NVR - What are you reading right now? (Fiction or non-fiction)
Posted by Beans and Greens on May 12, 2007 · Member since Apr 2007 · 169 posts
I'm reading 'Raising Vegan Children in a Non-vegan World' by Erin Pavlina.
I'm curious what everyone else has their nose in at the moment! :)
Excitotoxins: The Taste that Kills by Russell Blaylock
Finishing the Candleford Trilogy: Lark Rise, Over to Candleford, Candleford Green.
No similarity to the ITV series until you get to volume 3. Not a bad read though.
The Power by Rhonda Bynre ..... This will be my first positive-thinking book. I'm scared. Haha!
i need some suggestions...
just got done reading these this summer:
http://media.scpr.org/images/2011/05/17/the-psychopath-test_side.jpg
http://knopfdoubleday.com/marketing/authorpages/krakauer_cover.jpg
http://twelvebooks.com/images/covers/hitch_22.jpg
http://www.heartsandmindsbooks.com/jefferson%20hitchens.jpg
i have another one on the way.
need some good NON-fiction to read while i wait for this one:
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I just looked up Unbroken because I read in People that Jimmy Fallon said it was amazing. I just got a kindle recently, and I'm on a book reading spree!
yeah.
it's supposed to be really good...
I'm working on three books right now, actually....
1) How To See Yourself as You Really Are by HH The Dalai Lama
2) Ruling Your World by Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche
3) A People's History of the United States: 1492-Present by Howard Zinn
I recommend all of these for a bit of thoughtful reading.
Fortunata y Jacinta by Benito Perez Galdos (for myself)
Trafalgar (of the Episodios Nacionales, same author) reading aloud to DH who can't read or watch TV just now.
The Wind is My Mother by Bear Heart
On The Prowl by Patricia Briggs, et. al.
Healthy at 100 by John Robbins
I'm starting to brush up for my English Lit GRE.
Just finished Uncle Tom's Cabin.
Reading:
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
Women's Indian Captivity Narratives
Where Angels Fear to Tread
and as a guilty pleasure:
Stardust by Neil Gaiman
Ahhh dear Sir Gawain. Now there was a conflicted man. He loved and honoured Arthur as his uncle and his king, but at the same time he hated him because really Gawain's mother, Morgause, should have been queen instead of her little bastard half-brother.
Gawain reminds me of St Peter in a way...always rushing into things half-thought-out. The Green Knight is a case in point. Like Phyllis in "The Railway Children," Gawain meant extremely well.
Don't forget the importance of "alliteration's artful aid" and the "bob and wheel" at the end of a passage, and you'll be fine.
(Can you tell I love OE Lit?)
All right - I know we've got some Lovecraft lovers around here. I just finished Lovecraft Unbound, and it is hands down the best Lovecraft-inspired anthology I have read in a long time... and I've suffered thought enough of them. (Cthulu 2000, anyone? Oi.)
Right now, I'm reading 'Chants of a Lifetime' by Krishna Das. I will admit to finding it inspiring.
Ahhh dear Sir Gawain. Now there was a conflicted man. He loved and honoured Arthur as his uncle and his king, but at the same time he hated him because really Gawain's mother, Morgause, should have been queen instead of her little bastard half-brother.
Gawain reminds me of St Peter in a way...always rushing into things half-thought-out. The Green Knight is a case in point. Like Phyllis in "The Railway Children," Gawain meant extremely well.
Don't forget the importance of "alliteration's artful aid" and the "bob and wheel" at the end of a passage, and you'll be fine.
(Can you tell I love OE Lit?)
Those are interesting things Yabbit, I remeber spending a lot of time studying Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and discussing how in the beginning of this story King Artuhur and his court came across as very young and inexperienced (and even foolish), yet at the end when Gawain is shamed and they all wear the badge to share that with him they are matured. It was interesting. (And our professor made us read it aloud in Old English, which was super embarrassing)....
I have been reading some great books this summer, taking some free reading time on my break between school ending and school starting with a new program in the fall (I always feel too guilty to read for "pleasure" when I am in school and negelecting all my assigned readings)....
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks ....which is the story of Henrietta Lacks and her family (the African Americain woman whose cells were taken as the first immortal cells, (known as HeLA cells), that they used to study and make vaccines with across the world, without her or her family's consent or knowledge).
The Crowning Glory of Calla Lilly Ponder---this is a WONDERFUL book! Its by the author of Divine Secrets of the Ya Ya Sisterhood, which I loved as well. It is similar in the ways of telling a beautiful story about a young girl's mystical, enchanted childhood growning up in the Lousisana into becoming a woman. I cried like 5 times (happy and sad tears).
The White Queen---
The Constant Princess---
The Red Queen ---all by Phillipa Gregory, she writes historical fiction novels, (author of The other Boylan Girl) and I really like them all! Sadly, I have learned/retained more English History from her books than from school....
Griftopia by Matt Taibbi
My MIL recently gave me The Help, and I have been loving it! Almost finished most of it in one day, because I don't want to put it down!
Thanks to Yabba Cadabra's guidance, have gotten some stuff off of Project Gutenberg Australia.
A coupla short stories by Anton Chekhov (a master imo). Most notably:
The Kiss
About a naive Russian soldier's brief accidental encounter with a female at a General's party. Fantastic!, and yet sorta lame. I don't understand why I cannot seem to stop reading a Chekhov story when I start. It is like every line carries you, like it has wings and claws into your shoulders softly and carries you away without your direct consent. So much better than any modern fiction I have tried. So sad he died at 43, would easily surpased his buddy Tolstoy in greatness.
How come Russians in general blow away other countries for literary prowess?
Also, E. A. Poe's The Sphynx, which I didn't remember reading before, until I was right at the end. Disappointed. Not Poe's finest by far.
I was on the library's computer looking for Jules Verne books for my son when I stumbled across The Dreams our Stuff is Made of subtitled How Science fiction conquered the world I am finding it very thought provoking and insightful at making the connections between fiction and what actually happens in history.
Thanks to Yabba Cadabra's guidance, have gotten some stuff off of Project Gutenberg Australia.
A coupla short stories by Anton Chekhov (a master imo). Most notably:
The Kiss
About a naive Russian soldier's brief accidental encounter with a female at a General's party. Fantastic!, and yet sorta lame. I don't understand why I cannot seem to stop reading a Chekhov story when I start. It is like every line carries you, like it has wings and claws into your shoulders softly and carries you away without your direct consent. So much better than any modern fiction I have tried. So sad he died at 43, would easily surpased his buddy Tolstoy in greatness.
How come Russians in general blow away other countries for literary prowess?
YES. Chekov is a real spellbinder. He can make the most pedestrian subjects un-put-downable. Which is actually an enormous tribute to his translators, also.
Turgenyev, however, is kind of a Chekov wannabee IMO.
Charlie-my-boy, if you can find the DVD of Vanya on 42nd Street I think you'd like it. Wallace Shawn plays Vanya, and "Fraiser's dad" plays the professor. Along with a very young Julianne Moore.
Sense And Sensability Jane Austen
Naturally Thin Bethanny Frankel
The People That History Forgot Ernest L. Martin
Getting More by Stuart Diamond. For negotiation techniques taught at business schools.
Basic Economics: Citizen's Guide to the Economy by Thomas Sowell. I just started it and so far I'm not liking it as much as Economic Facts and Fallacies which was nicely substantively dense.
I'm also rereading Meditations by Marcus Aurelius to remind myself not to be so mopey and serious. For some reasons, the part where he points out there's no use in getting angry over a smelly armpit and foul smelling mouth when these things just ARE cracked me up.
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