The Book Thread! What are you reading?

[erilaz]

Just finished reading Geschichte der ausgestorbenen alten friesischen oder sächsischen Sprache, a facsimile reprint of Tileman Dothias Wiarda's history of the Old Frisian language, originally published in 1784. I love reading books printed in Fraktur.

[erilaz]

I just finished reading The Runes and Other Magical Alphabets by Michael A. Howard.

Wow. Just, wow.

From the title and the publisher (The Aquarian Press), I knew that it would be good for some laughs, but I was totally unprepared for the enormity of the factual errors in this book.

I'm reminded of Helmut Arntz's capsule review of The Runes, Whence Came They by George Stephens: "Völlig unberührt von aller Wissenschaft" (completely untouched by all science). Stephens's work at its worst is a model of sober, meticulous scholarship compared to this train wreck.

[Celedam]

I finally got around to listening John Cleese's reading of The Screwtape Letters. I definitely need to give it a second, closer reading.

[Amped]

And now I'm on After Dark by Haruki Murakami.

i got the audio book for that one

[erilaz]

This morning I started reading Amos David Zubrow's 1978 Stanford University M.A. thesis, Concerning the Interpretation of ProtoNorse erilaR in Runic Inscriptions. It's a subject near and dear to my heart.

[erilaz]

Roots and Branches: Selected Papers on Tolkien by Tom Shippey.

I've never heard a more engaging speaker than Professor Shippey, and his book, The Road to Middle-earth, is regarded by many (myself included) to be the single best monograph on Tolkien's work ever. The papers in Roots and Branches definitely encapsulate what Shippey is all about, and I can certainly hear his voice when I read them.

I love his sense of humor, too. Here's an example (from p. 45):

Tolkien might not have gone so far as the author of Gunnlaugs saga Ormstunga (The Saga of Gunnlaug Wormtongue), who declared (in Icelandic) "Ein var þá tunga á Englandi sem í Noregi ok í Danmörku. En þá skiptust tungur í Englandi, er Vilhjalmr bastarðr vann England" ['there was then one tongue in England as in Norway and in Denmark. But then the tongues in England shifted when William the Conqueror — note that 'Conqueror' is not quite an exact translation of the Icelandic — won England']....

[Bakajo Nono]

I finally finished Battle Royale. @_@ What a ride. Dat ending.

I don't care to read The Hunger Games now xD

[erilaz]

The Japanese and the Lost Tribes of Israel by Joseph Eidelberg.

Here's a taste of Eidelberg's mishegoss: http://www.moshiach.com/tribes/japan4.html

[Moh]

The last thing I read was Darkly Dreaming Dexter. Too bad they don't carry the rest of the books here, I really liked that one.
I also tried to read The Hunger Games, but the first person writing just made it unbearable for me. I'll watch the movie instead.

[erilaz]

I just finished reading Andromeda Klein by Frank Portman (a.k.a. Dr. Frank of the Mr. T Experience, a Berkeley punk band).

Cover blurb:

Andromeda Klein has a few problems.

Her hair is kind of horrible.

Her partner-in-occultism, Daisy, is dead.

Her secret, estranged, much older and forbidden boyfriend-in-theory, has gone AWOL.

And her mother has learned how to text.

In short, things couldn't get much worse. Until they do. Daisy seems to be attempting to make contact from beyond, books are starting to disappear from the library, and then, strangely and suddenly, Andromeda's tarot readings are beginning to predict events with bizarrely literal accuracy.

Omens are everywhere. Dreams; swords; fires; hidden cards; lost, broken, and dead cell phones . . . and what is Daisy trying to tell her?

In the ensuing struggle of neutral versus evil, it's Andromeda Klein against the world, modern society, demonic forces, and the "friends" of the library.

It's a very enjoyable book, a "young adult" novel for young adults with brains. I appreciated the fact that Dr. Frank did a lot of research about actual occult traditions, rather than just making up a lot of "fakus Latinus" Harry Potterish mumbo-jumbo. I like fantastic literature with a good historical anchor, so I'll get more pleasure from a reference to a work like Meric Casaubon's A True and Faithful Relation... (familiar to me but not to the general populace, I would imagine) than a reference to some fictional work by Gilderoy Lockhart, however humorous the title. It's the same kind of feeling as getting an inside joke -- and Portman also has a few of those that made me laugh out loud. Finally, if I can have those sorts of "I see what you did there" moments and also gain some knowledge along the way (such as the fact that Aleister Crowley's name rhymes with holy rather than foully), then so much the better!