What are you reading currently?

[inudesu]

I'm not a huge Talking Heads fan, but I started Byrne's How Music Works book and I'm really enjoying it so far. It's basically just interesting thoughtful essays on what shapes the music we listen to. Not super academic, just his thoughts and understanding (which is way more informed than most people's would be).

Dragged in the middle a little but overall I liked a lot of it. It was helpful to have my phone and spotify handy to listen to bands as he mentioned them.

Big stack of books to read next to the bed. Really enjoying the two I've started - The Many Assassinations of Samir, the Seller of Dreams ( a new one, middle grade or YA focused) and Passage of Arms (an old one, written in 1950s I think). Both writers that I've enjoyed a lot, although very different in style (to say the least).

[inudesu]

Dragged in the middle a little but overall I liked a lot of it. It was helpful to have my phone and spotify handy to listen to bands as he mentioned them.

Big stack of books to read next to the bed. Really enjoying the two I've started - The Many Assassinations of Samir, the Seller of Dreams ( a new one, middle grade or YA focused) and Passage of Arms (an old one, written in 1950s I think). Both writers that I've enjoyed a lot, although very different in style (to say the least).

Liked both a lot.

I can't remember how I got started on Eric Ambler (probably a throwaway reference in a forward or somewhere down a wikipedia wormhole) but he really helped invent the thriller genre. I've enjoyed several of his books at this point (even if I occasionally have to look up some of his cultural or even political references - one issue with a spy novel written in the '50s is that obviously the global political climate has changed, just a lot).

Also read a very modern Arthurian novella and started Snow Country.

[inudesu]

We also finished the Wingfeather Saga last week.


Took us quite a while (it was - a lot - to read aloud), but worth every second. Might stick to shorter, stand-alone works for a while.

[inudesu]

Got some books for Christmas that I'm looking forward to. All biographies - Scott Drew, Bono, and one Joe Aillet (who y'all may have heard of).

Just getting to the Aillet Bio. It's a quick read, he's certainly someone we can be proud of. Pretty incredible ongoing legacy.

[inudesu]

started Midnight's Children

Finally able to revisit this (got distracted by all those other books and it came due back to the library and then just pushed down the queue by other books). Pretty good so far.

Also working on a newish book about Cleopatra's daughter (who seems to have had a pretty interesting and very cross-cultural life). Greek princess in Egypt, captive in Rome, queen of a northern Africa kingdom. Just started, and of course there isn't a ton of information about her so I think there will be lots of speculation in the bio, but my curiosity is piqued.

My pattern lately has seemed to be one older (like, mid-century or so) book along with something really new (like '22 or '23). Not on purpose, probably coincidental, but a trend I've noticed this summer. Not a terrible situation by any means, the books have been pretty good, on the whole.

[techman05]

Not sure I mentioned this before, but am reading through the Bible. 1 chapter per day since Covid lockdowns began. Will be finishing on July 31. A group of guys wanted the challenge and the accountability of doing it together. Has had a great impact on us all. If you haven’t, you should.

[dawg80]

I've read the tea leaves...it's gonna get worse before it gets better.

[Blue Dawg]

Not sure I mentioned this before, but am reading through the Bible. 1 chapter per day since Covid lockdowns began. Will be finishing on July 31. A group of guys wanted the challenge and the accountability of doing it together. Has had a great impact on us all. If you haven’t, you should.

Start over on August 1. The busier you are, the more you need to take the time.

[inudesu]

Not sure I mentioned this before, but am reading through the Bible. 1 chapter per day since Covid lockdowns began. Will be finishing on July 31. A group of guys wanted the challenge and the accountability of doing it together. Has had a great impact on us all. If you haven’t, you should.

Start over on August 1. The busier you are, the more you need to take the time.

If you're going to do that, you might try a Reader Bible for the next time.

Much easier for big chunks in my experience, with the added new perspective from sometimes reading the books in a different order. Headers, verse notations, cross-references, and even the book order aren't necessarily inspired (in my view) so even though it can feel weird, it's freeing. It's less helpful to carry to church on a Sunday morning and not ideal for in-depth study, but if you're reading through in a year or something like that? Worth checking out. I have the NIV one (The Books of the Bible) and have found it pretty good for a "read through a book" or "read through the whole thing" version.

[techman05]

Thanks

[inudesu]

For what I think is the fourth time (aloud, no telling on overall) I am reading The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. I think I read the series aloud to each of my three when they were roughly 4-5 years old, but then they've each understood/enjoyed it more the next time when I was theoretically reading to the next younger sibling. Youngest didn't remember us reading it when he was little, so by golly, we're starting again. I am not at all displeased with an excuse to read it again (as if anyone thought I would be). He's getting less and less interested in being read to as his own reading gets stronger. That's the goal, of course, but it's bittersweet.

For myself, just finished Kipling's Kim for the millionth time. Before that was the Hunger Games prequel and Holes (at the suggestion of the older two) and The Vaster Wilds. Before that I think was Landscape with Invisible Hand (soon to be a movie). Currently almost done with the audiobook of The Narnian and just started Farewell to a River. Chipping away at the Bono bio. Read the first part of Grand Theft Horse. Probably quite a few more between July and now, but I can't remember them off the top of my head.

On deck, Starter Villain and probably The Sorcerer of Pyongyang. And maybe the Scott Drew bio.

[inudesu]

The movies are both pretty good, but the book of True Grit is a classic.

[inudesu]

Just finished up "The Lies of Locke Lamora" by Scott Lynch.

I'm re-reading this because I had thought my oldest would like it and it's still really good, but I think the language (and subject matter on the whole) are maybe just a little saltier than what I want to recommend to my 14 year old. If she picks it up, I'd let her read it, but I've decided against really pushing it on her.

I did sort of push Ender's Game on the middle kid, but it's geared closer to his age/reading maturity level and he predictably liked it a lot (then he jumped right into the Hunger Games, which he's also loving). Our discussion is all archived at the beginning of this thread about those, but I think it's just one of those things that is going to hit different based on your life stage. At his age (which is roughly also the age where the oldest read them) I'd have enjoyed them differently than at the age I was when I read them. And these days, they really don't appeal to me at all. A lot of media has changed for me as a parent. Even less intense classics like the Mixed up Files or My Side of the Mountain aren't quite the same (I still like them, and can still mostly put myself in the place of the main characters), but when I read them as a kid I was much less likely to be like "this kid's parents must be going nuts, what a horrible thing this brat did to them."

Anyway, re-reading Locke Lamora, a fun middle grade book the middle kid read before Ender's Game and Hunger Games about characters in a fantasy world who play a D&D kind of game set in our world - a clever premise. I've also ordered The Pleasures of Reading in an Age of Distraction (which may be preaching to the choir a bit when it comes to me).

[inudesu]

Enjoying The Pleasures of Reading in an Age of Distraction (although, predictably, he had me won over before I started). I'm a little over halfway through Tress of the Emerald Sea and it's fun. Ordered The Tech-Wise Family online. As noted above, I re-read The Lies of Locke Lamora so I went ahead and ordered the sequel from the library to re-read that one, too. Just finished a book of Elmore Leonard short western stories. Those were good - nice change of pace from the rest. No shock at how much of his work has been made into tv or film (including the title story of that collection - I think more than once).

[PawDawg]

Elmore is next on my list. Thanks for the recommendation (and reminder)