I guess it kinda dates me, doesn’t it, that I read Yates’ work when it was new and exciting. Now it’s in a “Classics” edition, and the young turk scholars regard her as a pioneer to be scored against … sigh. Time just keeps marching on!
To my mind at least, the most interesting aspect of hermeticism is the way that 17th century thinkers managed, somehow, to spin ‘non-woo’ out of ‘woo’ - a task mentally the equivalent of picking oneself up by one’s bootstraps.
This stuff is probably old hat to you, but to me it was a real revelation; like most people I regarded these hermetical orders as, essentially, either venues for charlitans predating on the credulous, or frats for making contacts. They were that, of course, but also apparently had significant real-world impact - not least on the early history of science.
Thanks to the fact that I am now taking the train to work rather than driving (well…on those days when I can wake up early enough, at any rate), I now have more reading time on my hands.
Recently finished my second voyage through Call of the Wild, and am now about a third of the way through White Fang. London’s writing is simply astonishing.
Also on my nightstand is Lost In A Good Book, the first follow-up to Jasper Fford’s mindbending literary feast The Eyre Affair.
Just finished Philip Jose Farmer’s The Celestial Blueprint and now rreading his Cache from Outer Space. I’ve also turned up a copy of Shepard Mead’s How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, which I’ve wanted to read for years.
After that, I don’t know. My daughter is after me to read the sequels to The Hunger Games. I have a stack by my bed and another old stack I’ve just rediscovered. But nothing really leaps out at me.
On audio, I’m reading Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Ring of Thoth and other Stories.
Lost in a Good Book is my current audiobook (and a re-read). I kind of wish I’d re-read The Eyre Affair first, but am familiar enough with Thursday Next & her adventures to be comfortable with the story. The narrator (Emily Gray) is quite entertaining, tho I’ve been hoping to hear an actual “plock” from Pickwick, the dodo!
My Mount ToBeRead selection - just finished Bradbury Speaks: Too Soon from the Cave, Too Far from the Stars - a collection of essays written from the 1960’s thru the 2000’s. I love Bradbury’s way with words, but the collection felt a little disjointed; the content was almost all recycled from other sources & in some cases, it felt as if the context was lost. While most of the essays were entertaining; I think I’d rather be reading his fiction.
Still on a Great War kick after my 2nd re-reading of Parade’s End, seeing Lawrence of Arabia again made me pick up Hero–Michael Korda’s biography of Lawrence.
At this point, the Revolt is catching fire but Lawrence is already haunted by fears about the Allies’ plans to carve up the Middle East after the War. The French were convinced they had rights to Syria–going back to the Crusades. And we know about the British. Yup, that went well…
Well, I read about the first 70 pages of Naked Lunch… it was fun at first, but I think I’m about done. Clearly groundbreaking in its time, but hasn’t held up well.
I really liked The Lake, but it was so short. I rather like Banana Yoshimoto’s style. I was expecting a female Murakami, but it was nothing like that. I wish I was more knowledgable about the cult that Nakajima’s past is a reference to. I wish they had gone into more detail for my sake, but it probably would have been redundant to the Japanese reader, like going into detail about Waco for most Americans.
Next up is Almost Chimpanzee: Searching For What Makes Us Human, In Rainforests, Labs, Sanctuaries, And Zoos by Jon Cohen. I hope to learn a lot about myself.
Picked up a couple of books at the library last weekend: The Russian Fascists: Tragedy and Farce in Exile, 1925-1945 by John Stephan and Byzantium: The Early Centuries by John Julius Norwich. Both books I had read many years ago but enjoyed so when I saw them on the shelf I decided to reread them.
Well, I finally pulled the bookmark out of Saint Augustine’s ‘Confessions’. Too much sweat for not enough reward. I’ll try again in a few years.
Meanwhile, I read through ‘The Lovely Bones’ by Alice Sebold in a couple of days. It was lovely and touching. I wasn’t sure whether the story would be a mystery or not until about 2/3 of the way through - it is told from the point of view of a murder victim after her death.
I also just finished ‘The Essential Marcus Aurelius’., translated by Jacob Needleman and John P. Piazza. This was my first encounter with Marcus Aurelius, and, while I find his philosophy quite engaging, I found the translation to be rather New Age. Every aphorism read like it should have been printed on a poster with a rainbow and a waterfall. Since I’d like to read the complete ‘Meditations’ someday, I think I’ll try another translation to see if someone’s managed to make it seem less like Jack Handey’s ‘Deep Thoughts’.
Up next - I’m midway through Lewis Thomas’ ‘The Lives of a Cell’. I love the clarity of his science writing as well as his musical thoughts. I also have ‘A Brief History of Heresy’ by G. R. Evans, which I’ve barely started, and Stef Penney’s ‘The Tenderness of Wolves’, which someone here recommended last month.
Speaking of recommendations, does anyone here have a) a history of the early Christian church that they would recommend? or b) a translation of Confucius that they would recommend? I’d be interested to hear your thoughts…
The Technologists was over-the-top fun. Very steampunk, blowing up half of Boston. Now reading The Bedlam Detective by Stephen Gallagher, about a representative of the Master of Lunacy (!) come to check on the sanity of a nobleman whose relatives think he’s gone around the bend, and on whose land young women have gone missing/been raped over the years. When he arrives, there is a search going on for two little girls, and they are soon discovered brutally murdered. Fast reading so far.
You may remember that as, played by Richard Harris, he appears as the elderly ruler at the beginning of Gladiator.
I picked up Dick Cheney’s autobio, In My Time, which I saw it at the library, to see what he had to say about 9/11 and the invasion of Iraq. I’ve also been skimming The Real Elizabeth, a somewhat superficial bio of the Queen by Andrew Marr.
Over the weekend I read The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet, by David Mitchell, and it was excellent! I liked it better than his Cloud Atlas, which was pretty darn good. Mitchell is a hell of a writer. Thousand Autumns is an historical novel which begins in 1799, when clerk Jacob de Zoet is employed by the Dutch East India Company and stationed on Dejima, an artificial island in the bay of Nagasaki, Japan. Japan has a strict isolationist policy and the island is the only point of contact between the Japanese and the outside world.
I FINALLY finished A Dance With Dragons. I had not read this series previously, so powered through the first five over the past few months. I enjoyed them immensely, although I have been in romantic relationships that took less work and less time.
I also managed to read The Art of Fielding, by Chad Harbach. Novel about a baseball phenom at a small Midwestern college, with assorted Midwestern characters. It’s the kind of book where the aspects that I liked, I really liked, and the parts that I found problematic nearly kept me up at night with being peeved about them. Overall, I think that’s the sign of a good book.
Currently I’m about halfway through the 4th Dresden novel. This is pretty light reading, but I am enjoying it.
Finished Ritual by Graham Masterton. Gruesome, well-written, but I was a little disappointed with the literal deus ex machina at the end. I look forward to reading more by the same author.
Also began and nearly finished Hunger by Jackie Morse Kessler. Really quick read, you can finish it easily in about a day. I agree with the Amazon reviewers that the description of the main character’s anorexia was very realistic and compelling, but the fantasy elements weren’t nearly as strong. Still, I’m going to keep with the series, the third book is coming out next week.
Started and finished both Catching Fire and Mockingjay for a reread, the sequals to The Hunger Games. I liked them both (again), but not nearly as much as I liked the first one. I really like Peeta, Katniss I’m ambivalent about. She talks about herself as manipulative, but I see her as simply reactionary - she makes very few decisions herself, mostly she reacts to events around her simply to stay alive. (Which works as a survival strategy, truly.) I just wish that I found her character more compelling.
Not sure what I’m starting tonight at the gym, in the efforts to distract myself from the workout. Possibly Starman, a book I recently picked up about Yuri Gagarin.
Now it’s in a “Classics” edition, and the young turk scholars regard her as a pioneer to be scored against … sigh. Time just keeps marching on!
