Topic: Books You're Currently Reading?

Last week I finished up Greg Gutfield's "The King of Late Night".

the Author, a longtime figure on the extremely conservative cable "news" network Fox News discusses the success of his new late night comedy program on the channel & how it came to be via a series of vignettes of his own life (experiences from past jobs & the like) and what he views as a series of political/social platform "flips" that have recently happened culturally, all with a little bit of his humor sprinkled in.

To be short, I vehemently disagree with him on most political matters (which I won't go much into here, as it's not the place), which is a bit of a shame as there's a moment or two where I think he does have the capability to be funny. I actually largely enjoyed the parts of the book that focused on his upbringing or antics he got into in previous jobs (he was an editor at various mens/lad mags, such as Stuff & Maxim UK, before joining Fox in the mid-late 00's). That fun just largely goes away when he gets political.

busy with The Ceremonies and the last Wheel of Time book

I finished The Golden Bowl and, man was it an exhausting, but satisfying read. Like Henry James other ,later. novels, it follows a deliberately obtuse and very wordy style. I would say I had some minor quibbles with the second quarter of the novel, but the second half contains some passages that are simply astonishing in terms of their literary merit. It, like the first Dark Souls game, is a work of art that I would simply describe as a flawed masterpiece. Thoroughly recommend.

The Ambassadors ,by the same author, and Thomas Mann's The Magic Mountain remain at number one for me, but 'Golden' comes in, after a first reading, at a very comfortable third position.

I am now relaxing and listening to an artist who can also be described as 'literary' with his use of the English language, Errol Holden, but that's another story, and one that more appropriately belongs in The Music Thread.

I've just started The Princess Casamassima by Henry James, it seems, thus far, a lot more approachable than the novels I have previously read by him, excluding The Portrait of a Lady ,which is also quite accessible compared to his later works.

I finished "The Killer across the Table". What a crazy job that must be, interviewing serial killers.

Next up "Dungeon crawler Carl" the opening pages indicate that I'm in for a fun time.

I've decided to stop reading now, or at least stop reading Literature, Art & Cricket books might be okay, as well as Newspapers and Magazines, obviously. I couldn't shake the feeling of "still being at school" for a lot of the time when I've been reading in recent years, and feel like that aspect of my "education" is complete now, so I can move on. With that in mind, I thought I'd list my five favourite books of all time for those who haven't reached the same point as me yet.

1)The Ambassadors by Henry James
2)The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann
3)The Portrait of a Lady by Henry James
4)The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky
5)The Golden Bowl by Henry James.

@BlAcK_Sw0rDsMaN Some books make me feel that way, too. To be honest, I would say most of the books you've been reading would make me feel that way 😂So called "fine literature" can be fun to read, but I find a lot of it to be a bit of a chore, which is why I approach it cautiously and indulge sparingly. Reading for me is a way to explore situations, lives and worlds different than my own, and my love for science-fiction, fantasy and horror shows that I prefer them to be very different 😊 Almost every time I open a book I take a trip into the imagination, ideally a combination of the author's and mine and I don't think I can ever give that up 😊 (I say almost every time, as I do indulge in a spot of non-fiction every now and then).

I'm happy that you've had so many good experiences (going by your feedback here) with the books you've read and I want to thank you for sharing that with us here in this thread. I fully expect to interact with you elsewhere in these forums (at least I hope so) and should you again decide to pick up another book in the future, I hope you will come back here and share your thoughts with us 😊

@FuriousMachine Yeah, definitely, I'm sure we will (hopefully, as you say) interact again on here in some way, shape or form. I definitely, as I alluded to in the post above, intend to keep reading, after some reflection I thought that would be best, but just not "Literature". I still intend to read, but, perhaps expand my horizons after expunging the literary efforts of authors from my future reading habits. I would like to read, as I said above, books on Art, Games & Cricket, and, in addition to that, books on Philosophy, Psychology, Biography, Autobiography etc. - (there's loads of "non-literary" stuff to read!) and Samurai Culture/Film/History. And, as you say, should I pick up a book on one of the above categories in the near future, I'll most likely be sure to return here and post my thoughts.

@BlAcK_Sw0rDsMaN Sounds good! I could use some good recommendations for books about history that aren't dry and dull. I've found that they all too often become info dumps on dates, places and names, rather than being an engaging account of historical events, but it may be that I simply just keep stumbling over what could best be termed as "history text books". I think I've learned more about history from James Clavell's "Shogun" and Ken Follett's "Century" trilogy than any of those books combined

Finished the first novel in James Oswald's Natural Causes a couple of nights back. If you're well versed in supernatural thrillers, this may be a bit predictable - I had the larger plot pegged by page 70 - but don't let that stop you from giving this a read, it in no way hampered my enjoyment of the novel. Edinburgh based Inspector McLean is an interesting guy and his fellow cast of characters equally so. I enjoyed this first novel and will definitely keep reading. I considered docking another half a star from this otherwise four star novel because of its predictability, but then I realised that a lot of that predictability stems from parts of it being very similar to the plot of a movie that was released ten years after this was published, and it didn't seem fair to punish it for that Four stars

A couple of novels have jumped to the top of the queue due to impending adaptations and the one I'm currently reading is Simone St.James' The Book of Cold Cases, a supernatural thriller about to become a TV series from MGM Television who won the rights in what Deadline called a "bidding war", so that sounded promising. I'm about a quarter in and it is indeed promising so far.

@MightyDemon82 Dungeon Crawler Carl is great. Your in for a good time

@FuriousMachine the Book of Cold Cases is an enjoyable read. I used to sell that to true crime fans even though its fiction. Solid writing.

@Elodin I'm about halfway through, It's a lot of fun. Princess Donut is a great character.

@Elodin Yeah, it's coming along quite nicely! Welcome back, by the way, been a while. Have you had a break or have we just been running in different threads? Either way, hope life is treating you well

@FuriousMachine I've been around, just havnt posted much. More being lazy than anything. Cheers for noticing though. I look here often to see good book recommends. As for good history reads, I love the real life adventure histroy:
River of Doubt- Teddy Roosevelt in the Amazon
Devil in the white City- Serial Killer in Chicago during the World's Fair
The Wager- Two shipwrecked merchant ships returning home with one opposing horrific story.
Many more recommends if anyone is interested.

@FuriousMachine Yeah Shogun by Clavell is certainly said to be a ground-breaking piece of work. But, as it falls under the "Literature" category for me, I'll be assiduously avoiding it, at least for the time being. I just started Diary of a Genius by Salvador Dali, which obviously falls under the categories of both "Art" and "Autobiography", it's very good, hilarious, in fact, so far. "The only difference between myself and a madman" Dali writes, in the book, "is that I am not mad." 🤣

@Elodin Nice, I already had The Wager on my reading list, and now I have all three I hadn't even heard of Henry H. Holmes before I played "The Dark Pictures Anthology: The Devil in Me". Fascinating stuff, looking forward to reading more about it

@BlAcK_Sw0rDsMaN hahaha, how very droll I don't know much about Dali outside his most famous paintings, but I have it in my mind that he was a very eccentric and/or somewhat difficult person, for some reason. Don't know where I picked that up or if it was even the case and I'm simply misremembering. Hopefully a fascinating read nonetheless

I just finished up Nicholas Sparks' and M. Night Shyamalan's Remain. They created the story together, with the book by Sparks just coming out last month, and the movie by Shyamalan releasing next year.

Not having read any other Sparks books, I definitely enjoyed the supernatural parts over the romance scenes, but it was very easy to get into and kept me engaged the whole time. It wasn't too cliché of a supernatural romance, and the mystery is intriguing and doesn't go any deeper than it needs to.

All in all, it was really good, I gave it a 3.75/5.

I've finished all 13 books from 'The Last Kingdom' now. A good chunk of historical fiction. Cornwell would sometimes repeat himself, seemingly for the sake of padding out his word count (I don't really think I need to be told that Finan had really good eyesight 3 or 4 times per book, to be honest, Bernard 🫣 although I do love writer's quirks that become recognisable) but overall, a worthwhile series of books.

I'm now onto the audiobook of Sapkowski's Crossroads of Ravens, and I feel like Peter Kenny (top quality narrator of all of Sapkowski's works) had somewhere to be during this recording. He is going at some pace! Sapkowski's dry humour and sarcastic writing style are clear very early, it is like slipping on an old (silver studded) leather jacket that fits just right. I don't feel this will be one of his best Witcher stories, so far, but I do love the way he writes. The playful Latin flourishes are back, often to end a sentence with a punchline or subtle nod, or simply adding little throwaway comments that add real personality to the side characters. (Peter Kenny delivers the humerous phrases so well, and really understands the way they are to be used in Sapkowski's work, I highly recommend the audiobooks for this reason alone) ah, but where was I? Videtur me oblitum esse 🤷‍♂️

@Th3Solution as i've noticed you mentioned the draw to retry TW3, I thought I might tag you and ask (I may have before and forgotten) whether you have read any Witcher books? If not, perhaps listening to the audiobooks woild be a good way to get you into it, before going back to the game. Then you will get all the initial character building and an idea of a Witcher's place in the world, before being thrown into the game headfirst. I played the game first and then, when I eventually came to love it (it took 3 attempts to get going) I attacked the books woth great fervour as I needed more of the story, of the characters. But for some it may just make more sense to have at least an understanding of the characters and the universe first. And honestly, the audiobooks are superb and so easy to consume (free in some places, but the audible prices are pretty low anyway) so you could always listen while playing some other light game on the portal, while travelling, doing menial tasks etc. I know myself listening to Crossroads is making me want to revisit the short stories and the novels, and then maybe revisit TW3 too 😅 the pull towards it is strong! But maybe, just maybe, you would be better being drawn to the original stories first.

@Ravix Unfortunately I have not read any of them. I do remember your love for the books and how you felt they enhance the appreciation for the game. I had hoped the Netflix series would be a shortcut to accomplish the same thing (a way to build a relationship with the characters and world) and in a prior conversation you had directly discouraged me from wasting time watching it. 😅 I couldn’t help my curiosity though and about a year ago I started season one. I made it about 4 episodes in… and then have never gone back. It was okay and, without the books to compare, it didn’t openly offend me, but it wasn’t particularly good either. I haven’t ruled out going back to it, since there’s a new season which may reboot things better. I don’t know.

But I have often considered your advice about giving the books a go. Actually, about two weeks ago I was at the bookstore just browsing and I really wanted to grab one of them to try but I was intimidated by the series and didn’t feel confident about which book to start with. So any advice there might help. The Google-verse seems to universally re commend The Last Wish, but it feels weird for a first book to be a collection of short stories.

The audiobook idea is a good one though. I haven’t listened to an audiobook in a while but it would be something I could do during travel or exercise. Unfortunately I lost access to my audible library a few years ago and I’d have to start with a new account and every time I think about doing it I get really annoyed. I had dozens of books in that library and customer service wasn’t very helpful in restoring my access. Regardless, I should consider getting back into audiobooks.