What are you currently reading?

[Neo]

Besides Redhat's "Openstack Cloud Administration II Coursebook", I'm reading Beowulf (JRR Tolkien's translation) as a step to reading "Grendel", which is Grendel's side of the story. Beowulf is tough sledding, since it rambles. So far I've gotten "guy builds hall, Grendel tears it up, Beowulf shows up and want to wrastle Grendel" out of like 100 pages.

Ultra small world ... I read Beowulf in November 2017.

 

I read “Bartelby, the Scrivener: A Story of Wall Street” last night. Empty Nesters Mr. and Mrs. Neo went to Starbucks.

Edited June 11, 2018 by Neo

[pi2000]

The Outsider, latest Stephen King novel.

[Doctor of Philhousley]

Invisible Man, Ralph Ellison and I can't put it down.

[Neo]

What better place than here ...

 

Things That Matter, by Charles Krauthammer. I would better say re-reading this collection of columns and essays. I’d found many over the years, week by week.

 

 

Charles died today. Normally, I’d put a comma after “died” and before “today”. Out of respect, I did not. Charles was no fan of unnecessary commas, your training notwithstanding. Informed discipline should triumph over a bad upbringing.

 

Among the most influential intellects that shaped and guided mine has passed. I have no delusions. Greater influences lesser. Perhaps more than anything else, Krauthammer taught me to fear no word, no idea, when clear critical thought brought either to me. The irresistible force that was his mind was matched only by his confident humility. The two concepts, confidence and humility, are rarely seen together. Neither contradicts nor diminishes the other. The intensity of his thought engendered no fear. Again, I am drawn to two concepts not usually thought of together. When humility coexists with confidence, and when intensity gives no rise to fear, there is whole. Charles Krauthammer, paralyzed and confined to a chair, was unbroken.

 

He faced death the same way he faced every adversity and eventuality, the same way he confronted ideas. That is, he faced death with reason, courage, clarity and warmth. His genuine, gracious, humor moved me yesterday and today. It will move me until and after I join him. Long after I’m forgotten, fortunate people will say “I knew Krauthammer”.

Edited June 23, 2018 by Neo

[Eleven]

Invisible Man, Ralph Ellison and I can't put it down.

 

An excellent read.

 

I'm reading The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami, which is beautiful, even if melancholy, and SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome by Mary Beard.

[Neo]

 

Late Night Thoughts On Listening to Mahler’s Ninth Symphony ... Lewis Thomas.

 

A classic compendium of essays I first found in the 80s. The writing still touches me, although I can feel how much I’ve changed in 30 plus years. I can SEE how much, as well, thanks to my scribbling in the margins ... which is really cool to visit.

[Spun]

United by Cory Booker

Ashley’s War by Gayle Tzemach Lemmon

I just stamped a couple of holds through my local San Diego library on books recommended in the original post, The Boys of Winter and also A First Rate Madness...

Tomorrow, I will be picking through the last  offerings of a local bookstore that is closing down.  I hate these closures.  I must get out and BUY books from our dwindling bookstores.

Thanks for starting this thread and all the recommendations!

 

 

 

[Neo]

For middle aged Buffalonians, those interested in the culture of days gone by, newspaper historians or those who just like to read ...

When I was a boy, I’d wake up and go directly to the front door for the Courrier Express.  On school days, I often beat the paperboy and had to wait long, long, minutes.  The paper arrived, and I got my news and my views.  Later in life, I’d find Jim Kelley or Larry Felser.  What joys.  But as a boy, I found Phil Ranallo.

Fast forward and I find my news and my views everywhere.  I’m inundated.  I cannot hide.  But, then, I was insatiable.  Google and Amazon, Fox and CNN.  Well, today’s ubiquity of information brought me yesterday’s master.  I bought What’s New, Harry? by Paul Ranallo, Phil’s son.  It’s a collection of his Op-Ed pieces from the sixties, seventies and eighties.

Ranallo is the oldest of schools and both a craftsman and an artist.  Aaron, Mays, Munson, Rose, Archibald, DeGregorio, Lanier, McAdoo, Smith (Randy and Elmore), Blanda, Kemp, Rutkowski, Imlach, Perreault, Martin,  Horton, Ali, Frazier, Secretariat.  The list is much longer.  Honest Harry, Ruby, Sam the Immigrant, Julie Potatoes, Loose Lip Louis, they’re all there.

Buy it ...

[Eleven]

10 minutes ago, Neo said:

For middle aged Buffalonians, those interested in the culture of days gone by, newspaper historians or those who just like to read ...

When I was a boy, I’d wake up and go directly to the front door for the Courrier Express.  On school days, I often beat the paperboy and had to wait long, long, minutes.  The paper arrived, and I got my news and my views.  Later in life, I’d find Jim Kelley or Larry Felser.  What joys.  But as a boy, I found Phil Ranallo.

Fast forward and I find my news and my views everywhere.  I’m inundated.  I cannot hide.  But, then, I was insatiable.  Google and Amazon, Fox and CNN.  Well, today’s ubiquity of information brought me yesterday’s master.  I bought What’s New, Harry? by Paul Ranallo, Phil’s son.  It’s a collection of his Op-Ed pieces from the sixties, seventies and eighties.

Ranallo is the oldest of schools and both a craftsman and an artist.  Aaron, Mays, Munson, Rose, Archibald, DeGregorio, Lanier, McAdoo, Smith (Randy and Elmore), Blanda, Kemp, Rutkowski, Imlach, Perreault, Martin,  Horton, Ali, Frazier, Secretariat.  The list is much longer.  Honest Harry, Ruby, Sam the Immigrant, Julie Potatoes, Loose Lip Louis, they’re all there.

Buy it ...

Added to cart.

[Neo]

YOU ... will dig it.

Edited August 21, 2018 by Neo

[josie]

This weekend I shirked my freelance duty and read instead. I needed it. I've been burning the candle at all ends and the middle for months now.

Finished a book about women on ships in the age of sail- covered both wives/prostitutes legally on board and the women who disguised themselves as men and went to sea as British tars. One black woman made it something like 14 years before she was found out, way back in the late 1700s. Really fascinating stuff.

 

Dark and I both read The Hooligans of Kandahar- a first person account series of anecdotes of a tour in Afghanistan around 2013. I highly recommend it. Funny, dark, thoughtful, honest. 

 

I'm starting the Ghost Ship of Brooklyn next- about the HMS Jersey. In the American Revolution, a bit less than 4500 men died in battle. Well, on the prison ships alone, approx. 11,500 died. Average of 8 a day on the Jersey alone.  The holds were said to be so disgusting and the air so putrid a candle couldn't even be lit. So naturally, I have to read everything I can about it, since it's truly horrifying. Many years later, after they burned and sunk the thing, workers in the harbor renovating the docks kept coming across tons of bones sticking out of the shore, and eventually only a few years back, the ship's remains herself.