Are you sure? I mean, when I was in college in downstate Illinois I read the aforementioned Wise Blood by Flannery O'Connor and concluded it was highly satirical. A few years later, in grad school at LSU, I reread it after a year of living in the south. Suddenly, it seemed to be a work of documentary realism. Just about to finish... Origin: A Genetic History of the Americas, a book by University of Kansas anthropologist and geneticist Jennifer Raff. TLR version: people have been on this continent at least 14,000 years. Some argue (though Raff isn't convinced) the number is more like 130,000 years ago -- she won't go much beyond 18,000 at this point. But as any archaeologist would tell you, the research is ongoing.
I found the book sitting on my "Want to read" list on my Goodreads account. I had no idea why I put it there. I never saw the movie nor I actually wanted to watch it even through I am a fan of director Sofia Coppola. I googled a review of the book; It said: "The Beguiled is a thoroughly absorbing novel of deceits, secrets, sexuality and power. There’s plenty of dark melodrama here, the psychological nuances of which are nicely captured through Cullinan’s expressive prose." The book was more about the infighting among a group of jealous women and how sex is the root of all evil. I don't know if i like the novel. I almost gave up the book on Page 250 when the book was actually 370 pages only. The book had 6 female characters and a male lead. They talked too much and the book dragged on too much. I did not really get into it until the last 70 pages.
A Deeper Vision: The Catholic Intellectual Tradition in the Twentieth Century, a decent book that was comprehensive but still skimpy on some figures (like anyone from the United States, though apparently he's working on that book) by Robert Royal, who is fairly conservative, but didn't let that get in the way of writing an interesting book, which can't be said for everything he's published, IMO.
Czeslaw Milosz and Joseph Brodsky: Fellowship of Poets and interesting . . . not really biography, not really a literary study, but a book about two poets w,ho, exiled in the United States because they didn't get along with the communist government of their homelands, became something like friends, in spite of immense differences. Fascinating account of the history and cultural background of the two writers, with some surprising (to me) information about the deep history of Russia's belief that Ukraine belongs to the, by Princeton professor Irena Grudzinska Gross
The Gates of Europe: A History of Ukraine by Serhii Plokhy. The book starts out with Trump's first impeachment, and goes from ancient times to the Zelenskyy Administration. I bought this hours after Putin's 2022 invasion of Ukraine. Looks like a good read.
A well written memoir from Michael Tubbs, the youngest Mayor in Stockton's history and the first African-American mayor of Stockton. It's a mixture of a little bit of everything, ranging from life in a high poverty, high crime neighborhood, to graduating from Stanford and many points in between.
The book was shortlisted for Man Booker award. The story was about a woman in prison who was serving two consecutive life sentences. No, I never watch "Orange is the New Black", but I am into prison documentaries on netflx and read plenty of memoirs by bikers, gangsters and other criminals. The structure of the book is very weird. One reviewer from Goodreads described it as "haphazard". It switched to first person to third person without any indication. At least, two of the chapters came from the diary entries from the unabomber. It gives no indication who was talking. The chapter just went off topic and I have to figure it out on my own. I almost gave up the book on Page 250 out of about 350. Then, the book suddenly gets better.
Indian Horse by the late Canadian Amerindian novelist Richard Wagamese. Short chapters, which is good. Set in the 20th Century. A tale of Saul Indian Horse and his adventures. Currently, the story is in 1961. Seems like a good read. The Gates of Europe started out slow, but got good in the end.
I finished the book above on Tuesday. I immediately started "Factotum" by Charles Bukowski and finished it by Thursday. The book was mentioned in the "Mars Room" and that was how I got into it. "Factotum" was about a drifter named Henry Chinaski. He was an alcoholic bumming across the United States. Bukowski had a wicked sense of humor which made the character as interesting He jumped from job to job and woman to woman. I lost count of how many jobs he changed. However, it came to a point where each job sounded the same. He got drunk and got fired. I think he held three different jobs in the last 10 pages of the book. I was bored.
Lakota America by Pekka Hamalainen. A historical work about the famous Lakota Sioux by a Finnish author of American History. Last I heard, he was teaching American History at Oxford. So far, I'm reading about the Lakota interactions with New France. Excited to read his other work.
Iron Curtain: The Crushing of Europe, 1944-1956, a harrowing history of Central and Eastern Europe that, among other things, made clear to me that "peace" didn't come to Europe in 1945, though it looks that way the way history is presented here by Anne Applebaum.
Reading this by Fiona Hill, which has been interesting so far. Mainly chronicles his rise, views, and such.
Also, will be reading this on a flight over the weekend. I discovered this was a book via Ryuichi Sakamoto. He composed the soundtrack for the movie (If any of you saw The Revenant, he also did the soundtrack for that). As for how the movie did, as Bowles wrote in a new preface, "The less said, the better."
Power to Pray by Pastor Don Andreson. The author is a Vineyard Pastor in Massachusetts. He unfortunately has some NAR leanings. Should be a good work in my Christian walk.
Educated by Tara Westover. The #1 bestseller. The author suffered horrendous abuse in her childhood by her strict Mormon family. She never went to school. This is her memoir. She studied at various universities and is now Dr. Westover. Highly recommended.
Rescuing Socrates: How the Great Books Changed My Life and Why They Matter for a New Generation, a book in the tradition of things like The Closing of the American Mind and Cultural Literacy that, unlike the former of those two books, doesn't royally suck, by Columbian University graduate and current professor Roosevelt Montas, who skillfully intersperses interpretations of four great books authors (Socrates, Augustine, Freud and recent addition Gandhi) with a memoir of his life as a Dominican immigrant who eventually became an Ivy League professor.
Most memoirs by people her age are basically exercises in flatulent narcissism. But man oh man... not hers.
America and the American Record Business: A History - Don Cusic Interesting read, but this 1100+ page book needed an editor.
The Shell Collector and Other Stories by Anthony Doerr. A collection of short stories by the author of Cloud Cuckoo Land. I read the first story, The Shell Collector. Pretty good. I look to enjoy the read.
Gandhi: An Autobiography; The story of My Experiments With Truth, one of those books that's been following me around unread for 40 years which I finally picked up to read because of Gandhi's cameo in the previous book defending the "great books" curriculum for college undergraduates. Parts of it drag, and to be sure, the author could be a major crank, but he was in fact one of the great figures of the 20th century. Cover Gandhi's life up to the early years of his contributions to India's attempt at independence.
A Wolf Called Romeo by Nick Jans. A true story about a friendly wolf called Romeo that lived in the Juneau, Alaska area in the aughts. Spoiler alert: he gets poached, but lived longer than most wolves in the wild. Looks like an enjoyable tome.
Requested this one from the university library. I have been reading a series of books by Scottish SF author Iain Banks called the Culture series. Set in the same universe but not even loosely connected, they were cited as favorites in about a dozen columns I read in a six month period, which was enough to convince me I was missing out. My favorite so far is called The Player of Games about a man who is the best-known board/strategy game player in the Culture, and who gets tabbed by their version of contact to go to an alien world governed by games and challenge them at their own. Very interesting world building and an interesting focus on game play. I understand some of the later books (there are ten) are even better.