What Was the Last Book You Read?

[adhoc]

Thank you. Honestly, a lot of things had to come together for me to be able to do this; I had a month long vacation, my wife is at home and took care for the kid (who is also in the kindergarten, further unloading me) more in order for me to be able to recuperate a bit, etc. this is definitely not normal and something I can just do typically.

Demons is a great book. But reading Dostoyevsky a lot lately made me realize just how fewer words there are in English and how much is lost in the translation, compared to archaic slavic languages, Russian being one and Slovenian even more so, or actually the most of all slavic languages. You also do not get the benefit of duality (in addition to single and plural), as well as the language is gender neutral. I have to say I actually prefer reading him in my native language, as too much is lost in the translation otherwise, but the books are extremely costly as a typical print will consist of less than 1000 copies worldwide, since we're such a tiny nation.

[BlkWhiteFilmPix]

The Judge's List, by John Grisham. A professor solves her father's murder, a cold case, and identifies a serial killer.

Just started The Last Stargazers, by Emily Levesque, a professional astronomer. The enduring true story of astronomy's vanishing explorers.

Just in: The Paris Bookseller, by Kerri Maher. A historical novel about Shakespeare and Company in Paris.

[Bold2013]

Woke Christianity.

Job.

[BlkWhiteFilmPix]

Better Off Dead, by Lee Child and Andrew Child. The latest in the Jack Reacher series. In it a pathologist makes notes by hand with a Montblanc pen.

[kelly41]

3 lives in 9 objects by Deborah Lutz about the Brontes

[Chrissy]

Just finished The Late Show by Michael Connelly - third reading -

[kazoolaw]

Just finished The Late Show by Michael Connelly - third reading -

If you're familiar with the Bosch series, how would you compare/contrast this book, and the others in this series?

[Chip]

Under Jerusalem by Andrew Lawler. I didn't realise how many excavations had been done, nor how much dispute and violence has resulted, mostly owing to competing religious manias: not simply Jews vs. Muslims, but intense factional strife on both sides of the wall (so to speak).



I was frustrated by the reiteration of a fairly unrevealing map and a lack of photos. But there's a photo section at the end, so you can flip back and have a look every now and then.

[eachan]

Laurence Sterne: Tristram Shandy. Considering the age of the novel I didn't want a modern paperback. Unfortunately the version I found (Grant Richards, 1903) had very small print which was hard on my ageing eyesight but how worth it it was! One of the all-time great comedic novels and as amusing today as it was in the eighteenth century. At nearly 600 pages in the version I have, it needs some commitment but that is thoroughly repaid.

[An old bloke]

Under Jerusalem by Andrew Lawler. I didn't realise how many excavations had been done, nor how much dispute and violence has resulted, mostly owing to competing religious manias: not simply Jews vs. Muslims, but intense factional strife on both sides of the wall (so to speak).



I was frustrated by the reiteration of a fairly unrevealing map and a lack of photos. But there's a photo section at the end, so you can flip back and have a look every now and then.

I recommend https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/9477628-jerusalem as a 'companion' book. Montefiore does an excellent job of explaining the convoluted history that so deeply affects today's Jerusalem.

[charlymox]

Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo(love this book)

[BlkWhiteFilmPix]

The Lost Book of the Grail, by Charles Lovett. Well-written tale of religious artifacts, including texts written on vellum during the Middle Ages with pen and ink.

The Last Stargazers, by Emily Levesque. A professional astronomer recounts her experiences observing at observatories all over the world while earning undergraduate and graduate degrees in astronomy. She shares many tales of things that happened to other observers during their careers.

Current: Clive Cussler's The Devil's Sea.

[rkesey]

So far this month:

Autoportrait, Édouard Levé – POL 2013
Imperfect but wonderful, and one of the most intense reading experiences I’ve had in a long time. A uniting of fragment and its opposite, a pointillism of nonfiction, a seeming chaos that is really carefully controlled. Fascinating.

The Great Fires, Jack Gilbert – Collected Poems, Knopf, 2014 (1994)
The third book in his Collected, each stronger than the last. A bit inconsistent, maybe, but his best are some of the best 20th century poems period.

The Friend, Sigrid Nunez – Riverhead 2018
Splendid short novel, lots of heart, relatively transparent language.

[BlkWhiteFilmPix]

A Most Remarkable Creature, by Jonathan Meiburg. A writer and musician describes his travels from Tierra del Fuego to Guyana in pursuit of the caracaras, a crow-like falcon.

On the table: Ukraine Diaries, by Andrey Kurkov. A first-hand account of unrest in Ukraine, including violent clashes in the Maidan, Yanukovcyh's impeachment, Russia's annexation of Crimea, and the separatist uprisings in the east of Ukraine. Today the New York Times published an interview with him.

[BlkWhiteFilmPix]

Sierra Six, by Mark Greaney. Another page turner by one of those writing the continued Tom Clancy novels.

Lucy: The Beginnings of Mankind, by Donald Johanson and Maitland Edey. By the scientist who discovered the 3.4 million-year-old partial skeleton that turned out to be that of a hominid.

On the table: Frontline Ukraine, by Richard Sakwa.

Watergate, by Garrett M. Graff.

[VertOlive]

Blacktop Wasteland, a “New Noir” novel by S. A. Cosby. Gritty and stylish.

[VertOlive]

The Dedalus Book of the 1960s: Turn Off Your Mind, Gary Lachman uncovers the Love Generation's roots in occultism and explores the dark side of the Age of Aquarius. His revision of the 1960s counterculture links Flower Power to mystical fascism, and follows the magical current that enveloped luminaries like the Beatles, Timothy Leary and the Rolling Stones, and darker stars like Charles Manson, Anton LaVey, and the Process Church of the Final Judgment.

All my childhood, revisited. Carlos Castaneda, John Michell, Lovecraft. I believe the author was the bass guitarist for Blondie.

Jon?

[Chip]

The Magician by Colm Tóibín, a fictional biography of Thomas Mann. Very well-written and absorbing, even for those of us unfamiliar with Mann's work.

[CrayonAngelss]

Ghost Boy - Martin Pistorius. A true story & first-hand account of a man who had an unknown illness that caused him to be in a vegetative state for 12 years, while still being aware of his surroundings. A very emotional read. I finished the whole thing in a 3-night spree.

Rewind, Replay, Repeat - Jeff Bell. This book is the author's memoir of his battle with obsessive-compulsive disorder. Lots of valuable insight on the lesser-known realities of the illness.

[Chip]

. . .too much is lost in the translation otherwise, but the books are extremely costly as a typical print will consist of less than 1000 copies worldwide, since we're such a tiny nation.

This being the case for most books of poetry in the US, perhaps non-profit presses under the wings of universities or civic/literary groups might be a decent solution. That must take place already. Or so I hope.