What have you read recently? 2009 -2020

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About half way through "I, Claudius" by Robert Graves. Absolutely mesmerising - and it completely reverses the writing mantra of "show, don't tell".
 
The Raven's Gift, by Don Rearden, is a bit like Cormac McCarthy's, The Road, set in the Alaskan tundra. The narrative flashing back and forth between a couple of teachers learning the ropes of their new life as teachers in a remote Alaskan village and one of them struggling to survive after the entire area is destroyed by some sort of bird flu. Part thriller, part love story. Quite a good read.
 
don, is the Raven's Gift as depressing as The Road? After much consideration, I grew to appreciate The Road, but hesitated to recommend it to DH. Yours sounds ever so slightly cheerier, maybe?
 
Yes, it is more upbeat. The author uses the plot to educate us a bit on Alaskan native culture and problems. It is an interesting glimpse at people most of us know next to nothing about. The ending has an element of redemption or maybe re-awakening.
 
I was down in the public market one sunny day last week. At the Pike Street entrance, just above a butcher shop there is an old fashioned leftist used book store. On an outside rack, for $1 I picked up a hardback called All Loves Excelling, by Josiah Bunting III, who was at the time of writing or shortly before the headmaster of The Lawrenceville School near Princeton, NJ. It's a story about a young woman of very average talents who wants to go to Dartmouth (and her hard charging mother who wants this even more). She gets sent away to a (I think fictional) school called St. Matthews in upstate New York to give her a PG year providing crash course and SAT improvement, grade polishing, resume rounding etc. Excellent book in every way, by a very skilled writer who really knows this milieu. And it could even be instructive for those parents who are inclined to be pushing pretty strongly on their kids.

Bunting, who served in Vietnam also wrote The Lionheads, which has been called the best novel of Vietnam. It was not even in the Seattle Library, but I got a used copy on Amazon and am eagerly awaiting its arrival.

Josiah Bunting III - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Ha
 
I have begun re-reading Thomas Malory's Le Mort d'Arthur for the first time in over half a century.

What strikes me the most now (that didn't even occur to me as a teen) is how awful it must have been to be a woman back in those days compared with today. The role of women in society at that time was, appropriately, simply Medieval! :ROFLMAO:

But to be honest, as a modern woman who has had so many opportunities in life, I am not so sure I want to read much more of this book for that reason.
 
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The typical enjoyable crap that I like to read, Stephen King's Dr. Sleep. The sequel to The Shining. Not as good as the first, but a decent read.
 
I am a huge Sue Grafton fan so when her new book "W is for Wasted " came out I immediately bought it . What a disappointment ! It lacks something because it is not up to par with her other books .
 
W2R said:
I have begun re-reading Thomas Malory's Le Mort d'Arthur for the first time in over half a century.

What strikes me the most now (that didn't even occur to me as a teen) is how awful it must have been to be a woman back in those days compared with today. The role of women in society at that time was, appropriately, simply Medieval! :ROFLMAO:

But to be honest, as a modern woman who has had so many opportunities in life, I am not so sure I want to read much more of this book for that reason.
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Very awful - of course, it was pretty awful to be just about anybody at that time in history: Life Expectancy in the Middle Ages | Sarah Woodbury
 
traineeinvestor said:
Very awful - of course, it was pretty awful to be just about anybody at that time in history: Life Expectancy in the Middle Ages | Sarah Woodbury
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So true! We have come such a long way since medieval times. Reading about life back then has not been as romantic and intriguing to me as I expected.

I was also pretty appalled a few years ago when going on a tour of a local (historical) plantation. The lives of even the plantation owner's family seemed miserable and appalling compared with what our modern civilization and technology has provided for us in the 21st century. Even just air conditioning and electric lights have made such a difference.
 
W2R said:
So true! We have come such a long way since medieval times. Reading about life back then has not been as romantic and intriguing to me as I expected.
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two fun books to read about the middle ages are Ken Follet's Pillars of the Earth and World Without End. Both give interesting glimpses into what life might have been like at that time and have rich melodramatic characters and brisk moving action filled plots...surprisingly engaging about a topic I came to with little interest. (the first book is about an architect wanting to build a cathedral--Yawn- I thought --but could not put it down and was sorry when it ended 800+ pages later)
 
Almost finished with Tom Brokaw's The Greatest Generation and the The Greatest Generation Speaks, a section (book?) in the same book.

It reminds me of some of the hardships that I didn't learn about until I was in my 40's that my mother had to endure growing up in the Depression. Her father was a railroad brakeman and had to leave the job because of health issues. They never had to stand in bread lines but there were times they were only a few days away from that. It explained why she always kept enough canned food in the basement to feed an entire town. At least it seemed that way.

My father's family was only slightly better off. His father had a six-day-a-week job in a paper mill. Dad was partly deaf in one ear so he was an electrician on Coast Guard ships during the War.

It didn't matter if your job was "fulfilling" or allowed ER. If it put a roof overhead and food on the table it was a good job. That was the world my parents grew up in.

It makes me very appreciative for what they did.
 
The shoes of the fisherman, Morris West.
 
The Red Sparrow, by Jason Mathews, is a top notch spy procedural. Mathews couples 31 years of CIA clandestine operations with a deft pen to craft a novel I couldn't put down. I hope this guy has more in him like this.

The Red Sparrow of the title is a 26 year old Russian woman agent enlisted to track down a high level mole operating out of the Kremlin. She is targeted to co-opt the mole's young CIA handler who is targeted to co-opt her at the same time. The Kremlin has it's own high-level US mole so intelligence flowing back and forth keep the narrative tense. Lots of twists, fascinating characters, romance, betrayal, humor --- this book has everything a spy thriller should. If you like the genre put it on your must read list.
 
I just finished this spy novel: Amazon.com: Young Philby: A Novel eBook: Robert Littell: Kindle Store

It follows Philby's early years before his defection to the Soviet Union. For me it was an interesting discussion of what happened in parts of Europe during WW2. The character of Philby is explored in considerable depth. There is a surprising twist at the end. The book moves somewhat slowly but it's a short read.

When I looked Philby up on Wikipedia it had this nugget:
John le Carré (David Cornwell) depicts Philby as Bill Haydon, the upper-class traitor in the 1974 novel Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. The novel has been adapted as a 1979 TV miniseries, a 2011 film, and radio dramatisations in 1988 and 2009. In real life, Philby had ended le Carré's intelligence officer career by betraying him to the Russians.
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Quite interesting to a spy novel reader after all these years to learn of this, if true.
 
I have just begun reading "The Skies Belong to Us," a book written by Brendan Koerner (whom I saw on C-Span's BookTV) about the hijacking of U.S. commercial airplanes (mostly to Cuba) back in the 1960s and early 1970s before the FAA and the airlines finally agreed to implement some basic sceening to keep weapons off the planes. Even if I were reading this before 9/11, I would have been stunned by how those parties resisted congressional attempts to pass laws allowing for passenger screening and to increase the penalties for hijackers.
 
Last night I re-read Siddhartha, by H. Hesse, for the first time in 45 years. This book is about a young man's spiritual quest and is available on Kindle for nothing or nearly so (I got a different version for $0.00 several months ago but I don't see it now). Siddhartha used to be very popular among young hippies in the 1960's, but I found it is still fascinating and meaningful to me all these years later. Actually I got more from it this time due to having 45 more years of life experiences to draw on.

It is still a very quick read (2-3 hours, I suppose, depending on how much one wishes to pause and ponder). Well worth re-reading, if you are of a spiritual bent and interested in eastern philosophical viewpoints.
 
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W2R said:
Last night I re-read Siddhartha, by H. Hesse, for the first time in 45 years. This book is about a young man's spiritual quest and is available on Kindle for nothing or nearly so (I got a different version for $0.00 several months ago but I don't see it now). Siddhartha used to be very popular among young hippies in the 1960's, but I found it is still fascinating and meaningful to me all these years later. Actually I got more from it this time due to having 45 more years of life experiences to draw on.

It is still a very quick read (2-3 hours, I suppose, depending on how much one wishes to pause and ponder). Well worth re-reading, if you are of a spiritual bent and interested in eastern philosophical viewpoints.
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That reminds me of "The Wisdom of Insecurity," by Allan Watts. I read it in college and experienced some stunning insight I soon forgot. I re-read it a couple or three decades later but couldn't recapture the insight. It is still on my shelf -- maybe I will retry. My daughter has Siddhartha so I can pull her copy out an try that one again.
 
Reading Steinbeck's "The Grapes of Wrath" for the first time. I just finished reading "Not a Drop to Drink" by Mindy McGinnis.
 
Judas the Obscure by Thomas Hardy. Set during the Victorian Age in England -about people making stupid choices, living immoral lives and coming to tragic ends. Just wanted to slap them but it was an interesting book.
 
Finishing up 'The Monuments Men'. Good read about a small group of people that were put together during WWII to help preserve cultural items during the war and to recover all of the art work and items stolen by the Nazis. It is being made into a movie starring George Clooney and Matt Damon due out early next year.
 
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I picked up Overdosed America, By Dr. John Abramson, at the library the other day. This is an excellent look at the way big pharma and other commercial players in the medical industry have distorted medical research, medical practice, and even medical knowledge in the US. This 2008 edition is a little long in the tooth but still an eye opening look at a significant component of what ails us.
 
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