Greek names are tough

 In the last three months, I have continued my reading but had a slow down with one of the books I read. I was struggling to get through it but decided to push on and try to finish it. At the end of August, I had finished 29 books from my list and 19 books read for pleasure. That was 48 books in 52 weeks. Not bad. The last three months I have only read 7 books, four of those from my list.

First, the books from my list (#30 - #33) that I read:

Book #30 was the novel For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway. Not on my original 100, I added it later and I am glad I did. Published in 1940, it tells the story of Robert Jordan, a young American volunteer attached to a Republican guerrilla unit during the Spanish Civil War. As a dynamiter, he is assigned to blow up a bridge during an attack on the city of Segovia. I am slowly learning that a war setting makes for a great story. I gave the book a 4.0 (Excellent) and I plan to read more Hemingway. He did win a Nobel Prize for Literature.

Book #31 was The Iliad by Homer. Also not on my original 100, I added it as it was on many other lists along with The Odyssey.  Both were written in 800BC, but because of all the Greek names of warriors and Gods, with lots of sons of sons of...it becomes very tiresome, and I was having trouble remembering the characters. Basically, the story is about the Trojan War, and I had seen the movie Troy. At least I had a good idea of who was important. But sometimes a complex name shows up only once and then  another becomes an important character that I should have remembered.

After about four weeks of struggling, I got use to the structure and the story became more interesting. You know, Helen of Troy, Paris her suitor, his brother Hector, King Agamemnon and his brother Menelaus, husband of Helen who was stolen by Paris and taken to Troy. You have a list of Greeks like Achilles and Ajax, list of Trojans like Priam and Hecuba. Lets not forget the Gods like Zeus, Apollo, Athena, Hera, Poseidon and many more. But the story is just a portion of the long war and I finished and there was nothing about the Trojan Horse, or other things I knew to happen. After some research, I concluded I need to read the Odyssey to get the whole story. All I know is the Greek names are tough. I did give the book a score of 3.0 (Great).

Book #32 was Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks. It was #17 on my original 100 and I had never heard of it before. Although written in 1993, it follows two main characters living at different times: the first is Stephen Wraysford, a British soldier on the front line in Amiens France during the First World War, and the second is his granddaughter, Elizabeth Benson, whose 1970s plotline follows her attempts to recover an understanding of Stephen's experience of the war. It was a wonderful read and it helped me wonder even more about World War I. My paternal grandfather was an ambulance driver in France during that war. I plan to write a future post about that. I gave the book a 3.5 (Great to Excellent). I saw that there are two other novels by this author that make a loose trilogy. They are The Girl at Lion d'Or and Charlotte Gray.

Book #33 was The Inferno by Dante Alighieri. It was #76 on my original 100. Written in 1308, it is a hell of a book. The particular book I read was editted in such a way that there was a synopsis of each of the 33 Cantos at the beginning, and footnotes at the end. This help me get through this book which is written in terza rima or "third rhyme". The form is ABA BCB CDC DED...Makes for tough reading. The Inferno is the first book of Dante's Divine Comedy. I guess I need to read the other two, Purgatorio and Paradiso. I gave the book a 2.5 (Good to Great), like I said, it was Hell!

There were three books not on my list, one fiction and two non-fiction:

The fiction book was A Time for Mercy by John Grisham. It was a recent buy on a trip to Barnes & Noble. Written in 2020, it is a sequel to A Time to Kill which was also made into a movie. The story takes place five years later and involves the young lawyer Jake Brigance again. It was a great read and I gave the book a 3.0 (Great). I did learn there is another sequel called Sycamore Row, I guess I need to read that too.

The first non-fiction book I read was Reality is Not What it Seems by Carlo Rovelli. Written in 2014 (in Italian), it has the subtitle The Journey to Quantum Gravity.  I had read The Order of Time by him and I like his style of writing (or his translator from Italian). The book's opening chapters trace the history and evolution of quantum gravity. Starting with pre-socratic philosopher Democritus through to the ideas of Sir Isaac Newton and, eventually, Albert Einstein, the author puts forward a theory that quantum gravity brings great unity to the universe. He then states that space and time, waves and particles, energy and matter are all the same. Quite the theory to behold, but other authors have reminded me that it is still just an unproven theory. I gave the book a 2.5.

The second non-fiction book I read was Unspeakable Acts, edited by Sarah Weinman. Written in 2020, it was a sale book at Barnes & Noble. The subtitle is True Tales of Crime, Murder, Deceit & Obsession. There are 13 stories in the collection, all released previously in magazines or other medium. I like the one on the pregnant lady shot at the University of Texas, the first victim of Charles Whitman, who killed 14 people from the Tower. The woman survived but her baby did not, and her boyfriend who tried to help her after she was shot, was killed too. There is also a story about Ted Bundy. I gave this book a 2.5.

Sorry, no photos but this was about books...Happy Reading!