  For instance,  not realizing the main character kills himself.   

But I do think As both of the books I read in high school would make good introductions to Faulkner, as would Intruder in the Dust,  which some people consider an apologia for Southern racism.  Faulkner uses the same techniques as in his other book, but less dense and a much tighter plot, which in a way is To Tell a Mockingbird as seen through Faulkner's eyes. (Black man accused of murder, although he's innocent.  White spinster, white teenager and black teenager combine to exonerate him,  exhuming corpses and staring down a mob of would be lynchers along the way.)

[CaughtintheGaze]

Most of my reading is for my thesis, but I'm striving to read these two books for fun over the summer break:

[asin]B004KAB4D8[/asin]

[Bogey]

Just purchased:



In 1279, near what is now Hong Kong, Mongol ruler Khubilai Khan fulfilled the dream of his grandfather, Genghis Khan, by conquering China. The Grand Khan now ruled the largest empire the world has ever seen--one that stretched from the China Sea to the plains of Hungary. He also inherited the world's largest navy--more than seven hundred ships. Yet within fifteen years, Khubilai Khan's massive fleet was gone. What actually happened to the Mongol navy, considered for seven centuries to be little more than legend, has finally been revealed. Renowned archaeologist and historian James P. Delgado has gone diving with a Japanese team currently studying the remains of the Khan's lost fleet. Drawing from diverse sources--sunken ships, hand-painted scrolls, drowned bodies, and historical and literary records-- in this gripping account that moves deftly between the present and the past, Delgado pieces together the fascinating tale of Khubilai Khan's maritime forays and unravels one of history's greatest mysteries: What sank the great Mongol fleet?

[Fëanor]

My eye problems increasingly restricted the my daily reading time so I tend to choose to not reading fiction -- this book, though, is definitely not fiction.

Chrystia Freeland: Plutocrats: The Rise of the New Global Super-Rich and the Fall of Everyone Else

[Todd]

A few chapters into Amity Shlaes' bio of Silent Cal.  As befits an author with a degree in English, the prose is expertly written and reads nice 'n' quick.  The unrepentant revisionism, particularly with regard to economics, is a bit much, and I'm sure it will get worse – and I know her treatment of the Kellogg-Briand pact will be way too apologetic – but it's not as bad as James Grant's feeble attempt at revisionism with respect to Warren Harding last year (I believe) in an op-ed.  (Mr Grant should stick to investing.)  Coolidge comes off as a guy I would like to have met, given the chance.  I suspect Ms Shlaes will downplay his impact on the market crash and Great Depression (which he couldn't have done much about anyway), and I'm curious to see how she will handle his relative inaction on the reemergence of the Klan, especially in the North (which he could have done much more about; if Ulysses Grant could, Coolidge could).  Still, it is a good read, and sheds some light on a lesser president.  It is certainly better than, and less fawning than, Jon Meacham's sub-par bio of Jefferson I recently finished. 

[Beorn]

 
[asin]1423463846[/asin]

[dave b]

Just finished Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln by Doris Kearns Goodwin....very hard to put down.

[Beorn]

They knew how to design book covers back in '65. 

[Karl Henning]

Read this in order to review it for the Musical Reference Services Quarterly. Wonderfully informative, fascinating anthology of source documents;  priced for the institutional market, no question.  Almost can't believe that the fellow who "reviewed" it on Amazon seems to have mistaken his umbrage at the price, for a discussion of the book's merits.  Even more horrified that his idea of "a better deal" is the MacDonald.

[asin]184383703X[/asin]

[dave b]

Plato--The Republic--for the third time in 5 or 6 years. All his dialogues are riveting.
Reading this, years ago, was the reason I changed my college major the day after I finished the book.

[listener]

The Strange Tale of Panorama Island by the 'Japanese Edgar Allen Poe'  Edogawa Ranpo in a very smooth translation by Elaine Kazu Gerbert, set in the world of the panorama as an entertainment spectacle.   Good introductory note on the history and construction of panoramas.

[Octave]

The Strange Tale of Panorama Island by the 'Japanese Edgar Allen Poe'  Edogawa Ranpo in a very smooth translation by Elaine Kazu Gerbert, set in the world of the panorama as an entertainment spectacle.   Good introductory note on the history and construction of panoramas.

Thanks for mentioning that...the day before you posted this, I watched a film based on some Edogawa: BLACK LIZARD (Umetsugu Inoue, 1962).  Apparently the same book was made into a better and stranger film in 1968 by Kinji Fukasaku, with Yukio Mishima involved (writing and apparently cameoing as a living statue); but I might have to resort to "other means" to see that one.  (The Inoue was not really to my taste, aside from the fun/cheesy and mildly kinky opening musical number.) 
Your post's comment about Edogawa's status in Japan got me interested, and in my thumbnail-intro reading, I came across his involvement with "ero guro nansensu".  Now I really am interested!  I know nothing of his writing, but now I am keyed up to read him.

Do you know some other Edogawa as well?  Is there an ideal way to start with him in English?