What Are You Reading

I have read it before (more than once), but I have been rereading Fellowship of the Ring (Tolkien), I think that this is my favorite in the series, the escalation and change of pace is excellent. And, I just really love Tolkein, he is such a great writer, and how he formed such an elaborate world in a time before computers is amazing (yes there are plenty of Fantasy books before him, but the scale is not the same).

I came across an old television show randomly some weeks ago called "Sharpe's Rifles" , a British show staring Sean Bean as a new officer of a rifle company during the Napoleonic Wars from the 1990s. It held up quite well (mostly because it was all practical effects). Anyway, from what I can tell the show ran for quite a few years (1993-1997, with a couple of specials made in the mid 2000s). I watched the first two episodes (its pretty much impossible to find available for streaming in the U.S. so that is all I was able to watch) , and discovered it was based on a series of novels have been published from 1981 until the current year. The show was very good from what I watched and seemed to have quite a few very big British actors early in their career (you can tell the budget was thin, but the good acting, and practical effects can't really go wrong, though relying on such reenactments does leave battle scenes to feel very small, which is not inherently bad since its focused on a small group of elite rifles that often are off doing their own thing).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ey4UQrMZ5q4
(Not an official trailer, but good as a general summary)


I started reading "Sharpe's Rifles" (Bernard Cornwell, historical fiction author, probably best known for "The Last Kingdom" series which was adapted on Netflix, final season I have not watched, but came out not long ago) which takes place in early 1809, and involves the British military in Spain, trying to push the French out, and involves a lot of Guerilla tactics (by the Spanish) that are not often thought about in such a period. I am enjoying it so far. (This is the book that the first episode of the show was based on). If you like historical fiction, and the Napoleonic period (especially about lesser-known aspects of the Napoleonic Wars, in some cases 25 different stories published over fifty), it is extremely interesting. I can't say its a book for everyone, most would find it an obscure subject matter, but for people interesting in certain aspects of the Napoleonic War from the British side, its worth checking out (again historical fiction, so not to be read as accurate).


https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/360562.Sharpe_s_Rifles
(It has a 4.25 on Goodreads, and from what I can tell skimming the reviews, most of the negative-mid reviews are related to the audiobook version where apparently this narrator is either not who people are used to for the series, or has cheesy/offensive accents when doing dialogue, or other random issues with the narrator -I have the Kindle version so I cannot comment on this-, and a smaller subset of negative reviews seem to be about portrayals of problematic situations with women, which I mean its a war in 1809, if portrayals were not problematic it probably would not be realistic, but I understand that some people don't like reading such things in escapist fiction....
And another subset of poor reviews is how this book does not blend well with books that take place before and after -even if they were not written in order, since they were/are being written over 5+ decades its understandable that a writer may not remember every character detail for a series out of order, but if somebody reads them all back to back they may notice discrepancies- , as this is my first one reading, I cannot comment on this either).

(Also, this show is apparently where the "Now That's Soldiering" meme came from).

Grant by Ron Chernow
Listened to it on my move from St Louis to Kansas City
One of my favorite Presidents
I actually visited the Grant house
It's where his wife grew up, owned by Grant's father in law
He lived there before the Civil War
The slaves loved listening in on their arguments
Father in law owned slaves and Grant was against slavery

Watched the Ron Howard movie
Watched the Nova documentary
Now reading the book by the lead diver

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/59856348-aquanaut
Aquanaut: The Inside Story of the Thai Cave Rescue
Rick Stanton

I've been reading Gone with the Wind.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/10150.The_Lost_World_Other_Stories


I read it for the first time in 2014, but I still love it. "The Lost World" by Sir Author Connan Doyle is the epitome of Victorian (okay, a couple years post-Victorian if you are going to get technical) adventure novels. Released in 1912, it was far ahead of it's time touching on various issues of evolution and academic debate. Though perhaps most interestingly, the whole premise of the story is about a man getting friendzoned and trying to obtain an assignment to impress a lady.

Just a great book, excellent adventure, exploration, themes, and characters. Doyle is often well-known for his Sherlock Holmes series (which are great in their own right), but some of his other novels is where he really shines, and this is one of them. (The White Company, a historical fiction book about an elite mercenary company and accompanying archer company during the 100 years war is another example of a great novel of his that is often overlooked).

I read "My brilliant friend"

Reading "Lucifer's Hammer" again, I think this is the third time.

I just love a good yarn with an unhappy ending.

https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/7672

Congo by Michael Crichton.

I know that it does not have great reviews, but I enjoyed it. It is a great adventure book, and being published in 1980, and being technology focused, it is interesting seeing the contrast. Scratches some of the same itches as The Lost World (Conan Doyle, not Crichton, never actually read the Cricton one.)

Read the 'Orchard Keeper' by Cormac McCarthy, liked it, wanted to read more of his stuff

skipped the next two he wrote as the descriptions seem excessively dark

Now reading 'Suttree' ... should be good but he has gotten worse with his vocabulary challenges.

I'd like to think I seldom brag but in this category, vocabulary, I'm happy with what I've got, I'll assert that. But he challenged me in the first book, and it's even worse now in this one. There are some sentences I can't parse out even going to the internet for the word definitions!

I literally will have to accept it as a challenge and look the words up. I'm ok with this, I'll make it a good part of the experience, and build vocabulary more ... but I wouldn't want every book I read to be like that.