Reading Archives - Page 9 of 24

A Rage in Harlem by Chester Himes

December 14, 2024 / Mystery-Suspense, Reading

What a crazy rollercoaster ride through Harlem in the 1950s. I’m just now catching my breath!

There were more bars on his itinerary than on any other comparable distance on earth. In every one the jukeboxes blared, honeysuckle-blues voices dripped stickily through jungle cries of wailing saxophones, screaming trumpets, and buckdancing piano-notes; someone was either fighting, or had just stopped fighting, or was just starting to fight, or drinking ruckus-juice and talking about fighting.

Needful Things by Stephen King

December 5, 2024 / Horror, Reading

Another completion in my quest to read every Stephen King book. This one missed the mark for me. To execute the pretty good idea for this horror tale, King had to involve way too many characters — almost the entire town of Castle Rock. With so many characters, I had a hard time connecting with any of them. Any other author would get a two stars, but King gets a pass.

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A System for Writing by Bob Doto

November 19, 2024 / Reading, Writing Guides

I learned at least one thing from reading this book: I have not been doing the Zettelkasten thing right. Mr. Doto here provides a practical guide on how it’s supposed to be done, and in reading it, it helped me conclude decisively that this kind of note-taking is absurd and in no way how I want to take notes.

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The Age of Voltaire by Will Durant

November 8, 2024 / ★★★★★, History, Reading

Continuing my quest to read all eleven volumes of Will Durant’s Opus, The Story of Civilization. Volume IX centers on science and philosophy overtaking religion through thinkers like Voltaire and Diderot. The church did its best to stop it, but in the end, the French Enlightenment steered the faithful away from religion toward the beginnings of existentialism. While this movement addressed religious corruption and the horrors of inquisitions, there is also a feeling of great loss as civilization let go of its rudder of morality and faith.

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This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage by Ann Patchett

November 5, 2024 / Essays, Memoir, Reading

I enjoy Ann Patchett’s novels, but I love her essays. She writes with such clarity and compassion. My first book of her essays was These Precious Days, which was written upfront as a collection of essays. This one came together after the fact as a compilation of essays Ann had written in magazines over many years. Only later did she decide to publish them as a book. As a result, there isn’t much of an underlying theme, other than Ann herself. I came for the essays on writing, but stayed for her views on RV life, dogs, opera, marriage, friendship, and defying all odds, the opening an independent bookstore in the post Amazon era. Ann narrated the audiobook, which added to the personal voice of these essays. After reading this and These Precious Days, I will basically read anything she writes.

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The Spectator Bird by Wallace Stegner

November 3, 2024 / ★★★★★, Literary Fiction, Reading

Stegner must be my spirit author. The Big Rock Candy Mountain affected me on a deeply emotional level because of the many similiaries from my own life that that novel explores. This one touched me as well, but for diffrent reasons. The narrator is 69, retired to his dream home in California, and deeply unhappy. He looks back on his life as pointless, a spectator.

The truest vision of life I know is that bird in the Venerable Bede that flutters from the dark into a lighted hall, and after a while flutters out again into the dark.

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The Elephant Whisperer by Lawrence Anthony

October 28, 2024 / Nature, Reading

I enjoyed these episodic adventures in the wilds of South Africa amongst elephants and the incredible struggle to preserve and cohabitate with these massive and intelligent animals. An Immense World by Ed Yong introduced me to the ways in which elephants see the world from a scientific basis. Here, the author tells the story from practical experience.

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Rose Madder by Stephen King

October 18, 2024 / Horror, Reading

My journey to read all of Stephen King continues. Normally, I enjoy the supernatural aspects of King’s novels. In this case, I think the story would have been better without any of the other-world part. Rosie is an abused woman who digs deep and finds strength to leave and ultimately confront her abusive husband with the help of her new friends. Having to rely on the supernatural powers to ultimately defeat her beast of a husband felt like a let down.

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Spook Street by Mick Herron

October 2, 2024 / Reading, Spy-Detective

The fourth Slow Horses book was fun. These books follow a formula, yet are so well written. These aren’t the kind of books you analyze for themes or highlight many passages. They’re just good, well-written entertainment. It will be interesting to watch Season Four on TV now that I’ve read the book. Maybe there will be more departures from the book?

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The Age of Louis XIV by Will Durant

September 25, 2024 / ★★★★★, History, Reading

My straight-through reading of this mammoth 11-volume history continues. Volume VIII shares a detailed view of Europe in the 17th Century. So much war and bloodshed and atrocity, and yet brilliance too.

Let us agree that in every generation of man’s history, and almost everywhere, we find superstition, hypocrisy, corruption, cruelty, crime, and war: in the balance against them we place the long roster of poets, composers, artists, scientists, philosophers, and saints. That same species upon which poor Swift revenged the frustrations of his flesh wrote the plays of Shakespeare, the music of Bach and Handel, the odes of Keats, the Republic of Plato, the Principia of Newton, and the Ethics of Spinoza; it built the Parthenon and painted the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel; it conceived and cherished, even if it crucified, Christ. Man did all this; let him never despair.

Will Durant