what are you reading?

[Renaissance-Man]

Sapiens
A Brief History of Humankind
by Yuval Noah Harari

 

[ploverwing]

Sapiens
A Brief History of Humankind
by Yuval Noah Harari

I quite enjoyed the first two thirds of that, but had some questions about the last third.

 

[Renaissance-Man]

I quite enjoyed the first two thirds of that, but had some questions about the last third.

Yuval Noah Harari is amazing. You should try Stephen Hawking's, A Brief History of Time.

 

[ploverwing]

Yuval Noah Harari is amazing. You should try Stephen Hawking's, A Brief History of Time.

Love that one. It's fab.

 

[Jan D]

Sapiens
A Brief History of Humankind
by Yuval Noah Harari

Excellent book.

 

[Luke Plays Uke]

I just finished Christopher Moore’s “Practical Demonkeeping,” which is described as a comedy of horrors, but the best part about it is that it introduces some characters who keep popping up in his books. It feels very Pratchett-ish with its jokes.

Now I’m reading “The Wife Between Us.” I don’t know what it’s about yet beyond a woman getting married to a guy and that guy’s ex wife still being around.

 

[Steedy]

'House of Leaves' by Mark Z. Danielewski. A novel about a book that was written about a documentary film that was made by a family who moved into a haunted house. It's different!

 

[Wiggy]

About 100 pages into Michener's "The Source." His are always a heavy read and depending on the topic, can be quite an adventure. If not, I try a different one. The last one I really liked was "Poland". (It should be required reading, considering current events.) Before that, also great was "Mexico." I always learn a lot.

 

[bbkobabe]

Click on link and scroll down for a free download of the entire book by Christopher Schwarz, Anarchist woodworker.

Free is my favorite price... and I've built workbenches... Nice!

Thanks for the tip...

 

[bbkobabe]

Update - Water For Elephants is an excellent, captivating, well written tale. I love the chronological perspective / contrast. BUT, on the basis of two excessively salty passages I've read thus far, I wouldn't recommend this to high school seniors (nor to members of my family including my adult children, for that matter) a

Ha! I just found this on the shelf of my seventh grade classroom! Needless to say they had not touched it... they don't generally read things that they haven't had a friend read already, so I'm OK this time.

So I put it on my To Read pile on my desk instead... I'll start it soon...

I'm right in the middle of reading Treasure Island out loud to my class right now... we are learning about the Age of Exploration and Discovery and we are now at the year 1490 - so it kinda fits.

I find I need to pre-read it first and do some translation on the fly... lots of nautical terms and lore layered on top of 100 year old language... it's so thick sometimes it's impossible to follow for a 12 year old. I add in a bit here and there to clear up the vocabulary. But it's a great, very economically drawn tale, a microcosm of the sort of lack of perception that continues to dog the British Empire and may drag them all the way back to being an island of minor importance just west of the coast of Europe.

Thanks for the review... I tend to like things salty so I'm looking forward to it!

 

[bbkobabe]

Sapiens
A Brief History of Humankind
by Yuval Noah Harari

I read this last year... really good. At the library for free!

 

[Luke Plays Uke]

I finished The Wife Between Us (a great domestic thriller) and Beach Read by Emily Henry (a romance about writer’s block). Both good books.

Now I’m reading Christopher Moore’s “Razzmatazz.” He’s my favorite author and so far it’s hilarious. After this one, I’ll only need 15 more to complete my reading goal for the year.

 

[kkimura]

Hate that. Found a collection of erotic vampire stories and was disappointed because there was this constant theme that women can't truly be capable, only vulnerable, and need men to lead and protect them. Blergh. Vomit. Nope.

I just finished "The Dove Keepers" by Alice Hoffman. Name not with standing, this novel of four women at Masada is made for you.

 

[thaidye39]

The Tao of Pooh followed by The Te of Piglet by Benjamin Hoff.

 

[Oldscruggsfan]

Ha! I just found this on the shelf of my seventh grade classroom! Needless to say they had not touched it... they don't generally read things that they haven't had a friend read already, so I'm OK this time.

So I put it on my To Read pile on my desk instead... I'll start it soon...

I'm right in the middle of reading Treasure Island out loud to my class right now... we are learning about the Age of Exploration and Discovery and we are now at the year 1490 - so it kinda fits.

I find I need to pre-read it first and do some translation on the fly... lots of nautical terms and lore layered on top of 100 year old language... it's so thick sometimes it's impossible to follow for a 12 year old. I add in a bit here and there to clear up the vocabulary. But it's a great, very economically drawn tale, a microcosm of the sort of lack of perception that continues to dog the British Empire and may drag them all the way back to being an island of minor importance just west of the coast of Europe.

Thanks for the review... I tend to like things salty so I'm looking forward to it!

Extremely well written, but I don’t plan to finish it. Too much salt for me. As I said in my OP, when the main character visits a brothel, it’s overkill (and an insult to the reader’s imagination) for a writer to detail all the events therein.

 

[Ziret]

I just finished In The Garden Of Beasts by Erik Larson. I thought it was OK. I think I might have enjoyed it more had I read it at a different time because I have lighter fare I'd rather be reading right now. I did want to finish it but I kind of had to push my way through it. It was the story of an American family, U.S. ambassador William Dodd's, living in Berlin during Hitler's rise to power. They say that history tends to repeat itself and it's absolutely horrifying and of great concern to see the parallels between what's happening in today's political world and that of pre-war Nazi Germany.

I read it and had the same thoughts. Poor Eric Larson, he will never be able to do another The Devil in the White City and so, ever since his first book, his fans are always slightly let down. Every book he writes everyone thinks, pretty good, but not as god as The Devil in the White City.

 

[Oldscruggsfan]

I read it and had the same thoughts. Poor Eric Larson, he will never be able to do another The Devil in the White City and so, ever since his first book, his fans are always slightly let down. Every book he writes everyone thinks, pretty good, but not as god as The Devil in the White City.

Anyone who has that oponion has probably never read Isaac’s Storm, entirely non-fiction but equally fabulous IMHO.

 

[Ziret]

Anyone who has that oponion has probably never read Isaac’s Storm, entirely non-fiction but equally fabulous IMHO.

I have read it. 🙂 I think I’ve read everything he’s written. I liked Isaac’s Storm a lot, but not as much as Devil. It’s hard to beat a 19th century serial killer operating out of his purpose-built mansion, in the middle of a World’s Fair. But I agree with you in that Isaac’s Storm had a broader scope.

 

[Voran]

I just finished "The Dove Keepers" by Alice Hoffman. Name not with standing, this novel of four women at Masada is made for you.

Oooooh tell me more

 

[TimWilson]

I read a TON, and almost all of it is YA fantasy fiction. Yes, I appear to be a grown-ass senior citizen man, but I am in fact a teenage girl on a never-ending quest for a dreamy vampire to sweep me off my feet. 🤣

I'm currently reading two series of historical detective fiction featuring women amateur detectives, both by Deanna Raybourn.

The first series features Lady Julia Gray, and its first entry, Silent In The Grave, features one of my favorite opening sentences ever: "To say that I met Nicholas Brisbane over my husband's dead body is not entirely accurate. Edward, it should be noted, was still twitching on the floor." While Lady Julia is somewhat sheltered, as young adult women in the Victorian era typically were, even after marriage, she's part of a large family (ten siblings) headed by a "chaotic neutral" father who prided himself on raising daughters who were every bit as sharp as his sons, even with the different social expectations of them -- along with multigenerational expectations of a certain amount of eccentricity verging on outrageousness for both the male and female members of the family. Their surname is March, and their family emblem is a hare, as in "mad as a March hare." Our lady Julia is often impatient as well as stubborn, but her intelligence shines through, as does the wit sharpened by scampish brothers. Certainly any fans of the sibling dynamics in Bridgerton will find something familiar here, even if these books are overall nothing like those....but I'm on the second of five in the series, and loving it.

I'm loving her second series even better. It features Veronica Speedwell (an intentional, and oft-commented-upon botanical pun), an independently-monied butterfly hunter and researcher. I'm 5 books into the 8 of these so far, and I have to say, Veronica Speedwell is even more appealing to me than Sherlock Holmes, and I LOVE Sherlock. I think these are THAT good.

It's kind of like, I can say I PREFER George Harrison to Chuck Berry, even if George would be the first to admit that he wouldn't have been the guitarist he was without Chuck. So while I wouldn't want to live in a world without either Sherlock or Veronica, I'm choosing her every time. (Besides, I've already read and watched plenty of Sherlock!)

I also especially enjoy how often natural science figures into conversations here, including several mentions of Darwin (whose gift of a Galapagos tortoise plays a part in one of the books). Here's the publisher's description of the first of the series, A Curious Beginning:

After burying her spinster aunt, orphaned Veronica Speedwell is free to resume her world travels in pursuit of scientific inquiry—and the occasional romantic dalliance. As familiar with hunting butterflies as with fending off admirers, Veronica intends to embark upon the journey of a lifetime.

But fate has other plans when Veronica thwarts her own attempted abduction with the help of an enigmatic German baron, who offers her sanctuary in the care of his friend Stoker, a reclusive and bad-tempered natural historian. But before the baron can reveal what he knows of the plot against her, he is found murdered—leaving Veronica and Stoker on the run from an elusive assailant as wary partners in search of the villainous truth.

Even if you're not into teen-oriented fiction, if you have any fondness at all for amateur sleuths and historical fiction, you'll get a real kick out of these, despite a complete and conspicuous lack of any vampires whatsoever.