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Thread: What are you reading 2017?

  1. #61
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    Currently reading The Unsubstantial Air by Samuel Hynes, about the U.S. airmen who fought the First World War. Like anything by Hynes, it's well worth reading. Just finished re-reading Henderson the Rain King by Saul Bellow. Do any of you have an author whose work means different things to you at different stages of your life? Bellow is like that for me.

  2. #62
    Senior Member JaneV2.0's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by LDAHL View Post
    Currently reading The Unsubstantial Air by Samuel Hynes, about the U.S. airmen who fought the First World War. Like anything by Hynes, it's well worth reading. Just finished re-reading Henderson the Rain King by Saul Bellow. Do any of you have an author whose work means different things to you at different stages of your life? Bellow is like that for me.
    Hahaha! I had to read Henderson the Rain King in college. I had to write a paper on it. I panned it aggressively. My instructor was offended. It may have affected my grade. I guess you have to be a middle-aged male to appreciate it.

  3. #63
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    Quote Originally Posted by JaneV2.0 View Post
    Hahaha! I had to read Henderson the Rain King in college. I had to write a paper on it. I panned it aggressively. My instructor was offended. It may have affected my grade. I guess you have to be a middle-aged male to appreciate it.
    I would have to agree that not everyone is equipped to appreciate Bellow. I would say a certain amount of life experience is helpful. He probably speaks best to that stage of development where you think you may never fully answer some of the questions you thought you had all figured out in your youth. I don't see that as a male thing, though.

  4. #64
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    Quote Originally Posted by LDAHL View Post
    I would have to agree that not everyone is equipped to appreciate Bellow. I would say a certain amount of life experience is helpful. He probably speaks best to that stage of development where you think you may never fully answer some of the questions you thought you had all figured out in your youth. I don't see that as a male thing, though.
    At my advanced age, I can appreciate the frustrations of a life never fully realized, or existential questions that go unanswered, but I suspect I still wouldn't warm up to Bellow, or that book. Oddly, and unexpectedly, I really enjoyed Thomas Mann and James Joyce, though not enough to read more of their works. Although one of my many majors was English, I wasn't much of a literature buff--"Don't tell me what to read" being my motto. Never was much for authority.

  5. #65
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    Quote Originally Posted by JaneV2.0 View Post
    At my advanced age, I can appreciate the frustrations of a life never fully realized, or existential questions that go unanswered, but I suspect I still wouldn't warm up to Bellow, or that book. Oddly, and unexpectedly, I really enjoyed Thomas Mann and James Joyce, though not enough to read more of their works. Although one of my many majors was English, I wasn't much of a literature buff--"Don't tell me what to read" being my motto. Never was much for authority.
    I have found good literature to be one of the great pleasures of life. I'm grateful to the people in my life who have steered me toward the best of the written word and helped me understand it. By all means, tell me what to read.

  6. #66
    Senior Member JaneV2.0's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by LDAHL View Post
    I have found good literature to be one of the great pleasures of life. I'm grateful to the people in my life who have steered me toward the best of the written word and helped me understand it. By all means, tell me what to read.
    Suit yourself. I prefer non-fiction, generally.

  7. #67
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    "Bettyville" - a memoir by George Hodgman.
    George's mother Betty is a 90 year old widow in a small town in Missouri that he likes to think of as Bettyville. Her gay middle-aged son, George, is in an entirely different world as a writer and editor in Manhattan. As he returns to be her caretaker he writes about growing up there interspersed with trying to manage day to day life with his strong-willed elderly mother who is also frail and sliding into dementia.

    A reviewer called it "humorous, bittersweet." A NY Times bestseller.

  8. #68
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    Just finishing up "Dorothy Day: The World Will Be Saved by Beauty." Very well-written account by Day's granddaughter, mainly focusing on the relationship between Day and her daughter, Tamar. Ample evidence that the only thing harder than being a saint is being the child of one.

  9. #69
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    I read Bettyville and liked it. This weekend I started The Pull of the Moon by Elizabeth Berg.

  10. #70
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    I just finished Bill Bryson's In A Sunburned Country His use of detail and humor to describe his long journey through Australia was enjoyable and informative. It's the third book I've read of his and have enjoyed every one.

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