WHAT ARE YOU READING RIGHT NOW? (Page 2 of 14)

Really interesting book about Christmas during the ACW.

They Came Like Swallows by William Maxwell

I just finished Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates. I thought it was really slow and dark to start, but by the end I liked it. It was still incredibly dark -- probably like the way The Road is dark, but it was dark quite poetically and authentically, if that makes sense.

I'm just beginning Richard III. I AM SO EXCITED. It's an assigned read, but I'd have read it myself if he hadn't assigned it. I've never read one of Shakespeare's histories, although I guess this one is a tragedy? We're reading Henry IV in a few weeks, too.

I remember reading The Wolves of Willoughby Chase and Black Hearts in Battersea when I was young, maybe 11 or 12 years old. The concept of an alternate history was awesome, and I was born and grew up in Battersea which made for a special link to the 2nd book.

Bonnie and Sylvia Green, Mr. Grimshaw and Mrs. Brisket. Har! You just opened a part of my brain, the memories from which have lain dormant and unvisited for decades.

Just finished All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy. Just began The Lords of Discipline by Pat Conroy.

Memphis

I"ve read the Mccarthy but not Conroy. I've seen the movie of the same name. It'd be good to hear your thoughts on it when done.

Cheers!

¿The McCarthy or the Conroy? I'm about 40% of the way through the Conroy and have forgotten 60% of the McCarthy…

Memphis

Hello Dill,

I "bought" this book http://www.amazon.com/THE-GOOSE-DEBACLE … entries*=0 just now. It was free this weekend from a writer who belongs to another writer's website I haunt. I read the first couple of pages and immediately thought of you.

I plan to read it and review it as my end of the bargain. The start of the story struck me as fast and slow at the same time; just my kind of start. I knew from the first words sort of what I was in for but became a bit lost in the cultural humor when the hero described the man who knocked on his door. Despite not knowing that the picture he draws is accurate, I found myself believing it and laughing. To me it beautifully captured both the folks who would knock on my door here in the colonies and the type of operative I imagine would try to pass for a "countryman" who might knock unbidden on your door in the mother country.

I would love to know what you think of the start. The book is free, and I'll bet you could bring a lot of your expertise in spy stories and Brit culture to a review of the story if you were so inclined. I don't know the writer at all, never having conversed with him at all that I can remember, but from the start I expect to be treated to a version of Brit humor, of which genera I am a great fan of. 

Memphis

I'm about 140 pages into David Copperfield. xx

I've never read David Copperfield. Over the years I've seen several T.V. dramatizations and know the story. An autobiography of sorts, they say. Creatively embellished non-fiction.   

It's on the list. One of those that has always been on the list but distracted, I've never gotten around to it. x

(White Oleander by Janet Fitch)

10 on the poignancy scale! This lady has a fine way with words.

Love is temperamental. Tiring. It makes demands. Love uses you. Changes its mind. But hatred, now. That's something you can use. Sculpt. Wield. It's hard or soft, however you need it. Love humiliates you, but hatred cradles you. It's so soothing.

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Loneliness is the human condition. Cultivate it. The way it tunnels into you allows your soul room to grow. Never expect to outgrow loneliness. Never hope to find people who will understand you, someone to fill that space. An intelligent, sensitive person is the exception, the very great exception. If you expect to find people who will understand you, you will grow murderous with disappointment. The best you'll ever do is to understand yourself, know what it is that you want, and not let the cattle stand in your way.

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What was beauty unless you intended to use it, like a hammer, or a key? It was just something for other people to use and admire, or envy, despise. To nail their dreams onto like a picture hanger on a blank wall. And so many girls saying, use me, dream me.

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The mind was so thin, barely a spiderweb, with all its fine thoughts, aspirations, and beliefs in its own importance. Watch how easily it unravels, evaporates under the first lick of pain.

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The reason we studied history was to find out why things were the way they were, how we got here. You could to anything you wanted to people who didn't know their history.

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Love is a bedtime story, a teddy bear, familiar, one eye missing.

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What was a weed, anyway. A plant nobody planted? A seed escaped from a traveler's coat, something that didn't belong? Was it something that grew better than what should have been there? Wasn't it just a word, weed, trailing its judgments. Useless, without value. Unwanted.

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Beauty was my mother's law, her religion. You could do anything you wanted, as long as you were beautiful, as long as you did things beautifully. If you weren't, you just didn't exist.

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Always learn poems by heart. They have to become the marrow in your bones. Like fluoride in the water, they'll make your soul impervious to the world's soft decay.

So many more I could quote from this deliciously written novel.