What are you currently reading?

boji said:
I was really surprised by how modern Don Quixote felt and how funny it was. You'd guess 400+ year old humor wouldn't still work today. But it does.
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It's another example of how Good Writing (music, paintings, poetry, sculpture etc) is universal, spanning generations, cultures etc.

Went to a comedy club night here, Brit Comedian's first time in HK. Naturally a former British colony had a lot of Brits in the audience, but they were completely outnumbered by the locals, Yanks, Canucks, Aussies, assorted Asians... All his material was very local to his UK hometown. Even the Brits weren't laughing much. Luckily there were 5 more comedians on the bill... Some were even funny.
 
Somehow I missed this the first time around. I am currently reading Beautiful World Where are you by Sally Rooney. Very interesting book. It's no Dostoyevsky though, who is also one of my favorite writers. I would also recommend White Nights by him.
 
My Dad's 1964 edition of Ian Flemming's You Only Live Twice, (not my pic, but book is in similar condition):

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Also "reading" a friend's Telephone-Book-Thick Monstrous American Car Spotter's Guide 1920-1980 by Tad Burness:


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Nothing at the moment since I’m occupied with finals, but next week I plan on reading The Island of Doctor Moreau by H.G. Wells as, outside of Tolkien, I’m not usually much of a fiction fan, but I recall enjoying War of the Worlds when I was in middle school, so I thought I’d give another Wells novel a shot.
 
Glad to see some fantasy fiction fans here.
I'm burning through Morning Star by Pierce Brown and will be sad when I finish the Red Rising trilogy.
Simultaneously going through the LOTR trilogy again and I'm about halfway through The Two Towers. I thought those books were big when I first read them, but not so much after some Stephen King and Brandon Sanderson books.

I also enjoy long drawn out stories.
 
I'm reading Awakening by Oliver Sacks, another non fiction in a few of weeks.
There is a famous movie with Robin Williams and Robert De Niro, about it.
 
Elijah-Baley said:
I'm reading Awakening by Oliver Sacks, another non fiction in a few of weeks.
There is a famous movie with Robin Williams and Robert De Niro, about it.
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I read Musicophilia back when it was first released. At the time I was considering merging my professional interests by becoming a music therapist. Glad I didn't go through with it but that book was pretty interesting.
 
I picked up a copy of Stephen King's Different Seasons from the public library the other day. I've read it before but that was probably close to 20 years ago at least, so it was worth the .25c. I forgot how much I love novellas and these are all bangers.
 
boji said:
What’s a good entry point in Dostoyevsky’s oeuvre?
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Rather than suggest a work, I want to suggest avoiding a translator—Constance Garnett (or something close to that). She was an English writer that did english translations of most of the Dostoyevsky works first, and it’s what I grew up on. She unfortunately changed quite a bit. Because her versions are so old, they’re less expensive to publish, so are widely available. Luckily, there are many modern translators, and from my sampling, (not that I read Russian!) they’ve all been enjoyable and I think closer to the original intent of the works.

Well, I guess I will suggest Brothers Karamatzov anyway. Crime and Punishment or Thie Idiot would be close behind.
 
I retired at the start of 2021, and one of my constants has been reading an hour or two every afternoon. I mix it up, trying to mix fiction, non-fiction, and sci fi. Currently, a harder book (for me), but very interesting, The Dawn of Everything, which is an attempt to rewrite what we’ve grown up believing about how modern society got this way, and how “natives” (pick your continent) were far more sophisticated than 18th and 19th century Western Scientists assumed they were. As soon as that’s done, it’ll be Dylan’s new book. I used to be able to read several books at once, but no longer enjoy that.
 
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