What are You Reading?

[Zippo5]

Currently reading Butter by Asako Yuzuki. Engaging and original, if a bit strange. Interesting insights into some aspects of Japanese culture.

[MikeBiDude]

36 minutes ago, Zippo5 said:

I really like Kingsolver and enjoyed Demon Copperhead. But prefer The Lacuna and can highly recommend it.

I’ve read The Lacuna and would also recommend to anyone. I’ve started Demon Copperhead…5 hour flight later today so I’ll have time to enjoy!

[AtticusBK]

I haven’t read The Lacuna yet, but I loved Kingsolver’s Poisonwood Bible when it came out (25+ years ago?). Am almost finished w Demon Copperhead. 

[+ Lucky]

On 4/4/2025 at 11:57 AM, MikeBiDude said:

I’ve read The Lacuna and would also recommend to anyone. I’ve started Demon Copperhead…5 hour flight later today so I’ll have time to enjoy!

It's not a 5 hour flight to Palm Springs from your location! Or is that your next flight?

[+ Charlie]

I am presently reading Albion's Seed, by David Hackett Fischer,  a study of how the cultures of four different parts of the United States were permanently affected by the origins of the English colonists who settled there during the colonial period in American history. For example, the settlers who came to New England came mostly from East Anglia, while the settlers who came to Virginia came mostly from western and southern England, and each group left very different influences on the religious and political cultures of the two areas--even on their linguistic features--which persist to the present. It is a fascinating subject to me, but it is so meticulously documented that the text runs to almost a thousand pages, with innumerable footnotes, bibliographies, etc.,  often in tiny print, so the bulky paperback version is hard to handle..

[+ poolboy48220]

I just put this on hold at the library and I'm looking forward to reading it. Believe : the untold story behind Ted Lasso, the show that kicked its way into our hearts by Egner, Jeremy

[+ Just Sayin]

I just read a short story in the March 31 issue of The New Yorker, "Hatagaya Lore," by Bryan Washington; he is a 32-year old African American gay author and his novel "Family Meal" was shortlisted for the 2024 Lambda Literary Award for Gay Fiction; the short story is about a young man who moves to Tokyo with his partner for the partner's tech job, but who stays there after his partner returns to the U.S.; it's about his development of his own life in Tokyo; I thoroughly enjoyed it.  Here's a link, but you may not be able to open it if you are not a subscriber: 

“Hatagaya Lore,” by Bryan Washington | The New Yorker

WWW.NEWYORKER.COM

---

The bar was mostly empty, but Aaliyah was playing, so I passed the bartender some yen, and after he mixed my drink...

 

[+ azdr0710]

I periodically open up "The Day Before America" by William H MacLeish......

"MacLeish paints a heart-rending portrait of the lush, miraculous New World on the eve of the Encounter - the arrival of the first Europeans, after which nothing would be the same"

inside the front cover is a map of the extent of the North American ice sheets during the Ice Age...... and inside the back cover is a 1992 map of the US federal and Interstate highways.....incredible juxtaposition!   

 

  

[+ poolboy48220]

17 hours ago, azdr0710 said:

I periodically open up "The Day Before America" by William H MacLeish......

"MacLeish paints a heart-rending portrait of the lush, miraculous New World on the eve of the Encounter - the arrival of the first Europeans, after which nothing would be the same"

inside the front cover is a map of the extent of the North American ice sheets during the Ice Age...... and inside the back cover is a 1992 map of the US federal and Interstate highways.....incredible juxtaposition!   

 

  

sounds very much like "1491", by Charles C. Mann. I picked that up after reading a science fiction novel about time travel and Christopher Columbus, but I've never finished it.

[+ DrownedBoy]

I finally had a chance to read a gay Holocaust memoir. Published after I left school. Very harsh and doesn't end very happily. Scary that he went from a libertine Frenchman in a somewhat gay friendly environment to a concentration camp, then forced labor and military service.

[AtticusBK]

This isn’t a judgement by any means, but some of you read some of the most obscure and/or dense stuff. I guess I’m surprised bc I’m mostly a fiction, and sometimes narrative nonfiction, reader.

Speaking of fiction, I hiiiiighly recommend JAMES by Percival Everett, a retelling of Huck Finn from Jim the slave’s POV. It’s super smart, a total page-turner, great dialogue, etc. I read it in a day or so. It’s won numerous awards including the National Book Award. I wouldn’t be surprised if it wins the Pulitzer next month. 

Edited April 11 by AtticusBK

[TonyDown]

Before Norman Rockwell....a famous American illustrator.

[OklahomaBill]

Mostly sci-fi. Right now in reading book 2 in the Grave of Empire series by Sam Sykes

[+ Charlie]

A niece by marriage gave me a Book of the Month membership as a Christmas gift. Every month they send me a list of the books available that month, and I have yet to order a single one of them. They are all fiction, which I hardly ever read any longer, a fact which would probably confound her, since she knows that two of my degrees are in English literature. I have simply lost interest in most fiction, and would much rather read history or social science subjects.

[+ Lucky]

3 hours ago, Charlie said:

A niece by marriage gave me a Book of the Month membership as a Christmas gift. Every month they send me a list of the books available that month, and I have yet to order a single one of them. They are all fiction, which I hardly ever read any longer, a fact which would probably confound her, since she knows that two of my degrees are in English literature. I have simply lost interest in most fiction, and would much rather read history or social science subjects.

Uh-hem.

[+ azdr0710]

On 4/13/2025 at 12:30 AM, TonyDown said:

Before Norman Rockwell....a famous American illustrator.

earlier forum discussion....I'd never heard of him and his story before this forum chatter.......

https://www.companyofmen.org/topic/144010-leyendecker-show-at-historical-society/

https://www.companyofmen.org/topic/71209-when-they-were-young/page/13/#comment-1173016

 

[TonyDown]

3 hours ago, azdr0710 said:

earlier forum discussion....I'd never heard of him and his story before this forum chatter.......

https://www.companyofmen.org/topic/144010-leyendecker-show-at-historical-society/

https://www.companyofmen.org/topic/71209-when-they-were-young/page/13/#comment-1173016

 

 

Thanks!

I've found there were exhibitions on both coasts that I missed.  

If @Moondance returns to the forum, would love to know the source of his Leyendecker content.  

 

Edited June 13 by TonyDown

[+ DrownedBoy]

I'm reading "Dame of Stark" by Sibyl Hathaway.

This old woman used an obsolete title and acting skills to control a Nazi occupation, and eventually ended up in direct command of 250+ Nazi soldiers, some of whom she sent to their death. I'm sure Goffman would have had something to say about that.

[+ Charlie]

I am reading West of the Revolution: An Uncommon History of 1776, by Claudio Saunt. While the Americans were fighting for independence from the British in the east, the Spanish and Russians were trying to expand their empires in what eventually became the western United States and Canada.

Edited 6 hours ago by Charlie