The Jeeves and Wooster series of P.G. Wodehouse. Splendid, witty, marvellous.
I never laugh out at loud while reading, but with these, I cannot refrain from a subtle grin or laughter.
Stylistically also very pleasing.

I'm reading through all of the volumes of Gundam: The Origin manga, released in English by Vertical. I'm in volume four of...twelve? And I'm loving it so far. The production is really impressive - these are heavy hardcovers, nice pages, with some absolutely gorgeous watercolored pages interspersed throughout. It's an old story, updated, and visually looks completely modern. If you have any passing interest in Gundam at all (old school or new school), I'd say give it a shot.

It's a thing of beauty! [url]http://i.imgur.com/lMNq1f7.jpg[/url]

Here's a review: [url]http://www.forbes.com/sites/olliebarder/2015/03/16/gundam-the-origin-manga-review/#31adbc0e2b83[/url]

I've been mostly reading boatloads of grant proposal related shenanigans for work, because works, but I'm trying to start reading some philosophy or something. A friend recently recommended some stuff by Camus and Nietzsche to try out, been also waiting on some books that my parents said they were sending me for christmas, lololol.

[quote="GoldenRhino"]I'm reading through all of the volumes of Gundam: The Origin manga, released in English by Vertical. I'm in volume four of...twelve? And I'm loving it so far. The production is really impressive - these are heavy hardcovers, nice pages, with some absolutely gorgeous watercolored pages interspersed throughout. It's an old story, updated, and visually looks completely modern. If you have any passing interest in Gundam at all (old school or new school), I'd say give it a shot.

It's a thing of beauty! [url]http://i.imgur.com/lMNq1f7.jpg[/url]

Here's a review: [url]http://www.forbes.com/sites/olliebarder/2015/03/16/gundam-the-origin-manga-review/#31adbc0e2b83[/url][/quote]
Looks pretty sweet. I watched the original Gundam OVA, where it pretty much condenses the entire anime into ~6 hours and it was a blast...now I kinda wanna rewatch something like that. Reading that article it mentions some differences between the manga and the anime. Was there anything of note you may have picked up on that's worth sharing? I'm kinda curious to know.


As for reading, I started reading some stuff by H.P. Lovecraft. It's pretty good. I could see how some people may think it's dry, but I think it's kind of poetic the way he describes things.

I've been reading Gödel, Escher, Bach off and on over the past few weeks, and it's fascinating. I'm still pretty early in the book, but for those who are unfamiliar, it's basically an exploration of [i]meaning[/i]. How do we, as humans, recognize meaning in something, even when that something is often comprised of unremarkable and "meaningless" elements? What actually gives something meaning, as we recognize it? Is there a systematic way of defining meaning, such that we can model it? Etc, etc.

It's had a pretty fundamental effect on how I think about and conceptualize pretty much everything in life: I feel like I can see patterns in many disparate things, and make connections that I couldn't see before. And I think a lot of this has to do with how the book itself is set up: it continuously rotates between three different disciplines—math (i.e. the work of Kurt Gödel), art (i.e. the works of M.C. Escher), and music (i.e. the works of J.S. Bach)—and talks about how all three disciplines, despite being superficially very different, all use similar patterns to explore and push the boundaries of human cognition.

And among the more practical benefits of reading this book, it's made me finally start to "get" the ideas behind music theory. Gonna probably legit sit down and start learning my scales, intervals, and modes before long.

I'm currently reading A History of Reading by Alberto Manguel, whom I quite love for his musings on readership. So far, it seems wonderful. I need to read more of his.

At the moment I'm also reading [i]To the Letter[/i] by Simon Garfield. I read a few other books of his, including [i]Just My Type[/i] (a look into typography) and [i]On the Map[/i] (a look into cartography)--neither of them were exhaustive studies of the subjects by any means, but rather entertaining and enjoyable forays into the topics for the lay reader. I can appreciate accessible books such as his as a starting place into a given topic. Anyway, [i]To the Letter[/i] follows suit in the style, and gives a few interesting highlights in the 'history' of correspondence. For me, a book devoted to the medium of the written letter seemed perfect, as I am one of the only people I know who still regularly (quite regularly) sends personal letters. I love the versatility of the medium, and what I am able to do to bend and stretch (or keep traditionally formatted, too) my letters. Some popular acknowledgement seems deserved!
As an aside, does anyone else here send personal letters anymore, besides me?

[quote="Jomei"]Rereading Catch 22, the Sirens of Titan, and more Joyce right now while slowly wading through Midnight's Children.[/quote]

Still this. But also Faulkner's As I Lay Dying when I feel like it and J.D. Salinger's Nine Stories the rest of the time. Faulkner's a pain at times, really shines at others. Really (really) love Salinger. Kazuo Ishiguro's When We Were Orphans is on deck with one student. Kind of excited to give him a shot.

[quote="yaro"]Some popular acknowledgement seems deserved![/quote]

Hear, hear! I must confess receiving letters from you is something like discovering anew an ancient lost art of our culture. Nuances and stylistic choices galore, and all for poignant and varied effects on the reader.

I will continue to send them.

Now I've moved on to a Lafcadio Hearn kick. I've finished Kwaidan and Kotto (which seemed to be of somewhat related topics to me), and I am now about halfway through Kokoro (not to be confused with the book of the same title by Soseki). I rather enjoy reading Hearn's writing--his style, for one, is clean yet beautiful; not so antiquated as to be distant sounding, but old enough to give opportunity to see words not widely used, as well as a generous use of the subjunctive mood. The accounts of Japanese life and stories as he wrote them over a century ago are also very interesting for a modern day reader. I'm sure others here (considering what I know about this forum, especially) must have read some of his work? What are your thoughts?

I checked off what must be on a literary bucket list somewhere and was reading Salinger's Zooey in a Japanese bathtub yesterday.

Ishiguro's When We Were Orphans is going well so far, too. His style is elegantly British-feeling, but where his writing shines is in his little insights into intricacies of human interaction--and in his ability to tell a story.

I haven't been reading what I planned to because we hit a bookstore the other weekend and I picked up a copy of my favorite book, Huxley's "Island," and I've been very, very slowly and purposefully working my way through it once again.

Huxley's prose gives my brain-boners boners.

[quote]"That all men are equal is a proposition which at ordinary times no sane individual has ever given his assent."
--from "The Idea of Equality" included in Proper Studies (1927) by Aldous Huxley[/quote]

Call me a hopeless idealist, but I was more of a fan of Brave New World. Maybe not the ending and with what happens to John and everything, but there's something about his idea of a dystopian utopia that I found really appealing, perhaps in its ability to actually satiate the base desires of man, granting that science were able to advance to such a point.

Brave New World is wonderful, but I think that Island has a more balanced view of humanity overall. It's also a bit more optimistic - there's this romantic idealism existing within and in spite of the more vulgar and destructive habits of mankind; beauty and life to be found within the madness of the grand old carnival we call "civilized society," with our other-destroying conquests and self-destructive habits.

Seriously, if I could only recommend one book to people, it'd probably be Island.

Finished Franny and Zooey. Wonderful. Just started on Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters & Seymour, An Introduction. Salinger is officially in my top-tier now.

I have begun [i]El Aleph[/i] by Borges--reading it in Spanish, which is a second language for me. So far so good, but still a bit of vocabulary I'm having to look up.

Besides that, I am reading the book [i]Ensouling Language[/i], which, taken for face value, is a how-to for writers, but is really so much more than a 'standard' how-to. Part of its purpose is to tell how nonfiction writing of all sorts can and ought to be beautiful and inspiring, and it serves as a good example for this message. I would recommend it to anyone (not just those who write), even just as a sort of guide on how to think about things in a meaningful way.