What Are You Reading Now.

Five Lessons by Ben Hogan. The book on the basics of golf. It's still in single digits here temperature-wise, but a man can dream ...

 

I just finished up Nick Hornby's latest, Funny Girl. I liked it, as I think he makes some wonderfully astute observations about human relationships, but this is my first Hornby (despite him being recommended to me numerous times and having several of his novels in my TBR pile), and Hornby fans seem to be disappointed by this novel.

Now I'm starting a book called Rising Plague, about antibiotic resistant bacteria/bacterial infections.

 

Spectacular read. My degree is in applied linguistics.

 

Embassytown! I bloody loved it. And I'm not hugely into linguistics, I just thought it worked on every level. Ridiculously clever book.

Currently reading The Long Tomorrow, by Leigh Brackett. It's nice to just read a novel. I'm in the middle of a large uni project that had reduced my reading time to nil for quite some time (whilst reading titles such as Politics and Society in Scotland and Britons: Forging the Nation 1707-1837). About 50 pages in, and it's slow going, but it feels so good.

 

I dunno... I'm having a hard time getting in to The Windup Girl.

I'm so conscious now about the importance of a hook. I don't need some sensational bang, there are many kinds of hooks. But the first few pages in and there's nothing that interests me yet.

 

I'm reading 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami. A Japanese writer. Really interesting until now.

 

I've just finished Questions of Travel by Elizabeth Bishop. It was fantastic, I think she might actually end up becoming one of my favourite poets.

 

Can you identify the reason? Is it a lack of mystery or something harder to define?

Anyway, I'm reading Inkheart. I love it to pieces. Cornelia is a master of personification, and the story is just so wholesome. This is the first time in a while that I can say I enjoy the prose as much as the plot and characters in a book.

 

I'm worried it's my aging brain unable to follow confusing text. I'm listening to the audio. I'm going to trade it for the print version and see if that's my issue.

 

Just finished A Witness Tree by Robert Frost. It took me some time to read this collection thanks to other commitments, so I can't say what it is like as a full collection together; but there are some really great poems here. Even if I'm not really a fan of 'The Gift Outright'.

 

I just bought a copy of Frost's complete poems and it's all your fault. It arrived from Amazon yesterday and is on my to-read pile.

 

Wonderful. I really hope you enjoy it.

 

A Book on Hunter S Thompsons ''Gonzo letters'' It's an ok read but get redundant quickly.

 

I have pretty much the weekend off, so I'm reading Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amis. I've tried to read this about a month ago but had to stop because of reasons, here's my second attempt. Here we go Lemex, let's get this book read!

 

I just finished All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr. In many ways it was riveting but at the end I felt profoundly dissatisfied. I often take time to sort out how I feel about a book, so maybe it's too soon. But I'd be interested to hear what anyone else thinks about it.

 

Ray Bradbury's One More for the Road, a collection of short stories that have been published at various times in his career. Interesting to see him evolve.

 

Finished Lucky Jim. It was hilarious! I'm so glad I read it - read it in a day too.

 

The Apartment of Tragic Appliances by Michael S. Snediker.

It's a collection of poetry. This is an interesting book for me, because it's the first book of poetry I've read that has such a distinctively bold queer voice.

And I mean 'queer' in the modern parlance, it's literally about the life of a homosexual man in the modern world. It's refreshing to see it so brazen and in your face too! The collection starts with an introductory poem in which the poet calls himself a male Persephone who has separated herself from Hades but still lives in the Underworld. It's not the cleverest appropriation of the Classical world that I've ever seen, but it's certainly so very far from uninteresting.

I'm a few poems in to the collection now, and so far I'm really enjoying it. His poems have a surface too, it's not all Modernist, at-first-incomprehensible pretense, so I can easily recommend this collection to my gay friends who have an interest in poetry.

 

I really enjoyed the Nibelungenlied when I read it a few years ago, before I moved to Germany. (I now live not too far from the home of the dragon.) The Fall of the Nibelungs is available on project gutenberg.

 

Just finished the Powder Mage Trilogy by Brian McClellen. Really interesting world set in an emerging genre called 'Flintlock-Fantasy'. Think Full Metal Alchemist in Industrial Revolutionary times.

 

My wife has gotten me into reading some old Elf Quest comics, I like them so far and the art work its done really well.

 

I loved ElfQuest back in the 80s! I thought it was (gasp) sexy!

 

Quarter of the way through We Need to Talk About Kevin. Was in the library and when I saw the title, the faint sense of familiarity tickled my subconscious. Never seen the movie but it's one of those books that has permeated pop culture.

 

The Road to Woodbury, I'm finding it hard to get into though, I loved the Rise of the Governor but I am struggling with this one. I have discovered a lot of good free stories on Kobo since my partner bought me one for my birthday. I did have the misconception that free e-books would be poorly written and filled with mistakes, happy to be wrong!

 

Just finished The Bird of Time - Songs of Life Death and the Spring by Sarojini Naidu. There were some pretty good poems in there! It is a really neglected and unappreciated collection of poetry, actually.