What BOOK are you reading right now?

I have a few choices lined up, haven't made a decision yet.

I'm trying to get into The Great Bridge, the story of the building of the Brooklyn Bridge. So far it's a struggle for me to get involved.

I have been reading The Last Wish, the first book in the Witcher series, after watching the first season on Netflix.

The book, which is a collection of short stories, has been good so far. Some of the stories are darker takes on some known fairy tales like Snow White and Beauty & The Beast.

Finding it kind of difficult to focus on reading books. I did manage to reread James Morrow's Only Begotten Daughter in mid-March. First read back in the early 90s. I love that his books are starting to pop up on Audible.

If you're evangelical Christian? His brand of hellfire religious satire could likely be seen worse than the Holocaust.


5/5 on Goodreads.

My next book took me from that point to June 3: The Delirium Brief (Laundry Files, #8) from Charlie Stross. Rated a 5/5 (but closer to 4/5)

One graphic novel/volume: Sass & Sorcery (Rat Queens #1) in May.
4/5. Crass adult fantasy/comedy. Pretty dang gory.

Presently drip reading (30% done) All the Birds in the Sky by Charlie Jane Anders.

Love that bridge!

I'm wondering whether my inability to get into the Bridge book is because I'm from the Bronx, and people from the Bronx never have much to do with Brooklyn. It's too steenkin' far away. But it is a nice bridge.

I recently reread Faulkner's Light in August. That man wrote with such intensity that I had to occasionally stop to catch my breath.

Aside: I think I've done more reading in the past three months than I have in the previous three years.

Light in August is my fave Faulkner book.

Mine, too.

I take it Absalom, Absalom! Isn't on the radar here...

I like Absalom, Absolom! as it sets the tone for Yoknapatawpha. However, I never cared much for Quentin Compson, and especially not The Sound and the Fury. Favorites include The Unvanquished and Flags in the Dust (or Sartoris).

I liked Faulkner's Sanctuary but was surprised to discover it barely relevant to the film about it starring Odetta, which I had seen a few years prior.

Another Faulkner that pops to mind is As I Lay Dying.

Hey. Dat man could write.

If pressed, I'd have to say my favorite Faulkner book was his last The Reivers, a sort of a picaresque bilsdungroman. In 1905, eleven-year-old Lucius Priest and two of his family's retainers set out from Mississippi for Memphis in a motorcar (only the second car to appear on the streets of Jefferson, MS) stolen from Lucius' grandfather. Escapades ranged from racehorses to bawdy houses.

The book was published on June 4, 1962, and Faulkner died on July 6th.

I'm reading 2 books at the moment.

Gone South by Robert R. McCammon. It is about a Vietnam vet on the run in Louisiana after he killed a bank manager in a fit of rage. I have read 2 other books by McCammon (Swan Song and Stinger, both sci-fi), so it is odd to read something of his that isn't too fantastical or supernatural. The book still has some glimpses of horror, though.

Peter and Max by Bill Willingham. It is about a grown up Peter Piper having to confront his brother Max, who has become a monster. The book is a spin-off of Willingham's Fables comic, which is about fairy tale characters living in modern day New York, though it is not necessary to read the comic before reading the book. The Big Bad Wolf, Bo Peep, Rose Red and Beauty & Beast so far make appearances in the book.

I think I liked Absalom, Absalom the best, maybe for its historical sweep. But the Modern Library "Snopes Trilogy" — The Hamlet, The Town, and The Mansion — is a damned good read, too.

Currently reading Thomas Ligotti's Teatro Grottesco.

The Turner Diaries

reread Mann's 1491 and 1493. Non fiction but dressed with ome spculation .The Columbian Exchange was a very real thing that has caused both good and evil in bringing non-native life to both NA and the rest of the world.

Just got done with Neil Shubin's Some Assembly Required.Its a highly accessible "newer view" on the "non-rules" of evolution and the interplay of genetics fossils and bad luck. Shubin's a really good story teller in these more arcane areas of bio and paleo. Hes the past Dean of U of Chcago's MEDICAL SCHOOL and , by training and experience, is a paleontologist.
Starting Guyaders Geoffrey St Hilaire-A visionary naturalist. Dont wanna mix up the writers so Ive just gotten through the Foreword and Intro.

Man's Search For Meaning, by Viktor Frankl.
It had not crossed before me until recently. The verbal review/summary piqued my interest and I went and got it through Amazon.

A very good read and information filled.

I just started reading The Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Orczy. It was published in 1904, and it is generally viewed as a precursor of the popular trope of a masked hero with a secret identity.

The book is about a British member of high society and his alliance rescuing imprisoned royals before they are killed by the new French government. I'm 4 chapters in, and it is clear the book is very sympathetic towards the aristocrats and royals escaping the horrors of the French Revolution, probably because the author is an aristocrat herself.