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What'cha Reading?

cafe

Well-known member
Joined
Apr 19, 2007
Messages
9,827
MBTI Type
INFJ
Enneagram
9w1
Nobody seems to read trash here. I keep waiting for someone to post that they are reading Danielle Steele or the like!

-Geoff
I don't read Danielle Steele, but I do read popular novels a la John Grisham and the like. I just finished To Kill a Mockingbird last night. Emma is the paperback I carry in my purse so I'm never stranded without reading material, so that'll be slow going. Next book in the hopper for home reading is Ruled Britannia by Harry Turtledove. Don recommended it to me.
 

niffer

New member
Joined
Apr 26, 2007
Messages
1,217
MBTI Type
ENfP
Enneagram
8w9
Instinctual Variant
sx/sp
A Brief History of the Human Race, Michael Cook.

Have only turned the first page, so far.

-Geoff

I read a third of it. It's boring as poo.
 

J1129

New member
Joined
May 20, 2007
Messages
35
MBTI Type
INFJ
I read mostly books about history, culture, religion, philosophy, & the like, mostly of Ancient Egypt, classical Greece & Rome, but most importantly, my greatest interest, the Byzantine Empire.
Currently I'm reading "The Last Centuries of Byzantium 1261-1453" by Donald Nicol
I'll read fiction once in a while but that other stuff is what I almost always read.
 
R

RDF

Guest
I don't see a lot of Russian literature in this list, so I'll include some background on the books for fun.

I just finished up "And Quiet Flows the Don" and "The Don Flows Home to Sea" by Mikhail Sholokhov. They are novels about the life of the Cossacks in the south of Russia at the turn of the last century, the experiences of Cossack fighting units in WWI and the Russian Civil War, and the end of the Cossack life and culture under the Soviet regime. The books were written in the 1920s and 1930s, had the approval of the Soviet authorities while also winning critical acclaim in the West, became known as "the Soviet War and Peace", and won Sholokhov the Nobel Prize for literature.

To follow up, I just started the "Red Cavalry" tales by Isaac Babel. They're short stories about Babel's real-life experiences as an Jew from Odessa assigned to a cavalry unit of Cossacks invading and subjugating Poland on behalf of the new Soviet regime at the end of the Russian Civil War. Babel's stories were eventually judged anti-Soviet and he disappeared into Stalin's prison camps. No one knows exactly how or when he died in the camps.

I've been reading those books coming home from work in the evening on the subway; I work as a translator/reviser so I read the books in the original Russian language, though I also keep the English versions at hand for difficult passages.

On the way into work on the subway in the mornings I switch off between an Armenian translation of Saint-Exupery's "The Little Prince" and a Georgian translation of Rowling's "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets." I'm very weak at Georgian and Armenian so I read children's books in those languages and have to check pretty much every sentence against the English versions.

Reading foreign language books on the subway is a good way to keep people from sitting in the seat next to me, at least until the subway becomes completely packed. People see a rumpled-looking middle-aged guy who is reading a book that has squiggly lines for an alphabet, and they steer away from me figuring I'm going to smell like stale cigarette smoke, coffee, garlic, and 7-day-old sweat. :)

FL
 

Dansker

New member
Joined
Apr 23, 2007
Messages
341
MBTI Type
INTP
I'm rarely reading one book at a time. The three that I am reading at present are:

Prisoner of the Chrysanthemum Throne, Ben Hills
Origins of the Second World War, A.J.P. Taylor
Music and Silence, Rose Tremain
 

Tayshaun

New member
Joined
May 13, 2007
Messages
172
MBTI Type
INTP
Enneagram
5w4
I'm treading across four or five at the moment.

Among them is Albert Schweitzer's biography. He seems to embody the mature INFP. I am particularly interested in his life because of the way he skillfully combined music, philosophy and medicine among other things (theology, humanitarian work, organ building, etc.). His idealism and his universalism are poignant, his relationship with Bach and his introverted/intuitive musical talent are personally gratifying to read about. He grew up in the same area as I did and I like the descriptions of the atmosphere of Strasbourg's University and of the Alsatians.

A must-read for INFPs questioning their path and wanting to see how a "successful" INFP interacted with others. A role model for all INFXs for sure!
 

Res Ipsa Loquitur

New member
Joined
May 10, 2007
Messages
55
MBTI Type
ISTJ
"The Brethren: Inside the Supreme Court" by Bob Woodward and Scott Armstrong
"Stumbling on Happiness" by Daniel Gilbert

After I finish those, I am planning to read "Tipping Point" and "Blink" by Gladwell
 
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