Because most philosophies that frown on reproduction don't survive.

Friday, June 29, 2018

The Immediate Book Meme

photo by Evan Laurence Bench
There are plenty of memes that want to know all about your book history and your all-time greats and your grand ambitions, but let's focus on something more revealing: the books you're actually reading now, or just read, or are about to read. Let's call it The Immediate Book Meme.

1. What book are you reading now?

Black Lamb and Grey Falcon, by Rebecca West.

The American South: A History, by William Cooper and Thomas Terrill
A two-volume textbook (here in one complete volume) that starts at Jamestown. It's a useful reference to me for my own textbook project.

Colonial Ambitions: Roman Catholics in North America: The Colonial Experience, by Kevin Starr
Examines the three Catholic forces -- Spain, France, and the English Recusants -- that settled North America. Lots of great detail and a good balance to the textbook above.

A bunch of children's State Fact Books from the library.
Yawn.

1a. Readaloud

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain

2. What book did you just finish?


The American Catholic Almanac, by Brian Burch and Emily Stimpson

The Long Goodbye, by Raymond Chandler
Chandler is an American master. Do yourself a favor and re-read this. I won't insult you by insinuating that you haven't read it at all.

Lots of Agatha Christie.

A few Roman novels by Lindsay Davis.
I dunno. I tried a variety to see if perhaps the first one just rubbed me the wrong way, but these left a bad taste in my mouth. I understand that she's writing about a different culture with different mores, but the human behavior of the characters often felt off to me.

3. What do you plan to read next?

More Chandler.

The Broken Road, by Patrick Leigh Fermor
Darwin bought me this, the final book of Leigh Fermor's travel memoir trilogy about walking across Europe in the 30s, at Powell's in Portland.

4. What book do you keep meaning to finish?

The Power of Silence, by Robert Cardinal Sarah.

5. What book do you keep meaning to start?

One Beautiful Dream, by Jennifer Fulwiler

6. What is your current reading trend?

American South. American South. American South. History, not Faulker and O'Connor and Percy and Chopin and Lee and Welty.

2 comments:

Atque Laudatio said...

Read all of Chandler 40 years ago. Can’t read it now because of the unchastity that is cast like part of a sculpture in all the stories. Glossy, sunny poisoned California chrome.

Atque Laudatio said...

Kurosawa put an illicit romantic love, or should it be rather poetic lust, sequence in Seven Samurai. He said later it was the mistake he regretted the most and that such things cannot be presented in art.

In this, and in many other ways in all his films, Kurosawa displays an almost Catholic understanding.