What Are You Reading During Your Staying-at-Home?????

[+ Pensant]

I’m actually writing two books: one based on my travels and many conversations in Eastern Europe, and the other a fictional account of 6 people in a remote Tennessee town.

[+ Charlie]

I mentioned in another thread that back in February I had started reading The Mosquito by Timothy Winegard, a long history of the diseases caused by mosquitoes that had altered the course of human history. I was reading it slowly, so by the time we were in lockdown I was still dealing with things like the yellow fever epidemics in the US in the late 18th century, and I finally finished only a week ago with the prospects for West Nile Virus and Zika. Although Winegard's prose style is somewhat overblown, there was an enormous amount of interesting information, not only about the diseases but also about the ways people and nations responded to them, that still seems relevant even though COVID-19 is not an epidemic spread by mosquitoes. Now I need something different, so I am reading Thomas Cahill's How the Irish Saved Civilization. When I finish that soon, I think I'l start on a recent biography of William McKinley.

[+ E.T.Bass]

If anyone is interested in Hermann Hesse, Narcissus and Goldman is set around the time of the black plague. I was just a wee lad when I read that one. Maybe now during the pandemic is a good time to return to this one, a search for the meaning of life.

[+ José Soplanucas]

Veinte poemas de amor y una canción desesperada (Spanish Edition)

Anti-Gay

by Mark Simpson

 

[+ azdr0710]

Capote was good, but I enjoyed Infamous with Toby Jones a lot more. His embodiment of Capote felt more authentic to me.

 

I'm also a sucker for seeing Sandra Bullock in dramatic material. She's really good here.

 

wow!.....thanks for the suggestion of Infamous, which I just finished watching......whereas Capote seemed quieter, less flashy, and nearly documentary-like, Infamous seemed more wide-ranging, analytical, and a bit Hollywood-ed-up......I think I felt more moved by Infamous if my being a bit more stunned and reflective when it was over is an indication......Bullock's acting was restrained, professional, and seemed accurate......Jones's Capote was more flashy/flamboyant (exaggerated?) than Philip Seymour Hoffman's portrayal, but both seemed fantastic after I settled into the eccentricities of Capote himself......the kiss was a surprise in Infamous - I didn't think they'd make that assumptive leap of faith about their relationship........both entirely fun to watch....

 

thanks @Benjamin_Nicholas for the reminder that this other interpretation was out there!!

 

now back to the thread subject!!....books!!

 

 

Edited April 30, 2020 by azdr0710

[+ Charlie]

I just finished a couple of Sherlock Holmes novels. Now I'm reading Daniel C. Dennett's Darwin's Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meanings of Life.

[SirBillybob]

The Mirror & the Light, Hilary Mantel’s final instalment in the Wolf Hall trilogy. The first two won Man Booker. We are 3 months away from this year’s long list.

[+ Charlie]

The Mirror & the Light, Hilary Mantel’s final instalment in the Wolf Hall trilogy. The first two won Man Booker. We are 3 months away from this year’s long list.

A friend of mine is also reading that.

[SirBillybob]

A friend of mine is also reading that.

Mantel is methodical and meticulous, and suffers from endometriosis that sets back her schedule, hence the delay.

[+ g56whiz]

The Mirror & the Light, Hilary Mantel’s final instalment in the Wolf Hall trilogy. The first two won Man Booker. We are 3 months away from this year’s long list.

Started it on Audible. It's great.

[+ g56whiz]

A college classmate of mine who is a retired literature professor in England is covering Dante's Inferno via podcasts - one Canto at a time each week. I got the Musa translation (with notes) on Kindle as well as a bilingual edition also on Kindle that uses the old Longfellow translation. It's a wonderful intellectual exercise.

[SirBillybob]

Started it on Audible. It's great.

 

Oh! I might sound like I have lost my head, but hope you have read Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies prior to the latest.

[+ g56whiz]

Oh! I might sound like I have lost my head, but hope you have read Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies prior to the latest.

Alas no. But I did download the 2015 Wolf Hall series to my iPad and watched several times. Magnificent!!!

[SirBillybob]

I have to admit that I did not read Ferrante’s My Brilliant Friend quadrilogy in order but that did not matter.

[Bargara Leatherboy]

As an Australian I am currently reading, “The Big Picture” by Malcolm Turnbull.

Interesting autobiography and tells his story as Prime Minister and how he got back stabbed out of Parliament.

[mike carey]

[+ WilliamM]

"Warhol"

 

A new biography by Blake Gopnik

 

"John Lennon and I once hide from Andy at the Sherry Netherlands Hotel. I wish I knew him better "

 

Elton John

[samhexum]

[+ Lucky]

I just finished Apartment, by Teddy Wayne. Two young men in Columbia's Master of Fine Arts program meet in a class. Billy, the handsome one, works at a bar and sleeps in the bar's basement office. The second guy, an unnamed narrator, benefits from a free rent-controlled apartment and the largesse of his daddy. Soon he is sharing both with cute Billy. What could go wrong? Very nicely written.

[BgMstr4u]

The Mirror & the Light, Hilary Mantel’s final instalment in the Wolf Hall trilogy. The first two won Man Booker. We are 3 months away from this year’s long list.

I finished The Mirror and the Light the other day. I did read the other two as they came out. The whole trilogy is beyond wonderful. And it may have an effect which fiction rarely has: to change the way the protagonist, in this case Thomas Cromwell, is perceived in history. He comes out of it a fully-fleshed human being. I especially like the way Mantel has researched things like clothes and food, and how she tries to make the way people think, talk and interact real to the period. Ken Follett's series beginning with The Pillars of the Earth is also wonderful on the detail level, but the people might as well be living in LA from the way they talk and think.

 

We know the end before we are at the beginning, but I have to say, when it finally arrived I was completely involved emotionally.

 

The videos of Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies were wonderful. I hope they continue with the same team and do the third.

[+ WilliamM]

Swimming in the Dark by the Polish author Tomasz Jedrowski

 

The Eternal Party by Kristina Hagman

 

She is Larry Hagman:s. daughter. Her mom outlived Larry, but was disabled with Alzheimer's, which had a major impact on their family. Of course.

Edited June 20, 2020 by WilliamM

[handiacefailure]

Been doing mainly jigsaw puzzles to pass the time but have read some stuff that I would have read anyway since my favorite authors have published books since this started.

 

Favorite is Boy in the Woods by Harlan Coben.

Also read:

If it bleeds by Stephen King

Camino Wings by John Grisham

Cilka's Journey by Heather Morris

Legacy of Lies by Robert Bailey

[+ Lucky]

Just finished The Absolution by Yrsa Sigurðardóttir. It's pretty good.

[RealAvalon]

Talented Mr. Ripley, by Patricia Highsmith (1955)

Capital and Ideology, by Thomas Piketty (2020)

[JayCeeKy]

Every Drop of Blood: The Momentous Second Inauguration of Abraham Lincoln by Edward Achorn

 

What It's Like to Be a Bird: From Flying to Nesting, Eating to Singing--What Birds Are Doing, and Why (Sibley Guides) by David Allen Sibley

 

Prisoners of Geography: Ten Maps That Explain Everything About the World by Tim Marshall

 

Kim by Rudyard Kipling. I was made to read this short novel in 5th grade but had no clue what it was all about. Recently I bought the Modern Library edition on Ebay and, with the help of the Internet (and Alexa), I was able to get through it, fulfilling a promise to myself 60 years ago that some day I would reread it and figure out what the hell it was all about.