What are you all reading?

General Discussion
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Title says it all! What are you reading?
I have just finished a fantastic book by Emma Southon about Agrippina the younger which is fab about her but also about the beginning of the post-Augustus period in general and I thoroughly recommend it to anyone (I also devoured 2 other books of hers, which I equally recommend, A Fatal Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum and A History of the Roman Empire in 21 Women). Enormously fun and lively and interesting and proper scholarship worn lightly.

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What are you reading?

Guizard (n.d.) Les forĂȘts au Moyen Ages
Critical landscape theory (landscape aesthetics, colonial post-colonial landscapes and re-wilding) has been one of my research areas since the Nineties, but this book’s teaching me lots of new history about where I live now. We’re surrounded by old forests and this is a really interesting account of French forest history (not least because few people bothered writing about it at the time).

Bradbury (2022) Mid-Century Modern Furniture Recent comprehensive reference book - 400+ pages of photos and serious essays (fortunately my wife has never asked its price).

Acocella, The Saintly Sinner: The two-thousand-year obsession with Mary Magdalene., in The New Yorker, Feb 6, 2006.

Eclectic, if nothing else


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Final volume of Martin Gilbert’s biography of Winston Churchill, “Never Despair”;

Mark Kermode’s “Surround Sound - Stories of Movie Music”;

J RR Tolkien’s “The Silmarillion” (again!).

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Started it once a lifetime ago, just couldn’t get into it (unlike the hobbit and the other one)
Just finishing the final volume of After it happened (Kindle unlimited) post apocalyptic type story

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Bonnie Prince Charlie: Charles Edward Stuart by Frank McLinn.
Started off really funny jumping ahead to the 45 Rebellion but then got more serious and am coming to the end of his grand tour of N. Italy when just a teenager. Apparently he was a hit with everyone, especially the grand ladies but care had to be taken when in places that wanted to stay on good terms with the ‘Germans’ in London. :grin:

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Stylistically it’s very different from Tolkien’s other stuff, and I can understand why many folks find it heavy going.

There are some bits I usually skip, but I do enjoy reading the “history” that underlies Lord of the Rings.

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Because it is?

Like Mark I started this, then quite quickly gave up. It might not have helped that I was in my late teens/early 20’s or that it is not a single narrative story but a collection of myths. It probably also doesn’t help that it was never finished by Tolkien and was actually published after his death and having been edited by his son.

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The first few sections are heavily mythological - later on it’s more a collection of stories.

But often people don’t get past the “Book of Genesis” bit.

Not everyone’s cup of tea for sure, but of interest if you want the full backstory.

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It’s on my list to try again come retirement.

I think it is easier in today’s world - plenty of material online to help you understand and navigate the work. In the early 80’s there was nothing like that so I just picked it up expected it to be something broadly like LOTR but set in earlier ages and and mostly thought “WTF”.

To be fair, as you say, it’s a bit like trying to read the bible.

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I always have two books on the go - one fiction and one nonfiction. I’ve just finished Mario Vargas Llosa’s “El hĂ©roe discreto”, yes, in Spanish​:roll_eyes: and am about to start Len Deighton’s “Game, Set and Match”. My nonfiction is Victoria and her Prime Ministers.
I often find that reading one book sets me on a path to the next. For instance, I went from a book on Florence Nightingale to one on Queen Victoria and then on to one on Gladstone.

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I’ve just finished reading some of the Jung Chang books. Now I’m ploughing my way through the Jean Plaidy historical novels and am reading ‘The Captive Queen of Scots’ at the moment.

Prior to Jung Chang I read ‘Prison or the Paralympics’. I met Penny Walker a couple of years ago in our local Action store and got talking to her. We emailed each other a few times and when she told me her story, I decided I must read her book. I was really amazed at how she coped through everything. What an incredible woman!

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I don’t have time to devote to reading these days which is something I’d definitely like to fix - but currently “Slough House”.

I have quite enjoyed reading the series ahead of the dramatisation but Joe Country and (AIUI though I’m trying to avoid spoilers) Slough House are a bit gung ho about killing off central (or close to) characters.

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She is first class. I first got hooked on Wild Swans and later Big Sister, Little Sister, Red Sister. I think I must have read Wild Swans years ago too. On a personal note, what a stunner, still very beautiful at 74. :joy:

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Yes she is David :pink_heart:

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1 The Old Ways by Robert Macfarlane. Pilgrimage stories and rituals back in time across the ancient trackways of the British Isles and beyond. Clears the mind..

2 Andy Wilman’s Motoring Adventures. The Top Gear producer giving inside stories.

3 How Muisc Works. David Byrne’s insights into the music business.

All read or reading this year..

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Landscape fascinates me.. on many walks in the SE UK I’ve often pondered on the history and features of certain places.

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We are coming up to the '45 with Bonnie Prince Charlie, he is making a nuisance of himself in France, where he is not wanted, trying to persuade the French to invade England, and if not, Scotland, and is on the point of going it alone with the Clans, hoping the French will be forced to act.

Not exactly a cliff hanger, we all know what happened, but it is interesting to read the back story to it all.

It won’t force the French but it will force me, to read all the stuff happening around Europe at the time, which was a major reason for Louis XV’s reluctance. So much I have forgotten since school, but delicious to know what is waiting for them all :wink: :roll_eyes:

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i) “Sgwp!: nofel i ddysgwyr” by Lois Arnold (to improve my Welsh) - excellent!
ii) “Going Mainstream: Why extreme ideas are spreading and what we can do about it” by Julia Ebner (to make up for a talk by her which I missed) - very important, but rather hard going and rather long.
iii) “Beyond Buenos Aires: stories of Peru and Chile” by Michael Purser - very good.

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Very interested to know why someone with a name like yours could speak Welsh at all. :grinning_face:

I would love to speak Welsh, having had 2 Welsh Grandpas and 2 half Welsh parents. The Grandpas were from a Welsh speaking family but to my great regret no-one spoke Welsh to me beyond calling me Dafydd Bach (Little David), and I have to be content to keep a dictionary beside me at all times to check it out. :roll_eyes:

Also I am struggling to translate your title, my dictionary failed me, all I got that it was a novel. :slightly_frowning_face:

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His real name’s William S. Burroughs​:wink: or Gwilym Tref.