What book are you reading?
Replies
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honey_honey_12 wrote: »
I usually don’t read much non fiction but I feel the need.
I did not find this as helpful as I would have liked.
Just my opinion but I felt a lot of the information was bs.0 -
I'm in the midst of book 11 of The Wheel of Time on my Kindle by Robert Jordan and also reading a new book I picked up at the library called A Catalogue of Catastraphe by Jodi Taylor1
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Maybe this book will be more useful.0 -
honey_honey_12 wrote: »AdahPotatah2024 wrote: »A few chapters into the Grapes of Wrath..not much going on so far. Reminds me of the year I lived in OKC!
🤪 we like it that way
Me, too...no tornados so far!1 -
I remember one of the first scenes for me as we arrived in OK. As my mom was signing into an old hotel for the evening, 2 shirtless guys went by on horses and a tumbleweed blew across the parking lot. 💕1
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itchmyTwitch wrote: »I just finished reading my self-assigned section of The Grapes of Wrath for the day. I thought I’d share a few of my thoughts and some quotes.
The early part of this book seems to be contrasting and comparing the attitudes of these displaced tenant farmers with the “owner men.“
“I was a damn ol’ hypocrite, but I didn’t mean to be.” - Reverend Jim Casey
Jim Casey has spent some time wandering around and deconstructing his faith and what he’s left with- at least in the part of the book I’ve gotten up to - is his love for people.
“The bank is something more than men, I tell you. It’s the monster. Men made it, but they can’t control it.” - owner men deflecting responsibility for displacing farmers
“Men ate what they had not raised, had no connection with the bread. The land bore under iron, and under iron gradually died; for it was not loved or hated, it had no prayers or curses.“ I find the imagery of the land, being enslaved and forced to bear quite compelling.
“If a fella’s got somepin to eat an’ another fella’s hungry – why the first fella ain’t got no choice. I mean, s’pose I pick up my rabbits, an’ go off somewheres and eat em. See?“ - Muley, a slightly crazy displaced farmer who has lost everything, including his family, expressing his feeling of moral obligation to his fellow man.
“Sometimes a sad man can talk the sadness right out through his mouth. Sometimes a killin’ man can talk the murder right out of his mouth an’ not do no murder. You done right. Don’t you kill nobody if you can help it.“ - Jim Casey counseling Muley. Casey is still very much a minister, even though his faith is not the same.
Willy Feely is also a former tenant farmer, but instead of being destitute like his neighbors, he has chosen to work for the “owner man.” He rides a tractor and plows the fields and knocks down houses and enforces evictions. He is between a rock and a hard place himself, but he is still a traitor to his people.
Ma Joad welcomes strangers and offers to feed them before she realizes that it’s her own prodigal son & the preacher. She does this even though they themselves are in poverty, and she makes no fuss about it. She says, “we got a-plenty.”
The Joad family has gotten underway and what strikes me is how their morality still holds & how they try to do the right thing even under pressure, even when they’ve been swindled and cheated at every turn.
They are generous to their fellow humans, worried for their animals. They are forced to make some questionable decisions, but only for the good of everyone involved. For example, they had to get grandpa drunk to make him come along when they were leaving.
The tension and friction right now for me is the fact that Tom is leaving the state while he’s on parole and I wonder what trouble that will cause for him. Muley is staying behind and I’m interested to see how his story turns out.
I know it’s under duress and I know it will likely come to a bad end, but I can’t help but be a little excited for the trip they’re taking. I probably read too much Little Britches and Little House on the Prairie. I love to read about a traveling, roughing it adventure.1 -
Little House on the Prairie was one my favorites as a kid, too. I am really liking Grapes of Wrath so far...It's authentic. I laugh when they say "et" as the past tense of eat. My Oklahoman grandmother is the only person I've ever heard say that.1
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To my recollection they haven’t used the word vittles yet. I’m offendedAdahPotatah2024 wrote: »Little House on the Prairie was one my favorites as a kid, too. I am really liking Grapes of Wrath so far...It's authentic. I laugh when they say "et" as the past tense of eat. My Oklahoman grandmother is the only person I've ever heard say that.
I like the little house series so much because the style and content mature as the characters grow older.1 -
The Magnolia Inn series. I’m currently on book 2.0
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My grandmother called the basics, hard food. Stuff like flour, grains, beans, etc. She would have fit right in with the Joads, I think!:)1
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The Grapes of Wrath
They say that fiction can tell truths. Fiction writers are told “show, don’t tell.” That means you describe the bodies and faces snd actions of the starving children rather than simply saying the children are starving. Most good writers will tell the story and let the reader draw the conclusions. To my mind, this is an act of trust.
Mr. Steinbeck does a good job of showing rather than telling, however…
Every so often he throws in a short little chapter in which he (or perhaps, only the narrator) preaches, and explains the meaning of the story. He tells us the meaning of the meeting of the two families. What it means that they squat down in the dirt together. What it means that they share their possessions and their skills. And their ideas. And their sorrows.
He writes, “fear of the time when Manself will not suffer and die for a concept, for this one quality is the foundation of Manself, and this one quality is man, distinctive in the universe.”
and
“Is a tractor bad? Is the power that turns the long furrows wrong? If this tractor were ours, it would be good – not mine, but ours. If our tractor turned the long furrows of our land, it would be good. Not my land, but ours. We could love that tractor then, as we have loved this land when it was ours.”
“…`I lost my land' is changed…`We lost our land.’ The danger is here, for two men are not as lonely and perplexed as one. And from this first ‘we’ there grows a still more dangerous thing: ‘ I have a little food' plus ‘ I have none.’ If from this problem the sum is ‘We have a little food,’ the thing is on its way, the movement has direction.”
“If you who own the things people must have could understand this, you might preserve yourself. If you could separate causes from results, if you could know that Paine, Marx, Jefferson, Lenin, were results, not causes, you might survive. But that you cannot know. For the quality of owning freezes you forever into ‘I,’ and cut you off forever from the ‘we.”2 -
Also I thought those long lines of initials (iykyk) were the development textspeak but here is an example from the book:
iitywybad?1 -
Cameron Haynes Endure0
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Just started on Kindle:
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Just finished "The art of inheriting secrets" and starting "crossing the wide forever"0
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https://youtu.be/OC2vuOHw4-Q?si=pMMRFDowdmXrKHmk
I've been listening to this. I love his voice. It is very calm! I'll probably go back and read the chapters, too, though. Having to go slow with this book!1 -
AdahPotatah2024 wrote: »https://youtu.be/OC2vuOHw4-Q?si=pMMRFDowdmXrKHmk
I've been listening to this. I love his voice. It is very calm! I'll probably go back and read the chapters, too, though. Having to go slow with this book!
I often switch back & forth between audio & paper books too. A good narrator makes a world of difference1 -
itchmyTwitch wrote: »AdahPotatah2024 wrote: »https://youtu.be/OC2vuOHw4-Q?si=pMMRFDowdmXrKHmk
I've been listening to this. I love his voice. It is very calm! I'll probably go back and read the chapters, too, though. Having to go slow with this book!
I often switch back & forth between audio & paper books too. A good narrator makes a world of difference
A while back I bought an audible book and I could not tolerate the narrator, he was awful.
I gave it up.
It really does make a huge difference. 👍😊
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honey_honey_12 wrote: »itchmyTwitch wrote: »AdahPotatah2024 wrote: »https://youtu.be/OC2vuOHw4-Q?si=pMMRFDowdmXrKHmk
I've been listening to this. I love his voice. It is very calm! I'll probably go back and read the chapters, too, though. Having to go slow with this book!
I often switch back & forth between audio & paper books too. A good narrator makes a world of difference
A while back I bought an audible book and I could not tolerate the narrator, he was awful.
I gave it up.
It really does make a huge difference. 👍😊
Yes! It’s another layer of things that can go wrong 😂2 -
honey_honey_12 wrote: »itchmyTwitch wrote: »AdahPotatah2024 wrote: »https://youtu.be/OC2vuOHw4-Q?si=pMMRFDowdmXrKHmk
I've been listening to this. I love his voice. It is very calm! I'll probably go back and read the chapters, too, though. Having to go slow with this book!
I often switch back & forth between audio & paper books too. A good narrator makes a world of difference
A while back I bought an audible book and I could not tolerate the narrator, he was awful.
I gave it up.
It really does make a huge difference. 👍😊
I tried to keep an open mind about audio books, but most times I can't stand the narrators and I find it much more difficult to focus on audiobooks .2 -
Susanna527 wrote: »honey_honey_12 wrote: »itchmyTwitch wrote: »AdahPotatah2024 wrote: »https://youtu.be/OC2vuOHw4-Q?si=pMMRFDowdmXrKHmk
I've been listening to this. I love his voice. It is very calm! I'll probably go back and read the chapters, too, though. Having to go slow with this book!
I often switch back & forth between audio & paper books too. A good narrator makes a world of difference
A while back I bought an audible book and I could not tolerate the narrator, he was awful.
I gave it up.
It really does make a huge difference. 👍😊
I tried to keep an open mind about audio books, but most times I can't stand the narrators and I find it much more difficult to focus on audiobooks .
I’ve found for me they are great on a roadtrip but at home I’d rather hold the book.
I am a hoarder of books 🫢3 -
I like this guy. He has a really nice, relaxing reading voice. I do enjoy the books much better, though. I have been listening to him for the last few chapters and then rereading on my own.itchmyTwitch wrote: »AdahPotatah2024 wrote: »https://youtu.be/OC2vuOHw4-Q?si=pMMRFDowdmXrKHmk
I've been listening to this. I love his voice. It is very calm! I'll probably go back and read the chapters, too, though. Having to go slow with this book!
I often switch back & forth between audio & paper books too. A good narrator makes a world of difference
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I just started reading The Last Wish by Andrzej Sapkowski, which is the (chronologically) first book of The Witcher. (Haven't played the games or watched the show but am enjoying the book so far.
) 1 -
About to start reading "Disturbed" by Jennifer Jaynes0
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Just started the Michael Vey series by Richard Paul Evans0
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I'm reading 'Wild' a memoir written Cheryl Strayed.
I saw the film with Reese Witherspoon, about a recently divorced woman, who decides to start a new life by hiking along the 1,100 mile-long Pacific Crest Trail.
I was inspired to read the book as I climbed Mt Kilimanjiro last summer, and was on my own journey of self discovery.1 -
I'm reading 'Wild' a memoir written Cheryl Strayed.
I saw the film with Reese Witherspoon, about a recently divorced woman, who decides to start a new life by hiking along the 1,100 mile-long Pacific Crest Trail.
I was inspired to read the book as I climbed Mt Kilimanjiro last summer, and was on my own journey of self discovery.
Read the book and watched the movie on my daughter’s recommendation. Book was grittier than the movie. Both enjoyable.
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Currently reading “Fugitive Telemetry”. Murderbot #6. Love this series.1
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Reading The Rivers of London series, on book 6 the Hanging Tree.1
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Just starting on this one.
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