[Quinto]

  A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M.Miller. I've been meaning to read this for years. I'm 28% in, by Kindle reckoning, and it's pretty good.

You Kindle users are well informed

 

[Mr V]

Stumbling on Happiness by Daniel Gilbert.  20% of the way through.  Let's see if I make it.
 
I have a hard time sticking with non-fiction.  I'm on a diet from my usual sci-fi/fantasy fare.  

 

[uchihaitachi]

Is there anyway for kindle to show pages rather than %?

 

[PalJoey]

  Is there anyway for kindle to show pages rather than %?

I don't know, but as you can select different font sizes on a Kindle, page numbers would be pretty irrelevant.

 

[OddE]

  I don't know, but as you can select different font sizes on a Kindle, page numbers would be pretty irrelevant.

 
-I guess it depends on the Kindle version - my wife's old Kindle w/keyboard (forgot which version it is), the progress is shown as you being on page XX of YY - though this number does not change as you change the font size, so presumably it is derived from some master file, for instance the PDF sent to the printing shop.
 
My Kindle (same HW, later firmware version) shows progress in %, but I think - I do not have the Kindle on hand right now - I think you could still find the page number (still decoupled from font size) by looking up the book info via a menu.

 

[metalsonata]

Just Finished:
 
The Interpretation of Dreams (1899), by Sigmund Freud, translated by J. A. Underwood
 
In some respects I feel like this is the most difficult book I've read in the last year or two. Sometimes it's a real page turner (insofar as such a book can be) otherwise it's a bewildering rabbit hole for long, numb stretches--fascinating at first, but eventually tiresome. Still, it's a rewarding read, if you have the time and patience for it--both are necessary more than I imagined. And of course, I should stipulate that it's a rewarding read if you've an established interest in its subject--I'm not about to recommend it to everyone.
 
I think Alison Bechdel's Are You My Mother? is next up for me. My understanding is that the text revolves around dream interpretation and psychoanalysis, so it ought to make for a sensible follow-up to Freud. 

 

[PalJoey]

Inspired (if that really is the word) by the BBC's over-respectful, worthy but ultimately sterile adaptation of 'Cider with Rosie', I revisited the book for the first time in a long time. It has more lush and vital sensuality in a single page than the whole TV version had from credits to credits.

 

[yaymee]

Just finished: 1984 - George Orwell. 
Starting: The Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas

 

[TRapz]

Starting Animal Farm by George Orwell tonight.
 
I used to read nonstop, for hours every night. I stopped about two years ago and haven't read a book for my own enjoyment in about that much time. Hoping to jump back into it with Animal Farm, and likely 1984 afterwards, as well as a couple other classics I never got around to reading.

 

[PalJoey]

  Starting Animal Farm by George Orwell tonight.
 
I used to read nonstop, for hours every night. I stopped about two years ago and haven't read a book for my own enjoyment in about that much time. Hoping to jump back into it with Animal Farm, and likely 1984 afterwards, as well as a couple other classics I never got around to reading.

1984, while a very significant and worthy book, can be very turgid at times.
 
I remember enjoying his Down and out in Paris and London, and have it on my Kindle now for a re-read.

 

[uchihaitachi]

  1984, while a very significant and worthy book, can be very turgid at times.
 
I remember enjoying his Down and out in Paris and London, and have it on my Kindle now for a re-read.

It's so ironic that Orwell was an old etonian.
 
Having read 1984 a while back, I recently started to realise remarkable parallels between north korean and orwellian society. Even the buildings from the novels mirror the state structures in pyongyang; then I came across this gem from the late hitchens.
 
 

 

[OddE]

It's so ironic that Orwell was an old Etonian.

-What really sucks is that Orwell turned out to be an optimist.

 

[PalJoey]

We in the Western world are obviously living in a less oppressive regime than described in 1984 or Animal Farm.
 
Orwell was apparently a bit of a moaner about all sorts of things, from what I've read. He didn't make himself all that popular in Spain during the period covered by 'A Homage to Catalonia'.
 
If you've ever read his piece on how to make what he considered a 'proper' cup of tea, you'd never invite him round your place! It's the equivalent of being prodded repeatedly in the chest by his finger while he talks at (not to) you.

 

[metalsonata]

Just Finished:
 
Are You My Mother? (2012), by Alison Bechdel
 
In which Bechdel psychoanalyzes herself and explores her fraught relationship with her mother in a hyper-literate, non-linear, and fragmentary style. So much for this being the somewhat light reading I was looking for--still a great read though. If you've read her previous work and haven't yet gotten around to this one, you really need to make the time to do so. 
 
Currently Reading:
 
The Quran (632), translated by Marmaduke Pickthall
 
Haven't read this since my early college days, and have never read Pickthall's translation of it. With current events being as they are, I've been looking forward to a re-read for the last couple of years.

 

[mutabor]

  We in the Western world are obviously living in a less oppressive regime than described in 1984 or Animal Farm.
 
Orwell was apparently a bit of a moaner about all sorts of things, from what I've read. 

 
As I understand Orwell was a socialist who was watching what was happening with socialist ideas in Soviet Union and Nazi socialist Germany. His novel 1984 and Ayn Rand's novels were fierce satire on socialist regimes. Russian emigrants in the West in 1920-s heavily criticized Soviet regime but they weren't heard. Nabokov who studied in England wrote how he couldn't make English social justice idealists to believe that Soviet Union was evil. This dude Orwell initially was one of those idealists.