Reading Everything

 

Very trendy right now, but that doesn't mean it's shallow. I take this in little bites and every page contains some type of wisdom.

Many bloggers like to write about what they are reading. I feel like this implies you must be reading only one thing at a time. This is an issue for me. I'm usually reading several things at a time. Even worse, I sometimes start reading something and put it away for anything up to years, then pick up later where I left off. Usually I would only do that with non-fiction though. I love non-fiction but I consume it at a much slower rate than fiction. The result is stacks of books with bookmarks sticking out. The list of items I'm currently reading include only those things that have been read in the last month or so, even if minimal.

Currently Reading

Smithsonian magazine. January/February 2023.

Forgotten Civilization. Robert Schach.

The Collected Short Stories of Louis L'Amour, The Frontier Stories, Volume 1

Meditations. Marcus Aurelius.

The Thirty Years War, Europe's Tragedy. Peter H. Wilson.

The Crossing. Cormac McCarthy.

From Matter To Life, Information and Causality. various authors

A Bunch of Stuff on the Internet - I'm always reading articles, news, blogs, Wikipedia, etc.

Audio Books

Demon Lord of Karanda. David Eddings.

I mostly play this in my car. I feel like I need to explain that I only listen to audiobooks if I have read the print version first. There has been only one exception to that, which was a massive biography of the Confederate bushwhacker (partisan guerrilla) Bill Quantrill, which I bought to listen to on a cross country trip some years ago.

Recently Put Aside

The Complete Hammer's Slammers. David Drake.

Death In The Afternoon. Ernest Hemingway.

There are many other books I have put aside over the years. Most of them are still bookmarked and once in a while I pick them up again. But I have read most of the books in my library.

Why I Put Aside These Books

David Drake is one of these Vietnam veterans who obviously encountered some ugliness during the war. This has shaped his perception of war and humanity, and it affects his writing. Almost every story in the collection ends with an atrocity. Drake was involved in intelligence during the war. I happen to know another Vietnam vet that was involved in intelligence and he seems to have been scarred for life by what he saw there. I'm sorry for these guys I can't deal with Drake's stories. I have enough of my own problems. I may never pick it up again.

Death In The Afternoon is a non-fiction that opens with a lengthy justification for the brutality and death of bullfighting. I'm not in the mood for that right now, though as always Hemingway's writing is clear and compelling.

I previously put away The Crossing because McCarthy is always so dreary and evil minded, but I picked it up again, determined to push through.

Anyway, that's what I'm reading.