Lordy, have I been reading. Ispentsixty dollars last month on Kindle books, reading Louise Penny who has thirteen books out, all on the best sellar list. I just finished book number 6. Louise Penny is a Canadian gal who writes mysteries. I decided I've spent all the money I can for a whileon books so I went to the library. I got Penny's no. 7 book and the library is ordering up from other libraries dos. 8 & 9. I've also been reading western novels by William Johnstone. I picked up two of hose at the library today. Hit the jackkpot so to speak. Also go a new book out by James Patterson in the latest Alex Cross mysteries.. My one good eye has been busy. All of these of course are large print books. I do read very little during the day. I go to bed generally speaking after the evening news or maybe after the Late Show. If I have something interesting I will read till two-thirty or three-thirty. Well, yes, I do read the SOC but right now I'm going to take a break and have a snack. I've got some good sharp cheese and some crackers that will go good with a glass of orange juice.
Bill, does your library have the Large Print Editions of books? It would save you a lot of money if you could just use the library.
Yes they do @Don Alaska and today I used them. This is the first time I've been to the library in many months. I have not been able to walk from my car into the building and in those last few times when I did I was so out of breath I just sit unable to look for books. I did okay today. The only problem was lifting my Walker out of the trunk and putting it back. I checked out four books which the librarian got for me. She's bringing in two others.
Postscript: I learned something here. I've read all of Tony Hillerman's books, some of them twice, but I didn't know he had a daughter who is writing. I'll have to check out Anne Hillerman
I think she was mentioned in another thread. She apparently is different than her dad, but carrying on the family tradition.
I'm currently reading comics again that I liked as a young boy and find it quite entertaining and revealing. It's interesting to be reminded of and rediscover the same scenes and characters I liked 50 years ago and to compare my understanding of that time with what I understand now. This comic series was about the only one available when I was a child. It was difficult to get hold of and actually almost too costly when you were really needy as I was. They were being exchanged among young boys who used to consider them precious. Contentwise it had some educational value since it introduced readers to basic and important parts of history such as life at the age if chivalry, the middle ages, the Roman Empire, etc. Before reading the series I hadn't heard of the migration of the peoples, of inventions like the steam engine, German scattered regionalism, breakthrough experiments like Otto von Guericke's hemispheres experiment and many other things. I'm glad that as a retiree I now have the time to explore my life as a kid again to some extent.
I have only just started Chief Joseph.& the Flight of the Nez Perce by Kent Nerburn. I'm not expecting this to be a happy or easy read but I hope it will be interesting. I finished the book about the California Channel Islands. It was a little dry at times but still very interesting and I'm going to hold onto the book.
I have started Spark of Life by Remarque. I had never heard of the book, but I am familiar with the author, of course. I don't know if I will be able to complete it. I thought it was about the German Resistance during WWI, but it has started in a concentration camp with the horrible things happening there. Written by a German author in German in 1952. Have any of you read this?
No, until you brought the book up, I hadn’t even seen it. That said, you interested me enough to look it up and read the synopsis and also read a couple of passages. It’s fiction but it does sound as though it would be a good pick especially if a person loves to read about mankind and his struggles through extreme hardship just to retain his link with humanity. It read as though hell might be a sort of paradise compared to what those gentlemen went through........ I think you’ll make it to the end my friend but even if you do not, I pray that you still come away with something positive.
I don't know if you have read Remarque @Bobby Cole, but he doesn't write happy books. His most famous was All Quiet on the Western Front, but I also read his The Road Back which was about the abandonment of the German troops in the field after WWI. That book described the terrible struggles of the troops trying to find their way back home in the devastation that followed that war. It is all fiction, but it is based on the experiences of real people.
No, I haven’t read anything by him, but after a little more research added to your renderings, I’d be more apt to wait for the screen adaptation. My reading for the last 25 or so years has been limited to pure research so even something based on truth is put on the back burner for another time or when it comes out on screen for a two hour viewing. I’m a kind of person who looks for the benefit or rather, a redeeming quality in what I read or view which is why I said that I have hopes you can walk away with something positive about the book.
All Quiet on the Western Front, The Road Back, and Three Comrades are ones that I have read by Remarque. It's been a while. I don't remember now, though, whether it was the writing that I liked or that they were written by a German, whereas most of what we had was written by Americans. I have since read several other books, true accounts, written by Germans about their experiences during the war, although these were mostly World War I, whereas Remarque wrote about World War II.
In reading Bonhoeffer's biography, he said the original film made of All Quiet on the Western Front changed his life. I don't believe I ever saw the original movie made in the 1920s.