What Are You Reading

[Christopher]

I have a few going...

I just finished Kinfolk by Pearl S. Buck.

Right now I am finishing up a Warhammer 40k book, 15 hours.

Next is Empire by Gore Vidal.

I have odd tastes.

 

[Daisy Buchanan]

...always admired Lucrezia Borgia. She would discuss the subject of chastity
with Vatican theologians.

....ever catch Robert Shaw's portrayal of Henry VIII in the film,
A Man For All Seasons? I thought Shaw really captured that
scoundrel's character.

Yes, Lucrezia seemed like quite the gal!!!
I haven't seen the movie you speak of, but I looked it up on IMDB, it sounds great.
This April, Showtime is coming out with a series called "The Tudors", wow does it look good. But then again, they always show the best parts in the previews. I'm on a Henry VIII kick, and really enjoyed reading "The Other Boleyn Girl". I learned a lot about that time period that I really didn't know about, and a lot about the Boleyn family.
I went on to read "The Boleyn Inheritance" also by Phillippa Gregory. It too was really good, but not as great as the first book. Basically about Henry VIII short lived and annulled marriage to Anne of Cleves. Then his short lived marriage to Catherine Howard, only 14 when he married her, and was beheaded for what else, treason, there's a shock, before she turned 17. Also included in the book is the continuing story of Jane Boleyn, the wife of George Boleyn who went to the block with sister Anne. She was the one who bore witness against them, in cahoots with their Uncle Sir Howard. There is a third book in the series, but I couldn't find it in the bookstore, so will have to wait for it's arrival from Amazon.
So, by the same author I have just started "The Virgin's Lover. I'm really just at the beginning of it, so I can't say here or there about it. It's about Queen Elizabeth I and her love for Sir Robert Dudley. It goes on to talk about the bankrupt country she inherited, the laws of treason (which change to suit the mood of those imposing them), and her need to bear an heir to the throne.
I'm hoping to find more historical fiction about the Borgia's. I'm burning out on the tudors.

 

[Polyhistor]

Ah, yes. I forgot--I've been listening to an audio recording of Dracula (via LibriVox) at work. Good way to get reading done while doing mindless busy-work, and, sad to say, it's how most of my reading has gotten done over the last few months.

Thanks for the LibriVox link! I didn´t know that one until now!

 

[olive bleu]

"Bloodletting & Miraculous Cures", by Vincent Tam-2006 giller prize winner

 

[Harp]

Yes, Lucrezia seemed like quite the gal!!!
I haven't seen the movie you speak of, but I looked it up on IMDB, it sounds great.
I'm hoping to find more historical fiction about the Borgia's. I'm burning out on the tudors.

Shaw aces Henry VIII in A Man For All Seasons.
The Borgia are more fascinating than the Medici....
And after the Tudors, there are the Stuarts.

 

[erikb02809]

I just finished reading The Road by Cormac McCarthy in one sitting. It was sad, uplifting, a page turner, and thought provoking all at the same time. I highly recommend it.

 

[Harp]

Found a stray paperback copy of Herman Wouk's Youngblood Hawke
yesterday. New York in the 1940s...what a time.

 

[Dinerman]

I just finished The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn for school.
I liked the book a lot more when I didn't have to analyze everything and turn in a two page essay every other day.

 

[CanadaDoll]

I recently got turned onto poetry by Pablo Neruda, he's a very interesting writer, dead now, but still really good, I may have mentioned him before on this thread. Sadly he's been replaced on the nightstand by required reading for my classes, for now.

 

[CanadaDoll]

I just finished The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn for school.
I liked the book a lot more when I didn't have to analyze everything and turn in a two page essay every other day.

fftopic: Yeah I'm getting ready for that too, I'll be despising Hound of the Baskervilles and Monkey Beach after my English class I'm betting. What are you studying?

 

[Harp]

Sadly he's been replaced on the nightstand by required reading for my classes, for now.

Sounds like the semester of discontent.
Despise Hound of the Baskervilles?
The Devil awaits Holmes in the windswept moor... and then there
is the rather lurid Victorian allude, which I will not delve reveal, so
as not to spoil the macabre plot.

 

[CanadaDoll]

No Spanish! No French! It's all general 'sciences':rage: The only class I really want to take is my Ed class, and it's little more than a glorified option for me right now!:rage:
I like reading, just not when someone else is choosing my books for me!lol
I don't feel the need to be a "well-rounded" individual, I just need to be great at what I want my carreer to be in, but nooooo....

 

[Harp]

I don't feel the need to be a "well-rounded" individual, I just need to be great at what I want my carreer to be in, but nooooo....

fftopic: What career have you chosen?

 

[CanadaDoll]

I want to teach languages at the university level, preferrably at Oxford or Cambridge, but I'll settle for the University of Vienna too or Cork City, Ireland.

 

[carebear]

On my trip..

I reread the LotR and Simarillion on the way down. I read Dennis McKiernan's rip-offs of the former while I was there. That guy and his publisher had a lot of nerve publishing such note-for-note copies.

Before I left NYC I bought a new brown (non-vintage) suit, a copy of the Rocketeer on DVD, and 3 books (read on the flight).

"The Pirate Coast: Thomas Jefferson, the First Marines, and the Secret Mission of 1805" by Richard Zacks. Good reading and detail about "...the Shores of Tripoli."

"The River of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt's Darkest Journey" by Candice Millard. A trip I'd never heard of by one of the men I most admire.

"A History of the World in Six Glasses" by Tom Standage. Beer, Wine, Spirits (rum/whiskey), Coffee, Tea and Coca-Cola. The kind of history I like, comprehensive and funny.

 

[Harp]

A noble aim. Wish you all the best. But read all you can,
and savor this time in your life-youth is all too fleeting, and the
fates can prove unkind. Drink the smoke of the scholar's lamp and
explore the mystery of life.

...And why not Trinity in Dublin?

 

[CanadaDoll]

I really loved LOTR and the Hobbit, they were great books, alas no time anymore

I read The Other Boleyn Girl on a trip to Winnipeg, it was a 24 hour book! At the time the longest amount of time I'd ever spent reading a book cover to cover

 

[CanadaDoll]

A noble aim. Wish you all the best. But read all you can,
and savor this time in your life-youth is all too fleeting, and the
fates can prove unkind. Drink the smoke of the scholar's lamp and
explore the mystery of life.

Thanks for the wishes Harp!
I try to enjoy it, but the more I get jerked around the more I wonder what the heck I'm doing, school is not cheap, and I need A-'s minimum for some competitive standing when I apply overseas.

The Great Sleeplessness, post-secondary is! lol

 

[Harp]

I try to enjoy it, but the more I get jerked around the more I wonder what the heck I'm doing, school is not cheap, and I need A-'s minimum for some competitive standing when I apply overseas.
l

Good teachers are always in short supply. Of course, the tenure
track at elite institutions is problematic, and at that level, everybody
is stellar, and it gets depressing; all the more so when competing for
available asst professorial slots.

In the US, Phds are forced to adjust and adapt and make the terrain
work to their advantage, which means a vagabound career for some,
or settle for something less than desired. So it pays to be flexible in
academe.

 

[CanadaDoll]

You sound like you've got some first-hand experience with this Harp.

No Trinity because I've heard from some friends in classes who've gone to Dublin to avoid it, I dunno I'll have to take a weekend and see it myself, but all I've gotten from Cork is rave reviews plus the University/College there looks amazing!