Hey!! Let's get some action going! What are we reading?

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

And now I'm on to The Hope that Kills by Ed James. A police procedural. A freebie I got back in 2016.

A quick read, but even more unbelievable than the usual.

Next up: The Mutant Season by Robert Silverberg and Karen Haber. A freebie from Phoenix Pick

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

Next up: The Mutant Season by Robert Silverberg and Karen Haber. A freebie from Phoenix Pick

It was OK, but didn't really work for me. Far too many impossible things for my taste.

Next up: Shogun by James Clavell. An epic - over 1,000 pages!

[HLS]

I did not think I would like The Priory of the Orange Tree since it is HUGE but I am now 100 pages in and addicted completely. lol

[drofgnal]

I was having trouble picking my next book. I always try to mix a classic in from time to time so I went that route. I've started Anna Karenina, the recent translation by Peavar and Volokhonsky. They did a good job with War and Peace so I'm giving it a go.

[Uncle Robin]

I've just reading a PAPER book (who's ever heard of such a weird thing?). Louis Bromfield's The Rains Came. It was a gift ftom an aunt who got it from her aunt, and the experience of reading an 84 yo book is reminding me why I LOVE ebooks. Interesting story though

[astrangerhere]

Originally Posted by drofgnal

I was having trouble picking my next book. I always try to mix a classic in from time to time so I went that route. I've started Anna Karenina, the recent translation by Paver and Volokhonsky. They did a good job with War and Peace so I'm giving it a go.

I'm a big fan of their work (issybird is less so), but you can't got wrong with a big Russian beast.

[Uncle Robin]

I dropped The Rains Came for its incredibly nasty racist/imperialist imagery - the author fixated on describing Indians of various castes as different animals!

BUT, 4.75/5 at the Storygraph for Borrowed Words: A History of Loanwords in English by Philip Durkin. NOT popsci this was all sci and no pop, full of careful academic caveats and qualifiers, but still a riveting read. Three standouts for me

(1) "elephants were hardly central to Anglo-Saxon society" - a delightfully droll understatement when exxamining that particular loanword's origins.

(2) Learning that

Old English has distinct words for ‘father’s brother’ (fædera) and ‘mother’s brother’ (ēam), and for ‘father’s sister’ (fēu) and ‘mother’s sister’ (mōdriġe)

The Hindi equivalents are so VERY useful that I say we need to revive these truly English originals asap.

(3) Seeing an amusing academic smackdown - a whole page in which Durkin mildly and politely shreds Sir Walter Scott with a strong hint the writer of Ivanhoe should have stuck to his knitting.

[Quizlit]

Recently finished Tremor by Teju Cole, really enjoyed although it's a challenging read.
Also loved Western Lane by Chetna Maroo. Didn't finish Old Gods Time by Sebastian Barry, a dark book.

[drofgnal]

Originally Posted by astrangerhere

I'm a big fan of their work (issybird is less so), but you can't got wrong with a big Russian beast.

I am too. I appreciate all the cultural and historical footnotes in their translations.

[rainerm]

Been reading Thomas Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow for the past couple-three months now. It is quite the experience, an experience, in fact, unlike any other. It calls into question the nature of scientific knowledge, or what we are told should count as scientific knowledge (which the novel equates with what it calls a "culture of death," a description of science-backed war). Is science the ultimate arbiter of knowledge? Data analysis, some say, is challenging the primacy of the scientific method. Information over knowledge, that is. It's amazing how popular science avoids philosophical consideration; Is black a color? is it the absence of color? Is it the absence of light? These questions don't take into account the experience of blackness -- we need fiction for that. Murakami's works for instance: his characters going down wells experience blackness or black, it could be said.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

Next up: Shogun by James Clavell. An epic - over 1,000 pages!

I interrupted Shogun to read a local book club book, The Dictionary of Lost Words by Pip Williams.

It's set in the first half of the 20th century, and the background fro the characters is the compiling of the Oxford English Dictionary.

The characters are good, and I enjoyed the book overall. But I was a little put off by the introduction of fictional characters into history, in a place and time where the number of historical people is very small. That's to say - the people who worked for any significant length of time on the OED is small and well known. Having a minor and a major fictional character as part of that group seems odd.

4/5 overall.

[Uncle Robin]

Currently around 60% through The Oxford Guide to Etymology by Philip Durkin. It's fascinating primer ABOUT etymology, explaining how and why etymologists do what they do. At times it gets very Grimm, so I'm also reading Lord Emsworth and Other Stories to my neurons a break

[HLS]

I am still on Priory of the Orange Tree I did start The Exchange by John Grisham which is a good book and is different than his past novels

[HLS]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

I interrupted Shogun to read a local book club book, The Dictionary of Lost Words by Pip Williams.

It's set in the first half of the 20th century, and the background fro the characters is the compiling of the Oxford English Dictionary.

The characters are good, and I enjoyed the book overall. But I was a little put off by the introduction of fictional characters into history, in a place and time where the number of historical people is very small. That's to say - the people who worked for any significant length of time on the OED is small and well known. Having a minor and a major fictional character as part of that group seems odd.

4/5 overall.

I have Shogun but have never had the courage to read it yet.

[CRussel]

Originally Posted by HLS

I have Shogun but have never had the courage to read it yet.

I really enjoyed it. It's huge, but it keeps one's interest.