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Thread: What Was the Last Book You Read?

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    Senior Member Lady Onogaro's Avatar
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    Default Re: What Was the Last Book You Read?

    I’ve enjoyed them, and yes those fill in some gaps.
    Lady Onogaro

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    Senior Member VertOlive's Avatar
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    Default Re: What Was the Last Book You Read?

    Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller. Historic fiction focussing on Achilles' lifelong relationship with Patroclus; the author doesn't hesitate to toss in a minor deity here and there. Nicely done.
    "Nolo esse salus sine vobis ...” —St. Augustine

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    Default Re: What Was the Last Book You Read?

    Joachim's Floorboard by Jacques-Olivier Boudon
    Fred
    Happy mortal. When you read this, I shall be no more....My story is short and sincere and frank, because none but
    you shall see my writing........................The carpenter..fiddler.........................

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    Senior Member Lady Onogaro's Avatar
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    Default Re: What Was the Last Book You Read?

    Quote Originally Posted by VertOlive View Post
    Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller. Historic fiction focussing on Achilles' lifelong relationship with Patroclus; the author doesn't hesitate to toss in a minor deity here and there. Nicely done.
    I just read The Silence of the Girls by Pat Barker. It's also about Achilles, but from the pov of one of the women who was a prize of war before the fall of Troy. I think you might like it.
    Lady Onogaro

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    Default Re: What Was the Last Book You Read?

    The Wrong Side of Goodbye by Michael Connelly. I reread it because even though I read it first not that long ago, I was looking for something on hand to read, and found that I couldn't remember it very well. (One of the advantages to being on the downhill side of 70. I also enjoy savoring the writing, and will reread a familiar book multiple times just to admire how it was done. I've read The Long Goodbye a dozen times.) I like to read mysteries for escapist relaxation -- English manor house mysteries, American hard-boiled detective mysteries, police procedurals, etc. etc. Michael Connelley and Robert Crais are my favorite contemporary detective fiction writers. I've read every novel each has written, most more than once.
    Last edited by calamus; February 18th, 2019 at 12:23 AM.
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    (What are you laughing at? Just change the name and the joke’s on you.)

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    Default Re: What Was the Last Book You Read?

    Something offbeat and intriguing; I'm not sure where it's headed: The Blood Stiller by Minerva Taylor. Seems to be mystery spanning some 100 years. We have ancient Russian expatriates, Rasputin, and a Manhattan PhD dropout so far...
    "Nolo esse salus sine vobis ...” —St. Augustine

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    Default Re: What Was the Last Book You Read?

    12 Rules for Life an Antidote to Chaos by Jordan Peterson
    cheers,
    Thomas

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    Senior Member grainweevil's Avatar
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    Default Re: What Was the Last Book You Read?

    Small Gods by Terry Pratchett is my current waiting room time filler. It handles short dips and "how much longer can they possibly be" waits with equal thought-provoking aplomb.

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    Default Re: What Was the Last Book You Read?

    A few days ago I finally finished the diary of Samuel Pepys, which I had read at intervals over something between four and five years. I suspect that the things which I found in it are not that different from what generations of other readers have found. There are the countless details of life in another age, taken for granted by the writer, but often strange to us. It helps that Pepys was highly intelligent and curious about the world around him. There are the insider details about government and the monarchy, as he reaches a position of great influence. There are all the personal details of his life; one can't imagine him surviving in our own age of social media and diminished expectations of privacy. His relationship with his wife comes across as tragicomic; she died of typhoid some five months after the period that the diary covers. He was able to be frank because he kept the diary in a form of shorthand known in his day, which members of his household would not have been able to read. It was not "translated" until long after his death.

    Concerning the main subjects of a fountain pen forum, there is a little of direct interest. At one point he mentions getting a silver pen to "keep ink in", which he thinks will be useful for travel. This may have been an early fountain pen, but he doesn't mention it again, as I recall. I suspect it didn't work all that well. When he wanted some paper with lines on it for work, he took blank paper to an old woman who ruled sheets of paper as piecework. And there is the question of lighting. He wrote most of this by candlelight or in poor lighting conditions, and when he decided to stop the diary, he thought he was starting to go blind. In fact, he lived for another thirty-four years and did not lose his sight, but he never resumed his private journal.

    I was reading the 1890s edition by Wheatley, which is censored in accordance with Victorian ideas. I don't think the bowdlerization has really hurt the overall effect, but if I really wanted to I could hunt down the unexpurgated version published in the 1970s. I suspect, though, that the censored passages are not really the main reason that people still read this.
    "If a thing is worth doing, it is worth doing badly."
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    Senior Member Deb's Avatar
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    Default Re: What Was the Last Book You Read?

    Quote Originally Posted by Kaputnik View Post
    A few days ago I finally finished the diary of Samuel Pepys, which I had read at intervals over something between four and five years. I suspect that the things which I found in it are not that different from what generations of other readers have found. There are the countless details of life in another age, taken for granted by the writer, but often strange to us. It helps that Pepys was highly intelligent and curious about the world around him. There are the insider details about government and the monarchy, as he reaches a position of great influence. There are all the personal details of his life; one can't imagine him surviving in our own age of social media and diminished expectations of privacy. His relationship with his wife comes across as tragicomic; she died of typhoid some five months after the period that the diary covers. He was able to be frank because he kept the diary in a form of shorthand known in his day, which members of his household would not have been able to read. It was not "translated" until long after his death.

    Concerning the main subjects of a fountain pen forum, there is a little of direct interest. At one point he mentions getting a silver pen to "keep ink in", which he thinks will be useful for travel. This may have been an early fountain pen, but he doesn't mention it again, as I recall. I suspect it didn't work all that well. When he wanted some paper with lines on it for work, he took blank paper to an old woman who ruled sheets of paper as piecework. And there is the question of lighting. He wrote most of this by candlelight or in poor lighting conditions, and when he decided to stop the diary, he thought he was starting to go blind. In fact, he lived for another thirty-four years and did not lose his sight, but he never resumed his private journal.

    I was reading the 1890s edition by Wheatley, which is censored in accordance with Victorian ideas. I don't think the bowdlerization has really hurt the overall effect, but if I really wanted to I could hunt down the unexpurgated version published in the 1970s. I suspect, though, that the censored passages are not really the main reason that people still read this.
    That's a mighty read! I've read some of it but not all. I haven't been able to find the unexpurgated version.
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    Deb
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    Default Re: What Was the Last Book You Read?

    The Quest For Queen Mary by James Pope-Hennessy, edited by Hugo Vickers. Vickers's contribution is dreadfully dull, explaining the relationships of minor German royaly and British aristocracy. It gets a bit like the "begats" in the Bible. If you don't care about that it's best skimmed over, but the interviews themselves are pure gold, presenting mid-century royalty in all their eccentricity and oddity. Pope-Hennessy paints wonderful word portraits of his interviewees, with honesty, understanding and affection.
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    Default Re: What Was the Last Book You Read?

    Quote Originally Posted by calamus View Post
    The Wrong Side of Goodbye by Michael Connelly. I reread it because even though I read it first not that long ago, I was looking for something on hand to read, and found that I couldn't remember it very well. (One of the advantages to being on the downhill side of 70. I also enjoy savoring the writing, and will reread a familiar book multiple times just to admire how it was done. I've read The Long Goodbye a dozen times.) I like to read mysteries for escapist relaxation -- English manor house mysteries, American hard-boiled detective mysteries, police procedurals, etc. etc. Michael Connelley and Robert Crais are my favorite contemporary detective fiction writers. I've read every novel each has written, most more than once.
    The Wrong Side of Goodbye is a good book. One that I've read at least twice.
    I've recently been re-reading all of my Michael Connelly titles on my Kindle. I made it as far as "The Gods of Guilt" and thought that one quite exceptional. It's one of those books that makes you feel a bit sad when you get to the end, because now you've read it and it will be hard to find something else that's as good.
    Regards, Chrissy | My Review Blog: inkyfountainpens

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    Default Re: What Was the Last Book You Read?

    It's been a while since I read Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
    Reading it again with the perspective that comes from aging I found this book fascinating this time (it was a chore the 1st time)
    It is incredible how an empire dies form the inside, and I think it is a repeat of the fall of the soviets and a cautionary tale for the coming future
    Unix is user-friendly ; it's just picky about who it's friends are -

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    Default Re: What Was the Last Book You Read?

    Quote Originally Posted by titrisol View Post
    It's been a while since I read Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
    Reading it again with the perspective that comes from aging I found this book fascinating this time (it was a chore the 1st time)
    It is incredible how an empire dies form the inside, and I think it is a repeat of the fall of the soviets and a cautionary tale for the coming future
    Wow, that's a lengthy read. I've started it a time or two but never finished all of the volumes.

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    Default Re: What Was the Last Book You Read?

    "The Last Man who Knew Everything" by David N. Schwartz.
    This is a biography of Enrico Fermi
    A fascinating read.
    "Nothing is enough for the man to whom enough is too little." -Epicurus-

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    Default Re: What Was the Last Book You Read?

    I just finished - Danielle Steels, First sight . I love her writing and they are graet and thrilling.

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    Default Re: What Was the Last Book You Read?

    Just bought a copy of Men Without Women, by Haruki Murakami. I am a huge fan of his writing style, and find (without any qualification) that the translations describe the scene in much the way I can imagine it. A lucky coincidence perhaps.

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    Default Re: What Was the Last Book You Read?

    I just finished The Perks Of Being A Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky yesterday night (bawling my eyes out). It was catapulted to the top of my favorite books list! It's definitely a two or three read book before it goes into the once-every-two-years rotation.

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    Default Re: What Was the Last Book You Read?

    What You Have Heard is True: A Memoir of Witness and Resistance, by Carolyn Forché.

    Among its fascinating observations about Leonel Gomez Vides, who drove from El Salvador to invite her to visit and learn about his country: " ... he wrote with a fountain pen, the first Montblanc I'd ever seen. ..."

    Full of great stories.
    Bob

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    Indiana Jones used a notebook in the map room, not an app.

    www.bobsoltys.net/fountainpens

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    Senior Member Lady Onogaro's Avatar
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    Default Re: What Was the Last Book You Read?

    Just finished The Black Ascot by Charles Todd.
    Lady Onogaro

    "Be yourself--everybody else is already taken." --Oscar Wilde

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