Most inspirational book you have recently read?

[Ken Gargett]

On 07/08/2016 at 6:22 PM, gweilgi said:

Someone pointed out to me that Joseph Conrad died on my birthday (several years apart), so I took the opportunity to re-read "Heart of Darkness".  Not exactly an uplifting positive work, but an absobloodylutely amazing read....

"“Droll thing life is -- that mysterious arrangement of merciless logic for a futile purpose. The most you can hope from it is some knowledge of yourself -- that comes too late -- a crop of inextinguishable regrets.”

 

cracker book.

i read it while on a small steamer going up the congo river (i'll confess i'd saved it for just that purpose). gives a perspective. i kept looking for kurtz in the bushes on river's edge.

one from ages ago with a similar experience (of reading it 'on site', as it were) was rushdie's 'midnight's children'. to be honest, i had put it off for ages. everyone kept telling me i had to read it but i did not want to. not sure why. finally, when travelling, i pulled it out. wow, what a great book. one of the very very best. the sort of book that makes one feel very inadequate, simply because it is so humbling to be in the presence of such genius. read it several times since then. but what stunned me at the time was the morning i pulled it out to read, i was on a houseboat on Dal Lake near Shrinigar in Kashmir. the book opens, if memory serves, along the lines 'i was born on the banks of Dal Lake in Kashmir'. i had no idea but i got a real kick out of that.

[gweilgi]

10 hours ago, Ken Gargett said:

cracker book.

i read it while on a small steamer going up the congo river (i'll confess i'd saved it for just that purpose). gives a perspective. i kept looking for kurtz in the bushes on river's edge.

one from ages ago with a similar experience (of reading it 'on site', as it were) was rushdie's 'midnight's children'. to be honest, i had put it off for ages. everyone kept telling me i had to read it but i did not want to. not sure why. finally, when travelling, i pulled it out. wow, what a great book. one of the very very best. the sort of book that makes one feel very inadequate, simply because it is so humbling to be in the presence of such genius. read it several times since then. but what stunned me at the time was the morning i pulled it out to read, i was on a houseboat on Dal Lake near Shrinigar in Kashmir. the book opens, if memory serves, along the lines 'i was born on the banks of Dal Lake in Kashmir'. i had no idea but i got a real kick out of that.

Thanks for that!  Serendipity always makes for a memorable read...

Rushdie, I do understand.  When everybody raves about a book or author, I tend to be put off myself .... don't want to run with the crowd and all that.  But he is a seriously good wordsmith.