What are you reading now? (books, authors)

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.
 
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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. :-)
 
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.
 
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.
 
stlukesguild said:
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.
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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. :-)
 
I started reading Marcel Proust's Remembrance of Things past but got a little stalled so the I read my first Jack Reacher by Lee Child. He's in Texas and gets picked up by some waif in distress. Basically, it seems to be a type of stranger comes to town type of thing. It's competently researched and plotted. I wouldn't be surprised if the writer started his craft writing for television, but Jack Reacher seems a bit of a dry stick to me, and frankly a bit dull with little inner life.
This ranch compound has been painted inside and out with cheap red paint in the late nineteen fifties, and I thought Mr child did you get that idea because of the oxblood farm buildings? Wait, wait....... the place was painted in the 1950's? There's no way the paint is lasting all those years in the Texas heat. I imagine the colour is symbolic of violence and everyone also keeps talking of the coming storm.
Anyway, the story sort of worked out but I don't feel in a rush to read another Reacher.
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Cold Winter days spent in my library seem perfectly suited to dark “gothic” noir tales: mysteries, murder, mayhem, ghosts, vampires, etc… I’m currently reading a collection of tales by Richard Matheson. Matheson is known for having written a number of tales and short novels that ended up being employed in The Twilight Zone as well as a number of films: Hell House, The Incredible Shrinking Man, What Dreams May Come, etc…
 
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A free download from Gutenberg.org, in which the famous philosopher shares his ideas on education. It was published about a century ago now, so it is interesting to see what ideas were current then, and of course, Russell had a remarkable ability to get to the heart of matters. Well, I have only just started the book, so it remains to be seen whether I keep on enjoying it... :-)
 
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Still another collection of 19th century Gothic/Mystery/Fantasy. I looked for volumes of Lord Dunsany for years after reading (as a teen) how John Lennon loved his work… along side those of Edward Lear and Lewis Carroll.
 
The video experiment with speed-reading was fun… but considering the amount of poetry I read… as well as lush prose… the sound of the language within my head is essential and not something I’d wish to silence. But this technique would certainly be of use for skimming dry academic writing that I am not reading for pleasure.
 
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An interesting if rather disturbing account of the absolutely appalling business practices of large companies, and how it ends up making their products and services ever worse and worse, even as they get ever richer and richer. We don't need to read Orwell to see dystopia, we need but to look around us.

Had to laugh a bit: Google is used as one example of an enshittified service, but if you search for the term, Google's AI cheerfully gives you a good summary of what it means and how the process unfolds:

Enshittification is the gradual decay of online platforms and products as they degrade in quality, becoming worse for users and businesses to extract more profit, coined by Cory Doctorow to describe a three-stage process: attract users (good to users), lock them in (favor business clients), then exploit both for maximum shareholder value (bad for everyone). It's a term for the deterioration of digital services, marked by more ads, spam, and reduced utility, seen in Google, Amazon, and social media.
The Three Stages of Enshittification
  1. Benefit Users:
    Platforms offer great value, quality, and features to attract a large user base and create dependency (e.g., early Google search).
    • Benefit Business Customers:
      Once users are locked in, the platform starts favoring advertisers or business clients, degrading the user experience (e.g., more ads on search results).
    • Extract Value from Everyone:
      The platform degrades services for both users and businesses to maximize profits for executives and shareholders, leaving minimal value for anyone.
Examples & Characteristics
    • Degraded Experience: More ads, spam, AI-generated clutter, and intrusive features.
    • User Lock-in: Difficult to leave due to network effects, data, or sunk costs (e.g., Amazon Prime, platform-locked media).
    • Profit-Driven Decay: A shift from user-centric design to short-term financial gain.
    • Broad Application: Applies to social media, streaming, search engines, and even academic publishing.
Why it Happens
    • Capitalism & Policy:
      A system that rewards extraction over quality, often enabled by weak regulation.
    • Loss of Competition:
      When platforms become dominant, they face less pressure to maintain quality.
 
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