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What Are You Reading Right Now?

I’ve recently begun to read some of Louise Erdrich’s novels that I missed after Love Medicine and Beet Queen (there are a lot).
I’ve read The Plague of Doves, and The Round House, both well written and portraying a particular time and community exceptionally well. Next up is LaRose.

Because of an extended reference in The Round House to John Marshall and the U.S. reversion to a medieval Eurocentric concept of discovery to appropriate lands from Native peoples, I will be looking to find more information on the subject.
 
Just started Ariadne by Jennifer Saint. It’s a retelling of the Minotaur myth. I read Elektra by the same author when on holiday last month. I’m a sucker for novels which reimagine the Greek myths. Saint’s prose isn’t particularly well crafted but the story rattles along nicely.

I’m also reading the masterful SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome by Mary Beard. It’s a little dense but a excellent overview of the period.

Finally, I’m rereading A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggars. I read when it first came out which must be 20 years ago.
 
iu


The Afghanistan Papers: A SEcret History Of The War

By Craig Whitlock - Simon & Schuster - 2021 - 368pp

The Afghanistan Papers is a gripping account of why the war in Afghanistan lasted so long. The missed opportunities, the outright mistakes and more than anything the first-hand accounts from senior commanders who only years later acknowledged they simply did not tell the American people what they knew about how the war was going.
 
Just started - Black Smoke: African Americans and the Unites States of Barbecue, by Adrian Miller.

Wow! Great read. If you truly love barbecue, if you always thought African Americans "invented" barbecue (I thought they did), they didn't. No matter, barbecue would be nothing today without African Americans' major contribution to the art and science of meat, metal, fire, wood, smoke and spices. This humorous, informative, story/history of barbecue in America makes me slobber.

I'm proud to say that I have eaten at a number of BBQ joints in the book. I met Ed Mitchell and ate at his restaurant every chance I had. His smothered chicken was beyond description. Miller included Ed Mitchell and soooo many other world class pit masters across America in his book.
 
Almost finished - Sons of Vikings: A Legendary History of the Viking Age, by David Gray Roberts

I am a sucker for informative and well written history. Why did I decide to read this book? There hasn't been a time when I was even curious about Vikings, their impact and influence on the world as we know it. For some reason I bought and started reading Sons of Vikings. I cannot put the book down. Roberts is, I think, a historian, an academic and one hell of a story teller. I'll be reading more Viking history in the future.
 
Finishing up “Round the Bend.” Nevil Shute, it’s a novel about post WW2 aviation in the Middle East.
 
I'm running through some of the Bardic Voices novels by Mercedes Lackey. Finished Lark and Wren and Eagle and Nightingales, and just started Robin and Kestrel (yes, out of order).
 
Just finished The Last World War by Dayton Ward: 2 aliens races, the Plysserians and Chodrecai, are slugging it out on their home world. The Plysserians build portals to take them to isolated areas of their planet to rest, re-arm and re-consolidate......but instead, their invention lands their troops on Earth. Worse yet, the Chodrecai capture some of these portals and follow their enemy, dragging Earth into the destructive conflict. The conflict stays under the radar for a time, confined to an isolated National Guard base in Missouri, with a large unit of training/war-games playing Marine Reservists allying with the Plysserians against the rampage-killing Chodrecai. But keeping a lid on things goes by the board when Chodrecai start popping out of portals in populated cities across the globe.
 
Kaput, Curzio Malaparte, and The Tyrant Baru Cormorant, Seth Dickinson.
 
An old Dean Koontz book. In some ways I like him more than Stephen King. (particularly that he's a lover of Goldens)
 
I try to read one fiction and one nonfiction book at a time:

Fiction: The Wise Man's Fear by Patrick Rothfuss

Nonfiction: The Iron Fist Behind the Invisible Hand by Kevin Carson

My reading list only continues to grow.
 
I came on one my wife picked up for Chirp Audiobooks called The Golem and the Jinni. Interesting concept. A golem in the form of a woman ends up having her master die of appendicitis just after he activate her, leaving her masterless and pretty much world ignorant. She is discovered by a Rabbi who attempts to educate her and teach her how to exist in the world (19th century New York City is where the majority of the story takes place). Meanwhile a tinsmith accidentally frees a Jinni who was trapped by a sorcerer almost 1000 years ago, with no memory of what happened and is stuck in human form with little access (but still some) to his powers (the story uses a premises that very few Jinni have the power to grant wishes but they do have other powers and are subdivided along the Elemental lines). Been interesting so far, but the two have yet to meet where I am in the book.
 
Decypher said:
Just started Ariadne by Jennifer Saint. It’s a retelling of the Minotaur myth. I read Elektra by the same author when on holiday last month. I’m a sucker for novels which reimagine the Greek myths. Saint’s prose isn’t particularly well crafted but the story rattles along nicely.

I’m also reading the masterful SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome by Mary Beard. It’s a little dense but a excellent overview of the period.

Finally, I’m rereading A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggars. I read when it first came out which must be 20 years ago.
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Can't get you away from the classics! (I have begun to study Latin once again, by the way. I won't live long enough to read any of the works you have read in Latin. I do admire you and others who know Latin and Greek!)
 
Currently reading Elena Ferrante’s excellent Neapolitan Quartet.
 
I finished Redemption Road by John Hart and have started Bloodlands byTimothy Snyder. I love fiction, but I had never read anything by John Hart before Redemption Road. I do not think I will be reading any more of his books. Bloodlands comes highly recommended not only by DP members, but by an absolutely huge number of reputable publications which are quoted at the start of the book.
 
NewfieMom said:
I finished Redemption Road by John Hart and have started Bloodlands byTimothy Snyder. I love fiction, but I had never read anything by John Hart before Redemption Road. I do not think I will be reading any more of his books. Bloodlands comes highly recommended not only by DP members, but by an absolutely huge number of reputable publications which are quoted at the start of the book.
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Yep, I have an e-book copy of Bloodlands, it comes well recommended. Looking forward to it, although it's a messy topic.
 
Just finished The Dog Stars by Peter Keller. Post apocalyptic adventures and a 1956 Cessna 170. Not too artsy fartsy, but a little bit.
 
The Brothers Karamazov

Utterly fascinating
 
iu


Unthinkable: Trauma, Truth, and the Trials of American Democracy
By Jamie Raskin - Harper - 2022 - 448pp

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D/MD) alternates between mourning the recent death of son Tommy, his memories of January 6, and leading the 2nd Impeachment trial of Donald Trump.
 
Just finished "The Garden of Eden" (Hemmingway" the other day. Never had read it. Boy would it get DeSantis's blood pumping.

....136 pages into The Three Body Problem at the moment.
 
Read a few books recently as I took a week off work and then got Covid the next week so have had a lot off time off work.

Olive Kerridge by Elizabeth Strout. Heard good things about this writer and the book did not disappoint. A bittersweet yearn about life in small town Maine.

The Risk Pool by Richard Russo. Love this guy’s novels. This one was not as good as Empire Falls but still enjoyable.

Taste by Stanley Tucci. A food memoir by the actor turned gourmand. Excellent.

Reading the Tucci led me back to Eating Words, an anthology of food writing which I had read parts of before when I did an MA in Gastronomy & Food Studies during the lockdown. This in turn led me to Tender at the Bone which is a memoir by the legendary NYT restaurant critic Ruth Reichl.
 
My husband always reads one fiction book and one non-fiction book at the same time. I zip through fiction and plod through non-fiction (even if it is in my field, history). So as I slowly read Bloodlands, I have also read John Grisham's The Guardian; The Rooster Bar; and am now reading his Gray Mountain. My parents probably read me too many bedtime stories when I was a child. :)
 
Rogue Valley said:
iu


Unthinkable: Trauma, Truth, and the Trials of American Democracy
By Jamie Raskin - Harper - 2022 - 448pp

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D/MD) alternates between mourning the recent death of son Tommy, his memories of January 6, and leading the 2nd Impeachment trial of Donald Trump.
Click to expand...
I love Jamie Raskin. (y)
 
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