What are you reading now?

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Originally Posted by BillDoran

Recently finished Italo Calvino's "Invisible Cities" and Thomas Pynchon's "Gravity's Rainbow." Not sure if it's the head space I'm presently in, but didn't really enjoy either book. I do now understand the Pynchon/David Foster Wallace comparisons.

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Congrats on Gravity, I tried numerous times, couldn't get into it, it's a tough read

I'm reading Dan Epstein's Big Hair and Plastic Grass. Not bad but I think I liked his sequel to this, Stars and Strikes, better.

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Originally Posted by westofyou

Congrats on Gravity, I tried numerous times, couldn't get into it, it's a tough read

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Speaking of tough reads, going to Ireland this summer and figure it'll be a good time to make my millionth attempt at Joyce's "Ulysses."

I finally got a hold of J.D. Vance's "Hillbilly Elegy." Vance tells of his upbringing in Middletown, Ohio, and the book is being held up as an explainer of sorts of the Midwestern socioeconomic climate and the surge of nationalism. If anybody on here has read it, I'd be interested to hear an opinion.

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Originally Posted by westofyou

Congrats on Gravity, I tried numerous times, couldn't get into it, it's a tough read

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Me too. Tried 3-4 times and couldn't get past 50 pages. I even tried a few years ago and still couldn't do it.

Reading Anne Tyler's "Breathing Lessons".

Three books:

A Good Walk Spoiled - John Feinstein
Leo Durocher Baseball's Prodigal Son - Paul Dickson
The Outlaw League and the Battle that Forged Modern Baseball - Daniel Levitt

Anybody tackled Anna Karenina? Have a preferred translation? I'm thinking about making that my next go.

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Originally Posted by WildcatFan

Anybody tackled Anna Karenina? Have a preferred translation? I'm thinking about making that my next go.

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Can't go wrong with a Russian-English translation by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky. I've read multiple of their Dostoevsky translations and enjoyed them. Their "Anna Karenina" edition won a 2002 PEN prize for translation, if you need any evidence.

I've been dipping into Robert Aickman's weird fiction, although his stories tend to be disturbing in ways that prevent me from reading more than one at a sitting. For those not familiar with him, Peter Straub and Neil Gaiman both have cited him as influences. He reminds me of Arthur Machen, but he's more readable while at the same time harder to grasp. I first became aware of him when Straub included Aickman's "Into the Wood" in a volume of horror writers' favorite stories, and this story was unlike anything I'd ever read. This is a good article about his fiction. My favorite quote:

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He was drawn to ghost stories because they provided him with conventions for unmaking the conventional world, but he was about as much of a traditional ghost story writer as Salvador Dalí was a typical designer of pocket watches.

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If you have a taste for the weird, you should sample his work.

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Originally Posted by BillDoran

Speaking of tough reads, going to Ireland this summer and figure it'll be a good time to make my millionth attempt at Joyce's "Ulysses."

I finally got a hold of J.D. Vance's "Hillbilly Elegy." Vance tells of his upbringing in Middletown, Ohio, and the book is being held up as an explainer of sorts of the Midwestern socioeconomic climate and the surge of nationalism. If anybody on here has read it, I'd be interested to hear an opinion.

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I read "Hillbilly Elegy". I absolutely hated it.

I grew up in a place that made J.D. Vance's home look like New York City, and I've never known a family that was that messed up.

I have a very hard time believing all the stories he told about his relatives are really true, or at least heavily embellished.

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Originally Posted by RFS62

I read "Hillbilly Elegy". I absolutely hated it.

I grew up in a place that made J.D. Vance's home look like New York City, and I've never known a family that was that messed up.

I have a very hard time believing all the stories he told about his relatives are really true, or at least heavily embellished.

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Huh, I really liked "Hillbilly Elegy." I, too, grew up in an exceptionally small Ohio town that makes Middletown look cosmopolitan, but I didn't gather Vance was making any kind of statement on the size of town but instead commenting on poverty and heritage. I thought he struck a nice balance between the conservative "bootstrap" mentality and an understanding that government does have some levers to pull. All in all, I found his path through life fascinating (even if some was embellished), as I could identify with his feelings of inadequacy and angst in moving through social strata and professional environs.

Just picked up, "Hidden History of Cincinnati", by Jeff Puess from The History Press series. Now I'll know all the secrets.

At the same Library book sale I picked up Bernard Bailyn's, "The Barbarous Years", looking to fill in a lot of details of British North America 1600-1675. I have not read his other books, winners of numerous awards from Pulitzers to Bancrofts, so this might open a new avenue of good reading.

Reading Dreamland by Sam Quinones. It's a book about the country's opiate addiction. He spends a good amount of time focusing on Ohio (mainly south like in Portsmouth, but also Columbus), and West Virginia. Really well-researched.

UPDATE: It's gonna take me a month to finish, but really liking Anna Karenina. Went with the Constance Garnett translation.

Lonely Boy by Steve Jones [Sex Pistols]