What are you reading

[swee'pea99]

View attachment 567601
Church, Black activism, Lost War,Racism, Religion, Baptists, Rednecks, Tobacco, Cotton, more Religion, Civil Rights Movement, more Church
These are some of the subjects Naipaul writes about in this travelogue - some fantastic interviews in there, he can portrait the bigoted redneck (but is he really bigoted?) as well as civil rights movement leader.

Do I detect a theme?

Assuming so, have you come across Steinbeck's Travels with Charley? I haven't read it for years, but I remember it as an excellent read - and a riveting one, reporting on the deep south pre-civil rights. A real of a book.

 

[swee'pea99]

View attachment 558599
Theroux in the deep South.
Good book, didn't really like the chapters on Southern writers, but the rest is fine.
Favourite bits are on Clinton and Indians

View attachment 567601
Church, Black activism, Lost War,Racism, Religion, Baptists, Rednecks, Tobacco, Cotton, more Religion, Civil Rights Movement, more Church
These are some of the subjects Naipaul writes about in this travelogue - some fantastic interviews in there, he can portrait the bigoted redneck (but is he really bigoted?) as well as civil rights movement leader.

Do I detect a theme?

Assuming so, have you come across Steinbeck's Travels with Charley? I haven't read it for years, but I remember it as an excellent read - and a riveting one, reporting on the deep south pre-civil rights. A real of a book.

 

[cyberknight]

God emperor dune a chapter or two a day at bedtime , probably my favourite or the series

 

[Eziemnaik]

Do I detect a theme?

Assuming so, have you come across Steinbeck's Travels with Charley? I haven't read it for years, but I remember it as an excellent read - and a riveting one, reporting on the deep south pre-civil rights. A real of a book.

Thanks for recommendation
Will give it a go soon

 

[Eziemnaik]

God emperor dune a chapter or two a day at bedtime , probably my favourite or the series

Always thought Dune Messiah was the best... although Children put me off from God, maybe a good time to give it another go!

 

[cyberknight]

Always thought Dune Messiah was the best... although Children put me off from God, maybe a good time to give it another go!

Found messiah a bit short as if it had been written to cash in on the 1st book and needed more development

 

[Eziemnaik]

John Grisham novels - find these as absorbing and entertaining as Lee Child's books, easy enough to pick up on the beach, well written and not too much of a hard work

 

[Tail End Charlie]

I'm reading The Bromeliads by Terry Pratchett. Very funny and clever. Like The Borrowers but with more humour.

 

[Eziemnaik]

Fahrenheit 451 - There you have it, Montag. It didn’t come from the Government down. There was no dictum, no declaration, no censorship, to start with, no! Technology, mass exploitation, and minority pressure carried the trick, thank God. Today, thanks to them, you can stay happy all the time, you are allowed to read comics, the good old confessions, or trade journals.

 

[John the Monkey]

Pale Horse - Laura Spinney
Readable history of the 1918 flu pandemic.

The Famine Irish: Emigration and the Great Hunger
A collection of essays on this topic - variable, as collections like this always are, but several are really interesting (particularly the one about how the famine, and immigrants were reported in the US).

The Right to The City
A Verso freebie, a collection examining what Henri Lefebvre originally meant in his "Le Droit a la Ville" and what it means in today's neoliberal urban world. Some interesting writing on gentrification, the encroachment of private ownership/management on public space, and on digital spaces.

 

[Blue Hills]

I started Mary Beard's 'SPQR' last night, which I've been looking forward to.

Impressions/memories?
Am reading it now.

 

[LeetleGreyCells]

Utterly Brilliant by Timmy Mallett

His ebike and painting pilgrimage on the Camino de Santiago.

 

[perplexed]

Impressions/memories?
Am reading it now.

It's a couple of years ago now, so much of it's a bit hazy, but I enjoyed it. Accessible enough yet with plenty of deeper details to engage those with more than a passing interest in the topic. It puts a bit more flesh on the bones so to speak, but I like the idea of there being plenty of scope to pursue individual aspects in greater detail with the 'further reading' list in the back.

 

[swee'pea99]

Rereading Eric Newby's Short Walk in the Hindu Kush. Every bit as good as I remember it. It brilliantly conveys an almost Edwardian Englishness that was bizarrely clearly still around (in certain circles) in the late '50s - the kind of mindset that can remove boots to find socks absolutely drenched in blood and think 'I say, that's a bit of a bore.' Then bind them up in the morning and carry on walking up an ice-encased mountain. Bonkers. And quite wonderful.

 

[Richard A Thackeray]

Got this today