What are you reading these days?

I just finished reading Phèdre, the play by Racine. In general, watching a play is more enjoyable than reading it, but Phèdre is very readable. It was a recent edition in the original French, written in alexandrins with beautiful, melodic language. I am always amazed by how universal (neo)classical themes are--Phèdre in particular deals with responsibility and accountability. And if you believe in archetypes, this play is very rich in them. It's a clear recommendation if you read French and enjoy plays.

I'm reading Oceans of Grain: How American Wheat Remade The World.

Despite the name, this book spends a fair bit of time talking about Europe, Imperial Russia, and what happened in what is now Ukraine. It talks about the ancient grain trade in Roman times and its collapse due to pandemics, but really gets going with Catherine the Great. The author makes comparisons between the Black Sea grain trade and US grain trade, and also between the emancipation of the serfs after the Crimean war and the emancipation of the slaves in the U.S.

The book's hero is a writer who went by the name Parvis, who was born in Belarus, worked in Odessa in the grain trade, and went on to heavily influence Marxist economic thought. According to the author, Marx emphasized factory production while Parvis emphasized the cost of shipping (due to his experience), and in particular how reducing the cost of food via international trade would help workers. (At the time, European nations were threatened by cheap grain, which caused port cities to rapidly expand and agricultural land owned by the upper classes to lose value. Prussia in particular was wary of its dependency on cheap grain imported through Antwerp and imposed tariffs to try to support local agriculture. As a result, Russian grain was shipped by sea, around Germany.)

The book also talks about the evolution of economics and finance. He talks about the influence of the early economists called physiocrats who believed that farming was the basis of wealth, and their influence on Catherine the Great and the American founders like Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin. There's also discussion of the evolution of financial instruments associated with the grain trade, and how financial innovation made out of desperation during the U.S. Civil War went on to fund railroads and build the system that was able to ship cheap grain internationally.

There's a lot of interesting stuff in this book. What's not to like? Well, for a book about economics, there are hardly any charts or graphs. I also found it disorganized and repetitive; instead of talking about Parvis in one place, the author goes back to him. And the author's economic explanations are outlined multiple times.

I'm not sure if it's because he's talking up the grain trade or because he's a Marxist (if he is) but I found the discussion of the Civil War kind of one-sided. He emphasizes the role of what he calls the "boulevard barons" and the grain trade durning Civil War over other reasons for the war. It makes me wonder how accurate the rest of the book is.

I also don't get a very good sense of the evidence behind his claims. I'll have to follow the footnotes to see if it holds up.

Jo, this is the first time I'm able to answer to one about reading, because I never used to read.
Recently, though, I've read Avatar: The Rise of Kyoshi and half of part II: The Shadow of Kyoshi. I devoured the first book, I loved all of it. I enjoyed the fact that, while reading, the characters and settings were animated in my imagination.
The second one lost me, though. I felt they focused too much on the teen lovers element of the story.

Then I read Star Wars: Darth Plagueis, which was written very eloquently and incredibly well thought out. It took me a while longer then the Kyoshi book(s) but that makes perfect sense, seeing how well written it is. I can't recommend it enough to anyone who likes (or liked) the Star Wars universe. It adds some of the coolest lore I've ever seen, heard, played or read from Star Wars Media.

Now to answer the actual question:
I'm now reading George Orwell's 1984 which is not quite living up to its enormous reputation, but I'm going to finish it. The 1949 (year of writing) spelling is really enjoyable, I love seeing "connexion" spelled that way, the first time I saw it was when I read some H. P. Lovecraft.
On the other hand, when one writes ones sentences, one should consider one reading one such sentence might think one is overusing one word. Sometimes it's like reading a scientific paper, where you can't use "you" and "your", at least, that's what I was taught.
Overall, I keep reading because of the information about the "Orwellian" society. All of that is really interesting and, of course, is the reason why this book is such a good read.

My friends and I maintain a casual, private book club.

Currently reading To Kill a Mockingbird.

For added challenge, I'm primarily reading it in a foreign language I'm learning. It is surprising and disappointing how many translation errors I'm spotting, even with my limited mastery of the language. Mostly missed/misunderstood expressions. I had assumed that, at least with classic/iconic books like this, the translation quality would be better. I was hoping to see, instead of direct translations, proper equivalent expressions native to the other language, but often, the translator just didn't understand the English version at all.