What are you reading?

[slooroo]

To be a good writer one needs to be a good reader. So discuss things you're reading!

Currently I'm reading The King's Fifth by Scott O'Dell. I finished the entire Quran before this so I decided to go for a lighter read. This particular book is a fictional tale about Conquistadors in Mexico/Southwestern US when it was still a Spanish colony seeking the mythic Seven Cities that was supposed to be completely covered in gold. While fictional it does talk about actual things that occurred during the time such as the Spanish victory over the Aztec or the fact that Cortes banned the natives from using horses. On the other hand it also notes some tribes saw the Spanish as liberators from the Aztecs while showing the Spanish's own evils.

[Juneberry]

I read mostly manga these days. For a book club of sorts, we've been reading the manga Spirit Circle. I also recently read as much as I could of Tena on S-String. Debating rereading Lucifer and the Biscuit Hammer just because it's the same author as Spirit Circle and I really enjoyed it... That or Beyond the Beyond, which I started rereading recently and then paused to read Tena. xD

[slooroo]

Finished The King's Fifth by Scott O'Dell. It was fine but not mindblowing for me. Humorously this book sort of reminds me of Crime & Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky in that the main character of this book becomes paranoid in his sin and finds redemption in prison. So in that regard I did like the book and the historical tidbits of the shitty things the Spanish would do to the natives in their search for gold is mindblowing.

Next up is The Storm of Steel by Ernst Jünger. Jünger is a fascinating person because if one was to write a "Badass of the Week" blog his name would definitely have to appear. Born into a relatively secure family he instead leaves it behind to seek adventure in a group dedicated to nature then moving on to fighting in the French Foreign Legion and later once WW1 began in the German Army. The Storm of Steel is in his journals on his time in WW1 fighting in the trenches for Germany, perhaps one of the few translated accounts I know of getting to see the war from the German perspective. After the war he became a very famous and popular writer on top of being a war hero yet also became an enemy of the Nazis when he openly defied them and turned down all offers they made for him which included political positions and positions in the top universities in Germany. He did end up in WW2 (there's journals on this too I want to read someday) but he was kicked out of the Wehrmacht for using his position to save Jews from the Holocaust. Very fascinating guy who became very accomplished in many different things, many I didn't cover in this little blurb.

[Megan]

"Extreme Teen Bible" and "The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes" by Suzanne Collins.

[Altair]

The storm of steel sounds like a book right up my alley.
Right now I'm reading Artemis and Wheel of Time.

[slooroo]

Finished The Storm of Steel by Ernst Junger. I'd love to write longer articles on this book but in a short sense this isn't an anti-war book but it's also not a "pro-war" book like some accuse it of. Instead I feel that Junger almost has a kind of Ancient Greek attitude that reminded me a lot of The Iliad by Homer that I read earlier in the year. He talks of his time in the war and the many ups and downs. It has all of the grit and gruesomeness and spares no details and yet in the horrors you see the wonders of human bravery, of sacrifice, of courage, of kindness and so on. Junger ends it with noting he was proud to serve a greater ideal, the ideal of his country. Perhaps it has a nationalistic tinge to it but I feel it's also a rather philosophical answer as well. Any human needs an idea to strive for and Junger found his at the time in warfare, in hopes of seeing Germany greater than before. Yet Junger also doesn't gain a particular bitterness about losing, unlike another German WW1 soldier who earned similar awards to Junger and later led a certain fringe political party to leadership. Absolutely fascinating book overall.

Another small note is Junger reworked The Storm of Steel several times. I bought the 1929 edition which was the first English translation of the book that retained his thoughts at the time. As he got older and experienced things like the Third Reich some of his attitudes changed which is reflected in later editions.

Next up is Brave New World by Aldous Huxley. I've read over 100 books so far since I started reading again a couple years ago and yet somehow I haven't touched this book or 1984 by George Orwell. So I figured I'd crack Brave New World open since it interests me more at the moment.

[CherryBlossom]

I'm currently reading The Lost Years by Mary Higgins Clark.

[Megan]

"Extreme Teen Bible" and "To Sleep in a Sea of Stars" by Christopher Paolini