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What are you Reading Now?

Incanus

Auror
I'm reading a collection of stories by Arthur Machen. So far, it is most excellent. It's sort of a nice blend of Edgar Allen Poe, Robert Louis Stevenson, and Arthur Conan Doyle. The writing has an easy flow to it - good quality stuff.
 

Russ

Istar
Just finished reading a great history book- "Praetorian." I find stuff like this very useful for my writing. Not only does it deal with real organizational and economic problems, but after I read it I always find the crazy political stuff I have come up with for my work so much more believable because of the absolutely insane stuff that is historical fact.
 

Mythopoet

Auror
I'm reading a collection of stories by Arthur Machen. So far, it is most excellent. It's sort of a nice blend of Edgar Allen Poe, Robert Louis Stevenson, and Arthur Conan Doyle. The writing has an easy flow to it - good quality stuff.

Ah, what stories? I've read several by him.
 

Incanus

Auror
Ah, what stories? I've read several by him.

It's a 2011 Penguin collection called 'The White People and Other Weird Stories'. It's got 11 tales all together. I just started the title story earlier today. I'm enjoying this collection so far.

Kind of makes me want to seek out some Algernon Blackwood...
 

Gurkhal

Auror
I'm taking a break from the Iliad, as I might have written above, and is slogging through two non-fiction books "The Other Greeks" and "Buddhist Cosmology". But luckily I've got Tad Williams' Osten Ard series, both of them, waiting for me and the first books of the two series "Narbonne Inheritance" and "The Accuser Kings" soon coming to my by mail.

After the non-fiction, its all fiction again. Starting with finishing the Iliad. :D
 

CupofJoe

Myth Weaver
Just started of Don Quixote, a 1906 translation.
I'm still on the Introduction - its 34 pages long!
Someone here may have inspired me to read it....
 

Mythopoet

Auror
Finished The Celtic Twilight by W. B. Yeats, which I've continued reading in between other things. It's basically a collection of observations and conversations Yeats had with various rural Irish folk while traveling the countryside. Much of it is related in his own voice and has a very informal feel to it. It's like sitting down with him by the fireside and having him tell stories about all the people he's met and places he's been. And really, it was beautiful and very insightful and I loved it.
 

Mythopoet

Auror
Kwaidan by Lafcadio Hearn. A collection of "weird" Japanese folk tales. Though as far as Japanese stories go, these ones aren't very "weird" in the way we use the term these days. Still very entertaining though. Plenty of stories I haven't read before.

Also The Lost Continent (also published as Beyond Thirty) by Edgar Rice Burroughs. A worn out old paperback given to me by a man from the local Burroughs Society at the recent local SF convention I went to. I've only just started it but the premise is interesting. After the Great War (WWI) the eastern and western hemispheres get completely cut off from each other for over 200 years. The western hemisphere is the home of peace and prosperity; no one knows what's become of the east. The protag unwittingly ends up over there and adventure ensues.
 
I'm reading The Great Cosmic Mother, by Barbara Moor. It's a fascinating read, partially about ancient matriarchal ways of life, and partially about how the left-brained, fundamentalist, domineering patriarchal society formed, and how it affects the world today.
 

Chessie2

Staff
Article Team
Started the Silver Gryphon by Mercedes Lackey last night. My mother-in-law got me books 2 and 3 of the series. It's strange starting a series on book 2 but it's somewhat of a mystery as to what's going on. And of course, Lackey is my fave. :D
 

Antonius

Scribe
Had a week and half binge on a wuxia web novel called Against the Gods. Now, I'm reading another called A Will Eternity.

I've seen Chinese dramas based on similar genre such as Duke of Mount Deer and etc, so I thought I'd give the novels a go.
 

Chessie2

Staff
Article Team
James Scott Bell: How To Write Pulp Fiction. Finished the history chapter on what pulp fiction is, how it began, etc and it was fun to read. Now he's moving on to the serious stuff. I like this book a lot so far.
 

Insolent Lad

Maester
I'm reading bits of Oliver Wendell Holmes's 'Autocrat of the Breakfast Table' when I take breaks from writing. It's a good antidote to all that serious thinking about the WIP.
 

Gurkhal

Auror
I finished Hesiod's "Theogony" and "Works and Days" yesterday. Short little poems that were kind of interesting. I do think that Hesiod is more personal than the unseen narrator that is Homer in the Illiad which was interesting, yet at the same time the shortness of the poems, while good for me, means that he don't get to elaborate in the same way as Homer and show off his skills.

What this has however done is to reaffirm my belief that poetry is good and worthwhile to read and that I should perhaps seek if I can't find more texts from less well-known ancient Greek poets.
 

Brithel

Dreamer
On the non-fiction front I have started reading the second volume of John Romer's History of Ancient Egypt. So far it has been quite interesting, its is good to actually know something about Egypt beyond the limited slice that is Pyramids and mummies. Fiction wise I have Vladimir Nabokov's Pale Fire. Going into it I had very little idea to what it was about (bar what was shown in the new Blade Runner...) but the meta story of the poems commentator is intriguing.
 

Chessie2

Staff
Article Team
Lol:
Love & Respect: The Love She Most Desires; The Respect He Desperately Needs, by Emerson Eggerichs.

True story. Marriage is hard work and sometimes I need a little encouragement. 4 chapters in and my mind is already blown.
 
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