what are you reading?

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I read a lot of material, much of it I'm told many authorities don't wish to know about ... thus they don't!

Yet ... they tell me I'm stupid to read such unknown matter ...
 
I'm reading a book by Kathy Lee Gifford on icons in the narrative of Herod and Mary ... what shock this would be to a literalist!

They just couldn't receive or take much of it ... thus considerable elimination/denial! Should we choose cautiously what we believe to be prodigal?

Imagine trash created by a grand total power that's well distributed to limit accrued corruption! Could there be cracks in perfection in a world of hard reality? The place for the life tree ... it has deep roots ... they go way back ... resembling a country ballad ...

Then are narratives literal or is there some kind of device to them? Transmuted ...
 
Luce NDs said:
Kathy Lee Gifford on icons in the narrative of Herod and Mary
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Seems a bit intellectual for her. Or is this a different different Kathie Lee Gifford than the one I am thinking of.

I am, as I often seem to do on cruises, reading history books.

First was 428 AD by Italian scholar Giusta Traina. This book basically picks a year from the final century of the Western Roman Empire and does a sweep around the Roman world looking at what is happening and where things are headed. Interesting approach and a great read. Translation is by Allan Cameron with Traina's involvement.

Now I am reading Byzantium by Judith Herrin. It's a look at the Byzantine Empire (i.e. the Eastern Roman Empire that outlasted the West by a thousand years or so) but rather than a blow-by-blow history, Herrin looks at various facets of the history and culture. So a couple chapters on Constantinople, the capital, a chapter on Islam and the back and forth between the Muslims and Byzantines, and so on. Much discussion of the development of Christianity, esp. Eastern Orthodoxy. Since Luce mentioned icons, Herrin has a chapter on their development and significance and another on iconoclasm and the conflicts that happened around icons in the 8th and 9th century CE.
 
What I'm currently reading is Numbers. Last night I read about the consecration and duties of the Levites, as well as the instructions for lighting the lamps in the tabernacle
 
Jae said:
What I'm currently reading is Numbers. Last night I read about the consecration and duties of the Levites, as well as the instructions for lighting the lamps in the tabernacle
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Imagine great ... greatest lamþ Lighters awash 've illumination in the great mystery ... icon 'c myth ... describing but not defining what we don't know ... absence or abstract compared to the determinates ... wee things? Kind 've oude a here just now ... beyond?
 
Mendalla said:
Seems a bit intellectual for her. Or is this a different different Kathie Lee Gifford than the one I am thinking of.

I am, as I often seem to do on cruises, reading history books.

First was 428 AD by Italian scholar Giusta Traina. This book basically picks a year from the final century of the Western Roman Empire and does a sweep around the Roman world looking at what is happening and where things are headed. Interesting approach and a great read. Translation is by Allan Cameron with Traina's involvement.

Now I am reading Byzantium by Judith Herrin. It's a look at the Byzantine Empire (i.e. the Eastern Roman Empire that outlasted the West by a thousand years or so) but rather than a blow-by-blow history, Herrin looks at various facets of the history and culture. So a couple chapters on Constantinople, the capital, a chapter on Islam and the back and forth between the Muslims and Byzantines, and so on. Much discussion of the development of Christianity, esp. Eastern Orthodoxy. Since Luce mentioned icons, Herrin has a chapter on their development and significance and another on iconoclasm and the conflicts that happened around icons in the 8th and 9th century CE.
Click to expand...

This was written in conjunction with a Hebrew scholar. In the foreword the scholar made statements on all that was said in scripture and all that was avoided (untold) thus dark and mysterious points! Equanimeous, etc, being a sense of things in the slippage of just içe as Gael input ... to scat ... Scott-free?

Source of a world of ignition ... destiny if we mist the urge of self control ... it had to be for a lesson; example! Then we move on ... escape in the flames of vision ... kerygma ... tongue lashings ... so that it could become rite ... write that down ... diminish it a worthy point? So intelligence is rendered in the gloss of Phoenix! Expect smudges ... sweat lodging ... weep*age ... for crying out loud in the vacuum ... the greatest power said Kahn ide ... thus containerization by category ... processing! I expect there's much more to it ... gives a certain stress requiring anxiety relief ... stone carving ... iconic or semitic; other?

Always ah mores ... some say hammers ... pain of the striker? Stop it ... thus the bung ... bo in place? Like is weird and scary ... one might even venture to say awful how self destruction contrasts in an ultimate psyche that goes on and on like CS Lewis' sense of story ... it is beyond my physical self ... like an elven shelved ... Alven ... shifty rodent ... allowing that gnawing sensation ... insane? The insensitive cannot expect to grasp it ... the impression the life is painful for a large mass ... a squirmy mess? None takes any onus ... brute!
 
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I started reading "Land of Milk & Honey" by Pam Zhang - but didn't enjoy it, so ditched it part way through.

I may settle in by the fire this evening to read "The Serviceberry" by Robin Wall Kimmerer. It's a small book & I've heard her read a story on it - not sure if that was the full book. A reflection on abundance and reciprocity in the natural world - an alternate vision to our self-serving extract & exploit economics that seem to prevail at the moment.
 
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I'm reading The Blueprint by Rae Giana Rashad. The book has shades of Handmaid's Tale. It's a dystopian novel where Descendants of Slaves (DOS) have no freedom. There's been a second civil war. It's a story told from Solenne who has been assigned to be the wife of Bastien Martin. She, like other DOS has a microchip in her body so Source could monitor her movements, body stats etc. It's a sort of electronic least. She lives in Texas where no longer exists. An algorithm determines a black woman's occupation, spouse and residence. It's also the story of Henriette, Solenne's ancestor who had been an enslaved concubine to a wealthy plantar in 1800's Louisiana. I'm only about a quarter of the way through. So far it's very good.
 
I took a number of books to Japan; however, didn't do much reading.

I did finish two books:

The Traitor Beside Her by Mary Anna Evans -- not a great book. I slugged my way through it, but, definitely not recommending it.

The Torchbearer's Quest by Christine Callahan-Oke -- well done first novel. Written for middle school children. Fantasy / type novel. I was impressed by the depth of the story, and look forward to there being another one in the series.
 
In one sector of KL Gifford's book, she addresses the options for folk out there:
  1. Collaboration (integration)
  2. Separation (desegregation)
  3. Isolation (illumination)
  4. Insurrection (when it boils over, the gas escapes)
There are implications regarding what escapes glows out there as it is irradiated ... becoming a blowing concern or what's out there ... and then the collapse into ashes ... Stardust is Willies song ... allowing for fertilizer for the next glowing tale ... some of these are something else ... when they were raised from nothing ... bottom line? Could there be something beneath that? Ouda this realm ... thus the pro found status of how the abstract can draw these things in from another place ... as if it wasn't reality ... and when you look at it closely ... is there much TU IT or just a lot of haute Eire ...

Thus the need for Kohlers ... a spectrum! When the thing out and cruising breaks up ... only no thing remains for a long time ... hu mile aition after the rise it all goes down in a swirl into a mysterious hole ... rather black given what we didn't wish to know ... a matter of oversight!

When asked about what you know ... what can one say given what was offered up ... the great sacrifice to immerse ones self in a consuming passion ... so it goes' đ round and round in sphere oid dimensions ... fere, or fair ... given the avarice ... hold tight thou will be cranked ... the spin on life as it appeared ...

It was a sheepish beginning ... bit harry up there ... fuzzy? Distended into a crevice ... squeeze of the crab ... much to read into ... much more comes oviđ ... 2 cheeks as it goes dragging us along ... and then more cheeks ... some have to go thus hams ...

Makes as much sense as some of the hilarious tales raised a fore ME ... the medical examiner? A cut out ... meetings?
 
I'm reading an amazing book right now. It's The Trees by Percival Everett. This is the second Everett book I've read. I'll be reading more. This book is based in Money, Mississippi where Emmett Till was brutally murdered in the 50's. There's a very brutal murder in the town where the dead man is found with a dead black man. Soon, there are other similar murders. It's a story of racism and the legacy of violence. I'm glued to it and have to finish today. I mean, what the heck? How the heck? And who on earth? FB_IMG_1738189180848.jpg
 
You do know that in one semi tight language that the thing is ET or צלן, thus the collaboration of Aye (Ayin) the snaky light as Lamed and termination by ah nun ... nuns were often observers in the holy house wee girls running to get this and that for the pallive force ... pall at 've? Such dark ends ... should we have learned more in prep? Before taking the poke ... Ayre it is ...

The culmination of material and energy causing something to move ... thus the passing ... of what; we don't know! Many claim other wise ... I still say it is stupid to be in the lead of such a gathering ... the leader bears the blame ... shameful! What if he knew nom ore ?

The we get inT eit ... a ditty! The the quest to differentiate a ditte from a ditty ... one being an influence of wom'n ... woe? One must stop and mull a bit ...

Complex??? AH Yas ...
 
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If the ultimate is yah wah ... is there something that must be shared to cut out the conflict? Other Venues ... a very clouded globe ... fuzzy ...

Numinous caws ... in flocks throwing shadows ---Hitchcock! Passing shadows and reaction of Ca TZar; the concern ... Nos Tra? Stray 'nd ...
 
Finishing my third trip book (well, mostly read it on the trip). How Fast Did T Rex Run? is by paleontologist David Hone. Rather than cataloguing the non-avian dinosaurs or talking about what we know, Hone takes the tack of looking at the many gaps in our knowledge and the possible limits of what we can know about creatures who died millions of years before the first humans existed. He also looks at what we do know in the problematic areas, how we know them, and what discoveries or research might help us further that knowledge. He takes a few pokes at the movies, especially the "Jurassic" series (Park and World) for making unwarranted assumptions or embracing controversial theories that aren't really well backed up. Overall, an interesting book that, by looking at the limits of our knowledge about non-avian dinosaurs, he gives a good overall look at the current state of paleontology. Oh, he does have a chapter on the avian dinosaurs, aka birds, and what we know and don't know about how they branched off from the theropod line of non-avian dinosaurs. I still marvel at the fact that I can look out my window and see real dinosaurs, or at least their modern direct descendents.

Next up, another book by classicist Judith Herrin. Ravenna looks at the period of the 5th-7th century CE when Ravenna, Italy displaced Rome as the center of secular power in Western Europe (due to Rome being sacked by the Visigoths in 410).
 
I am hooked on Isabelle Allende's books. On my third or fourth one right now. Currently reading "Daughter of Fortune" set in Chile and California in the mid 1800s. Currently at the ending of the gold rush. Her books so far focus on the experiences of a mix of privileged and poor people. It sucked to be female, poor, or non-white then.
 
So I was looking back in this thread and noted a lot of discussion about when the next book in Patrick Rothfuss' Kingkiller Chronicles would come out. A decade and some later, it still has not. Apparently it is titled The Doors of Stone, but it is anybody's guess as to when it comes out. He has put another novella in the universe in the meantime but that's hardly going to satisfy those wanting an end to the trilogy.

I almost wonder if Rothfuss and George R. R. Martin are hanging out in a bar somewhere have a laugh on their fans. Martin's The Winds of Winter and A Dream of Spring, the last two novels in A Song of Ice And Fire (the series that the Game of Thrones TV show was based on), are now coming up on 15 years in progress. With Martin in not the best of health and now 76, one wonders if this will be a repeat of The Wheel of Time series, which was unfinished at the author's death so his estate had to commission another author (Brandon Sanderson, now quite well-known for his own fantasy universe and quite prolific) to finish it. Rothfuss is at least young enough (51) that he could still conceivably finish his trilogy.

As for me and reading, yeah. I keep trying. I am not sure what I want to read seems to part of the problem. And part of it is just trying to take the time to read in my everyday life. I do well on vacations but in my regular life, once I put in my 37.5 hours a week in the office and deal with house and family stuff, I don't seem to have the intellectual energy for reading. I write, but even that is becoming more sporadic. Even my old practice of re-reading old favourites like Dracula doesn't seem to be getting off the ground anymore.
 
I am actually trying to read an actual non electronic book made from paper

It is a Theodore Sturgeon collection of his short stories and it has been long enough that I have forgotten enough aboot some of them

Reading books is sooo slow lol

Enjoy.the feel and sound and smell of it
 
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