What are you reading?

[RCH]

Portuguese! I love the sounds of the open vowels and the rr's.

"A mulher bebe cerveja."

I also dabble in Japanese, Italian, and French. And Russian of course.

[yourfriendclaire]

Portuguese is such a chameleon language to me. Sometimes it sounds so romantic and flowing, and sometimes it sounds so ugly and guttural. I can't figure it!

[infopetal]

my favorite portugese phrase: "oi fofinho!" = "hi little cuddly!" (to be proclaimed to a small cute animal)

[m o l l y]

My heart belongs to all things Portuguese! Dreamiest language. learning it should be a winter blues tip!
My portuguese students tell me that people think they are speaking russian when the are out in town. I had never made the connection, but once they said it I can't unhear it.

[RCH]

I studied Russian and always said the same! It's the O and Zh and Ts sounds for me.

[yourfriendclaire]

Finished the Timothy Leary autobiography. If you ever feel stressed out about not having accomplished what you had hoped to accomplish in life, never forget, Timothy Leary didn't try shrooms until he was 40!!

Seriously though, it's such a tall tale, worth a read. Firsthand accounts of tripping with all the great thinkers of the 20th century. Becoming the high priest of LSD. His downfall as the feds zeroed in on his world. His time in Algeria with Eldridge Cleaver. His prosecution and five years of incarceration. In the middle of those, he escaped from prison with the help of the Weather Underground and lived on the lam in Europe, bankrolled by a Swiss arms dealer...I'm really excited about this new Erroll Morris documentary covering those weird years:

https://youtu.be/WJAsSX_V86I

[richjensen]

I just read the entire 'What are you watching? thread. My brain feels like it has watched 1000 trailers. So fun to attend your hobnob. Big bag bursting with titles and tropes.

[meadows]

How fun!

[yourfriendclaire]

I've been reading lots of Truman Capote: short stories, B-Fast at Tiff's, and the unfinished novel, "Answered Prayers," which is a truly devilish cocktail of Hollywood Babylon and Gary Indiana. The best chapter of "Answered Prayers" is "La Cote Basque," which was published as a short story in Esquire in the mid-70s and tanked Capote's career, because it was so catty and explicit and thinly-veiled in its references to real-life members of New York café society that he was completely ostracized from the rarefied circles that were his primary muse. The references are lost on me, but it's just perfect: the whole story is just a pan around the lunch hour scene in some snobby Manhattan French restaurant in the 60s, overhearing gossip between old divorcees, snooping on Jackie Kennedy, drinking Cristal, terrorizing the maitre d'. Just a delight. I followed my Capote jag by reading Ruth Reichl's memoir, "Garlic and Sapphire;" she was the New York Times food critic in the '90s and wrote these funny, lovely little baubles about the same kinds of restaurants (I imagine) that Capote was swanning around lunching at in the 50s, places with names like La Caravelle and Chez Daniel. It's making me nostalgic for a culinary world I never even knew!

[cookiekixx]

I just started Dune which I was always really intimidated by but im about 80 pages in and i'm finding it really readable and a lot of fun so far.Trying to read it all before the movie comes out. Next up is the Elvira memoirs!

[yourfriendclaire]

Dune is totally readable! The sequels less so, in my opinion. I'm so excited for the stupid movie.

[yourfriendclaire]

I finished my Capote Moment by reading his first novel, "Other Voices, Other Rooms." Anyone ripped that one? It's incredible. I had many dumbfounded moments of just sitting with a single sentence, carefully reading one word after the next and then getting to the end and being like, yeah, no, just as I thought, this is not a sentence, and yet somehow it holds together, internally?

[richjensen]

Yeah. Capote. One of those. I read that as a pup. I just remember mood. IN COLD BLOOD. oof. The 20th C had a few biggies. All that time on their hands.

[meadows]

Other voices other rooms! I think my favorite is THE GRASS HARP.

[yourfriendclaire]

On it

[RCH]

The Ministry For the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson

This one feels so on-target for our loose collective, surely others have read and enjoyed it! Claire and Rich, looking at you.

It is technically a sci-fi novel, but very dry and procedural and about technologies that we could have now or soon in theory. It's about how the world works together to PREVENT climate catastrophe! I am enjoying the energy because it's not "here is a nightmare that could be" but "here is how we could stop the nightmare that's happening now."

I confess... have not read a book from cover to cover since possibly 2017. Feels like my brain is rebooting after a clean install.

[alexshred420]

Just read this:
https://www.abebooks.com/KLF-Chaos-Magi ... 9oQAvD_BwE

Some real interesting stuff about the history of the band but also magical thinking, Discordianism, etc.

[meadows]

Best book I've read in years is Hamnet by Maggie O'Farrell. It's described as being about Shakespeare, but it's really about being a witch, the plague, death, grief, nature vs culture. I've gotten a few people to read it (ritchey!) and so far it's been a crowd pleaser. I don't really know how to describe why it's so moving... you just gotta trust me and have even a passing interest in historical fiction!

https://massivebookshop.com/products/97 ... 7f3a&_ss=r

[yourfriendclaire]

Uh oh I'm re-reading Dune! I cracked the ol' paperback, initially, to get hyped for the movie and bone up for a podcast appearance (which is here if you're interested) but now I'm fully sucked back into the full worldness of it all.

[m o l l y]

Just got a copy of Patricia Lockwood's No one is Talking About This. Excited to crack it open tonight!

[yourfriendclaire]

Oh it’s so good!!! Have you read Priestdaddy? She’s such a weird genius

[meadows]

I loved Priestdaddy and can't wait to get the new one, whenever it's in paperback. Tell us about it!

[yourfriendclaire]

@joni bought me an e-reader for my birthday and I've been going ham downloading epubs. I used to be a bit of a purist about book formats (paperbacks forever) but I love love love the feeling of popping open my device to choose from a whole library of books in one hand. It's got me reading things I would never normally read, since the barrier to entry seems so much more reasonable and the internet is swelling with epubs (shoutout to z-library dot com). I just finished DEAD WAKE, Erik Larson's account of the sinking of the Lusitania. Made me realize how little I actually know about WWI-era history. Did we know a ship larger than the Titanic was torpedoed by a German submarine in 1915, killing nearly 2,000 people??? I did not.

[meadows]

That's really cool, I'm hemming and hawing but also thinking about the e-reader lifestyle! For "good" books I still prefer to have the paper object but I read a lot of mediocre or shit books on my phone, through the library. As a person of many headaches it's one of the only things I can distract myself with sometimes. Phone screen is pretty small and harsh... but also I think I kind of pretend I don't really have this habit so I don't have to think about fixing it.

[richjensen]

I am reading THE DAWN OF EVERYTHING. Pretty neat!
(Purchased from the MASSIVE BOOKSHOP with https://commongood.earth community credits, I am proud to say.)

Thanks for the KSR shoutout @RCH! On deck!

[meadows]

an e-reader has been purchased... will check back when I've taken it for a spin

[alexshred420]

I read a lot of books on my Mexico trip and in quarantine in Cancun after I tested positive. Thanks for the cool e-reader recommendation Claire!

Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky (great sci-fi)
Station 11 by Emily St John Mandel (pandemic/apocalypse novel with a strangely positive vibe)
Slade House by David Mitchell (soul harvesting)
The Wall by Marlen Haushofer (another apocalypse book, simple and sad)
The Secret History by Donna Tartt (dark but entertaining story about some college kids that kill a dude)
Most of the first Dune book (it's Dune)
How To Change Your Mind by Michael Pollan (about psychedelics and why they can be good for your brain)
American Gods by Neil Gaiman (metaphysical romp thru the American heartland)
Bloodchild and other short stories by Octavia Butler (so dark and violent)

Started On Freedom by Maggie Nelson
Started Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer

[yourfriendclaire]

Oh no, are you okay??

This is a fun list! I’m so glad you read The Wall. I fell in love with it last year. Felt like such a refreshing alternative to the usual apocalypse stories to get to live with an ordinary woman and her pets after the world ends. I was very moved by the deep love and attention to the natural world and even though nothing happens I was never bored.

[richjensen]

Teen and I co-reading / explicating U. Le Guin's translation of Tao Te Ching.

[yourfriendclaire]

That was an early pandemic read for me! I should revisit. A wonderful text.

[infopetal]

this interview with a legend of librarianship:
https://turtleroad.org/2022/03/08/sandy-berman/

"Monks were the group most likely to steal from their library."

[meadows]

oooooooooh

[meadows]

I bought a very cool and cute e-reader and hardly used it- like new, still has packaging, etc. Poke me if anyone is interested in buying it from me and we'll make a deal!

[m o l l y]

Hello? Anyone out there still listening? I need your help. I want to break into Stephen King and don't know where to start!