What book(s) are you reading?

[Old Man Mike]

This is an "Old Man's Book" (probably) so maybe I'm off base including it here.

This is the usual public description: Michael Phillips. The Garden at the Edge of Forever. A man lies down for a normal night of sleep and inexplicably awakens to find himself in a surreal garden bursting with fantastic aromas and colors. A succession of "tour guides" come and go, helping him to interpret the landscape's fragrant messages, each one a clue on the journey to discover his true Self, and, ultimately, the Creator of the Country Beyond. This book by famed author, Michael Phillips (over 7 million books sold), is the first of three spiritual fantasies, the second being Hell and Beyond, followed by Heaven and Beyond. In each book, the reader is challenged to set aside preconceived notions of death, heaven and hell, and enter into regions beyond the human imagination, worlds filled with surprise and discovery, fresh hope and infinite love.

It's a serious book. {me talking now} A book which attempts to help people think/feel/intuit about their lives and past and future actions and what GOD might have planned into the Universe and all our roles in that regard. The Garden of plants and flowers in the near afterlife offers many different spiritual insights applicable for each of us.

As an old professor, I was "in the reading business" most of my life. But I always, almost anyway, had trouble ploughing through things like this. Not this one. It's an easy read ... but not to be done quickly without plenty of quiet thought.



p.s. Thanks for the read of UFOs and Government!! Lots of work went into that (four years or so) and most of those American UFO researchers are coming to Kalamazoo in two weeks for a just-fun weekend.

 

[IrishLion]

Looking for a new fantasy to read after finishing the "king killer Chronicles". Which I really enjoyed.

Odds are if it's fantasy I havent read it, so everything's on the table.

For a big series that itsn't actually a huge commitment: Stephen King's 'Dark Tower' series. Quick reads, very strange and interesting. Wild West meets Medieval Times meets dystopian future. Cowboys, zombies, mutants, knights, wizards, and regular old bad guys that are just scary dudes.

If you don't mind Young Adult books: Pierce Brown's 'Red Rising' series. One of the most enjoyable series I've ever read. Very good with twists and turns. It's like 'Hunger Games' meets 'Star Wars' meets 'The Count of Monte Cristo.' Can't say enough good things. The second book in the series, 'Golden Son,' is one of the best books I've ever read.

If you want something different/challenging: 'Hyperion' by Dan Simmons. It's like the 'Canterbury Tales,' but in future/space. Strange, but awe-inspiring and surprisingly emotionally manipulative. It's more sci-fi than fantasy, though.

 

[Veritate Duce Progredi]

Can we seriously not get this stickied?

 

[Whiskeyjack]

Can we seriously not get this stickied?

Done.

 

[koonja]

For a big series that itsn't actually a huge commitment: Stephen King's 'Dark Tower' series. Quick reads, very strange and interesting. Wild West meets Medieval Times meets dystopian future. Cowboys, zombies, mutants, knights, wizards, and regular old bad guys that are just scary dudes.

If you don't mind Young Adult books: Pierce Brown's 'Red Rising' series. One of the most enjoyable series I've ever read. Very good with twists and turns. It's like 'Hunger Games' meets 'Star Wars' meets 'The Count of Monte Cristo.' Can't say enough good things. The second book in the series, 'Golden Son,' is one of the best books I've ever read.

If you want something different/challenging: 'Hyperion' by Dan Simmons. It's like the 'Canterbury Tales,' but in future/space. Strange, but awe-inspiring and surprisingly emotionally manipulative. It's more sci-fi than fantasy, though.

Thanks for the references. I'm reading about "Red Rising" right now.

Another series that's caught my attention is the "Stormlight Archives" --- anyone read?

 

[Valpodoc85]

Just starting “A Little Hatred” by Joe Abercrombie

 

[no.1IrishFan]

As a liberal who thinks some liberals have lost their minds, this was a good book.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Legacy]

Love in the Time of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez

 

[koonja]

Anyone read "Middlegame"? Relatively recent fantasy about two people who are half human, but half built in a lab and they come into contact.

I'm ~100 pages in and can't say I'm hooked. Does it get better?

 

[ACamp1900]

Rereading In the Wake of the Plague by Cantor. I remember really enjoying it years back and it seemed appropriate enough currently,...

On deck I have Blind Owl Blues about Alan Blind Owl Wilson,... looking forward to it.

 

[Legacy]

Worth a re-read when I can access the library - The Coming Plague: Newly Emerging Diseases in a World Out of Balance by Laurie Garrett, 1994. Her follow-up book is also excellent: Betrayal of Trust: The Collapse of Global Public Health

Amazon Editorial Review:

Where's your next disease coming from? From anywhere in the world--from overflowing sewage in Cairo, from a war zone in Rwanda, from an energy-efficient office building in California, from a pig farm in China or North Carolina. "Preparedness demands understanding," writes Pulitzer-winning journalist Laurie Garrett, and in this precursor to Betrayal of Trust: The Collapse of Global Public Health, she shows a clear understanding of the patterns lying beneath the new diseases in the headlines (AIDS, Lyme) and the old ones resurgent (tuberculosis, cholera). As the human population explodes, ecologies collapse and simplify, and disease organisms move into the gaps. As globalization continues, diseases can move from one country to another as fast as an airplane can fly.

While the human race battles itself ... the advantage moves to the microbes' court. They are our predators and they will be victorious if we, Homo sapiens, do not learn how to live in a rational global village that affords the microbes few opportunities.

Her picture is not entirely bleak. Epidemics grow when a disease outbreak is amplified--by contaminated water supplies, by shared needles, by recirculated air, by prostitution. And controlling the amplifiers of disease is within our power; it's a matter of money, people, and will. --Mary Ellen Curtin

From Publishers Weekly
Garrett probes the human impact on the environment and the resulting emergence of new and mutating deadly viruses.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About the Author
Laurie Garrett is a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter who has been a health and science writer for Newsday since 1988, and a contributor to such publications as Vanity Fair, Esquire, The Los Angeles Times, and Foreign Affairs. Previously, she was science correspondent for NPR. She is the only person to have received all of the top four awards in American journalism: the Pulitzer Prize (for which she has three times been a finalist), the George Foster Peabody Broadcasting Award, the George C. Polk Award, and three times honored by the Overseas Press Club of America. Her book The Coming Plague (1994) was name "One of the Best Books of 1994" by both The New York Times Book Review and Library Journal, and was a national bestseller in 1995

Garrett is a Member of the World Economic Forum Global Health Security Advisory Board. She is also a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. She created the Council on Foreign Relation's Global Health Program, where she served as Senior Fellow for Global Health from 2004-2017. She is also a member of the National Association for Science Writers.

In the 1992-93 academic years Garrett was a Fellow at Harvard, where she worked closely with the emerging diseases group, a collection of faculty concerned about the surge in epidemics of previously unknown or rare viruses and bacteria. Garrett and other scientists, infectious disease and public health experts among many warned over twenty-five years ago of the ease with which emerging pathogens can travel throughout the world in a global world while funding for surveillance and public health organizations is being cut back, leaving us open to global health and economic disasters.

 

[Whiskeyjack]

Thanks to IrishLion for the Red Rising recommendation. Devoured it over the last three days. Ender's Game was one of my favorite books as a kid, and RR is similar in a lot of ways. Except the hero is fighting a neo-Roman bourgeoisie instead of hostile aliens.

Can't wait to start Golden Son.

 

[IrishLion]

Thanks to IrishLion for the Red Rising recommendation. Devoured it over the last three days. Ender's Game was one of my favorite books as a kid, and RR is similar in a lot of ways. Except the hero is fighting a neo-Roman bourgeoisie instead of hostile aliens.

Can't wait to start Golden Son.

I am very jealous that you are about to experience Golden Son for the first time.

If I could have my mind wiped and re-read a book for the 'first' time, Golden Son is up there.

Maybe it just pushes all the right buttons for me, and it won't be quite the same for you, but I was totally blown away by just about every aspect of the story.

 

[Bluto]

Started reading Listen Liberal by Thomas Frank. Pretty compelling takedown of the current Democratic establishment. Agree with him or not, the guy is a great writer and cultural critic.

 

[Irishize]

 

[ShawneeIrish]

The Stand

I am a King fan but still have not read some of his early classics. Amid stay at home orders and all things pandemic seemed the perfect time to take on The Stand. I’m about 800 pages in and while Im not sure I would place it at the top of King’s work above some of my favs like The Dead Zone, 11/22/63, and It I am really enjoying it.

 

[zelezo vlk]

I've been reading quite a lot recently (for me anyways). All 3 books of Kristin Lavransdatter by Sigrid Undset, Silence by Shusako Endo, and Under the Volcano by Malcolm Lowry. Lowry's was by far my least favorite of the 5, but still good, if not a bit too difficult for me to parse. Luckily the internet helped me to fully understand what the hell was and wasn't mescal-induced hallucinations.

Next is either Journey to the End of the Night or the first half of The Book of the New Sun.

 

[ACamp1900]

Picked up the first volume of Shelby Foote’s Civil War. I’ve been wanting to read this for years as the mass of criticism Foote gets from either side of history here always struck me that he’s prob a good, fair historian on a topic often blurred too far one way or the other. I know I’ve enjoyed his interviews and parts in documentaries over the years.

Finishing up Blind Owl Blues on Alan Wilson of Canned Heat then moving into Foote.

 

[Whiskeyjack]

I've been reading quite a lot recently (for me anyways). All 3 books of Kristin Lavransdatter by Sigrid Undset, Silence by Shusako Endo, and Under the Volcano by Malcolm Lowry. Lowry's was by far my least favorite of the 5, but still good, if not a bit too difficult for me to parse. Luckily the internet helped me to fully understand what the hell was and wasn't mescal-induced hallucinations.

Next is either Journey to the End of the Night or the first half of The Book of the New Sun.

What'd you think of Undset's books? Those have been on my list for a while.

I just finished The Shadow of the Torturer and am a few chapters into the Claw of the Conciliator, and it's been amazing. Never before has my experience of a book improved so much on a 2nd read. I still loved it on my first go-round, but there's so much symbolism and archaic terminology that a lot of it went over my head. Now that I have the big picture of where things are going, I'm able to dig into the minutiae and more fully appreciate Wolfe's incredible intellect.

 

[zelezo vlk]

What'd you think of Undset's books? Those have been on my list for a while.

I just finished The Shadow of the Torturer and am a few chapters into the Claw of the Conciliator, and it's been amazing. Never before has my experience of a book improved so much on a 2nd read. I still loved it on my first go-round, but there's so much symbolism and archaic terminology that a lot of it went over my head. Now that I have the big picture of where things are going, I'm able to dig into the minutiae and more fully appreciate Wolfe's incredible intellect.

I loved Kristin Lavransdatter. I'm no medievalist, but Undset knew plenty about medieval Norway to make the place seem alive. I loved not only her writing style, but her Catholicism that drips through the pages. It's a great trilogy and it makes me want to get my hands on Undset's book on Catherine of Siena.

 

[NDBoiler]

I’m in the midst of Rep. Dan Crenshaw’s book, Fortitude. I will admit that it has caused me to try and change the way I react/think about things. He makes some really good arguments for not reacting or making decisions based on emotion, which is unfortunately very common in today’s society. No matter your opinions or beliefs, I believe everyone can learn a lot from this and not let emotion (i.e. “outrage”) guide your decision making process.

 

[greyhammer90]

I've been reading quite a lot recently (for me anyways). All 3 books of Kristin Lavransdatter by Sigrid Undset, Silence by Shusako Endo, and Under the Volcano by Malcolm Lowry. Lowry's was by far my least favorite of the 5, but still good, if not a bit too difficult for me to parse. Luckily the internet helped me to fully understand what the hell was and wasn't mescal-induced hallucinations.

Next is either Journey to the End of the Night or the first half of The Book of the New Sun.

Been meaning to pick this one up for awhile

 

[zelezo vlk]

Been meaning to pick this one up for awhile

Highly recommended.

 

[greyhammer90]

Highly recommended.

The movie is probably one of the most affective pieces of media I've consumed in the last decade, so I'm sure I'll enjoy it.

 

[zelezo vlk]

The movie is probably one of the most affective pieces of media I've consumed in the last decade, so I'm sure I'll enjoy it.

Conversely I didn't care much for the adaptation. I should give it another chance but I just don't have a desire to watch a 2.5+ hour long movie about torture that is itself (imo) a torturous slog.

I thought Calvary did better with similar themes, and Malick's A Hidden Life was in response to Scorsese's offering. Though longer, I thought it was much better.

 

[greyhammer90]

Conversely I didn't care much for the adaptation. I should give it another chance but I just don't have a desire to watch a 2.5+ hour long movie about torture that is itself (imo) a torturous slog.

I thought Calvary did better with similar themes, and Malick's A Hidden Life was in response to Scorsese's offering. Though longer, I thought it was much better.

That's fair, it's certainly not for everyone. I thought the acting, cinematography, and directing was incredible, and thought that the retelling of Christ's story through this priest was pretty remarkable. I also enjoy that the outcome of the movie is so easily warped by a viewer's personal lens. There are some that think it's anti-religious, while others (like myself) view it as an affirmation of faithfulness. Spoilers with hidden text so highlight to read: That the priest, who would have gladly gone through the crucifixion and any other physical torture in order to be martyr like Christ instead had to deal with the much more painful trial of destroying his innate pridefulness by apostatizing and "lowering" himself to the common man who would apostatize to save his own skin, and in that way ironically became more Christlike than he could ever fully understand... That was a very powerful message for me. He gave up exactly what he was unwilling to give up, and more than he imagined could be taken from him, and so achieved his martyrdom.

 

[Whiskeyjack]

Spoilers with hidden text so highlight to read:

Dunno how much criticism you've read of the book or the movie, but here's the problem with it:

The idea that refusing to apostatize is "prideful" spits on the legacy of most actual canonized martyrs. That apostasy might be required by Christian love in order to save others from torture/ death is a demonic inversion of realmartyrdom. The true Japanese martyrs, of whom there are thousands, would have despised Rodrigues' cowardly justifications. Though this is from the same Scorcese that directed https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Temptation_of_Christ_(film), which would be hilarious if so many people didn't take it seriously.

 

[zelezo vlk]

So I'm on Journey to the End of the Night. It's written by a Frenchman whose writing style is the most stereotypically French male possible lol. The dude is a lecher and snob

 

[ACamp1900]

Really enjoying the Civil War volume thus far,... I’m 50 some pages in so,... about 0.02 percent through it,... lol

Blind Owl Blues was pretty straight forward, nothing too special but def a great read for anyone into classic rock or the blues. I’m thinking Bishop would really enjoy it.

 

[DogDaysIrish]

Getting ready to start, "The Room Where It Happened".