The Reading Joy & Delight Thread

[Desertway]

Originally Posted by Dr. Drib

I'm with you all the way on Chandler: I love the way he writes.

I often highlight what I consider to be beautifully written passages. The number of Kindle highlights I had for The Big Sleep was absolutely absurd.

[drofgnal]

Im also in a bit of a reading slump. Maybe something about the holiday season, I never seemed to have much time to sit down and enjoy my book. I was reading Anna Karenin, but lack of time bogged me down. I enjoyed what I read, but the book requires some investment and the spotty time I had to devote to it didn't really help. I've done what others in this thread have said and moved on to something I know, so I'm rereading the Hobbit. I may move on to LOTR afterward, or return to Anna Karenin, I'm undecided. Probably Anna, but I'll probably start from the beginning.

[neil_swann80]

Originally Posted by Sirtel

I just recently finished the latest Murderbot. Love that series! I made an omnibus of all the Murderbot novels and novellas, so it's just one big volume.

I love the Murderbot series also. The last installment felt like the weakest so far IMHO, which was a shame. I'd been looking forward to it for so long.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

Nine times out of ten, when we say 'graphic novels' we are just discussing collections of individual issues.

I am talking series that starts out as books and somehow has comic books added to the series.

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by neil_swann80

I love the Murderbot series also. The last installment felt like the weakest so far IMHO, which was a shame. I'd been looking forward to it for so long.

Yes, I thought the same, but even so it was still enjoyable. Pity if the author is running out of ideas, though.

[SomeSteve]

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

After reading a bunch of books (that I did enjoy) to finish a reading challenge, I'm back to reading my way through Raymond Chandler.

Great minds think sort of alike.

I'm reading Marlowe by John Banville (a.k.a. The Black-Eyed Blonde by Benjamin Black), a Philip Marlowe novel. I had planned on reading all of Chandler, and perhaps the two Marlowe novels by Robert B. Parker, before tackling it, and even started rereading The Big Sleep, but although it had been so long since I read it the first time, everything seemed so familiar that after a couple of chapters my attention flagged and I fell prey to the siren song of something else and was lured away. But now that the movie version of Marlowe with Liam Neeson is available for streaming, I thought that before it disappeared from the streaming platform again I'd hurry and read the book and then watch the movie. (That way it will be easier to confuse the two down the road. )

So far, I like it, but I can't say how Chandleresque it is, not having read much Chandler and none of it recently (the aborted go at The Big Sleep was a while back). I can't even say if he tried to mimic Chandler.

Normally I wouldn't be interested in continuations of an author's series by someone else -- the Spenser novels by anybody by Parker don't tempt me in the least, and the same goes for the Nero Wolfe books by anybody but Rex Stout -- but I've liked the John Banville (Benjamin Black) crime novels I've read, and I've read all of the Spenser books more than once, so I thought I'd give their takes on Philip Marlowe a try.

I'm on The Long Goodbye ...

I had the movie version of The Long Goodbye with Elliott Gould (and, in a small role, a (fairly) young Arnold Schwarzenegger) on my watchlist, but I put off playing it for so long that it disappeared again from the streaming platform before I got to it. The last time I saw it must have been when it was a new movie in theaters.

[astrangerhere]

I was gifted a The Selected Letters of Virginia Woolf over the holidays by a like-minded reader. A non-reader person that I serve as a professional mentor for asked me about it because I was reading it when she arrived at our coffee meeting yesterday.

This got me to thinking about the particular joy I had a few years ago when I discovered the "genre" of reading the letters of great writers and others. It started when I stumbled on The Selected Letters of Willa Cather, who is one of my favorite American authors, at my local indie. I picked it up on a whim and spent the better part of 2 months reading it. I absolutely fell in love with the form. Since then, I've read books of letters from Mary Wollstonecraft, Truman Capote, and Rilke. I have on my shelves waiting for me the letters of Virginia Woolf, Hannah Arendt, and a book called The Love That Dares: Letters of LGBTQ+ Love & Friendship Through History.

What new genres have you discovered later on in your reading life?

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by astrangerhere

What new genres have you discovered later on in your reading life?

None, actually. I've read mostly the same genres all my life (fantasy, SF, mystery, historical novels; occasionally some romance (straight, gay or bi - no preference there) or nonfiction). There are genres I've sampled or even read somewhat in my youth I'm no longer interested in (classics, biographies, literary fiction, poetry, horror, erotica), but none I've discovered later. I've tried them all at one time or the other, and by now I stick mostly to my lifelong favorite genres. I read new authors in those genres constantly, though.

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

I am talking series that starts out as books and somehow has comic books added to the series.

If you are talking about something like Star Trek or Firefly, you know you can always skip those comics. Nobody is going to twist your arm, forcing you to read them.

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by SomeSteve

I'm reading Marlowe by John Banville (a.k.a. The Black-Eyed Blonde by Benjamin Black), a Philip Marlowe novel.

Normally I wouldn't be interested in continuations of an author's series by someone else --

I'm firmly in the 'not interested in continuations' camp. For the most part, Marlowe's a cipher of a character. Aside from his interest in replaying famous chess games, there's little in the way of continuity between the books. So why bother writing more?

The real appeal for me of Chandler is Chandler.

After The Long Goodbye I have Playback. Then I'll have read all the mainstream Chandler available, including the collections The Simple Art of Murder and Trouble Is My Business.

But I think once I finish Playback, I'll take a crack at the newer collections of Chandler short stories from the pulps. The stories he cannibalized to create his novels.

...even started rereading The Big Sleep, but although it had been so long since I read it the first time, everything seemed so familiar that after a couple of chapters my attention flagged and I fell prey to the siren song of something else and was lured away.

Are you that way with the rest of his books? I had to read The Big Sleep something like three times before I thought I had fully grasped all that occurred (even Chandler couldn't follow all of it. He had no idea who killed the chauffeur), so like you I'm pretty familiar with it.

But you can just move on to the rest of his novels. Yeah, they all have Marlowe, but events from past books have no impact on future books. Marlowe has no life outside of whatever case he is working on.

I had the movie version of The Long Goodbye with Elliott Gould (and, in a small role, a (fairly) young Arnold Schwarzenegger) on my watchlist, but I put off playing it for so long that it disappeared again from the streaming platform before I got to it. The last time I saw it must have been when it was a new movie in theaters.

I highly, highly recommend the movie The Long Goodbye. It's not very Chandler-esque and Elliot Gould isn't the Marlowe from the books (or maybe he is, but was pulled from the '40's to the '70's), but it's a great movie. And Gould is great in it. Watch the first ten minute segment, where Marlowe tries to fake out his cat with a different brand of catfood. If you don't enjoy that, you likely won't enjoy the rest of the film.

If you do watch it, notice that all the music in the film is the same song, just arranged differently for different situations. He listens to The Long Goodbye on his car stereo, then walks in to the store and the same song is now muzak, at another point hippies chant it.

I love Robert Altman and his style of directing and The Long Goodbye is one of my favorites.

[SomeSteve]

Originally Posted by SomeSteve

...even started rereading The Big Sleep, but although it had been so long since I read it the first time, everything seemed so familiar that after a couple of chapters my attention flagged and I fell prey to the siren song of something else and was lured away.

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

Are you that way with the rest of his books?

I think that's the only Chandler novel I've read (and the records I used to keep confirm this), though I've had paperback copies of them all for years.

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

I highly, highly recommend the movie The Long Goodbye. It's not very Chandler-esque and Elliot Gould isn't the Marlowe from the books (or maybe he is, but was pulled from the '40's to the '70's), but it's a great movie.

Even though it's been so long since I saw it -- and I went to it two or three times when it was in theaters -- a few scenes have stuck with me, such as when he was in the interrogation room at the police station. Maybe I'll have to see if I can get it on disc.

[Renate]

+1 On Chandler.

I hardly ever have a TBR list, unless you're counting my Wish List on Overdrive for things that are never available.

I like mixing it up. I don't like reading more than two novels in a row. I'll go to any non fiction. My "grab-n-go" would be century-old tech on Project Gutenberg, steam, electric, telephone.

Current read, "The Knife Man", Wendy Moore. It's a biography of 18th century surgeon/naturlist John Hunter and is more interesting than the bogus title. I'm enjoying it a lot. There's name-dropping, Joshua Banks, Smollett, Johnson, Boswell, Garrick...

[Catlady]

Originally Posted by drofgnal

Im also in a bit of a reading slump. Maybe something about the holiday season, I never seemed to have much time to sit down and enjoy my book. I was reading Anna Karenin, but lack of time bogged me down. I enjoyed what I read, but the book requires some investment and the spotty time I had to devote to it didn't really help. I've done what others in this thread have said and moved on to something I know, so I'm rereading the Hobbit. I may move on to LOTR afterward, or return to Anna Karenin, I'm undecided. Probably Anna, but I'll probably start from the beginning.

I am currently reading Anna Karenina. I had been determined to read it in 2022, but life happened, and I started listening to the audiobook on January 1. Before that, I had read nothing for months--I had a difficult, tiring 2022, and when I had downtime, I didn't want to read; I wanted to stare at mindless TV. When things eased up, I found I was out of the habit of reading, and still preferred mindless TV (and I really mean mindless). I thought Anna would jumpstart me--that I'd be motivated to finish it so I could read some nice little domestic thriller--but that's not happening. I've read a few chapters a day of Anna, and I'm only about halfway through Part Three (of eight).

The audiobook is actually good--it's the Maude translation with Wanda McCaddon as the narrator. The language seems sufficiently modern, and I don't have to deal with the strange-to-me names that defy pronunciation, which has been a stumbling block in my previous halfhearted attempts to read Anna. I'm enjoying it, not just feeling virtuous about finally reading the darn thing after blowing it off in high school back in the Dark Ages. But I still don't want to read more than a few chapters at a time.

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by Catlady

Before that, I had read nothing for months...

That's frankly inconceivable to me. No matter how bad it is, I have to get my reading dose in; I'm addicted to reading, and have been since early childhood. I can easily go for months, even years without watching any TV, though, and often do.

That said, I do know several people who only read books intermittently, and several who never read them at all. And yep, they all watch TV daily.

[Catlady]

Originally Posted by Sirtel

That's frankly inconceivable to me. No matter how bad it is, I have to get my reading dose in; I'm addicted to reading, and have been since early childhood. I can easily go for months, even years without watching any TV, though, and often do.

That said, I do know several people who only read books intermittently, and several who never read them at all. And yep, they all watch TV daily.

It was inconceivable to me before it happened. Since I mainly listen to audiobooks, I was in the habit of clipping on my mp3 player and listening to it at any opportunity throughout the day while doing routine tasks, traveling, waiting, etc. But with all that was going on, I couldn't concentrate on what I was hearing, so listening became pointless. Gradually, I fell out of the habit. I expect I'll gradually get back in the habit, but for now, the quiet is nice too.