What Are You Reading

[Zombie_61]

Sometime in May I stopped into a local bookstore to see what was collecting dust on their shelves, and I found a book titled "Rolling Nowhere - Riding the Rails with American's Hoboes" by an author named Ted Conover. This is one of those travelogues written by a younger man with questions about what it might be like to take a trip through the U.S. on a freight train. Hardly a "Depression Era" book (the first year mentioned on the copyright page is 1981), but at least it seems to be describing the adventure in the words of a young man discovering the good and bad about riding a freight train St. Louis, Missouri to...well, I haven't come close to finishing the book yet, so...

 

[TheEnglishSwede]

I recently finished Kafka on the Shore. Overall, I found it to be a thoughtful and engaging book. I have passed it on to my wife — though I’m not entirely sure she’ll end up reading it.

There was some animal cruelty in it, I decided that I couldn't read that part and skipped the rest of that chapter. I'm not really sure how much those few pages or what happened in them would add to the rest of the book. Perhaps knowing that it was there was in the book was enough of a shock or knowledge for me as a reader about a character, as apposed to a brief mention that a character was doing some rather nasty stuff to animals.

Murakami can write beautifully at times, but his intimate scenes — in this book and others — often feel awkward or out of place. I’m clearly not the only one who thinks so, considering he’s been nominated for a “bad *** writing” award. I have found an interview where he discusses this aspect of his writing, and I’m curious to see how he approaches those moments.

/Mike

 

[TheEnglishSwede]

One of my colleagues at work recommended The Magician by Raymond Feist and said they absolutely love the whole series. I’m not usually big on fantasy — the Discworld books by Terry Pratchett are pretty much the only ones I’ve really gotten into — but I figured I’d give this a shot since I’ve got a bit of extra time at the moment.

The first half was pretty slow, and I had to push myself through some of the world‑building, but things definitely picked up in the second half. As for the last third, I honestly couldn’t put it down. I noticed Feist has written a ton of other books, so I guess I’ll have to chat with my colleague before deciding whether I want to dive down the rabbit hole of the rest of this series or the other series.

/Mike

 

[TheEnglishSwede]

I’m currently dipping into The Two Towers by Tolkien. I know the Lord of the Rings books pretty well, and I tend to use them as “filler reads” when I’m between other books or need something to read on the bus.

Currently I’m waiting for two books to arrive. The first is Galahad and the Grail by Malcolm Guite. I’ve followed Malcolm on YouTube for quite a while and always find him interesting to listen to, so I’ve got high hopes for the book. As an occasional pipe smoker myself, I’m pretty sure I’ll get a pipe going when I sit down to start it.

The second is Tales of Moonlight and Rain by Ueda Akinari. Murakami mentioned it in Kafka on the Shore, and unlike Malcolm’s book, this one is coming from the local library. I often look up the books or music Murakami references, so some old‑fashioned Japanese ghost stories sound interesting.

/Mike