What Was the Last Book You Read?

[Motomachi10]

"Maps of Our Spectacular Bodies" by Maddie Mortimer.

[Lady Onogaro]

"The Devil in Silver" by Victor Lavalle. I'm on a Lavalle kick. I'm reading "Lone Women," his newest book, now.

[BlkWhiteFilmPix]

I'm in the middle of several books simultaneously, as usual. It's rare that I won't finish a book, even if I put it down for a while, and I expect I'll get through these in due course.

The Last Voyage of Somebody the Sailor, by John Barth. I read his Giles Goat Boy many years ago, and remember enjoying it immensely. I'm finding The Last Voyage a bit tedious at times. Perhaps it's just that I've changed. The premise is interesting enough. A 20th century American travel writer finds himself in the Baghdad of the Arabian Nights, swapping stories with Sindbad the Sailor.

Midnight's Children, by Salman Rushdie. This was the book that really made his reputation as an author, seven years before The Satanic Verses. I read The Satanic Verses when it came out, mostly as a protest against the "fatwa", and was surprised to find that it was actually a good book. I also read and enjoyed his memoir Joseph Anton some years ago. I'm liking Midnight's Children as well. It's a shame, though, that I was reminded that I had it partly because of the latest attack on him.

I actually finished A Column of Fire by Ken Follett. Maybe another case of "I've changed". I enjoyed everything of his that I'd read before, but found myself making constant criticisms of his writing here, all the while thinking that it was very like his earlier work. And yet, as I said, I did finish this rather long book, and not in an extraordinarily long time. I may not bother with his next book, though. And there are so many other books that I mean to read.

And I keep returning to my drawing books, hoping that some of the skills will sink in with enough practice. How to Draw What You See, by Rudy de Reyna, Keys to Drawing by Bert Dodson, Watercolor Techniques by Michael Reardon, others.

Just picked up How to Draw What You See by Rudy de Reyna so I can put my MB 149 curved nib's fine line and inverted modes to better use.

The chapter on Foundation of Perspective should make me a better photographer.

Thanks, @kaputnik, for mentioning it.

[Chip]

"The Devil in Silver" by Victor Lavalle. I'm on a Lavalle kick. I'm reading "Lone Women," his newest book, now.

Just finished Lone Women. Having lived in a remote shack with wood stove, handpump well, etc., I found the practical details unconvincing. Likewise, I was not persuaded by the monster sibling. Not even a monster can spend decades locked in a steamer trunk with no food or water.

[Chip]

Before that, I read an alternate-future sci-fi novel, Babel by R. F. Kuang.



The imagination is impressive, with a 1600s era society revolutionized by the magical properties of silver bars engraved with pairs of words from different languages, which gives rise to an institute of translators based at Oxford in a tower. It's a metaphor for colonial domination, and the opium trade, which provokes a subversive resistance movement.

I enjoyed it, but tripped at times over lapses in diction, as the characters conversed like Gen-X students, using terms such as narco-state and the workers protested the lack of transparency in government (yeah, right). That's the sort of goof authors make, but editors correct (or should). But too many editors these days seem to know more about the business and the market, and nearly nothing about history or literature.

In an otherwise well-crafted piece of fiction, dumb goofs like that are inexcusable.

[Kaputnik]

Update (this isn't the most active thread here, is it?)

I finished The Last Voyage of Somebody the Sailor, by John Barth, ultimately finding it rather tedious. No point in expanding on that. Finished Midnight's Children, by Salman Rushdie. I liked it quite a bit better than Barth's book, but thought it did unravel a bit toward the end.

I took another stab at a book that I've been trying to get into for a while, The Ark Sakura, by Kobo Abe. The thing is, I can't quite figure out why I can't get into it. It's not a matter of simply disliking it, the premise and the characters seem interesting enough.

On a more positive note, I finally got around to C.S. Lewis's memoir, Surprised by Joy, and was not completely surprised to enjoy it. Not a Christian myself, I am still interested in how religious people feel about and justify their beliefs. But more than that, his memoir, concentrating heavily on his youth before the first world war, is a visit to a very different world, and a very different way of life, now gone. Incidentally, the title does not refer to his soon to be wife, Joy Davidman, who he had not met in the period covered by the book, although she apparently helped him edit it.

And continuing to be positive, I just finished Life: a User's Manual, by Georges Perec, which I enjoyed more than any other work of fiction that I've encountered in the last few years. Trying to describe it in detail would have me rambling on a great deal longer than I should. But among other things, I found it a very visual book; it does not have illustrations, but it has many very minute descriptions of spaces and their contents, including pictures. If that sounds boring, it isn't, and of course there is much more to it than that. But perhaps my present obsession with trying to create art of my own made me more appreciative of that aspect of it. I've had this book on my shelf for some years now, and could regret not getting to it before now, but perhaps this was a good time for me finally to do so.

The only work of Perec's I'd previously read was his shorter novel, A Void; it has an ingenious aspect in the original French (which I can't read) that was ingeniously duplicated in the English translation. And now I've started on Three by Perec, a collection of three shorter works of his.

[Deb]

Little Dorrit. I do love Dickens. All the humour, the characters, the descriptions - even the sentimentality. It's all there and not dated a bit.

[Kaputnik]

...I took another stab at a book that I've been trying to get into for a while, The Ark Sakura, by Kobo Abe. The thing is, I can't quite figure out why I can't get into it. It's not a matter of simply disliking it, the premise and the characters seem interesting enough...

I finally finished this. It's a paperback that I've had for many years; if memory serves, it was a present from someone close to me who passed away more than twenty years ago now. Procrastination seems to be a big thing with me.

As I said, an interesting enough premise. The narrator/protagonist is a survivalist convinced that nuclear war is imminent. He has outfitted an abandoned rock quarry as a long term fallout shelter. He thinks of it as an "ark", and plans to recruit other crew members for it, with himself as captain. The problem is that he really doesn't get on very well with other people, and keeps putting off asking anyone specific to join.

There's a lot here that's interesting, and no doubt the author is saying something important and worthwhile, but I really can't say that I liked this.

[Kobaken]

Nowadays I am into reading Dracula by Bram Stoker. However, I know that analyzing this classic masterpiece can be quite challenging. That's where a literature review writer comes to the rescue! Hiring professional help can provide valuable insights and interpretations of the book, enriching my understanding of its themes and symbolism. Plus, with their expertise, I can confidently navigate through the complexities of the plot and characters. Can't wait to unravel the mysteries and horrors of Dracula with the help of a skilled literature review writer!

[welch]

I have begun re-reading Faulkner. Back in the late '70s, I read everything I had missed, read during long, long trips on the subway to Times Square and then out to the end of the 7 Train in Flushing. And back.

It is time to read all of it again. I am about 3/4 of the way through "Absalom, Absalom", and, wow, I can see why I gave up when I tried it a couple of times years ago. Now I can follow it. And, wow, a complex but great, great novel.

[Kaputnik]

I just read Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness. It is nothing original to say that I found it brilliant.

But I am trying to remember if I ever read it before, and I simply don't know. I have a sort of memory of reading it in high school, some fifty years ago, but it is not a memory that includes anything about the book itself. Perhaps it was simply mentioned in an English literature class, or was on a suggested reading list. And I certainly read much more on my own than was "assigned" in school, but I don't know if this was part of my reading.

Anyway, I have read it now. The last book of Conrad's that I finished was The Secret Agent, also quite good, but I bogged down part way through Under Western Eyes, and haven't yet returned to it. And I have some others lying around that I know I haven't read, and will have to get to at some point.

[BlkWhiteFilmPix]

Current: What an Owl Knows, by Jennifer Ackerman. Outstanding book about owl biology, looking for owls, the spiritual side of owls, and how to save them.

Next in line: Joie - A Parisian's Guide to Celebrating the Good Life.

[BlkWhiteFilmPix]

Just started the audio book A Private Spy about John le Carré's handwritten letters.

David Harewood reads some of the letters, and Florence Pugh narrates the biographical questions.

[welch]

Just finished William Faulkner's Go Down, Moses, another book I had skipped. Faulkner is the greatest.

[Motomachi10]

"Give Unto Others" by Donna Leon.

[Chrissy]

I have just finished Resurrection Day by Brendan Dubois. In places it was outright boring and in other places it was a tough read. However it taught me something about what the Cuban Missile Crisis could have been like and I would give it 4 out of 5 stars for that.

[Lady Onogaro]

Midnight News by Jo Baker. So far, I have enjoyed everything of hers I have read.

[Lady Onogaro]

"The Devil in Silver" by Victor Lavalle. I'm on a Lavalle kick. I'm reading "Lone Women," his newest book, now.

Just finished Lone Women. Having lived in a remote shack with wood stove, handpump well, etc., I found the practical details unconvincing. Likewise, I was not persuaded by the monster sibling. Not even a monster can spend decades locked in a steamer trunk with no food or water.

I read that one last month. I enjoyed it. It's a horror novel, so I could buy the monster sibling. And of course, the far worse monsters that lived in and out of the town.

[Kaputnik]

Lately I seem to be getting around to a lot of books that I've had on my shelves for years but never read. Now I'm about two thirds of the way through Xenophon's Anabasis.

It's a bi-lingual edition with Greek on one side of the page and English on the other. Although I did have a couple of semesters of New Testament Greek decades ago in college, I have completely forgotten it, and am sticking with the English. Supposedly though, from what I remember, the later version of the language that I studied would be close enough to enable understanding of texts from centuries before. If I could remember it, that is.

Anyway, I'm finding it interesting. There are things in it which, while they are not exactly surprising, I had never thought much about previously. There is the fragmented nature of power within the Persian Empire, for example, with much local autonomy, even before the ten thousand reach the Greek settlements along the periphery. There is the near constant warfare between regions within the empire. And there is Xenophon's matter of fact and unapologetic attitude toward acquiring supplies by looting, when trade or purchase proves impossible.

It's a very straightforward narrative with few literary flourishes, although the speeches and dialog on important occasions are clearly made up. Xenophon apparently wrote this many years after the actual events, and I wonder if he had taken any written notes at the time, consulted any documents, or relied entirely on his memory.

[Chrissy]

I've just finished the latest Patricia Cornwell book "Livid". Like many other readers I started reading her books years ago but somehow they seemed to fall off and I stopped reading them for a while. "Livid" is a return to how good a writer she used to be and was an unusual concept. I really enjoyed it.