What Was the Last Book You Read?

[Ole Juul]

The Devil's Cloth: A History of Stripes - by Michel Pastoureau.
It's a very small but delightful paperback. I've never read anything quite like it. The author otherwise writes books on medieval history, and as he has been doing research over the decades and noticed the context in which stripes were used, this book has taken form in his mind. It is a personal, yet rather well considered view of one of the most important elements of visual symbolism. It's also great fun. I picked it up on Amazon.

[Hazaddum]

10 Indians by Agatha Christie. Awesome book for detective lovers

[BlkWhiteFilmPix]

Liberator, by Felix Kershaw. The story of Felix Sparks' World War 2 service during which he earned two Silver Stars and promotions from Second Lieutenant to Colonel.

Toward the end, it describes General Alfred Jodl signing the surrender document with a Schaeffer pen.

[forester]

Colour Scheme - Ngaio Marsh

[Skwerlmasta]

I read a bit more non-fiction than I do fiction these days. The last book I read was "How to Read a Book" by Mortimer J. Adler and Charles Van Doren.
It's an interesting book on how to be an active reader. If you're into self education and want to know how to get the most out of a book, this is a really good read.
The first few chapters describe the types of reading we do. The middle gives the flow of active reading, and the rear of the book is about reading specific types of books, including literature and poetry.
I read the first two parts, though I haven't read some of the chapters on specific reading. I don't do a whole lot of literature, though I will probably branch out into poetry soon so I will be reading that particular chapter.
I know some people who've learned this method of reading. I believe this is what they taught when I was in school. I never bothered to use it, though.
Good book if you're into non-fiction and self-learning.

[RobJohnson]

Observers Book of Aircraft, First Edition 1953 followed by What's Wrong with Civilisation?

[eachan]

I have a whole collection of those Observer's Books. They're often the first resource I turn to, to identify birds, unusual cars, wild flowers - and on and on.

[BlkWhiteFilmPix]

Terminal List, by Jack Carr, a former Navy SEAL. The first novel about Lieutenant Commander Reece, a Navy SEAL whose life changes after his team is ambushed during a mission.

As a second LCDR Reece book - True Believer - is out, it looks like this is the beginning of a series. So many books, so little time.

[Roe D Hym]

Hunger Games Trilogy

[VertOlive]

Naked Came the Manatee. Because everything that 2020/2021 is not.

[Lady Onogaro]

I just finished a fabulous book titled Furious Hours: Murder, Fraud, and the Last Trial of Harper Lee by Casey Cep. I highly recommend it if you are at all interested in Harper Lee. I could not put it down.

[eachan]

Crome Yellow by Aldous Huxley. A slender plot but wonderful characters. It's so hard to believe that The Roaring Twenties were a century ago. It seems so modern.

[jackwebb]

Astrophysics for People in a Hurry -Neil deGrasse Tyson, finished it today while traveling. It seems to be an abridged version of Death by Black Hole, or at least took several chapters almost directly from it.


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[Lady Onogaro]

The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V.E. Schwab.

[Kaputnik]

I just finished The Voyage of the Beagle, by Charles Darwin. I'd started it some months ago, put it aside, then finished steadily but only a little bit at a time over the past couple of weeks. That's in between reading other things.

The copy I have is an old paperback, a 1962 edition although possibly printed later, which has followed me around since I was a teenager. I'm certain that I had read it before, but that would have been decades ago, and I came to it fresh. It's an account of the round the world voyage of the HMS Beagle between 1831 and 1836, for which Darwin was the ship's naturalist. Famously, his observations on this voyage were later helpful in forming the theory of evolution.

It can get dry in parts, but there is also much of interest, his observations about different species, of course, but also of geology, and his impressions of different peoples and customs. Toward the end, he grows almost lyrical about the beauties of nature he had seen, and righteously indignant at what he has observed of slavery. The latter is based on his experiences in South America, and Brazil in particular, although he briefly alludes to slavery in the United States. There's a bit of British pride there too, and a generally positive view of the influence of Christianity.

I was struck by the number of animals he mentions killing, easily explained by his interest in collecting specimens, but not something that had occurred to me. Occasionally, he writes something that reminds one of the state of scientific knowledge in his time. Mentioning the unhealthy climate in northern Peru, he attributes the prevalence of "ague" (in this case malaria) to the miasmas from stagnant pools. It would be a while yet before the development of germ theory, and longer still before the role of mosquitos and other insects in spreading some diseases was understood.

[Lady Onogaro]

Just finished two: Elly Griffiths' The Postscript Murders, and Emily St. John Mandel's The Glass House.

[Chrissy]

I've been trying to branch out and read other types of books including a few classics so I've just finished Animal Farm and 1984 by George Orwell

[eachan]

Andy Friend: John Nash - The Landscape of Love and Solace. A biography and assessment of the artist. Well researched and with very good illustrations.

[Judy Charlton]

Leonard Mlodinow 'The Drunkard's Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives'. A great book written in plain English. Strongly recommend to read it, the author is awesome, truly awesome

[BlkWhiteFilmPix]

Greenlights, by Matthew McConaughy.

Lots of laughs, lots of common sense. Not your typical memoir.