What are You Reading Now?

[krizzose]

Just started this:

 

[NoogaPipe]

Be still, my paleontological-loving heart. What a great read!

 

[warren99]

View attachment 283532

How do you like the book? I’ve read New York Trilogy and would like to read some more of Auster.

 

[huntertrw]

Ray Bradbury's Something Wicked This Way Comes.

 

[makhorkasmoker]

How do you like the book? I’ve read New York Trilogy and would like to read some more of Auster.

I have mixed feelings about his writing. I try to read a book by him every decade or so, and while the book is always interesting enough to finish, I’m always thinking too: “this guy is an ass.”

This one is a memoir. I feel he’s putting up a front. he writes as if to say, I’m gonna be totally brutally honest with you about my life. But I often feel the stories are self serving, and at times bragging: look how many scars I have, look how many places I’ve lived in, look how many women I’ve slept with, look how correct my ideas were even back then, etc. what saves it, for me, is that he describes well a time when it was still possible for a struggling writer to scrape by on next to nothing in cheap flats in New York or Paris or San Francisco—a kind of gritty nostalgia writing

 

[warren99]

I have mixed feelings about his writing. I try to read a book by him every decade or so, and while the book is always interesting enough to finish, I’m always thinking too: “this guy is an ass.”

This one is a memoir. I feel he’s putting up a front. he writes as if to say, I’m gonna be totally brutally honest with you about my life. But I often feel the stories are self serving, and at times bragging: look how many scars I have, look how many places I’ve lived in, look how many women I’ve slept with, look how correct my ideas were even back then, etc. what saves it, for me, is that he describes well a time when it was still possible for a struggling writer to scrape by on next to nothing in cheap flats in New York or Paris or San Francisco—a kind of gritty nostalgia writing

Thanks for the insight. A present-day Norman Mailer, so it seems.

 

[makhorkasmoker]

 

[HawkeyeLinus]

 

[RPK]

I used to be able to recite it all from memory, the same as my mother, grandmother, and dear old friend Jack could, but today I have to cheat and read it several times first.

The best cold weather poem, in literature:

The Cremation of Sam McGee​

BY ROBERT W. SERVICE
There are strange things done in the midnight sun
By the men who moil for gold;
The Arctic trails have their secret tales
That would make your blood run cold;
The Northern Lights have seen queer sights,
But the queerest they ever did see
Was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge
I cremated Sam McGee.

Now Sam McGee was from Tennessee, where the cotton blooms and blows.
Why he left his home in the South to roam 'round the Pole, God only knows.
He was always cold, but the land of gold seemed to hold him like a spell;
Though he'd often say in his homely way that "he'd sooner live in hell."

On a Christmas Day we were mushing our way over the Dawson trail.
Talk of your cold! through the parka's fold it stabbed like a driven nail.
If our eyes we'd close, then the lashes froze till sometimes we couldn't see;
It wasn't much fun, but the only one to whimper was Sam McGee.

And that very night, as we lay packed tight in our robes beneath the snow,
And the dogs were fed, and the stars o'erhead were dancing heel and toe,
He turned to me, and "Cap," says he, "I'll cash in this trip, I guess;
And if I do, I'm asking that you won't refuse my last request."

Well, he seemed so low that I couldn't say no; then he says with a sort of moan:
"It's the cursèd cold, and it's got right hold till I'm chilled clean through to the bone.
Yet 'tain't being dead—it's my awful dread of the icy grave that pains;
So I want you to swear that, foul or fair, you'll cremate my last remains."

A pal's last need is a thing to heed, so I swore I would not fail;
And we started on at the streak of dawn; but God! he looked ghastly pale.
He crouched on the sleigh, and he raved all day of his home in Tennessee;
And before nightfall a corpse was all that was left of Sam McGee.

There wasn't a breath in that land of death, and I hurried, horror-driven,
With a corpse half hid that I couldn't get rid, because of a promise given;
It was lashed to the sleigh, and it seemed to say: "You may tax your brawn and brains,
But you promised true, and it's up to you to cremate those last remains."

Now a promise made is a debt unpaid, and the trail has its own stern code.
In the days to come, though my lips were dumb, in my heart how I cursed that load.
In the long, long night, by the lone firelight, while the huskies, round in a ring,
Howled out their woes to the homeless snows— O God! how I loathed the thing.

And every day that quiet clay seemed to heavy and heavier grow;
And on I went, though the dogs were spent and the grub was getting low;
The trail was bad, and I felt half mad, but I swore I would not give in;
And I'd often sing to the hateful thing, and it hearkened with a grin.

Till I came to the marge of Lake Lebarge, and a derelict there lay;
It was jammed in the ice, but I saw in a trice it was called the "Alice May."
And I looked at it, and I thought a bit, and I looked at my frozen chum;
Then "Here," said I, with a sudden cry, "is my cre-ma-tor-eum."

Some planks I tore from the cabin floor, and I lit the boiler fire;
Some coal I found that was lying around, and I heaped the fuel higher;
The flames just soared, and the furnace roared—such a blaze you seldom see;
And I burrowed a hole in the glowing coal, and I stuffed in Sam McGee.

Then I made a hike, for I didn't like to hear him sizzle so;
And the heavens scowled, and the huskies howled, and the wind began to blow.
It was icy cold, but the hot sweat rolled down my cheeks, and I don't know why;
And the greasy smoke in an inky cloak went streaking down the sky.

I do not know how long in the snow I wrestled with grisly fear;
But the stars came out and they danced about ere again I ventured near;
I was sick with dread, but I bravely said: "I'll just take a peep inside.
I guess he's cooked, and it's time I looked"; ... then the door I opened wide.

And there sat Sam, looking cool and calm, in the heart of the furnace roar;
And he wore a smile you could see a mile, and he said: "Please close that door.
It's fine in here, but I greatly fear you'll let in the cold and storm—
Since I left Plumtree, down in Tennessee, it's the first time I've been warm."

There are strange things done in the midnight sun
By the men who moil for gold;
The Arctic trails have their secret tales
That would make your blood run cold;
The Northern Lights have seen queer sights,
But the queerest they ever did see
Was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge
I cremated Sam McGee.

Xxxx

For whatever reason I have it committed to memory and recite it to myself like today when in my wife's doctors waiting room to pass the time. I am thinking about memorizing The Face Upon The Barroom Floor; by John Henry Titus

 

[makhorkasmoker]

 

[trouttimes]

Half way through my yearly read of Lord of the Rings.

 

[Kobold]

 

[Kobold]

Already a reference to pipes and Prince Albert!

 

[Zak Halfway]

Still attempting to finish the lord of the rings, only been at it for the last 20years!

I read a fair chapter and a bit; then give in and put the films on.

 

[lordofthepiperings]

Currently reading this one. Too close to the beginning to say if it’s good, really good, or bad.

 

[MartyA]

There a few things I'm reading in the house, but when the outside temps hit 50 degrees F, (which we've had a surprising amount of this winter,) I'm reading the Autobiography of Sir George Airy. it's the kind of a book full of wonderful minutiae from the past that's perfect for a slow, outdoor read with a churchwarden pipe.
Marty

 

[Annaresti Red]

I just finished a new science fiction short story called Inversion by Aric McBay. It was interesting, short, but complete.

"On a mysterious green planet renewed by fire, vibrant collectivist communities have long lived in harmony with both its strange ecosystem and each other—until the day imperialist forces arrive."

Good stuff. Give it a go.

 

[warren99]

Let me know what you think, and also how you feel about it vs White Noise (which I believe you read last year if im not mistaken)

I just finished the book. In my opinion, Libra is worth reading for anyone who is skeptical of the official explanation of the Kennedy assassination. it Is a well-written, thought-provoking novel, blending fact and fiction to create a very plausible conspiracy theory. Unlike White Noise, it is not a satire but rather, it is a sober attempt to articulate the purported political motivations and intended consequences attendant to the tragic event.
.

 

[greysmoke]

I just finished another of Lee Child's Jack Reacher book: this one called "One Shot." I'm maybe 60% through the 29 volume series. I wait for them to pop up in my emailed booklist at a discount before I buy one, so I'm working through it out of sequence and at irregular intervals.

A short while back, I started "The Oceans and the Stars" by Mark Helprin, but I find his over-adorned style just puts me off. I set it aside and probably won't return, although it had the makings of a good yarn.

Now I'm beginning to settle in with "The Evangelical Imagination" by Karen Swallow Prior, which has come highly recommended. We'll see how it goes, but it's certainly a change of pace.

 

[cosmicfolklore]

Just started Murasaki Shikibu's The Tale of Genji, in an effort to better understand some of the themes in Japanese woodblock prints. It was written in the Heian period Japan, and is also considered to be the world's first novel.