What are you reading?

[user 30781]

GO TO BED!!

lol

 

[travelaround]

Speaking of funny - I just read (out loud to myself) the first 25 tiny poems in Falling Up by Shel Silverstein ... definitely plenty to laugh about.

[I'm reading it for the 2021 PopSugar Reading Challenge prompt #26, a book with an oxymoron in the title. - I've been doing this reading challenge every year since 2016.]

Sorry Nature Lover . . . I don't think cannibals are funny.

Okay... honestly..
I did laugh a little.

 

[gsfish]

When I was a kid in elementary school our local library had a reading program for kids during the summer. If you read ten books you got to go to a party. Well, I only read one book but it was Kon-Tiki and they figured that was equal to 10 kids books so let me go to the party anyway.

There is some good Thor Heyerdahl information on You Tube.

Guy

 

[user 30781]

Have you read Paul Theroux, ta? He's probably my favorite travel writer.

 

[travelaround]

Thanks to both of you - I will look for YouTube videos about Thor Heyerdahl and will look for Paul Theroux... no, haven't read anything he wrote yet!

I'm reading All Thirteen - a YA nonfiction about the rescue of 13 boys and their soccer coach from a flooded cave in Thailand in 2018. The book was a Newbery honor book this year.

 

[user 30781]

For Paul Theroux I suggest The Great Railway Bazaar, The Old Patagonian Express and The Kingdom By the Sea. If you get that far, Ghost Train to the Eastern Star is much the same trip as 'Bazaar' only 30+ years later.

 

[travelaround]

Thanks wanderingsoul - I will put one of those on my TBR list for 2022! Or maybe sooner!

Audiobook - I finished Roughing It by Mark Twain and am now listening to Season of the Witch: Enchantment, Terror and Deliverance in the City of Love by David Talbot ... a nonfiction book about San Francisco from 1967 to 1982, published in 2012.

 

[Morgana]

So I hope it’s OK to post this — if it’s too self-promotional maybe someone can take it down, no hard feelings.

I’ve noticed there are some history and general nonfiction fans here. I’ve written a book (more like a mini-book) about the Black Seminoles in Florida. It is free, and there’s no marketing gimmick or anything like that, I just want to share it in this format. I think that if you like history you might enjoy it. The Black Seminoles did their share of moving around and “stealth” camping!

The title is Precarious Lives: Black Seminoles and Other Freedom Fighters in Florida Before the US Civil War. It is available on Apple Books, Google Play Books, and a nice free-book website, www.obooko.com. I like Obooko. To use it, you have to sign up for a free account, but it’s the simplest sign-up I’ve ever seen — IIRC, just your first name and your email. (Rather than me listing the mile-long direct URLs, I think it’s easier just to go to the website you prefer and then search on the title.)

Right now the book is digital only. I’m working on an at-cost hard-copy version, but the digital is and will remain free. If this is your kind of book, please read and enjoy!

 

[Cammalu]

I downloaded. Thanks.

 

[gsfish]

Morgana,

Thanks for writing the book AND letting us know about it.. Back in the 70s I worked with a Seminole fellow. He was a Billie. I happened to mention once that I had kind of wanted a baby armadillo as a pet and a few nights later came home late to find a box on my steps holding something alive. A baby armadillo!

As to the self promotion, not to worry. After all, what's good for the goose is good for the gander.
https://vanlivingforum.com/showthread.php?tid=6345

Guy

 

[user 30781]

Hmmmm...I know someone who has a saying. Lie down with armadillos, get up with leprosy.

 

[WanderingRose]

I am reading “Gracelin O’Malley”, by Ann Moore.

Historical fiction, set in Ireland, and very good.

 

[user 30781]

3/4 done with Roads to Quoz. It's brilliant, seriously.

 

[travelaround]

Sounds amazing - I must read about Quoz! Also am in search of Precarious Lives by Morgana... though I've never been to Florida. Always ready for an adventure. Thank you Morgana, for sharing with us. Found it.

Today I've been reading a Mitford book, Mansfield Park (Jane Austen) and a Christian allegorical novel called Hinds Feet in High Places. Three novels!

I've read most of Part One of Season of the Witch: Enchantment, Terror and Deliverance in the City of Love (San Francisco) ... part one is titled "The Enchantment" and part two, "The Terror" . . . so I know dark histories are ahead. The Enchantment has been interesting for me as I lived in or close to the city back then... and a lot of things he's writing about are very familiar to me.
Haight Ashbury Free Clinic - I went there for medical care. Lived right around the corner on Page St. for a while.
Fillmore West - I was there........ Bill Graham... never met him but...
San Francisco Chronicle - my father subscribed to this newspaper. There's an entire chapter about it.
Something tells me the good feels about the city won't last as "The Terror" will contain a lot of really terrible information. Maybe not things I want to audio-read while going to sleep at night.

Hmm. Roads to Quoz... I'm going to look for the audiobook now.

 

[user 30781]

I've read most of Part One of Season of the Witch: Enchantment, Terror and Deliverance in the City of Love (San Francisco) ... part one is titled "The Enchantment" and part two, "The Terror" . . . so I know dark histories are ahead. The Enchantment has been interesting for me as I lived in or close to the city back then... and a lot of things he's writing about are very familiar to me.
Haight Ashbury Free Clinic - I went there for medical care. Lived right around the corner on Page St. for a while.
Fillmore West - I was there........ Bill Graham... never met him but...
San Francisco Chronicle - my father subscribed to this newspaper. There's an entire chapter about it.
Something tells me the good feels about the city won't last as "The Terror" will contain a lot of really terrible information. Maybe not things I want to audio-read while going to sleep at night.

Hmm. Roads to Quoz... I'm going to look for the audiobook now.

Ok, you have my interest up, I'm going to see if the library has this or can get it for me.

Quoz is another traveling book, but not in a van this time like Blue Highways was, and there are some very interesting stories attached to the places he goes.

edit: I went to order Season of the Witch from the library and looked at my account first. I have 8 books checked out (3 of them are in the mail still) and 4 more about to be mailed. I'm reading the second one of those 8 right now. I tucked Season into my 'books to be read' folder for later because I have definitely over ordered. lol

another edit: One thing I like about reading is when an author uses a word I'm unfamiliar with and I have to look it up. Quoz is full of those words! There's only one other book I can remember thinking I really needed to have a dictionary next to me while I was reading and I think that was a T.C. Boyle book, maybe Water Music. T.C. Boyle is one of my favorite authors.

 

[travelaround]

The Season of the Witch continues to fascinate me. I just listened to a detailed description of what happened at Altamont, like nothing I've heard before. Hits close to home because I was there... though I was so far back in the crowd I could barely see the stage and had no idea what was happening there. We could barely hear the music. I had no desire to go closer to the stage because I wanted to stay in close contact with the group I arrived with - so I could get a ride home. If I'd walked away I never would have found them again. It was a very cold ride home in the back of an old red pickup truck. Also today learned more about Janis Joplin and Big Brother and the Holding Company and the Rolling Stones, the band that started the plan for Altamont.

I did get a copy of Roads to Quoz, but haven't started it yet. Maybe tomorrow as I'll be driving to Grant's Pass, the long way, as our pass over Grayback Mountain has been closed again due to Forest Service logging.

 

[travelaround]

On my road trip to Grant's Pass and back I listened to more of Season of the Witch - and totally get why he chose that as a title now. San Francisco had more scandals than I was aware of in the 1970's. I knew little about the Zebra killings until today. I think I lived in SF at that time but just didn't pay attention to the news... I was a young mother... busy with my baby. Also had no idea how involved People's Temple was with SF politics. I guess Jim Jones wanted everyone under his control.

Didn't get any other reading done because I was driving or shopping most of the day.

 

[vanbrat]

Just finished the Book called "The Nesting" By C.J. Cooke. Lots of twists and turns and lots of past and present type stuff had to finish it just to figure out what had happened and what was going to happen. Good ending ....

 

[travelaround]

I started audio-reading chapter one of Road to Quoz today and decided not to go with that because of the reader, and because I think it might be better with a real book which probably has photos and maps!

So instead I got an audiobook copy of The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon, by David Grann - and also an audiobook copy of a book published this year: Hollywood Eden: Electric Guitars, Fast Cars, and the Myth of the California Paradise, by Joel Selvin. I'm not sure which one I'll start first.

 

[nature lover]

I’ve been reading an outdoor adventure story. Called “ antlers in the treetops“ by Who Goosed the Moose.