Topic: Books You're Currently Reading?

@BlAcK_Sw0rDsMaN Sounds interesting, will check it out

I finished 'The Master & Margarita', A fantastic book with great imagery. I thought this would make a great movie. After some research it has had several adaptations including one from last year that is still to be given an international release.

I also finished the final 2 volumes of Fullmetal Alchemist. superb, action packed, and emotional with great characters, everything you could possibly want in an action adventure story.

For my next book I've just started 'Crypt' by Dr Alice Roberts.

@MightyDemon82 I'm glad you enjoyed The Master and Margarita I thought that the mental health-related aspects of the novel could be interpreted as particularly poignant and relevant to today's world. Did you have a favourite part of the work that you could allude to any on here? (Spoiler-tagged, of course).

I finished Summer in Baden-Baden by Leonid Tsypkin and found it to be a thoroughly good read, if not 100% measuring up to the lofty heights of Dostoyevsky (the subject of the bok)'s own works. I'd like to read more of the author's material, Tsypkin, that is, I've already read enough Dostoyevsky

@BlAcK_Sw0rDsMaN I've forgotten how to do spoiler tags. But I really enjoyed the book from the point Margarita got the cream/ointment. From that point on the imagery was just fantastic.

The opening really drew me in with the three gentleman but then totally threw me in the 2nd chapter.

I loved all scenes with Behemoth, he was quite a character. The part in the theatre was also a stand out for me.

I might have to read Bulgakov's other works now as I've enjoyed both 'The Master and Margarita ' & 'A Dog's Heart'.

@MightyDemon82 Yes, indeed, Behemoth's antics were very entertaining to read about, I also enjoyed the retelling of various Biblical events, in addition to all the fantastic imagery in the main narrative. Apparently A Country Doctor's Notebook ,by the same author, is a good one, so I would recommend it, and then maybe you can tell me about it, if you enjoy it, and return the recommendation!

I just started a book by another Russian author, Victor Pelevin ,it's a collection of short stories, entitled The Blue Lantern ,and it's very good so far.

@BlAcK_Sw0rDsMaN. I loved how that tied up by the end of the book, but I found it quite jarring after the opening chapter and then jumping to Pilate.

Thanks, I'll add both of those to the list.

Have a great weekend 😀

@MightyDemon82 Thanks, you too! Just a quick heads up, Pelevin is quite different to Bulgakhov, it's more sci-fi style dystopian tales reflecting a sort of surrealistic nightmarish equivalent to life in the Russia he knew, so if sci-fi/dystopia isn't your thing, you might wanna give that one a miss. Summer in Baden-Baden by Leonid Tsypkin is very good though, and if you enjoy Dostoesvsky's works you should enjoy it, as, like I was saying to @FuriousMachine ,it's a fictionalised depiction of Dostoevsky's life in Germany with his then wife.

Edit: I've decided to abandon The Blue Lantern by Victor Pelevin. I mean, it's good, well-written, but the sci-fi/dystopia thing just isn't my jam. I've started The Queue by Vladimir Sorokin, instead, and that's much more my cup of tea so far. Seems quite Pinter-esque, at first glance.

@BlAcK_Sw0rDsMaN Dystopian Sci-fi is a favourite genre of mine so that's great.

I've yet to read anything by Dostoesvsky, but his work always jumps out at me when I'm at the book store. It won't be long before I grab one of his books off the shelf.

@MightyDemon82 Excellent, good luck with Dostoevsky! , when you do come to read one of his books.
I finished The Queue by Vladimir Sorokin, and thought it was very good, still dystopian ,I think, so not my usual cup of tea, but it wasn't Dystopian Sci-fi, just Dystopian, so I enjoyed it a lot more than the Pelevin book, and actually thought it was an unusual and excellent novel! . I think it's the 'Sci-fi' aspect that's the dealbreaker for me, not a big fan of mutants, aliens and robots sort of thing!

Anyway, take care and have a good day!

I'm currently rereading Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, I last read it just under twenty years ago so it will be good to refresh my memory of the details of the plot.

Edit: Read a bit more this morning, it's developing well.

Busy with the old hardcover of Game of Thrones Dance with Dragons

and going to be reading Wheel of Time book 13 pretty soon this week

Finished Stephen King's The Long Walk yesterday. As usual when writing under the pseudonym Richard Bachman, King eschews the supernatural for more mundane horrors, but that does not mean that it is any less horrible. The premise of the novel sets up a pretty bleak story and it certainly delivers a solid gut punch. You can almost feel the pain and exhaustion these boys experience as the novel marches on and for every step they take the hope for a happy ending grows ever more distant. King once again delivers a great cast of characters who will stay with me a while, but I'm docking one star as the novel overstays its welcome just a tiny bit. That being said, the 20 or so pages that make up part 3 of the book are truly riveting. Four stars.

Also read the Sometimes They Come Back, an excellent novella from King's Night Shift collection, where a high-school teacher is haunted by a tragedy from his past. Five stars.

Next up is the "Great Cities" series by N.K. Jemisin, which consists of a novella and two novels. I will also add in Joe Abercrombie's The Devils in there, for variety.
(The "Great Cities" series finishes with the book they discuss in the radio show you linked to, @BlAcK_Sw0rDsMaN, so I'm looking forward to finally giving that a listen when I'm done )

@FuriousMachine Oh, excellent, I hope you enjoy the book and the programme greatly. 😃

I finished 'Crypt' really enjoyed delving into certain parts of history and the science behind finding out what caused the deaths of people from parts of British history.

I also finished 'Dr Werthless' by Harold Schechter & Eric Powell. I had no idea about this part of American comics history until I read this. Fascinating and Powell's art is stellar as always.

I've just started The final book in The Fallen God's trilogy 'Faithbreaker' smaller fantasy than what I'm used to, but having less characters to focus on isn't a bad thing and the story itself is straight forward let's see how she wraps it up.

I am re-reading Cari Mora, by Thomas Harris. He is the author of Red Dragon, and The Silence of the Lambs.

It is completely unrelated to his earlier Hannibal Lecter novels, and was written in 2019. It is still the most recent book that Harris has written.

The story involves a Colombian girl in Miami, who gets pulled into an unusual criminal gang. I have read it once before, but have actually not remembered much of it.

I decided to diverge from my plan of taking a break from Literature to read two more books, including a classic, after I finish Crime and Punishment, they are The Tale of Genji by Murasaki Shikibu - that's the classic, and The Paths of Zatoichi: The Global Influence of the Blind Swordsman (Remakes, Reboots, and Adaptations) by Jonathan Wroot.

@FuriousMachine I am about 1/3 of the way through Crime and Punishment now and it is very good, definitely better to start with that one, rather than The Brothers Karamazov, as I and others have recommended them to you on here, as it is a more distilled version of Dostoevsky's philosophy imo, and a better introduction to his ouevre. I especially like the way the character of the culprit of the titular "crime" (no spoilers) develops following the action of committing the crime.

Edit: What are you reading now?

I am also interested in reading The Battle of Sekigahara: The Greatest, Bloodiest, Most Decisive Samurai Battle Ever by Chris Glenn, as it is supposed to be good, and as a fellow fan of Japanese History/Culture I thought it might take your fancy?

@BlAcK_Sw0rDsMaN Oh, absolutely! "Sekigahara" went straight to my reading list I endeavour to read a non-fiction book every now and then and I love to find interesting history books to put on there (unfortunately, so many of them are dull and dry, focusing more on dates and figures rather than painting an interesting picture of what went on).

I'm about halfway through N.K. Jemisin's "The City We Became", which I am unsurprisingly enjoying a lot. What did surprise me, though, was that it turned out to be almost Lovecraftian at times (and she makes no effort to hide it, either, she references the racist old b@stard and calls him out repeatedly for it... I think she may be like me, loving the mythos he created, but reviling the man and preferring Lovecraftian works over works by Lovecraft).

And excellent tip on Dostoevsky, I'll put "Crime" ahead of "Brothers" on my list. Thanks, buddy!

About halfway thru Crime and Punishment by Dostoevsky. It's a gripping, riveting tale so far, so much better reading it at the age I'm at now, rather than in my late teens, a long time ago. Perhaps it's like a fine wine, "just gets better with age." 😉

Edit: Finished it now. I found it to be a masterpiece, much better than when I read it before, as I said earlier. It might even be a contender for replacing The Brothers Karamazov as my favourite book by the Russian Literary Master. You could say The Brothers Karamazov is like the Elden Ring to Crime and Punishment's Dark Souls III. 😉

Edit II: Right I've finalised my "final final" 'literary' reading list now. It now consists of the following books:

The Tale of Genji by Murasaki Shikibu
The Tale of the Heike by Royall Tyler (Translator.)
Kokoro by Natsume Soseki
Essays in Idleness: and Hojoki by Kenko.
The Frolic of the beasts by Yukio Mishima
The Sailor who fell from Grace with the Sea by Yukio Mishima
Wind/Pinball by Haruki Murakami
A Wild Sheep Chase by Haruki Murakami
Dance Dance Dance by Haruki Murakami.
The Tokaido Road by Lucia St. Clair Robson..

And, separate to this list of Japanese fiction, I also like the look of:

The Chronicles of Barsetshire by Anthony Trollope.

I plan to get through as much as I can of that list and then focus on Art books, publications such as EMPIRE, Wisden Cricket Monthly and an assortment of Mangas that might take my fancy.

Edit III: After thinking it over, I've decided to skip that "final final" phase, in the belief that I can now consider myself sufficiently "well-read" to move on to Art books, Cricket books, and Magazines. Starting with:

Riffs and Relations: African American Artists and the European Modernist Tradition by Adrienne L. Childs
Wisden Cricketers' Almanack 2025 edited by Lawrence Booth
Jazzwise Magazine
Wisden Cricket Monthly