What Was the Last Book You Read?

[ethernautrix]

I just read Erica Jong's Fear of Flying for the first time, having just read her book on Henry Miller, The Devil at Large.

I had to think about how social attitudes towards women and sex have changed since 1973. FOF certainly wasn't shocking now, but interesting to think about the outcry forty-plus years ago, how scandalous it must have been for a narrator to think about sex and analyze her desire(s).

Jong's book on Miller has me jonesin' to read more of him. I read Tropic of Cancer in the '80s, then Tropic of Capricorn. The latter book lost my interest, so I didn't read more, but now I've bought Black Spring, The Air-Conditioned Nightmare, and Henry Miller On Writing for my Kindle.

And just started reading Will Self's Psychogeography, which caused me to pull out my dictionary (yay!). Gearing up for a little road trip to Copenhagen, so I probably won't get much reading done.

[Morgaine]

Almost finished The Colour of Magic (again).

[Silverbreeze]

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AT LAST, SIR TERRY, WE MUST WALK TOGETHER.

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[Laura N]

I just finished an excellent novel called All My Puny Sorrows, by Miriam Toews. It's incredibly funny, but at the same time it's about the serious and heartbreaking subject of a woman whose sister wants to commit suicide. Not an easy read, despite how readable it is. It's a book that will stay with me.

[Dreck]

Just finished "Hamlet," "The Scarlet Letter" (love it!), and "To Kill A Mockingbird."
Just started "MacBeth," "Red Badge of Courage," and "The Great Divorce" (the pinnacle of C.S. Lewis' writing, IMO).

[dneal]

Re-reading the complete works of Mark Twain, periodically taking a break from it with other books. Last few that I recall were Robert Gates "Duty", John Stuart Mill's "On Liberty", Vali Nasr's "The Dispensable Nation" and Radley Balko's "Rise of the Warrior Cop".

Lest that seem too deep, "The Complete Calvin and Hobbes" gets cracked open on a daily basis.

[Lady Onogaro]

Just finished Nancy Kress' science fiction novel Yesterday's Kin.

[Holsworth]

Making an effort to actually finish some books for once. A Moveable Feast and Gone Girl finished this week.

[klpeabody]

Making an effort to actually finish some books for once.

I totally hear you. I'm there, myself.

[caribbean_skye]

Making an effort to actually finish some books for once. A Moveable Feast and Gone Girl finished this week.

yeah i need to make myself do that. my currently reading list that is over 30 days old numbers about 7 or 8. One of these days...

[VertOlive]

In the middle of The Final Solution by Michael Chabon. Much like A Slight Trick of the Mind (next on the Kindle), we see Sherlock in his nineties still burning bright, if with a flicker and a wheeze. I have such a fondness for the very old that these are a special delight to read.

[Lady Onogaro]

In the middle of The Final Solution by Michael Chabon. Much like A Slight Trick of the Mind (next on the Kindle), we see Sherlock in his nineties still burning bright, if with a flicker and a wheeze. I have such a fondness for the very old that these are a special delight to read.

These are both great books. Did someone recommend them to you? I had read A Slight Trick of the Mind as a library book; when I was in Houston a few weeks ago, I saw it used in Half Price Books and picked it up for my own collection. I have enjoyed reading parts of it over again. The prose is so very beautiful.

I loved Chabon's book, too. I don't much like those Sherlock Holmes pastiches that seem to follow a formula that not even Conan Doyle himself followed. Yes, there are things in common in many of the stories, but not all of them begin in Baker Street before the fire on a late November afternoon (as cozy as that sounds).

[Laura N]

I just finished what is sure to be described as "a fast paced, gritty police procedural" called The Whites, written by "Richard Price writing as Harry Brandt." The author's pseudonym but not really kind of cracks me up. It was well done, like a throwback to books I remember from the 70s by Wambaugh and others.

[writingrav]

I just finished what is sure to be described as "a fast paced, gritty police procedural" called The Whites, written by "Richard Price writing as Harry Brandt." The author's pseudonym but no really kind of cracks me up. It was well done, like a throwback to books I remember from the 70s by Wambaugh and others.

I'm reading it now!

[ilangai]

"The Monuments — The Grit and the Glory of Cycling's Greatest One-Day Races" by Peter Cossins.

Amazing stories from the top five one-day cycling races;

• Liège—Bastogne—Liège (La Doyenne)
• Paris—Roubaix (The Hell of the North)
• The Tour of Lombardy (The Race of the Falling Leaves)
• Milan—Sanremo (La Classicissima)
• The Tour of Flanders (Vlaanderens Mooistre)

Full of history and heroism.

[Laura N]

I recently finished an unexpectedly wonderful book, The Broken Road, by Patrick Leigh Fermor. It is an unfinished work, published posthumously and put together by his literary executors, but it finishes a trilogy in which Fermor recalls traveling on foot in Central Europe at the age of 18 and 19, in the 1930s. The first book in that trilogy was A Time of Gifts, which is one of my favorite books ever, and a good place to start if one is interested in Fermor.

[Faustine]

I just finished reading The Martian by Andy Weir, and really enjoyed it. An engrossing read that will soon be a movie starring Matt Damon.

[VertOlive]

I just finished what is sure to be described as "a fast paced, gritty police procedural" called The Whites, written by "Richard Price writing as Harry Brandt." The author's pseudonym but not really kind of cracks me up. It was well done, like a throwback to books I remember from the 70s by Wambaugh and others.

Didn't Price write Clockers? Whites has a very similar feel...

[ethernautrix]

Finished Will Self's Psychogeography a few days ago. Yesterday, started and finished Ruth Fowler's Girl, Undressed. I knew Ruth Fowler through her blog (ten years ago), MimiNewYork, when she was an illegal immigrant (from the UK) with a degree from Cambridge working as a stripper ("dancer") until she could get a visa. I don't know what she's done since moving from New York (a quick search shows she is still writing a blog, has married and had a child, and is living in California now), but her life, especially the five years prior to moving to New York, is certainly interesting. I'd read it if she wrote a book about those five years of travelling.

Got a long list of what to read next. Thinking it might be Henry Miller's Black Spring.

[akapulko2020]

Finished "Miss Bunkle's book " by D.E.Stevenson (?) that was quite delightful.