What are you reading?

[Tsuga8]

Undaunted Courage has been sitting in my 'to read' shelf for a while. Maybe 2025 is the year I get to it.

 

[Black_Fly]

@Robin Trap Lines North is by Stephen W Meader? Growing up we had a little one-room library with loads of old cloth-bound classics - Hardy Boys and all that. They also had 'The Black Buccaneer' by Stephen W Meader. I read that one every summer and loved it. Eventually I got a copy as a birthday present. I'll have to check out Trap Lines North.

@Black_Fly I started 'Empire of the Summer Moon' a few years back but gave up due to the descriptions of brutal and horrible deaths. I know it's the reality but I can't stomach that as much depressing depths of humanity these days, since I get plenty just reading the news. I've been meaning to instead get Pekka Hamalainen's 'Comanche Empire'. I listened to his 'Lakota America' year back and got a lot out of it. It's on the drier, more academic side. One still gets the sense of the brutality but there's less graphic description, at least that's my memory having read/listened to these books >5yrs ago.

Yes, men of all races did horrible things to each other, without reason and to innocents. Treaties were never written to be followed. Extermination was an overt goal, particularly in Texas, even with regard to peaceful tribes. All very disturbing. It all reminds me of the Middle East today. Really, mankind has not advanced, just the weaponry of destruction.

Still, lots of good information in this well researched book. I found the history of the rangers enlightening. Except for the brief Jack Hays leadership period, they were pretty inept at Indian fighting. The Dragoons were laughable, with their heavy, slow shooting weapons and inability to ride anywhere near fast enough to chase Comanches. The brutality subsides somewhat later in the book, if that’s any consolation.

 

[Alan Gage]

I always struggled to find new books to read so about 5 years ago I started going through this list of Top 100 novels one by one. It's been a great experience and I'm glad I did it. I found a lot of wonderul books I otherwise never would have read. Some I skipped because I'd already read them and a couple I quit on early because I just couldn't get into them. For the most part they're excellent and on the list for good reason.

I'm currently on book 91, Tobacco Road

I kind of wish I would have started at 100 and worked my way down instead of starting at number 1 and working up. Ulysses was a startling beginning.

Modern Library Top 100 - Penguin Random House

The editors of The Modern Library were privileged to have the assistance of a distinguished Board made up of celebrated authors, historians, critics, and publishing luminaries. In 1998 and 1999, members of the Modern Library Board participated in the “100 Best” project.

sites.prh.com

Alan

 

[ppine]

A friend from Idaho, a retired horse trainer just sent me a great one in the mail. "Grass Beyond the Mountains" by Rich Hopson. This is a memoir of 2 Wyoming ranchers that moved to the end of the road in northern British Columbia to start frontier ranching. They drove up in a Model A in about 1932. The US economy was tanked. The nearest store was in Bella Coola on the coast 200 miles and over 10 days ride away.
This is one great book.

 

[Black_Fly]

How many have trouble staying awake while reading? It’s exasperating. Probably related to poor sleep at night, or maybe just brain age.

 

[ppine]

Undaunted Courage should be read by all outdoors people. I have read it 3x. I give copies to people. We paddled the Upper Missouri R in MT for 151 miles from Ft Benton to Kipp Bridge. We camped in L&C campsites. The last 3 days we saw no one. The bighorn sheep did not even pick up their heads when we floated past.

Ambrose creates insight into history. He imagines the emotion that the Expedition felt at various critical times in the Voyage of Discovery. I finally made it Ft Clatsop a few years ago. I have some trade beads my grandfather got in 1905 that he claims came from the Fort.

 

[Glenn MacGrady]

Ulysses was a startling beginning.

Tell me you read all of Ulysses and understood it. That will make me kneel down, which will be good canoe practice for my aging gams.

 

[Alan Gage]

Tell me you read all of Ulysses and understood it. That will make me kneel down, which will be good canoe practice for my aging gams.

It was pretty rough. I had no idea what to expect when I started. I'd be ok for a couple chapters and then I'd be completely lost. I quit about 2/3 of the way through and went to Wikipedia to try and figure out what I'd just read. It mentioned that the last chapter was from the viewpoint of his wife and I thought that would be interesting so I read the last chapter and enjoyed it. Then I kept reading it backwards one chapter at a time, thinking each would be the last before I quit, until I got to where I'd left off earlier. Reading it backwards was no more confusing than reading it forwards.

Ulysses, however, was a cakewalk in comparison to Finnegans Wake. I bailed on that one after only a few pages when I skipped ahead and realized the whole book was similar.

Alan

 

[Seeker]

Can't remember when I last posted here... latest books are Forest Walking, Grant's autobiography, History of Western Philosophy, and Life of Trees, among others.

 

[Glenn MacGrady]

so I read the last chapter and enjoyed it. Then I kept reading it backwards one chapter at a time, thinking each would be the last before I quit, until I got to where I'd left off earlier. Reading it backwards was no more confusing than reading it forwards.

Okay, I'll kneel backwards for a while.

Ulysses, however, was a cakewalk in comparison to Finnegans Wake. I bailed on that one after only a few pages when I skipped ahead and realized the whole book was similar.

@PaddlingPitt tried it this year with, as I recall, comparable results.

I think a great book for the ages should be understandable, enjoyable and otherwise great literally "for ages." That is, you should be able to pick it up centuries from now and still understand and enjoy it. I don't see that with Joyce's two so-called masterpieces. Virtually every paragraph is suffused with literary, cultural, political, historical, geographical, and all sorts of other obscure references that were understandable, if at all, mostly in the times and places in which he was writing. The further into the future we go, the more obscure and irrelevant his references will become. Hard pass, even when I tried to read them 60 years ago.

 

[Halpc]

Halpc …….
Have you read “UNDAUNTED COURAGE” the biography of Meriwether Louis by Stephen Ambrose? Good enough to read more than once, in my opinion.
Thanks for the “THRONE OF GRACE” tip. I have it placed on hold at the Fairbanks Borough Public Library, North Pole Branch. Looking forward to a good read by a warm fire, durning the short dark days of winter that we are all experiencing to some degree.
I’ve read the journals of Lewis and Clark, other than the near starvation, a grand adventure, with a great deal of messing around in boats and canoes.
…..BBirchy

Yes- I read it last year and enjoyed it very much. I agree, it is probably worth reading again. "Throne of Grace" was really interesting because so much of it takes place on rivers and mountains which I have paddled or traversed- but by pickup truck rather than on foot or horseback!