What Are You Reading

[Harp]

Selected Mystery Stories

G.K. Chesterton's Father Brown of The Church of Rome.

 

[Steve]

After being gifted with a few Barnes and Nobles gift certificates, I raided the classics rack and am now reading Alexandre Dumas' Count of Monte Cristo, or if you prefer, Le comte de Monte Cristo , and Bram Stoker's Dracula.

Before I started these, I was also in the middle of (and still am) Peter Hathaway Capstick's Last Horizons, and The Keys to Avalon, by Steve Blake and Scott Lloyd.

 

[Curt Chiarelli]

Dear Dorothy! If it isn't Oscar, we assume it's her.

I love lurid, B-grade type covers for excellent books. Nice, refined night scenes of country houses and winter trees by Grimshaw are all very well for genteel Edwardian ghost stories (and I do love Grimshaw!), but a girl who looks like an escapee from a downmarket horror 70s slasher flick is tremendous fun, juxtaposed against the high quality contents of a book like 'The Haunting of Hill House'.

Great list of books - and I don't think I've read a single one! I have a soft spot for well-written biographies of minor historical figures, often the result of a lifetime's loving work and research.

Limb & Cordingly's biography of L E G Oates, "Captain Oates: Soldier and Explorer" is a beautifully written piece, although it's very apparent where Cordingly's contribution in the way of regimental history comes in (there are moments when we thoroughly digress to a dissertation on reformation and reactionism in the British Army in the pre- and post- Boer War period...all good fun, but I imagine a few readers skipped some pages!). It rises to a perfect, lyrical, elegantly understated recounting of Oates leaving the tent...in absolute accord with Oates' end.

Staying in the Antarctic - Sara Wheeler's "Cherry", the life of Apsley-Cherry Garrard, is gorgeous. She handles the highpoint of his life, the Antarctic years, very well, but what is even more accomplished is her sensitive handling of the fragile and sometimes less loveable aspects of his personality, and also his breakdowns, depression and mental illness. She also brings deftly to life with a few well chosen pars the wonderfully rich array of characters around him, and does so with more sympathy than the high-strung Cherry ever felt for such characters as Kathleen Scott.

Trulock's biography of Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, "In the Hands of Providence" - this one, again, is elegantly researched and written. There have been other Chamberlain biographies before and since, and revisionism has grasped the Chamberlain story with sharp claws, but I still think this not only the best Chamberlain bio, but one of the best bios of any subject.

Then some of the larger figures of history - E. W. Ives recently revised and reissued his biography of Anne Boleyn, and it has managed to expand and improve on what was probably the best bio of Nan ever written (the only other contender for the title is Warnick's "Rise and Fall of Anne Boleyn" - both are magnificent works, even if not always in agreement).

Every few years I re-read Carl Sandburg's multi-volume Lincoln bio ('The Prairie Years' and 'The War Years'). I agree with the writer who said something along the lines of 'to read these works is to walk with Lincoln'. I have a shelf-full of Lincoln bios, many of which are more up-to-date in terms of information and methodology, but Sandburg's is a work apart. The quintessential American poet interpreting the quintessential American.

Some very interesting items in your last post, ones that will require further scrutiny here at Muppet Labs . . . .

In the historically obscure division of the Chiarelli library we have Erik Larson's fine The Devil in the White City, a portrait of Chicago in 1893 and an examination of the fruits borne of her movement toward the modern era. It's a tale framed in Manichean dualities - on one end we find the Herculean labours of Burnham, Root and Olmstead to create the Columbian Exposition - an affirmition of mankind's progress - and on the other, more sinister end of the spectrum the grim peregrinations of Herman Mudgett Holmes, the world's first serial killer, one who cleverly exploited the Exposition for his own vile purposes.

Another one that comes highly recommended is Diana Preston's The Boxer Rebellion: The Dramatic Story of China's War on Foreigners that Shook the World in the Summer of 1900. This one weaves its tale from the individual experiences of the people who lived 55 days under siege in Peking.

Eric Scigliano's Michelangelo's Mountain: The Quest For Perfection in the Marble Quarries of Carrara is a truly great read. One part modern cultural travelogue, another part a fascinating dissertation on Michelangelo, the local Ligurian populace and how the hardy, rugged landscape of Carrara and the tides of history formed their character.

 

[DancingSweetie]

Just finished Mary Queen of Scotland and the Isles.

 

[MinnieRose]

I typically like suspense novels........right now I'm reading Deal Breaker by Harlan Coben. Trying to catch up on all he has written.

 

[Gray Ghost]

As always, I am reading the Bible. I am also reading a personal journal written by a member of the 13th "Jungle" Air Force during WWII. It is very interesting. It tells of his experiences during WWII in the Pacific. He was part of a Quartermaster Unit and was one of it's officers. I read anything I can get my hand on when it comes to the 13th Air Force. My father was in fighter command with the 13th.

Gray Ghost

 

[skwerl-hat]

just finished the moon is down by steinbeck
incredible book.

 

[fleur]

Wicked by Gregory Macguire (after going to see the West End Musical I might add!)

 

[Sam Cox]

just finished "The Orientalist"

 

[J. M. Stovall]

Just finished "The Amazing Adventures of Cavalier & Clay", now trying to catch up on the New Yorker. I'm also working my way through the MAD Archives Volume 1: 1952-1953.

 

[Daisy Buchanan]

I just forced myself to finish "Running with Scissors". I must admit, I really didn't like it. It was just too overdone, and I really wasn't interested in this particular persons whacked out life's so called adventures.

I'm now reading "A Venetian Affair" about mid 1700's Venice. About the son of an old Patrician family, who falls in love with the illegitimate daughter of a Venetian woman and a British man, she is all of 16. So far the book is great. I guess I'm on a Venice kick, I only left there a week ago, and I already miss it. Wow, that place can grab hold of you!

 

[J. M. Stovall]

If you like ghost stories a good book is Vaporetto 13 by Robert Girardi. I read it several years ago and really enjoyed it, takes place in Venice too! I don't want to give anything away though.

Venice is really great, we went there on our honeymoon (plus all around central Italy). I was really trying to figure out a way to move there afterwards, but I want to move to every European city I visit.

 

[Harp]

Currently

reading Joyce's Ulysses. I'm in a Celtic agnostic mood for
some inexplicable reason.

 

[Samsa]

reading Joyce's Ulysses. I'm in a Celtic agnostic mood for
some inexplicable reason.

This is a good mood to be in, methinks.

 

[Harp]

Joyce and Gaelic agnosticism

This is a good mood to be in, methinks.

Joyce is an old nemesis from Christian Brothers' tutelage:
Omnis qui se exalt humiliabitur et qui se humilitat exalabitur.

 

[Daisy Buchanan]

If you like ghost stories a good book is Vaporetto 13 by Robert Girardi. I read it several years ago and really enjoyed it, takes place in Venice too! I don't want to give anything away though.

Venice is really great, we went there on our honeymoon (plus all around central Italy). I was really trying to figure out a way to move there afterwards, but I want to move to every European city I visit.

Thanks for the recommendation. I'm gonna put that on my "must read very soon" list.

Venice is such a beautiful and romantic place to take a honeymoon. My ideal life, a condo in Rome, preferably by the Spanish Steps or the Trevi Fountain. Piazza Navona would be nice too. Then a vacation home in Venice, by Rialto would be perfect but I'd settle for a place in San Marco (hehe, settle, hehe). It's so easy to get there on the Eurostar from Rome. I loved Venice, but I don't think I could live there full time. I get claustrophopic and it really doesn't have much of a night life in the colder months. Both places are so amazing, so different yet equally wonderful. I must get back there again, and soon.

 

[Samsa]

Joyce is an old nemesis from Christian Brothers' tutelage:
Omnis qui se exalt humiliabitur et qui se humilitat exalabitur.

Forgive me, I have very little Latin in me. Does that say "those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted"?

 

[John in Covina]

just finished the moon is down by steinbeck
incredible book.

*****
A great short story.

I love "The Log Book of the Sea of Cortez" and the opener "About Ed Ricketts"

 

[John in Covina]

Ian Fleming

I grabbed "Casino Royal" from my bookshelf, I wanted to re-read it as the nuances had faded from my memory.

I haven't read all of the Bond books but would highly reccomend "Moonraker" as it is a really cracking story. So far it is my favorite.

 

[Harp]

Reply

Forgive me, I have very little Latin in me. Does that say "those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted"?

Si. A Christian Brother instructor's favorite quip about Joyce; whom he regarded as
the antithesis of Belloc.