What Are You Reading?

[Fulcanelli]

Writing has to do with words, so I'm guessing of you also like to read. I do. I'm obsessed with it and have hundreds of books in my small space. In fact, I was recently forced to consolidate my holdings because my quantity of books was considered a fire hazzard. Actually, I didn't mind thinning out a bit and I still have eight shelves crammed with books (some two piles deep.)

 

So of course I'm curious what you guys read. If I visited your homes, after I looked through your fountain pens, I'd probably mosey over to the bookshelf.

 

I like mostly non-fiction and read in my special interests, but for this query I thought I would stick to fiction. I haven't been too successful reading fiction lately. Hmmm...

 

However, in my fiction pile is Middlesex by Jeffery Eugenides. And a while ago I bought You Shall Know Us by Our Velocity! by Eggers. And then I've always wanted to read something by Faulkner. I recently picked up a wonderful photography book called Faulkner's Mississippi with text by Willie Moore ("My Dog Skip") and photos by Wm. Eggleston, a wonderful artist.

 

What's in your reading pile?

[Leslie J.]

I am never without at least 3 books to read. I accumulate so many, every year I take a box full to a used bookseller to recoup some of my money. Then I buy more books.

 

Thanks for the Eugenides recommendation. I loved The Virgin Suicides, so I ordered Middlesex from Amazon. May is book buying month for me.

 

I just recently finished The DaVinci Code, Illustrated Edition, which was a fun read. I'd bought the book for my husband, and never really expected to like it myself, but it was good.

 

Currently I'm finishing the last 3 books of the Dark Tower series by Stephen King. In general, horror is my favourite genre. It's my not so guilty pleasure and always has been.

 

I'm reading Vanity Fair on the side this year. I am going to read Virginia Woolf later on. I'm also planning a foray into David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest which was also recommended to me. I could go on and on. I take recommendations freely. I am a book nerd who has recently sustained a tendon injury in my right arm by constantly hefting large hardcover novels.

[Keith with a capital K]

I just finished reading "The Pianist" by Wladyslaw Szpilman and most of my reading this week has been mountains of work related paperwork and when I say mountains I'm not kidding.

[KendallJ]

My "to read" stack is usually 6-8 books deep, and I've got 3 started right now:

 

"Against the Gods, The Remarkable Story of Risk"

"Bringing the Jobs Home, How the Left Created the Outsourcing Crisis, and How we can Fix It"

"Constitutional Chaos, What Happens When the Govt Breaks Its Own Laws"

[Joe]

I'm currently reading 'Fear of Writing' by Milli Thornton.

 

 

Joe.

[Guest Denis Richard]

Just finished "Vol de Nuit" and "Terre des Hommes" by Saint-Exupéry, and currently reading "Pilote de Guerre" by the same author, and "Bird by Bird" by Anne Lamott.

[Fulcanelli]

I loved The Virgin Suicides, so I ordered Middlesex from Amazon.

 

I just recently finished The DaVinci Code, Illustrated Edition, which was a fun read.

Did you see the film, The Virgin Suicides as well? I did, and am quite a fan of offbeat films like that. I had heard that one of my favorite books, The Fermata by Nicholson Baker is also in the process of becoming a film.

 

And speaking of film, so is The Di Vinci Code. It's slated for 2006, with Ron Howard directing Tom Hanks in the lead role. It's an interesting book for sure. I even have a first edition. Yikes. A friend told me about that one early on from the Salon web site. I had read Holy Blood Holy Grail in the late 80s, so the material wasn't new to me. I read on Templars, Grail legends, mythology, alchemy, that sort of thing. Even though Dan Brown says he 'discovered' the material on his own, I read somewhere that the authors of Holy Blood Holy Grail were suing him. LOL.

 

Ultimately I had issues with Holy Blood Holy Grail because the authors made so many outrageous statements about what happened, what people said but didn't footnote or reference their sources. That really killed it for me.

[Leslie J.]

Did you see the film, The Virgin Suicides as well? I did, and am quite a fan of offbeat films like that. I had heard that one of my favorite books, The Fermata by Nicholson Baker is also in the process of becoming a film.

I loved that movie too.

 

I figured I might as well read TDVC, since I knew a movie was coming out and like to read books before the movie comes out. The material wasn't exactly new to me either, which is why I didn't buy into the conspiracy theory too much.

 

I will check out The Fermata. I live for book recommendations. I have about 3000 pages of reading before me right now, but I find that summer is my busiest reading time. Always has been.

 

I am such a book geek. I should have been a librarian. Unfortunately, our libraries in this city are just terrible.

[Velma]

Right now? I'm rereading an old John D. MacDonald book, The Beach Girls; somewhere in the apartment is an early Gilbert Sorrentino novel, The Sky Changes; I'm also reskimming Sorrentino's Mulligan Stew; and there are about a half-dozen other books, including poetry by John Ashbery based on Henry Darger's mythos, that I've started, and put down someplace safe in the apartment.

 

I read very fast, and voraciously, and reread a lot of things when I'm unsettled. A good friend is in the hospital, so I'm unpacking all of my security blanket authors, and rereading them. (Sorrentino is the easiest of authors, but he's fun.)

[kd6dxa]

Right now, since I'm working on my doctorate in philosophy, most of my reading and bookshelf space is taken up by philosophy books. I have always had a guilty obsession with Star Trek novels, though, so I try to squeeze those in when I can to make sure I get some light reading done. I just picked up a copy of the Ciardi translation of Dante's Inferno, too, which I am rereading in my spare time. My normal non-school shelves, when I have room for them and the books are not in boxes, are amazingly diverse. I have always been a broad reader, and I enjoy something from most every genre. My all-time favorite novels, though are probably 1984 by Orwell and Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery (odd combo, huh?). I always seem to be reading at least three or four books at a time, though. I can never stick to just one.

Edited May 4, 2005 by kd6dxa

[Leslie J.]

One of my fears in life is that I won't physically be able to read all the books I want to read, or have enough time. I can never stick to just one book. I need 3 or 4 standing ready at all times or I start to panic.

Edited May 4, 2005 by Leslie J.

[mchristi]

I recently finished Donald Kagan's The Peloponnesian War. I'm now reading Jane Austen's novel Persuasion. I also have several books on the side that I read when I want something different. Currently those include The Isles by Norman Davies (a history of the British isles), Understanding The Lord of the Rings (a collection of Tolkien criticism), and Illuminating the Word (about the making of the St. John's Bible).

 

Mark C.

[Maja]

Just finished The Da Vinci Code ( has everyone on this planet read this book before me or what? ) and wasn't too impressed with the writer's writing style, but the hardcover book was a Christmas gift from my parents and I wanted to read it before the film came out. I had also read the allegations against Brown (for ripping off many of the ideas) from the authors of Holy Blood Holy Grail. The novel was enjoyable for me because the settings in it (TDVC) reminded me of the great time I had travelling around central Europe in the early 1990's.

 

I never did get around to finishing the book in my 2nd yr. American Lit course ( ) but I am now re-reading All the King's Men by Robert Penn Warren.....which is also being made into a film (starring Sean Penn as Willie Stark, I believe).

[Fulcanelli]

I just picked up a copy of the Ciardi translation of Dante's Inferno, too, which I am rereading in my spare time.

I don't know why, but I've wanted to read this book. In fact, I have one, just the first in the Penguin series, Volume 1: the Inferno. This is a translation by Mark Musa. I haven't read it yet (and please don't ask me when a bought it because it wasn't yesterday. )I picked this one up because it is loaded with notes and explanations. When I bought it, there were a few different translations. You mentioned you are reading the Ciardi translation. What is special about this translation that you would mention that?

 

Thanks.

[Stylo]

One of my fears in life is that I won't physically be able to read all the books I want to read, or have enough time.

This is currently a reality for me in the worst form possible The last book I read was "Skunk Works", which is not exactly a litterary book, and which I read well over two years ago. This, from someone who read one book a day one summer during my teen years, some thicker than 600 pages. Between work, a long commute, a young son, a house, and family obligations, I only find time to read regulary magazines and newspapers. All this is of course partly an excuse, but it makes it very hard to get going again (but this thread may be encouragement to do so).

 

But here are a few of some of the books I have liked:

 

"Le voyageur du temps" (the Time Traveller) from Barjavel. Science fiction with some evolution theory thrown in a and an interesting plot (still rememebering a lot about the book after 22-23 years).

 

The Trilogy from Asimov, and an incredible book of short stories from him.

 

"L'etranger" of Camus (another book, La Peste, wasn't as enjoyable to my young mind then).

 

A number of Marquis de Sade books and a recent Sade biography. (you need an open mind for these ones)

 

Fahreneit 451 (must have read it in 20+ years ago).

[Mike]

I'm almost finished with Neal Stephenson's System of the World, the third and last volume of his "Baroque Cycle". Before that I was reading some 1960's government reports on assassination and political violence, and then the first two NASA volumes of photographs from space. Next will probably be Nevada Barr's newest novel, or maybe a 1920's edition of Locke that once belonged to, and has extensive marginalia by, the late Richard Hofstadter.

 

My wife and I have around 1200 books in our one-bedroom apartment, and another 400 or so in storage; the former are mostly hardcover, the latter mostly mass-market paperbacks. Part of this (a very small part, admittedly) is "stock"; I haphazardly but successfully buy and sell books online as a side business.

[Thesaurus Rex]

"Barchester Towers" by Anthony Trollope, a delightfully wicked and society-skewering Victorian novel. It has made me laugh out loud on a number of occasions. I have slowed down as I pulled into the last third of the book because I don't really want it to be over.

 

Next? I want to read "Never Let Me Go", the new Kuzuo Ishiguro novel.

[Fulcanelli]

I'm almost finished with Neal Stephenson's System of the World, the third and last volume of his "Baroque Cycle".

How was it? I have a problem with Stephenson, and I don't know why. I read 2/3 of Snowcrash and really liked it, but at a point, got bogged down with how he felt a need identify every object with a proper noun. I really want to get back there some day and just forge through because the book was excellent. I have Cryptonomicon, weighing in at 928 pages, and with never enough time to read...I hear it is a phenomenal book. I also bought the first book in the Baroque series, Quicksilver, but didn't read this one as well.

 

Yes, I do have a 'few' books around my place that I haven't read yet. If I had more time to read, this wouldn't be a problem, but as I'm always bolting off into different directions with my reading, it is a problem.

 

Was the Baroque Cycle completely satisfying for you?

[John]

Currently reading a <I>Festschrift</I> dedicated to the late Edward Thompson and a volume of papers on the family and sexuality in early modern France. I'm also about half way through the BBC audio version of Anthony Powell's <I>A Dance to the Music of Time</I> which I have in the CD player in the car. I've read the books three or four times and I'm struck by how much better the BBC Radio version is than the Channel 4 TV adaptation.

[KendallJ]

I'm almost finished with Neal Stephenson's System of the World, the third and last volume of his "Baroque Cycle".

How was it?

PENSPOTTING NOTE

 

This thread led me to Stephenson's site (since I read Snowcrash, a long time ago) and I found this:

 

Colophon

The manuscript of The Baroque Cycle was written by hand on 100% cotton paper using three different fountain pens: a Waterman Gentleman, a Rotring, and a Jorg Hysek. It was then transcribed, edited, formatted and printed using emacs and TeX. When it was totally finished, the TeX version of of the ms. was converted to Quark XPress format using an emacs LISP program written by the author...