What are you reading now? (books, authors)

[Ellen Easton]

I've gotten back to reading actual books and I love it. I've never liked reading online and it's wonderful to just sink back into actual books.

The book I just finished is Nobody's Girl by Virginia Giuffre.

Awhile back I also read Out of the Woods by the now grown up little girl who was abducted in Idaho a few years ago. She and her brother were taken to the woods and tortured and she had to see her brother killed in front of her.

I'm reading Ghandi's autobiography right now.

And then after Christmas I'll settle into reading more of my Steinbeck collection. I've read them all multiple times but he's by far my favorite author ever.

 

[brianvds]

I didn't know a thing about Kafka, so why not read a brief intro? The book contains a brief biography, plus summaries of his more important books. On the whole, it convinced me that it is very unlikely that I will enjoy his work at all, and thus, it spared me the bother of having to try to plow my way through more thick tomes full of lofty literature.

On the positive side, I loved the copious illustrations by Robert Crumb.

And now I wait with bated breath for our resident literary sophisticates to come down on me like the proverbial ton of bricks.

 

[stlukesguild]

Kafka is a writer who did not immediately resonate with me. He is often deemed a Surrealist but his writing does not have the more sensual/“romantic” aspects I was expecting. His writing is much more dead-pan… even journalistic. In spite of not being immediately seduced as I was by other writers, there was something there that drew me back repeatedly… until I was truly enthralled.

There’s no need to fear thick tomes, Brian; Kafka’s greatest work is found among the novella, The Metamorphosis, and his short tales (if they can be truly termed as such) as well as his aphorisms and notebooks. Of course the novels, The Trial & The Castle are worth reading… and neither that long. Of course Kafka is central to Modern literature influencing an incredible array of authors… but I agree with the critic, Harold Bloom, who argued that the purpose of reading (and art in general) is for pleasure, and Kafka certainly gave me that.

 

[stlukesguild]

And then after Christmas I'll settle into reading more of my Steinbeck collection. I've read them all multiple times but he's by far my favorite author ever.

I’ve long had mixed feelings about Steinbeck. Perhaps it is because he was one of the writers hoisted on us most in grade school. Of Mice and Men, on the other hand, left me shattered in a manner not unlike Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian.

 

[brianvds]

There’s no need to fear thick tomes, Brian; Kafka’s greatest work is found among the novella, The Metamorphosis, and his short tales (if they can be truly termed as such) as well as his aphorisms and notebooks.

I know, but if I don't feel like reading something, even a short story begins to feel like a thick tome.

Pay me no attention. It's one of my numerous weaknesses: I seem incapable of getting much out of literary fiction. I'm also largely poem deaf, though not invariably. And of course, don't even get me started on Wagner.

On the other hand, one of my New Year's resolutions is to make use of YouTube's many videos of operas which include video and subtitles, and see if I can develop a liking for opera. My main issue has long been not so much opera as such, but simply that at least to me, opera is a show, and has to be seen and understood, otherwise it's like listening to a movie, or watching one in Japanese without subtitles. Maybe by this time next year, I'll be singing the praises of Wagner.