What books are you reading right now?

The rereads continue. Chronicles of Narnia this time, and I'm a little less than halfway through The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (that one and The Silver Chair are my favorites.) Finished Lion and Caspian over the weekend.


Debating doing His Dark Materials next, as both a reverse perspective, and in preparation for the TV adaptation. I don't really remember the second one, and I never got around to the third one, so it will be nice to refresh/catch up.

 

I enjoyed TCON*, even though I read it for the first time as an adult. So much so I replaced my thick PB copy with a large HB, The Complete Chronicles of Narnia, C.S. Lewis, Illustrated in color by Pauline Baynes (2000). Of course I bought at a thrift store, dirt cheap (same as the PB).


* Despite the subtle and not-so-subtle 'God chose, and wants, white people to rule the lesser peoples' messages.
Long live Good White Christians!
Long live British imperialism!

 

I think part of the reason I love the Narnia books so much is that I was very young when I read the first one, and only a little older when I read the rest of the series. I had no idea it was supposed to be Christian allegory until high school, and I'd read them countless times by then. Even now, the only one that seems overtly religious to me is The Last Battle (which, probably not coincidentally, is my least favorite of the series.)

I own the large "all books together" huge paperback, that has the series in chronological order—I don't ever read them in that order. Publishing order is the best way to read them, in my opinion. I had them as a set that I bought in 7th grade (in the original order), but lost almost half of them in a not-pretty incident with my mom when I was 19ish. I always say I'm going to find an original set, but I haven't yet. Maybe that will be my Christmas present to myself this year.

 

I admit to reading the series only once (the huge PB), and I never knew the publishing order wasn't chronological. I've only read one series (actually three of the four books), Lonesome Dove, where the publishing order wasn't chronological. By the end of the third book I had had enough of McMurty's writing (good stories, not so good writing).

Way back when my mom cleared out many of my books without bothering to ask me if I wanted them.

 

Yep, original order was:

1. The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe
2. Prince Caspian
3. Voyage of the Dawn Treader
4. The Silver Chair
5. The Horse and His Boy
6. The Magician's Nephew
7. The Last Battle

Harper Collins moved the Magician's Nephew to #1 and The Horse and His Boy to #3. I mean, it doesn't make THAT huge of a difference, I guess, but I think the series as a whole is more enjoyable in the original order.

 

info. I should print that and stick in the HB should I ever read TCON again (I need to, at a more leisurely pace), in the correct order.

 

I have to correct something I wrote. McMurty wrote the Lonesome Dove tetralogy (I had to look that up....yet again) out of chronological order. I'm still not sure in what order the books were written (they definitely weren't written in chronological order) and in what order they were published.

 

I'm enjoying The Martian by Any Weir.

Opening line: I'm pretty much fucked.
Line on page 14: My asshole is doing as much to keep me alive as my brain.

 

Totally. I've been reading Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion annually for probably thirty years now, I still find new things, or find myself looking at something in a new way, revealing new ideas.

And the same goes for any number of other great works: Les Miserables, Moby-Dick, the Tanach (Hebrew Scriptures), and others. To a more limited extent, it goes for lesser "good fun" works also.

The ability to return to a work over and over for deeper and deeper experience is the sign of good art, and the sign of a focused, creative mind.

 

WHAT.

 

I can understand that .