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Author Topic: Quarantine Reading (Buckworks)  (Read 16651 times)

gm66

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Re: Quarantine Reading (Buckworks)
« Reply #30 on: September 14, 2020, 09:35:33 PM »
COVID Quarantine reading, interesting how many of the suggestions are works of fiction.
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ergophobe

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Re: Quarantine Reading (Buckworks)
« Reply #31 on: September 14, 2020, 09:53:39 PM »
Quote from: buckworks on June 01, 2020, 08:23:28 PM
Smoke Gets in Your Eyes - new vistas for me, <and> well told

This one?
https://www.amazon.com/Smoke-Gets-Your-Eyes-Crematory/dp/0393351904

Sounds like it touches some of my bases
Quote
Armed with a degree in medieval history and a flair for the macabre, Caitlin Doughty took a job at a crematory and turned morbid curiosity into her life’s work.

I'm not sure I can read about smoke right now though!
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ergophobe

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Re: Quarantine Reading (Buckworks)
« Reply #32 on: September 14, 2020, 10:03:02 PM »
BTW, one that I did not mention, is Essays After Eighty by Donald Hall, formerly the poet laureate of the US.

The book was not a page turner for me, but the kind of book where I would read a few pages and it would trigger some memory and I would be off in a reverie and then minutes later find myself staring out the window with the book in my lap. The more time elapses, I think it is the book that just keeps rattling around in my head.

For a sense of Hall's essays, try reading The Third Thing. It's a reflection on what made his marriage work.

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/articles/60484/the-third-thing

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The best moment of our lives was one quiet repeated day of work in our house. Not everyone understood. Visitors, especially from New York, would spend a weekend with us and say as they left: “It’s really pretty here” (“in Vermont,” many added) “with your house, the pond, the hills, but . . . but . . . but . . . what do you do?”

What we did: love. We did not spend our days gazing into each other’s eyes. We did that gazing when we made love or when one of us was in trouble, but most of the time our gazes met and entwined as they looked at a third thing. Third things are essential to marriages, objects or practices or habits or arts or institutions or games or human beings that provide a site of joint rapture or contentment. Each member of a couple is separate; the two come together in double attention. Lovemaking is not a third thing but two-in-one. John Keats can be a third thing, or the Boston Symphony Orchestra, or Dutch interiors, or Monopoly. For many couples, children are a third thing.
« Last Edit: September 14, 2020, 10:05:45 PM by ergophobe »
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buckworks

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Re: Quarantine Reading (Buckworks)
« Reply #33 on: September 15, 2020, 01:44:15 PM »
>> Caitlin Doughty

That's the one. It taught me some new things and her writing style is way above average.

I've just listened to another book where the writing is way above average. A true gem, outside my usual range of interests:

Drunkard - A Hard-Drinking Life
By: Neil Steinberg

It's a glimpse into the mind of an alcoholic struggling (or not struggling, sometimes) with addiction. A masterpiece of sardonic humour!

-----
Re smoke: we're getting some haze here now, in the centre of the continent.
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Rupert

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Re: Quarantine Reading (Buckworks)
« Reply #34 on: November 18, 2020, 02:15:19 PM »
Just listening t Shantaram on audible. It came highly recommended by my Brother in law, who has tried to persuade his 3 daughters to read it as one of lifes "Must reads"

I come to it late, and am thoroughly enjoying it.  Reading the wiki:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shantaram_(novel)

It perhaps is more vivid for me as I was in India for a couple of months in the 1980,s so some of what he talks of is very reminiscent.

Its quite a tough book, quite introspective, and so not the sort that I would usually pick up. But I can say I am enjoying it.
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ergophobe

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Re: Quarantine Reading (Buckworks)
« Reply #35 on: November 18, 2020, 04:54:59 PM »
>>Shantaram

I enjoyed it. Some great parts. Not a "must read" for me, but worth sticking through to the end.

>> in India for a couple of months in the 1980,s

I went in 1984. I went with two friends, one of whom had been Indian, but got his US citizenship literally one month before we went (lived his first 13 years in India and we were 21 at the time). He straddled the two worlds to a degree he didn't know. He said he thought of himself as an Indian living in a America, but in India felt an American visiting India.

We had planned on 12 weeks, with a fair bit of it with his family. We never did see his family. After about 8 weeks, without telling me, he went to the Air Kuwait office and changed my flight. The person said, "You can't change someone else's flight." My friend said, "I think he's dying," and they let him do it. He came back and said, "Here are your tickets. You go home tomorrow."

I went do India a lean, fit 142 pounds. I came home at 117 pounds. Dysentery did some of it. Malaria did the rest. When my mother saw me, she said, "You left your butt in India." So, I can't say India took my heart. But it did take my butt.
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Rupert

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Re: Quarantine Reading (Buckworks)
« Reply #36 on: November 18, 2020, 09:59:20 PM »
I did wonder where that was going, but
Quote
But it did take my butt.
  made me smile.

I found it quite hard, and was in the North.  But one I passed into Nepal, the world was nicer, less aggressive.  I loved it there.
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ergophobe

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Re: Quarantine Reading (Buckworks)
« Reply #37 on: November 18, 2020, 11:35:42 PM »
Quote from: Rupert on November 18, 2020, 09:59:20 PM
But one I passed into Nepal, the world was nicer, less aggressive.  I loved it there.

Yes. Much easier. The thing about India was everyone wanted something from me. Once I got malaria though, people in India were very kind to me.

Nepal was actually fun though. We slept in someone's hayloft. We had people take us in and let us sleep on the floor and we fixed their roof in exchange and then the let us sit around with the men and drink rakshi. We had some really nice interactions, facilitated by the fact that Hindi and Nepali are close enough that most Nepalis can communicate in Hindi and my friend spoke Hindi.
« Last Edit: November 18, 2020, 11:38:36 PM by ergophobe »
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Rupert

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Re: Quarantine Reading (Buckworks)
« Reply #38 on: November 19, 2020, 06:23:44 AM »
Quote
We had people take us in
Same, near Pokhara. The Brit connection helped.  Nepal is full of Gurkas. :)

Glad I never got Malaria. Having a Hindi friend would have been nice, I set out on my own an joined others for bits of the journey as I met them. 1985 I think it was.
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Rupert

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Re: Quarantine Reading (Buckworks)
« Reply #39 on: November 19, 2020, 06:30:25 AM »
Quote
Jim Butcher's "Dresden Files" series is a great romp in urban fantasy.
Brad, I blame you, Sue has read 9 of them this year.

This our version of Mouse and Mister apparently. (Mac and Bambi yeah, I know. )
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Brad

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Re: Quarantine Reading (Buckworks)
« Reply #40 on: November 19, 2020, 10:53:17 AM »
> blame

Guilty as charged.  The Dresden series, for the most part, just keeps getting better.  They are kinda perfect for semi-quarantine because you can immerse yourself in that world and shut out our own chaos.  I'm glad Sue is liking them.
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Rupert

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Re: Quarantine Reading (Buckworks)
« Reply #41 on: November 19, 2020, 11:38:12 AM »
Well, great thread idea too. I am revisiting it to see if there are any books that family should get this year for Christmas, as it seems it might be a good time to get immersed!
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ergophobe

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Re: Quarantine Reading (Buckworks)
« Reply #42 on: November 19, 2020, 06:42:58 PM »
>>Brad, I blame you, Sue has read 9 of them this year.

Theresa has read a bunch of those.

Rupert, I blame you... I am reading the Kindle sample of my sixth book in the Farseer series. I'm sure I'll buy the book. I've been really busy and a bit run down lately, and it's just the thing to escape into.
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Rupert

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Re: Quarantine Reading (Buckworks)
« Reply #43 on: November 19, 2020, 06:47:16 PM »
seems what goes around comes around :)
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ergophobe

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Re: Quarantine Reading (Buckworks)
« Reply #44 on: November 19, 2020, 06:54:11 PM »
Ironically, I tried to read Jenny Odell's "How to do Nothing," which seemed right up my alley, but it just seemed to wander off into areas that I was less interested in or areas I had already thought about a lot, so there just wasn't a lot to keep me going.
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