What are you reading at the moment?

[Deleted member 5521640]

Deryni Checkmate by Katherine Kurtz.

 

[KeithD]

Anne Perry, The Whitechapel Conspiracy

(reading essentially because my wife bit on a “whole pile of them” Anne Perry sale and I want to get to the bottom of that pile so I can more on.)


Victoria Thompson, City of Scoundrels

(Not normally my cup of java, but this was written at the beginning of the Covid pandemic with New York City during the Spanish flu epidemic as a setting. It includes measures taken to try to protect from the flu and how rampant the flu was. It doesn’t shy away from miscalls—e.g., emphasizing wearing masks outdoors and not indoors.)


Don Graham, Giant: Making of a Legendary American Film

A delightful find (for me) at a book sale. A comprehensive backgrounder on the filming of the iconic movie (which I’ve alluded to in some of my own stories). I am finding it especially interesting, as it was the first movie I had a connection to. The opening scene of the movie supposedly is at a thoroughbred horse stud stable in Maryland, but it was actually filmed in Keswick, east of Charlottesville, Virginia, in the spring of 1955, and, as a stage play acting student in Washington, D.C., at the age of eight, I got to be an extra standing on a rural railway station platform while Rock Hudson and Elizabeth Taylor did a bit of a couple of minutes (which took hours). Most of the movie was filmed in Texas, sort of a first for Hollywood. Up until then, the Texas movies were usually filmed on a Hollywood backlot (one actually was filmed in Copenhagen, Denmark).

I didn’t see the finished movie for years, as my family moved to Europe that summer. Europe was still recovering from the war and there weren’t many movie houses showing American movies.

That was similar to another movie I worked on, The Deer Hunter, where I worked on scenes filmed at a closed U.S. military commissary (transformed into a hospital) in Bangkok, Thailand. In both cases, I had such a small part in what was happening in movies that were extensively being filmed elsewhere from where I was that I didn’t know they were major movies until the Academy Awards of their respective years rolled around. We weren't getting English-language movies in Bangkok in 1978.

 

[XerXesXu]

Insatiable Porn. A Love Story – ASA AKIRA.

Lose the recreational drugs and she's my kind'a girl.

 

[MillieDynamite]

I have been reading the complete works of Flanner O'Conner. O'Conner is a writer from the mid-20th century. Suffering from lupus, knowing her death loomed out in the, not too, distant future she told dark tales which explored self-aggrandizing, narcissism, racism, and false feelings of superiority. Characters were often headed for falls, even hard falls. Finding characters you'll like is difficult, and yet, I read on, pleased with each story. She's an excellent writer. Her style improves with every few stories. I am reading the last three short stories now. Then I guess I will tackle her two novels. Some of the stories are uncomfortable reads. Some violence, lots of wasted lives, heavy on religious elements, and almost a void of happy endings. Southern Gothic at its best.

 

[SimonDoom]

I have been reading the complete works of Flanner O'Conner. O'Conner is a writer from the mid-20th century. Suffering from lupus, knowing her death loomed out in the, not too, distant future she told dark tales which explored self-aggrandizing, narcissism, racism, and false feelings of superiority. Characters were often headed for falls, even hard falls. Finding characters you'll like is difficult, and yet, I read on, pleased with each story. She's an excellent writer. Her style improves with every few stories. I am reading the last three short stories now. Then I guess I will tackle her two novels. Some of the stories are uncomfortable reads. Some violence, lots of wasted lives, heavy on religious elements, and almost a void of happy endings. Southern Gothic at its best.

She's a great writer! One of my favorite short story writers. A Good Man Is Hard To Find is one of the most chilling stories ever written.

 

[Scareltt]

“The Gate to Women’s Country” by Sheri S Tepper. It’s very interesting.

 

[MillieDynamite]

She's a great writer! One of my favorite short story writers. A Good Man Is Hard To Find is one of the most chilling stories ever written.

I tried to watch Wise Blood one night. It was dreadful. I don't think the way she writes translates well to the screen. You can't have all the internal views she gives you of the characters. Most, if not all, of her stories, are 3rd person. I supposed a disembodied narrator might give you the clues you need. But shooting the way it was written without seeing what's going on inside their heads just didn't work for me. In all honesty, I haven't read the novel Wise Blood yet, and I don't think I have the three short stories it was expanded from!

 

[SimonDoom]

I'm currently reading John Updike's novel Couples. It's about a bunch of people you don't like who are cheating on one another, and whining about it a lot. I'm trying to keep an open mind. Updike's a good stylist and a good observer and that partly offsets the fact that the people he writes about are unappealing, and often tawdry and petty. I felt much the same way about the Rabbit series.

 

[drobert44]

I'm currently reading John Updike's novel Couples. It's about a bunch of people you don't like who are cheating on one another, and whining about it a lot. I'm trying to keep an open mind. Updike's a good stylist and a good observer and that partly offsets the fact that the people he writes about are unappealing, and often tawdry and petty. I felt much the same way about the Rabbit series.

Somerset Maugham........

 

[tenyari]

Outside of the erotica on sites like this one and a few others, I no longer read fiction.

I do read a lot of non-fiction though. History, political science (which is distinctly different from reading political advocacy), spiritual texts, and some other things.

Some recent entries:
Kebra Negast - a blend of the history of the Solomonic Dynasty of Ethiopia and the holy text of the oldest existing sect of Christianity, that predates the Catholics by a few centuries.
Stamped From The Beginning, Ibram Kendi - a history of Racism
Mexico; A Brief History, Lynn Foster - an overview of Mexico from ancient times to the modern day

 

[Bramblethorn]

Just finished All Systems Red by Martha Wells

Moving onto Song for the Unraveling of the World by Brian Evenson

I do love Murderbot.

Me: just started on Escape from Yokai Land. I'm expecting cosmic horror, bureaucracy, and Hello Kitty.

 

[ElectricBlue]

Just started Red Comet, a new biography of Sylvia Plath.

I think it will be heavy duty, more literary critique than suicidal angst.

As is my way, I'm balancing it with Castles of Steel, which looks at the naval competition between England and Germany leading up to and during World War One.

Military history and poetry - I've not yet found anyone who can explain how my mind works!

 

[Scareltt]

“Out of Orange” by Clearly Wliters, she was Pipers girlfriend. Her story is very different that what you see in Orange is the New Black.

 

[Bramblethorn]

I do love Murderbot.

Me: just started on Escape from Yokai Land. I'm expecting cosmic horror, bureaucracy, and Hello Kitty.

...and that's exactly what I got.

Now re-reading Ruthanna Emrys' "Innsmouth Legacy" series, starting with The Litany of Earth. It's a reply to Lovecraft's "The Shadow over Innsmouth", but written from the perspective of the "monsters".

 

[Wifetheif]

I just finished: "The Library Book" by Susan Orlean about the disastrous 1986 Los Angeles Public Library fire that consumed nearly a million books and damaged many more. A meditation on libraries, what they mean, what they are, and what they will become.

 

[SimonDoom]

Interpreting "at the moment" in the most liberal way possible, I'm finally taking a serious stab at Joyce's Ulysses. I've probably started it about half a dozen times over the last 38 years . . . but I'm serious this time! I just have to read something every day. I love Joyce's way with words, although his story-writing is incredibly dense and difficult. Similar to Nabokov that way, although I think Joyce is more poetic than Nabokov.

 

[Wark2002]

LaBrava by Elmore Leonard. I like Leonard but so far it’s a little “meh.”

 

[KeithD]

Louise Penny, The Madness of Crowds

and

Alexander McCall Smith, The Careful Use of Compliments

 

[ElectricBlue]

Interpreting "at the moment" in the most liberal way possible, I'm finally taking a serious stab at Joyce's Ulysses. I've probably started it about half a dozen times over the last 38 years . . . but I'm serious this time! I just have to read something every day. I love Joyce's way with words, although his story-writing is incredibly dense and difficult. Similar to Nabokov that way, although I think Joyce is more poetic than Nabokov.

Let us know if you make it. Like you, I've started reading Ulysses half a dozen times, but have always stalled somewhere. It's impenetrable.

 

[lovecraft68]

Re-reading a nasty guilty pleasure, The Devil's Kiss. This book is not big on plot, but a lot of violence and a hell of a lot of sleazy sex that's very descriptive for a mainstream horror novel. Typical "Satanist" of that genre where everything is orgies and sacrifice. Some whacked attempt at a prophecy in there, of course. It spawned a couple of sequels, but this is the best. Just think a 70's exploitation film in print

 

[Wifetheif]

Today I finished: "The Secret History of Wonder Woman" by Jill Lepore. The creator of Wonder Woman was a polymath from Harvard who invented the lie detector, was an ardent feminist who believed in female superiority had a wife and shared his home with a second woman. He had four kids between the two women, but the kids by the other woman were kept in the dark as to who their father was. He was into bondage, but only on the pages of comic books. He believed that Wonder Woman was a female liberation manifesto. He did all of this at a time when unconventional marriages simply did not exist or were heavily prosecuted, Very eye-opening book.

 

[AnnyMouse28]

https://th.bing.com/th/id/OIP.jqAVO5wq9mJACzggHeCV6AHaJ3?pid=ImgDet&rs=1

 

[SimonDoom]

Louise Ehrdrich, The Sentence, and re-reading portions of Richard Dawkins' The Ancestor's Tale. If you enjoy books about evolution I strongly recommend the latter.

 

[MillieDynamite]

Grumpy Monkey to my son ... every night!

 

[NC_Coastal]

The Overstory - Richard Powers