What are you reading?

[ppk]

In the middle of Circe by Madeline Miller. Amazing! It's such a easy, good read, I am slowing down and savoring it.

 

[smittycl]

In the middle of Circe by Madeline Miller. Amazing! It's such a easy, good read, I am slowing down and savoring it.

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Pat Barker’s now complete trilogy on the Women of Troy is fantastic. Read the first two and should get final book soon.

The Women of Troy Series

Buy books online and find book series such as The Women of Troy Series written by Pat Barker from PenguinRandomHouse.com

www.penguinrandomhouse.com

 

[imatlas]

Hippie College used to require all incoming freshpersons to read The Iliad; it’s been fun to see the revived interest in it lately. We read the Lattimore translation, btw.

Circe was terrific. Been meaning to read Song of Achilles.

 

[ppk]

Hippie College used to require all incoming freshpersons to read The Iliad; it’s been fun to see the revived interest in it lately. We read the Lattimore translation, btw.

Circe was terrific. Been meaning to read Song of Achilles.

St. John's?

 

[Black Lotus]

In the middle of Circe by Madeline Miller. Amazing! It's such a easy, good read, I am slowing down and savoring it.

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Also read The Song of Achilles if you haven't.

 

[double00]

St. John's?

i'm guessing Reed but who knows

 

[am55]

Ismail Kadare's Palace of Dreams was pretty good.

 

[am55]

Hippie College used to require all incoming freshpersons to read The Iliad; it’s been fun to see the revived interest in it lately. We read the Lattimore translation, btw.

Circe was terrific. Been meaning to read Song of Achilles.

This is also fun: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_Music_(poem)

 

[smittycl]

https://wapo.st/4arBdxS

 

[Fueco]

Apparently I have a dark sense of humor.

 

[Kaplan]

Robert E Howard: The Bloody Crown of Conan, 1934-36.

"I see well enough now that you are alive, but I swear, when I turned and saw you standing all gray and dim in the twilight, the marrow of my knees turned to water. It is an ill thing to meet a man you thought dead in the woodland at dusk."

The second of the three great Del Rey books that collect all of Howard's writing on Conan, this one presenting two short stories and the only full Conan novel The Hour of the Dragon (still rather short at about 170 pages). The weakest here is the story A Witch Shall Be Born, but both The People of the Black Circle and the novel are great. Especially the novel which at times reads like a Shakespearean play, most noticeable when his scheming antagonists enter the stage and start plotting - including against other members of their own group. Howard's prose elevates what might have been trite to being nearly mythological and just a joy to read.

 

[edinatlanta]

This is stunning about 1/4 through. And the translation is also impressive.

Funny to think I have now read two Japanese books dealing with European Catholic priests set before 1800 which probably means I have read the vast majority of those books.

 

[edinatlanta]

 

[Geoffrey Firmin]

This is stunning about 1/4 through. And the translation is also impressive.

Funny to think I have now read two Japanese books dealing with European Catholic priests set before 1800 which probably means I have read the vast majority of those books.

Is one of those The Samurai by Shusaku Endo?

 

[Kaplan]

Jack Vance: The Dying Earth, 1950.

"In this waning hour of Earth's life no man could count himself familiar with the glens, the glades, the dells and deeps, the secluded clearings, the ruined pavilions, the sundappled pleasaunces, the gullys and heights, the various brooks, freshets, ponds, the meadows, thickets, brakes and rocky outcrops."

It's been nearly two years since I first read this, and since I felt the time had come to read the other three in this cycle a re-read of the first was in order. Vance writes like no one else, his prose likely being too purple for some, but the combination of style and his immense vocabulary coupled with fitting made-up words make for a unique reading experience that perfectly matches and becomes part of his otherworldly setting. A quote that resonates with me, taken from here:

"My own belief is that Vance can best be conceived as a tailor of prose, to whom plots are the tailor’s dummies on which to array the wonderfully cut and remarkably colored garments that are his real business. The dummies must be sturdy and shaped well enough to properly hold and show off those garments, but fashioning such dummies is not what his craft is all about."

The first time I read this was in the original paperback from 1950, which I think is the only true first edition I own - cover below (though mine is in better nick than this one from Wikipedia):

- now I'm reading it in the omnibus from Orb that collects all four Dying Earth novels, while I try to ignore the bad cover art (not super bad in isolation, but it plays up the SF element too much). For anyone interested in a nice print copy of The Dying Earth, the one here is the best I've seen. Below is the full wrap-around cover.