What Are You Reading?

  • This message board permanently closed on June 30th, 2020 at 4PM EDT and is no longer accepting new members.

Status
Not open for further replies.

Neesy

#1 fan (Annie Wilkes cousin) 1st cousin Mom's side
May 24, 2012
61,289
239,271
Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
Last night at work I grabbed an old copy of a book by Margaret Atwood called Lady Oracle - you often find old books that have been distributed by the Volunteer Department.

It's from 1976 and I started reading it just before it was time to go home. Got home and ended up getting through quite a few chapters.

I should be brain dead by now from lack of sleep

;););););):m_brick:

Time to log off I think!
 

Kurben

The Fool on the Hill
Apr 12, 2014
9,682
65,192
59
sweden
Dived into The German Trauma by Gitta Sereny. It is several articles and essaylike pieces about various germanrelated subjects. One was about her growing up in austria before the war and watching the german marsch in. Another about her time in france before and after the german occupation until she had to escape. There is one about people trying to defend Hitler and one about his diaries and how they were shown to be fake. One about a long series of interviews with Fritz Stangl, the commander of Treblinka who ordered 1,2 millions to death. She is interested not so much in casting blame but in understanding how people who, like Stangl, are seemingly nice people can go on knowing that they are responsible for a million peoples death even if they did not kill anyone by their own hands. What kind of walls do they build to live on knowing thise things. For a few of the murderers were moral men and still did do it. There were of course the monsters too, that lacked any kind of morality, but they do not really present an interesting question. She has a similar piece where she talks with Albert Speer. She said about him that he always tried to be honest but often failed in being so. He, like Stangl, had built these inner walls that kept them, in their view, on the right side morally. There is also a piece about german children and the generation gap between parents and children. How the childrens questions about the past often are met with silence from the parents that lived and sometimes did things in Hitlers Germany. The Attitude best not to talk about it is the past and it is gone were common but has changed now.. She wrote the pieces between middle 60-ties and the last year 2000. There is also one on Leni Riefenstahl. An interesting book. She was interested in understanding evil and its outputs. She wrote two good books on Mary Bell (12 year old girl who murdered a 6 year old boy). Cries Unheard. Great book where she talks not only with a grown up Mary Bell but with prisonguards old friends and so on.
 

Doc Creed

Well-Known Member
Nov 18, 2015
17,221
82,822
47
United States
I'm thirty five pages into Norwegian Wood and am going to start reading Different Seasons. This will be the first time I read two books at the same time. Does anybody else read two at a time?
Two, even three; especially if they're books I've never read. I'll juggle them (not literally, lol) until I find my stride with one. I don't throw the bad ones against the wall like Kubrick, though.
 

Silhouette86

Well-Known Member
Jul 1, 2010
802
137
37
B.C, Canada
Two, even three; especially if they're books I've never read. I'll juggle them (not literally, lol) until I find my stride with one. I don't throw the bad ones against the wall like Kubrick, though.
I'm just completely new to reading two books at a time. I figure it'll be like the way it is with you. I'll get into one book just a bit more eventually.
 

Doc Creed

Well-Known Member
Nov 18, 2015
17,221
82,822
47
United States
I'm just completely new to reading two books at a time. I figure it'll be like the way it is with you. I'll get into one book just a bit more eventually.
Yeah, it depends on what type of books they are, too. Sometimes it's easier to rotate two or three mysteries or westerns than it is a Donna Tartt or John Irving, for example.
If I do end up neglecting one it doesn't mean I won't come back to it later.
 

Steffen

Well-Known Member
Aug 9, 2015
2,233
12,800
Just finished Neil Gaiman's Norse Mythology. He keeps the narration beautifully simple, and it's all the more elegant for it. A wonderful overview of the Norse mythos that is filled with adventure, often sad, sometimes tragic and surprisingly funny in some places. It's also my first Gaiman book.

Next on my list is American Gods.
 

Doc Creed

Well-Known Member
Nov 18, 2015
17,221
82,822
47
United States
Quite some time ago, I bought a used pb of Seize the Night by Koontz. Just saw that it is the second Christopher Snow (?) book. How important is it to read these in order?

kingricefan GNTLGNT AchtungBaby
You didn't tag me but there are spoilers in the second book. I'd start with first book. That's my opinion.
 

The Nameless

M-O-O-N - That spells Nameless
Jul 10, 2011
2,080
8,261
42
The Darkside of the Moon (England really)
I can't see myself finishing finders keepers to be honest. Half way through (after starting it over a month ago) and the only characters I'm interested in are bill and holly, the rest are some of his least believable characters I've ever read, I don't even like Peter as a character, and he's the main good guy (at least for the 1st half of the book). I don't like John rothstein or the idea of the jimmy gold series - if he actually wrote and released them I wouldn't even buy them. The part were morrie is in prison is just a watered down shawshank rehash
socially awkward guy goes to prison, gets raped a lot, uses his one stand out skill to have his tormentors scared off, and too ease the ride

I know if I don't finish it I'm never likely to read end of watch, but it's just draining all my enthusiasm for reading. I think I'm going to have to put it to one side at least, start a different book, maybe a reread of something a definitely will like (11/22/63, IT, maybe even the gunslinger) just to get the reading bug again. Or something different like a Dean Koontz or Joe Hill.

Sorry to put such a downer on finders keepers but it's just been a big miss for me so far.
 

kingricefan

All-being, keeper of Space, Time & Dimension.
Jul 11, 2006
30,011
127,446
Spokane, WA
Quite some time ago, I bought a used pb of Seize the Night by Koontz. Just saw that it is the second Christopher Snow (?) book. How important is it to read these in order?

kingricefan GNTLGNT AchtungBaby
If you don't start with the first book in the series all life as we know it will come to a complete halt, the Universe will implode and end up on a single blade of grass in an empty fenced-in lot in New York City. ;;D I would start with the first book, luv, it will give you a broader view of what's happening in Moonlight Bay and its inhabitants. Besides, since it looks like Koontz is never going to finish this trilogy you'll end up reading what is going to be the last installment.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.