Dune. Finished tonight in time for the film
on to Dune Messiah.
The beer must flow
As a kid on his own at 15, so broke I was stoked to have cold water in his fridge, Dune literally kept me going for the first several particularly difficult weeks. I got lost in the series. Loved the initial film only because of a certain fondness (incl. for Sean Young), otherwise hated it - but the books are inimitable.
I love author biographies. So, the Paris Review Interviews, always (over and over, which is what I'm doing now). I'm also very devoted to John Fowles, the greatest British author so few read, lol. "Conversations with John Fowles" is itself worth the read, for his massive and very catholic interests in the works of other authors. One could do worse than build a library just from his references themselves.
Re-reading Pincher Martin and The Inheritors, both by William Golding. Like Fowles, incredibly imaginative and principled writer.
Lot of re-reads I guess. Just finished a marvelous book my son got me on Winston Churchill during the war, The Splendid and the Vile. My view of history is very structural, meaning, I don't often give a lot of juice to the individual (rather, the individual marries the developments "underneath") but this book is a beautiful paean to leadership and the British peoples' sheer grit. With wonderful narrative filled with countless details of everyday life, the book brings home in such a gut-punch way just how hellish the Blitz was for the people of Britain. And how difficult it was to manage the uneasy relationship with FDR and this country, heavily isolationist until the last.
I've always liked the British folk, but this book really reminds me what a true leader joined to a great cause can do. Churchill was the man of the moment and Hitler seriously miscalculated the indomitable spirit of the Britons he thought "soft, democratic weaklings."
The Splendid Century, first read decades ago. Top of the pyramid-down look at life under Louis XIV**. Really into French history, particularly the inevitable destruction of the Bourbons and monarchy itself; re-reading Simon Schama's Citizens.
**If you like popular histories that read well and are interested in the ancient world and Levant, take a look at the books by Michael Grant. Great series.
