What are you reading? What's on your mind?

It's February 2016 -- so, what book are you sticking your nose in? Any reading goals for the new year? Desiring something new? Did you get any GOOD BOOKS for Chrirstmas 2015?

I've got a few different books going, happily. I'm trying to get back into mysteries, after a hiatus of almost 30 years. And I'm visiting old favorites, like good ol' Wm Shakespeare's verses. So I'm mixing it up.

What about you?

Still slogging my way, cheerfully, through Sir Walter Scott. I'm currently reading The Abbot. I had taken some time off from this novel, but am back at it. The more I read Scott, the more I realize what a colossal disaster and social poison organized and disorganized religion truly is in the world. A blight on mankind.

I read my first Scott novel this past December -- The Heart of Mid-lothian. It was an eye-opener, a tale of old Edinburgh, full of colorful characters with historic detail of the prison in that city. My reading hit a few speed bumps, though, in tackling the various Scottish dialects, depending on who was speaking and what they were emoting. But, all-in-all, I was glad I read it -- once.

After reading several of his books, I found myself understanding the Scots well enough to enjoy it. However, he interjects a lot of French and Latin, without translation which I just skip over. I find that, at least to my thinking, about three out of four novels so far paint a fairly complete picture of the Scottish borderlands during the most eventful days of the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries. The more I read, the more full and bright the picture becomes. It helps, also, to explain a lot of our present day politics. While it's not history as we think of history, a history minded person can get a lot of background to these troubled times, both then and now, by reading Scot.

I heartily recommend him. A little patience will yield large rewards to those who see past the simple romance to the darker substance underneath.

Oh, I haven't given up on him. I enjoy the Penguin Classics editions. Reading their notes and introductions is like attending an informative class. I agree that patience can take you a long way with some of these works, and the rewards are endless.

>4 geneg: he interjects a lot of French and Latin, without translation

The audience for which he wrote would have read French and Latin, and Greek, too. Ah, the days of classical education! Not that I can read any of them.

RAther proud of myself. Just finished the Complete Work of Jane Austen. Veeeery long passages describing feelings and sentiments and lots of adjectives, but some of the women, even tho' they were plagued with people bound on making a "good marriage" for them, were surprisingly modern.

I recently began my first Austen book, Emma, and after reading the first of the three sections, I got stalled after only a few pages into the second section. I set it aside for now, but hope to return to it. I'm no stranger to such books, having read and enjoyed Dickens, Hardy, Gaskell, Eliot, etc., but I was having a hard time sitting still thru this one. As I said, I hope to return to it and finish it.

I just began reading Washington, The Indispensable Man by, James Thomas Flexner ( The Illustrated Edition ). I'm interested in reading about our founding fathers, so I'm going to read 4 books on Washington; The Founding Father.

I hope the Ron Chernow's
"Washingtion"
will be one of your four!

>9 JaneAustenNut: A very interesting take on Washington is The Painter's Chair, by Hugh Howard. Even if you're not all that interested in the parts about 18th-century portraiture, the characterization of Washington as a person brings him to life more vividly than most of the depictions of him on canvas.