What are you Reading? - 2021

Beware of odd Romans. Remember the Ides of March. Aquila non capit muscas!

I had read it when I was about 6 or 7,but in high school speech class the teacher did a dramatic reading that really opened my eyes.

Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child "Still Life With Crows" An outstanding "who dun it"

Churchhill, The Gathering Storm.

For those of you who like the Preston and Child books, I highly recommend the first 4 books by Jack Dubrul.

Good book. There is so much "fiction" with government as the enemy that you have to wonder. These stories certainly do not require a suspension of disbelief. Just say'n.

Thanks.  I'll put them on the Someday List.

Re-reading Life on the Mississippi again because it's just fun.

Don't Call It a Cult, by Sarah Berman.   Keith Raniere's NXIVM MLM scam and misogyny cult.  I read a lot about cults and "new religious movements," but don't know much about this one, except that women came out saying that he branded them with his initials in the nether regions.  Humans are a curious bunch.

I've been reading the Ultimate Wodehouse Collection on Kindle. It runs 6250 pages and so far is not overwhelming. The compilation is rather loosely put together, meaning there are some repetitions of stories with similar names or perhaps publication in different formats, books, magazine serials, etc. Those are easy enough to skim through. Wodehouse, writing in the early to later 20th century, was a master of the British idiom and lampooning the culture, especially that of the upper and near upper crust. While his style has been described as "flippant", there are insights to be gleaned from his understated British humor.
There is a tobacco theme working through the stories, but in the early going, mostly cigarette with the occasional cigar or pipe. We'll see how that progresses. I believe I've read that Wodehouse, in his younger years, was a cigarette smoker who moved to pipe smoking for health reasons. He is not hard to find with a pipe in hand or mouth.
I am enjoying my reading despite having to imagine the meaning of many of the cultural references lost to time.

The hell?

Yeah.  The guy is a peach.

PS  I did my HS junior term paper on Paradise Lost.  I wasn't thrilled about it at the time, but there's some beautiful writing there, especially the actual fall.  Not that I remember much of it.

I'll read most anything that's beautifully written. Ivanhoe is a favorite. Unfortunately, most of it is pretty old.

The classics never get old. That's why they're classics, right?  Ivanhoe was on the family bookshelf when I was a kid, but I couldn't get into it.  And  now there's so many books and so little time. 

My nephew was doing a book report at about age 11 or 12.  It was a dang comic book, a "graphic novel."  I get that times change,  but let's start with the basics for Pete's sake.  Ten years later he's got a couple kids and zero marketable skills.  

Now get offa my lawn!