What'cha Reading?

[Natrushka]

I am about to finish the Outlander Series (A breath of Snow and Ashes) and it's killing me.

Does anyone have a suggestion for something equally captivating?

[Athenian200]

Well, right now I'm intermittently reading:

"Audacity of Hope" by Barack Obama

"Psychological Types" by C.G. Jung

"How to Win Friends & Influence People" by Dale Carnegie

"A History of the English-Speaking Peoples" by Winston Churchill

[Cerpin_Taxt]

This is going a couple pages back, but I love Russian literature. Seems like almost every book has a depressing ending, but they are so well-written that I can't help but love them. Ever read Doctor Zhivago by Pasternak or Anna Karenina by Tolstoy? They're both excellent. Right now I'm working on The Idiot by Dostoevsky and I'm planning on reading War and Peace by Tolstoy.

Anna Karenina's brillant, one of my favourite novels. Speaking of Dostoyevsky I'm currently re-reading Crime & Punishment.

Also reading 'The Canturbury Tales' by Chaucer, and slowly making my way through In Search of Lost Time by Proust.

[Noel]

The Dwarf - Pär Lagerkvist

An alright misanthropic novel. A lot of the ideas in the book, particularly the main character, I hold so I wasn't too surprised. I didn't get anything new out of it, but regardless, it was a quick read. Worth checking out.



The Picture of Dorian Grey - Oscar Wilde

Hope to start and finish this one today. Afterwards, I hope to read De Profundis.

[Theory]

Anna Karenina's brillant, one of my favourite novels. Speaking of Dostoyevsky I'm currently re-reading Crime & Punishment.

I've been thinking about reading Crime & Punishment. Is it good?

[wildcat]

I read books no one reads any more. I tell you about them. I know you are very interested about everything antique.
I read about that British Jewish Lebenese Cypriot crowd in Alexandria. You know, the boys. Larry and Nessim. Balthazar and of course Clea, the sapphic teacher.
Alexandria is not what it used to be. The Arab socialists did not like the British-Jewish-Cypriot-Lebanese crowd, and the Islamists liked it even less.

Old Larry had a brother, Gerald. He was a veterinarian or something. He wrote a book about his family. They were animals.

Not only the British lower middle class became rich by writing books about their obnoxious sibling. Nancy Mitford became quite a hit when she described the platonic love affair of her sister, with Hitler. Her other sibling left the green island to fight against Franco.

And Muriel Spark wrote a book about her spinster ENFJ teacher who sent a protegee to Spain to fight for Franco. The poor girl did not live long.

After Spain George Orwell lived in misery in East End and the Latin Quartier.

Then came the war and old Chamberlain had to go. Winston left his country residence and his palet and went to see the King. He travelled to Moscow and saw Svetlana in the kitchen.
Svetlana had her twenty letters published and became a millionaire. She described the Allilejuva family in great detail. They were Georgian intellectuals who left Tiflis to live in Moscow. Their daughter became the secretary of Lenin.

Even before the war ended the left wing American Jewish writers came out of the closet. They soon became emigres.
Malamud travelled to Oregon and wrote the New Life. It is the best book ever written. Bradbury wrote a few short sories.

Then literature ended.

[Cerpin_Taxt]

I've been thinking about reading Crime & Punishment. Is it good?

Oh yes, it's probably the best character study I've ever read.

If you like the existentialists or have any existential leanings then definately read it.

However it is quite dark -- as you would expect -- and very Dickens/Hugo like in it's exposition of poverty and the issue of social class.

[Theory]

^Actually, all of it sounds right up my alley! Character studies are what I live for -- when it comes to books and movies, anyway. And I find existentialism very interesting as well. Hmmm... I'll definitely have to check it out.

[MacGuffin]

Make sure you get a more recent translation, I made the mistake of reading an older one and the language was quite awkward in places.

[Cerpin_Taxt]

Make sure you get a more recent translation, I made the mistake of reading an older one and the language was quite awkward in places.

I'll second that.