Double Bass DB forum "what books are you reading" thread

[-Shaun-]

Greetings. A visitor here from the bass guitar side, but we don't have a thread about books over there as good as this one.

There's been some good reading in here, and quite a few things added to my list.

Things I've read over the past little while:

*FICTION*
The Sailor Who Fell From Grace With the Sea - Yukio Mishima
The Pearl - John Steinbeck (I teach this text to my 5th form English class, so I read it every year. I guess that's 10th Grade in the US?)
The Setting Sun - Osamu Dazai
The Way of Kings - Brandon Sanderson (this lockdown has lead to me rekindle my boyhood love of fantasy. A passion that was somewhat quelled by studying literature at University).
Dance, Dance, Dance - Haruki Murakami (good, but not quite as inspired as Kafka On The Shore, Norweigan Wood, or a lot of his other work).
One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
The Wave - Kalou Koefoed (a young adult novel written by the mother of one of my students).
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich - Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (almost doesn't belong in fiction).
The Narrow Road to the Deep North - Richard Flanagan (again, almost belongs under non-fiction, more than fiction).

*NON-FICTION*
12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos - Jordan B. Peterson
Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader - Anne Fadiman
The Soul of Man and Prison Writings - Oscar Wilde
Letters and Papers from Prison - Dietrich Bonhoeffer

*PHILOSOPHY*
The History of Philosophy - A.C. Grayling
Republic - Plato

*POETRY*
A lot of Seamus Heaney

For those who are interested in some seriously good book reviews on YouTube, and don't mind wanting to buy new books every time a new video is released, check out Books Are Better Than Food. I'm not affiliated in any way. Just a keen fan of his work.

 

[Don Kasper]

Re-reading this...

 

[Ed Fuqua]

Huge sci-fi fan. Having said that, I was DNF on William Gibson’s latest, “Agency”.

What's DNF? I unfortunately snagged that one before reading the previous novel, which I'm almost through now. AGENCY was a little disorienting at first, but PERIPHERAL lays out the setting/scenario well enough that everything falls into place quite nicely. I went back and re-read all of the "trilogies" (loosely), with the exception of the NECROMANCERs, since I've re read those countless times. Had not read ALL TOMORROW'S PARTIES before, it was fun following those characters trajectories. Likewise ZERO HISTORY, I had read PATTERN RECOGNITION before the other two, so that narrative was more cohesive to me.

Prior to that, read Neal Stephenson's SEVENES, which I was EXTREMELY thankful to get to the second half of, the first half was fairly bleak.

 

[Hurricane Jimmie]

So Anyway, glad I finished this by D-Day. Showed all aspects of the Allied invasion of North Africa during WWII... and how we would have been totally unprepared for combat in Europe prior to June 1944.

 

[Jmilitsc]

Just read The Bear Comes Home by Rafi Zabor. What a great read, unique approach. Hysterical but deep too. I just looked and There were some good posts 11 years ago in this thread that review it better than I can. Plus several other threads.

 

[Inky13]

What's DNF? I unfortunately snagged that one before reading the previous novel, which I'm almost through now. AGENCY was a little disorienting at first, but PERIPHERAL lays out the setting/scenario well enough that everything falls into place quite nicely. I went back and re-read all of the "trilogies" (loosely), with the exception of the NECROMANCERs, since I've re read those countless times. Had not read ALL TOMORROW'S PARTIES before, it was fun following those characters trajectories. Likewise ZERO HISTORY, I had read PATTERN RECOGNITION before the other two, so that narrative was more cohesive to me.

Prior to that, read Neal Stephenson's SEVENES, which I was EXTREMELY thankful to get to the second half of, the first half was fairly bleak.

Did Not Finish.

 

[Steve Killingsworth]

Highly recommend this book--especially if you have a high stress life.

 

[Ed Fuqua]

Did Not Finish.

Thanks!

 

[Don Kasper]

Thanks!

TLDR.

 

[Ed Fuqua]

TLDR.

You're doing that on purpose...

 

[Sam Sherry]

Very well-written SF debut about family love, class, corporate exploitation, and technology's effects on creators and users.


Free, courtesy of a public library, on Overdrive via Kobo

 

[Chris Fitzgerald]

 

[Ed Fuqua]

@Chris Fitzgerald have you read Paul Fussell's CLASS?

 

[Chris Fitzgerald]

@Chris Fitzgerald have you read Paul Fussell's CLASS?

Not yet. Should I? Lately I've read most of Colson Whitehead's output and have moved on to Wilkerson trying to stay tuned in to current issues without the drama of the Social/Mainstream spin machine.

 

[Ed Fuqua]

It's a little more general as regards the always denied class structure of America and being almost 40 years old is likely in need of updating. And it's more than a little snarky. But Fussell's a good writer and it's still got some resonance...

 

[Bruce Calin]

Paul Fussell has also written on WWII. He was a combat infantryman and has a personal perspective unusual in most histories of that period. It's reality without a lot of the usual mythology. His description of his time in actual combat and what happened to his unit on a daily basis is amazing.

 

[Ed Fuqua]

Paul Fussell has also written on WWII. He was a combat infantryman and has a personal perspective unusual in most histories of that period. It's reality without a lot of the usual mythology. His description of his time in actual combat and what happened to his unit on a daily basis is amazing.

Yeah that was a good one too. I think I read that before CLASS...

 

[Sean Riddle]

I've wound up reading a lot since the quarantine began. Its been wonderful diving into a lot of books these past few months. Here's what I've read so far:

To Have or To Be? by Erich Fromm.

The Music Finds a Way, by Steven Isoardi. A short but intriguing book on the early history of some LA jazz musicians involved with Horace Tapscott's UGMAA.

Zen Mind Beginners Mind, by Shunryu Suzuki.

Introduction to Zen Buddhism, by DT Suzuki.

Songs of the Unsung, by Horace Tapscott and Steven Isoardi. My favorite book I've read recently. I highly recommend it to anyone interested in the LA jazz scene and music in general.

Blues People, by Amiri Baraka. My second time reading this. It's one of those books anyone involved in music rooted in Black American culture should read at least once in their life.

Conversations, by Steve Lacy and Jason Weiss. Interesting collection of interviews of Steve Lacy from throughout his life.

Space is the Place, by John Szwed. A biography of Sun Ra that's absolutely amazing. Szwed just simply presents Ra's life story and doesn't try to color it in anyway. One thing for certain is that whether or nor Sun Ra really is from Saturn, he is still ahead of us by a couple of decades.

Zen and the Art of Archery, by Eugen Herrigel.

Currently reading Lilth's Brood, by Octavia Butler and it's wonderful. It's a fascinating story of a chunk of humanity being saved by a group of aliens after a nuclear apocalypse and how humanity tries to adapt to life with these aliens as they rebuild Earth. I highly recommend any of her work for those looking for something new to read right now.

 

[mooseonbass]

I just finished reading Housekeeping and Gilead at Chris Fitzgerald's suggestion. What a wonderful writer! I loved Housekeeping and couldn't really relate to Gilead but the writing was addicting and the story was worth hanging in there. Thanks for the suggestions, I will use this thread as my reading list. I just started jmilitsc's suggestions of The Bear Comes Home.

 

[jmlee]

Right now, re-discovering the great Robertson Davies and reading the Deptford Trilogy. Finished Fifth Business and moving on to The Manticore.