I saw this and thought of you NG. Plus, all the rest of us here that are readaholics!

Things Book Lovers Do

Read several books at one time...

...While also having a stack of books to read next...

...And keeping a running list of of even MORE books you want.

Feeling happy when you remember you get to read your book later.

Feeling sad and lost when you finish a great book.

Pause to appreciate a beautifully written sentence.

See the cover of an old book and be transported back to your youth.

Find joy and comfort in rereading an old book. (me)

Walk into a library or bookstore and say I COULD LIVE HERE!!!

That describes me...
To a T. Matt. Loves. Books!

I check every line too. Great list.

Nothing worse than the feeling you get when you come to the end of a great book. Almost a sadness coupled with a realization that by having read it you can't discover it afresh.

I read the first time through for the story. Then the second time for the finer points/writing. The third is just to enjoy the ride. There are so many though that I have read at least a dozen times, like comfort food for the brain.

Kid had a girlfriend that was shocked that I had so many books. And read them often. When she said it, he looked at me and I looked at him - No, not a keeper.

"Great books are made for the second reading."

--LW's college literature professor, mentor, and dear friend

LW, which school was that? Had a good friend who was literature prof at BYU.

For some reason I have never been into SF or fantasy. One exception has been William Horwood's Duncton series.

Nope, Kentish, not BYU. I went to university among heathens, which is where I first learned how healthy families work, how seriously to pursue truth, and how ethical people treat others.

In other words, I was ruined.

Thought it was a long shot it might be the same person. My friend, though at BYU, broke lots of rules, operating on the theory that forgiveness was easier than permission.

A wise person. My father, a lifer in the church and hence a relatively rare presence in our family, adopted the same approach. He required a lot of forgiveness.

My guess is that by the time I was in college--if not much earlier--BYU would have been inhospitable. Wasn't there a change in policy that resulted in more or less the entire English department decamping for UVU?

Sadly, my friend, with whom I have stayed in close touch, is losing her memory now. It's like a streetlight going off in a corner of my life, with darkness encroaching on critically important landmarks.

Age is cruel.

>It's like a streetlight going off in a corner of my life, with darkness encroaching on critically important landmarks.

Beautifully poignant.

I've lost some relatives and older friends recently, and that's how it feels. The dark descends on part after part of a person's life until ultimately, if she lives long enough, she is left holding a single lantern in a world much smaller than it used to be.

Sums me up

      I am reading, fitfully, a paperback copy of "Dune" printed in 1977 that I found at a local Goodwill, for which I paid $1.50, less the 15% Senior Day discount. "Dune" was copyrighted in 1965.

      Before buying it, I checked on Amazon, and a Kindle edition is $9.99.  Then I checked AbeBooks, and they had a paperback edition for $4.47, so I scored!

      I can't recall when I first read it, which really bugs me, nor if I read it in hardback or paperback...

      But I do remember some of the awe and the 'can't put it down-ness' of it, and I'm wondering if it will hold up...  

      And if it doesn't, whose fault is it?

I've been revisiting Arthur C. Clarke, both 2001 and Childhood's End. As you know, each is a different treatment of what happens when "technological" progress renders (the vast majority of) humans irrelevant, a theme that grows increasingly relevant as Space Karen et al., pursue their puerile Farnham's Freehold fantasies.

I recall my first trip through Dune; I remember the cover of the paperback, where I obtained it, and when I read it. I'd put the date here but that would probably make you feel even more otiose.

Love Abebooks, by the way. Amazon's service has deteriorated to the point where I always try to use Abe or Barnes & Noble first. And anyway, Bezos is just another aspiring Space Karen.

Lot's Wife Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I've been revisiting Arthur C. Clarke, both 2001
> and Childhood's End. As you know, each is a
> different treatment of what happens when
> "technological" progress renders (the vast
> majority of) humans irrelevant, a theme that grows
> increasingly relevant as Space Karen et al.,
> pursue their puerile Farnham's Freehold
> fantasies.

I find Childhood's End is a very sinister book. A devilish looking group of ETs turn the young against the old, and then the entire world is turned into a hive mind in which no one has any individual thoughts or rights.

I've always enjoyed Arthur C. Clarke's works, but he has a misanthropic slant to his work. He is better at storylines and scenarios than characters and relationships. Even in 2001, Hal is more memorable than any of the humans!

I've been reading "the Beach" by Alex Garland for my book group. It's a heck of a lot better than the movie. A good book. I was put off by the hype when it came out in the nineties.

I don't think Childhood's end is "sinister" or "misanthropic." It's pessimistic, dystopian. But the bottom line is it is anthrophilic, asking what would happen if the society bifurcated into two radically different classes: the overlords and the underlings. What would that mean for the humans left behind?

It is the same question posed in 2001: A Space Odyssey, where the force that threatened to enslave humanity was AI rather than alien-supported evolution, which was the premise of Childhood's End. Time and again, Clarke asked what life would be like if humans were bumped out of their dominant organic position. He further queried the meaning of life, when personal liberty and autonomy is lost. Huxley did the same thing, so too Orwell.

Clarke was in fact prescient: he identified the threat posed by technology to humanity. The ensuing 65 years have brought us to the verge of the nightmare he foresaw.

His concern for humans and what gives their lives meaning has never been more relevant.

You're just plum loco... Oops...Loca!

You're just embarrassed to tell Beth that your favorite book in the series is Briga Dune.

What with all the sequels, that might have been a candidate for a title.

My nominee would be Name that Dune.

I read the series last summer. I can’t remember if the second book was meh and the third was better than the second or the second was better than the third

but the first is baller



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/20/2023 11:46PM by Beth.

a single mom. I had to force myself to not read as I had two jobs and they take self-motivation, of which I had none. And I got out of the habit.

I won the award in my elementary school class every year for having read the most books/pages and read at a 9th grade level in 5th grade.

And so my pile of books I keep buying keeps piling up and I keep buying them. My therapist asked me what I wanted to focus on in the future, something I quit doing in the bad years and wanted to start again. I said reading. We discussed books I had that I wanted to read first and it came down to books written by gays from the LDS Church. It is amazing how many of those I have purchased over the years. Ten pages an evening and then I opened up the book and my vision is a mess from floaters, and yet I work on the computer??? I have continued to struggle to read with these eyes (cataracts removed 3 years ago).

Maybe I'll get done with the pile before I die, but if I don't, I brought my kids up to be readers and they'll read them. I started reading to them before they were 1-year-old.

OK, so this is my all-time favourite thread. :P

It's dark here already even though suppertime is a ways off and it's pouring with rain. What better atmosphere is there in which to curl up after a busy day and ponder my next book selection. Oh how I love new hardback books, especially the ones with smooth paper covers and a delicious tag line to entice me into its mysteries (often literal ones!). I just finished a forensic science story. It was quite graphic and icky. I've had enough of that for a while now. Maybe. I seem to have a good supply of paperbacks too.

I have to choose amongst a few that have been hanging about for a while now - I just haven't got to them yet. So many books. So little time.

There's 'Act of Oblivion' by Robert Harris, a novel about the hunt for two men who are charged with killing King Charles I, set in 1660.


Or 'A Winter Grave' by Peter May. I've enjoyed his series in the past. This novel is set in the year 2051 and guess what - the climate catastrophe has arrived. Of course, somebody trips over a dead body and a Glasgow pathologist has to solve the crime.


Then there's 687 delicious pages of Superintendent Thomas Lynley solving a crime in the Nigerian community in London in 'Something to Hide'. I've read all the previous ones in this series and have watched the English TV programs about Lynley too. Really love the actor they found to play him except I wish he would have smiled more. I guess his work was too serious.


I still have 'The Daughter of Auschwitz' that I've been putting off. I'm afraid it's going to be too incredibly sad, although the tag line on the cover is "My story of resilience, survival and hope". At the age of 4 Tova Friedman, along with her family, was shipped to Birkenau, a name that still makes you shudder. Tova made it through somehow and states on the back cover of her book: "I am a survivor. That comes with a survivor's obligation to represent one and a half million Jewish children murdered by the Nazis. They cannot speak. So I must speak on their behalf."


Another choice is 'Saving Freud' in which Andrew Nagorski tells the true story of Sigmund Freud's escape to England from Austria in 1938.


To round things out, I'm anticipating a good read in 'A Short History of Disease - Plagues, Poxes and Civilisations'. Page 13 includes this little slice of history:

"Disease has always provoked fear, sometimes worse than the disease itself. In 627, the Chinese emperor T'ai-tsung asked Lu Tsu-shang, 'an official of talent and reputation', to become governor general of Giao province in northern Vietnam. 'You have the ability to pacify this frontier; go and defend it for me, and do not refuse on account of its being far away.' Tsu-shang thanked the emperor, but when the time came to take up the post, refused to go on the grounds that 'In the south there is much malaria; if I go there I shall never return.' Tsu-shang's fear of malaria was greater than his fear of imperial wrath. The emperor was so enraged he had Tsu-shang beheaded."

Ouch.

I love that sentence: Tsu-shang's fear of malaria was greater than his fear of imperial wrath.

Mistake!


In the Freud book, a line that caught my eye as I skimmed through was the following, about Freud's feelings on escaping Vienna ahead of the Nazis and being spirited off to London:

'But the excitement he felt about his return to a city he had first visited and admired in his youth was tempered by the circumstances of his departure from Vienna.'

Such an understatement: 'the circumstances of his departure' - meaning the coming World War and the Holocaust.


If you want a little macabre "humour" (not my fave), there's this:

'The best indication of his vastly improved mood was his revived sense of humor. He took his first walk in the garden with Jones, who became a regular visitor. "I am almost tempted to cry out 'Heil Hitler'" he said. Fichtl, the housekeeper, overheard Freud going on in the same vein to Jones on another early occasion. "We thank thee our Führer that he forced us to emigrate here." he declared.'


I haven't read it yet so I don't know who Jones is but he gave Freud's eulogy. In his eulogy he included this thought: "His creative spirit was so strong that he infused himself into others." ... "If ever man can be said to have conquered death itself, to live on in spite of the King of Terrors, who held no terror for him, that man was Freud."


So many riches. This isn't even all the books awaiting my loving and appreciative attention. You can see why it's hard to choose which one to dive into next.

It's not just the amazing stories, whether creations or reality, but the way with words some authors have that compel me to pause in appreciation of such talent and emotion.

Of course, I can't start a new book until the kettle boils. :)

[|] Wrote:
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> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernest_Jones

Thank you!

Nightingale, you may want to check out the late Phillip Kerr, British writer with several books to his credit. His Bernie Gunther series is quite brilliant. Bernie is a Berlin police inspector caught up in the Nazi nightmare with only his wits and sarcasm to guide him through. His adventures during and after WW2 include encounters with numerous famous people. People like Goebbels, Heydrich, the Perons and Somerset Maugham. The film rights to these books has been bought so I am hoping they will produce them soon.

If that is Not enough to get you him being born in Scotland might.

Kerr was great. He got almost all of the historyright, which added immensely to the stories.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/21/2023 01:19AM by Lot's Wife.

Can't wait to see who they cast as Bernie in any movies ior series. Not even sure who I woukd want playing the role.

Thanks for the suggestion, Kentish.

And you're right about Scotland!

Or maybe sort them by genre?

I go through phases where I will read multiple books in a short span and then get burned out for a while.

I also can't see myself living in a bookstore or library as I find the manufactured silence distracting. Sitting on my porch with nature's silence feels better to me.

There is a sad feeling finishing a fantastic book and realizing I will never get to experience it again for the first time. Or the ending just sits you alone with your thoughts to digest everything that happened.

I also enjoy other mediums like comic books. Art and a well written story/plot just speak in some ways other mediums can't. Some of my favorites are written by Chris Claremont. Like God Loves, Man Kills.


I recently read Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy and smiled when he wrote about the babble fish.

I guess I'm not a true readaholic. Not all of these ring true for me.

Striking a chord!

Finishing a book is like breaking up with a love interest! You don't know where to turn, don't want to start dating again, don't think you'll ever again find true love. You've a stack of possibilities but know you'll have to put effort into the new relationship and your heart is still with the last one. "Don't rush into a new relationship" they say, but the void is too great not to!

I love certain kinds of non-fiction, but they require effort and discipline and energy. Fiction is a quicker "fix".

My Non-fiction TBR pile:

"An Immense World" by Ed Yong
"The Emperor of All Maladies" by Siddhartha Mukherjee
"Songs of the Trees" by David Haskell
"Rationality" by Steven Pinker
"Fuzz" by Mary Roach

My Fiction pile:
"The Other Einstein" by Marie Benedict
"Lady Clementine" By Marie Benedict
"Night Music" Jojo Moyes
"Homegoing" by Yaa Gyasi
"The Book of Lost Names" by Kristin Harmel
"The Poisonwood Bible" by Barbara Kingsolver
"True Colors" by Kristin Hannah
"Paper Wife" by Laila Ibrahim
"The Echo of Old Books" by Barbara Davis

Those are the ones I've bought. My wish list is humongous!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/21/2023 09:57AM by Twinker.

Read the Poisenwood Bible first! It's important.

(Thanks for the nice list!)

I don't read as much history as I used to. Not nearly as much non-fiction either.

I'm in escape mode. Too much stuff going on and I'm tired. That's why I favour the mystery fiction so much lately. Mostly the cozies though. Can't really stand too much misery, even if it's only fictional.

From all your lovely lists, looks like I've got some catching up to do. There's already a yawning hole in my knowledge of popular memes and social awareness as I don't keep up with movies and music and celebrities and all the latest gossip. Some days, like today, I just want toast and tea for every meal and an easy trip to Brighton, Norfolk or Edinburgh via my beloved Brit detectives, thankyouverymuch.

Happy reading everybody!

And The Sound and the Fury <- I keep finding things I’ve missed.

It seems books about uncomfortable topics - slavery, racism, LGBTQ, sexuality are being banned.

I'm not sure if this one is banned but it's a heavy read about slavery.

The Yellow Crocus by Laila Ibrahim.

"Moments after Lisbeth is born, she’s taken from her mother and handed over to an enslaved wet nurse, Mattie, a young mother separated from her own infant son in order to care for her tiny charge. Thus begins an intense relationship that will shape both of their lives for decades to come."

I highly recommend it.

Somewhat related, Lincoln in the Bardo is touching and magical and IDK. It’s not magic realism, but it feels like it.

You know how some books tug on something in you? Not just emotionally but remind you of the child you were back when the world was imbued with magic? That age when you could make dandelion seeds carry your wishes? Some authors put me in mind of that thrill.

La Maravilla by Alfredo Véa is perfect. When I finished it, I was satisfied. Content.
Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro (thank you, LW).
Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World by Haruki Murakami
The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet by David Mitchell
The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman

And for something really trippy, CoDex 1962: A Trilogy by Sjón <— that book defies description

I have 60 books to read!