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Enjoyed Shamsie's Broken Verses quite a bit.

Wasn't that taken with the last quarter or so of Narayan's Mr. Sampath.

I found the first third of Narayan's The Financial Expert kind of hard going, but it has picked up midway. I think my favorite of his books so far is The Bachelor of Arts, but I also enjoyed The English Teacher.

On deck - Shamsie Burnt Shadows

Nabokov Invitation to a Beheading

and finally Mahfouz Cairo Trilogy

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Really enjoyed this very disturbing book about a young, isolated narcissist. Psychological issues lead him to forget points of stress in his life - the book unfolds what happens in the gaps.

Set in Cambridge at the time I was at University elsewhere - very good sense of time and place and, like Jonathan Coe's 'The Rotter's Club', bang on in its musical references.

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engleby-cover1.jpg

Really enjoyed this very disturbing book about a young, isolated narcissist. Psychological issues lead him to forget points of stress in his life - the book unfolds what happens in the gaps.

Set in Cambridge at the time I was at University elsewhere - very good sense of time and place and, like Jonathan Coe's 'The Rotter's Club', bang on in its musical references.

Read it a couple of years ago and enjoyed it. As you say, it is a disturbing book. I'm sure that some of the academic references went by me, but I did enjoy what I was able to pick up on.

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Enjoyed Shamsie's Broken Verses quite a bit.

I found the first third of Narayan's The Financial Expert kind of hard going, but it has picked up midway. and finally Mahfouz Cairo Trilogy

Well, in the end I didn't care too much for The Financial Expert. Essentially none of the characters felt worth investing any emotional energy in. While that isn't the only criterion for a good novel, if you have no sympathy for any of the characters, it can be really slow going.

Ironically, that is also at least part of my problem with Nabokov. Most of his characters are either cyphers or complete shits. Most of the way through Invitation to a Beheading, which is perhaps the most Kafkaesque and least Nabokovian of his novels, and I still can't get into it. He just leaves me completely cold. I think I will just read Lolita, since I am this far in -- and then sell off the Library of America set, since I just don't care at all for his work.

Anyway, I was able to borrow the newish Library of America set of H.L. Mencken's Prejudices. He has some sharp writing no doubt, but probably at least 3/4s of the essays are devoted to completely obscure literary and cultural figures of the day. I'm not going to spend the time to find out about them in order to "get" his jibes at them. So I can't really see investing in buying this set or doing much more than skimming it actually. But it's nice it is back in print at least.

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A Legend In The Making: The New York Yankees In 1939 by Richard J. Tofel. Nice book on the '39 Yankees, which was the year that Lou Gehrig had to quit baseball because of ALS (which in America in known as "Lou Gehrig's disease). Many consider this one of the best teams of all-time. Interesting cast of characters, with Joe DiMaggio, Bill Dickey, Red Ruffing, etc.

Ghost of Miles: If you haven't read it yet, I think you'd enjoy it.

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Thanks, Matthew, I will check that out--interested in it for all kinds of reasons.

Right now:

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...and about to start the Scott LaFaro biography as well.

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Henry Roth: Mercy of a Rude Stream - Volume One - A Star Shines Over Mt. Morris Park

Well, I don't think it is nearly as good as Call It Sleep, but I did make it through 4 volumes of this (pretty sure I read all of it). As you probably know, some of it is disturbing indeed, since it is so biographical.

One urban novel I almost never seen discussed now is Sol Yurick's The Bag. I thought this was really very interesting.

Gave up on the rest of Nabokov, but am reading Lolita, which at least holds my attention.

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Recall enjoying Kent's stuff in the NME in the 70s, even though he was on a different musical (and lifestyle!) path to my own.

Read this very quickly over the weekend - a bit like reading an account of somewhere you once knew (the 1970s) from a very different angle. A pretty harrowing account of descent into self-indulgence and serious addiction.

Good to read his completely unsentimental take on punk (unsurprisingly as he suffered a serious beating from Sex Pistols associates) and irritation at the way the history of the era has been written. He may have had no time for much of the music I liked in the 70s (though he does put a Yes track in his list of recommendations at the end!) but a real sense of musical obsession comes across.

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