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What book are you reading?

The Evil Genius

By The Evil Genius
in The Tailgate

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NickyJ

NickyJ

Posted
Posted

As much as I enjoy joking about the whale anatomy chapters, it's actually not a bad read. I'm still slightly bitter about the book because I got into an impromptu competition to finish reading the hardback version of the book before someone else could finish listening to the audiobook version. I was ahead for most of the race until the whale anatomy chapters. I still hold a grudge against Hermie for it.

 

My last parting shots at it, a couple comics that my parents cut out of a newspaper and saved in the book.

 

Moby Dick - Copy.jpg

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NickyJ

NickyJ

Posted
Posted
3 hours ago, Skinsfan1311 said:

This is spot-on.

 

While I don't do it as often as I used to, every once in a while I'll read, or re-visit, classics.

 

Have you read Antoine Galland's adaptation  of "Tales From the Arabian Nights"?    

 

Years ago,  I snagged it at a book exchange and had zero expectations, but it really, really pulled me in.

 

 

I haven't read that yet. I should. I'm 100 pages out 900 in Dune, so it might be a while lol

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Destino

Destino

Posted
Posted
On 8/22/2022 at 6:53 PM, NickyJ said:

I haven't read that yet. I should. I'm 100 pages out 900 in Dune, so it might be a while lol

The audiobook for Dune has an entire cast and music.  It was the first one I encountered that was like that.  Kind of a rarity.  

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Destino

Destino

Posted
Posted

Finished Moby Dick.  There are parts within this awful whaling manual that are brilliant, but they are few and so very widely spaced.  There are times where I was tempted to skim and scramble forward, toward another moment of carefully worded genius.  Allow that moment of beauty to reinvigorate and steel me for another descent into Ishmael’s varied musings.  Doing so would inevitably inspire the need to revisit this work, to feel as though I conquered it completely.  This I could not allow and so I read it all with great care. 
 

Ahab was dope though.  Great character armed with all time great lines.  
 

Queequeg deserved more time in the sun.  Any man that just decides he isn’t ready to die and springs out of bed like, has a story worth hearing in greater detail. 

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philibusters

philibusters

Posted
Posted

I am reading a bunch of biographies on English kings in the 12th and 13th century. Read one on John I (bad king), Edward I-Longshanks (generally a good king), and my currently reading one on Edward II (bad king) and have one on Edward III (good king) lined up after I finish the one I am now.  Dan Synder has some of John's traits. 

 

John was a pretty good administrator and during bad times was pretty skill in managing alliances.  His talent was decent.   But when times were good he would cause trouble for himself because he would try to bully his magnates for his advantage.  John was given a difficult situation in France and part of his issues were he was always taxing his magnates at high rates to go to war with France and unlike his brother Richard the Lionheart, John though an adept administrator was not a good general and did everything he could to avoid a pitch battle unless he had overwhelming superiority.

 

Edward I (John's grandson) who was the king in the movie Braveheart so you have probably seen an historical depiction of him.   He was a successful king because 1) He was a good general in war 2) Could somewhat manage his magnates and 3) was a decent administrator--for example he understood paying high interest was worth having lots of liquidity.   That said he did botch the Scottish situation.  He son, Edward II was arranged to marry to Scottish princess and heir to the Scottish throne, but the girl died as a child.  I think he had got it into his head that the marriage would merge the thrones of England and Scotland (something that happened in the early 17th century with James I) and after that failed to the girl's death and there being a bunch of Socttish claimants to the throne he got high handed and tried to claim it himself though he didn't really have a claim.  If he had been younger it might have worked but he was an old man by this time.
 

Edward II has kind of become a gay icon from his strong attachment to male favorites (which was portrayed in Braveheart).  He was an odd guy for his time.   Tall and athletic like his father Longshanks, he looked the part, but didn't act the part.  He had gay lovers, which would not have been that much of a problem if he didn't treat the lovers as almost co-rulers with him and insult his leading magnates in the process.  He was a terrible administrator, less due to lack of talent, but more due to having almost no interest in tedium of day to day governing.  Also a bad military commander, again partly because he didn't seem to put much effort into it, not purely due to lack of talent.  He didn't enjoy being at the head of an army and looked to get away as soon as possible.  Was also highly unusual too for his time in that he was a man of the people.  Alone among English kings of his time, he had an interest in the common people and was curious about what they were doing at times trying his hand at digging ditches, building fences, and fishing--something that baffled his magnates.  That said for all the things that made him odd for his time (being gay--with the caveat that he had a wife and children--so being gay was not a big issue itself because he did his duties to provide an heir to the kingdom, the issue was he elevated his gay lovers to great heights by making them earls, giving them riches and almost making them co-rulers), being a man of the people, he probably would have been fine if he just put some effort into being king, but he just had no interest in day to days of ruling so he was a terrible king.  He ended up being the first king deposed in a couple hundred years.

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gbear

gbear

Posted
Posted

I think the Song of Hiawatha should be required reading.  I remember really appreciating the story, myths and imagery.  It still has the greatest ride into the sunset scene I have run across to end the story:

 

"And they said, "Farewell forever!"
Said, "Farewell, O Hiawatha!"
And the forests, dark and lonely,
Moved through all their depths of darkness,
Sighed, "Farewell, O Hiawatha!"
And the waves upon the margin
Rising, rippling on the pebbles,
Sobbed, "Farewell, O Hiawatha!"
And the heron, the Shuh-shuh-gah,
From her haunts among the fen-lands,
Screamed, "Farewell, O Hiawatha!"
   Thus departed Hiawatha,
Hiawatha the Beloved,
In the glory of the sunset,.
In the purple mists of evening,
To the regions of the home-wind,
Of the Northwest-Wind, Keewaydin,
To the Islands of the Blessed,
To the Kingdom of Ponemah,
To the Land of the Hereafter! "


 

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Corcaigh

Corcaigh

Posted
Posted

Another good book I recently read is ‘Gaining Ground: A Story Of Farmers' Markets, Local Food, And Saving The Family Farm’ set in the present day in the Shenandoah Valley.

 

Also been on a binge reading classic Science Fiction recommended by the history of Sci Fi lectures ‘How Great Science Fiction Works’.

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Spaceman Spiff

Spaceman Spiff

Posted
Posted
On 9/2/2022 at 7:10 PM, Corcaigh said:

Another good book I recently read is ‘Gaining Ground: A Story Of Farmers' Markets, Local Food, And Saving The Family Farm’ set in the present day in the Shenandoah Valley.

 

 


I’ve been to their farm. Good produce and meat. Highly recommend a visit if you’re in the area. 

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Destino

Destino

Posted
Posted
On 9/15/2022 at 8:09 PM, The Evil Genius said:

 

Finished it and was not disappointed.  Good read. 

 

On to Babel: Or the Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translators' Revolution.


New Stephen King fantasy?  Looks like the reading list is getting another line skipper.  
 

 

On 9/12/2022 at 1:31 PM, Spaceman Spiff said:

Who's reading Heat 2?


I have no idea what that is.  
 

 

 

last book I read was The Blessing Way by Tony Hillerman.  I wanted a low stakes mystery with a western feel to it, and this one did the trick.  

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