Now reading...

[jazzbo]

[Stefan Wood]

Alright! Gil Kane on a Penguin book!!!

Reading:

[jazzbo]

:tup

[A Lark Ascending]

I've loved all her other books but this one passed me by. Playing with literary theory - books within books so you were never too sure which voice was the overall narration. Trying too hard to be clever.

Her third book. In some ways just your standard cop fiction but made more interesting by the strong sense of place on the north Norfolk coast.

Another good 'tec series. Set in Marseilles. More in the nasty, brutal gangster family mould. Good yarn.

Loving this one. Set on the north Cornish coast. Sets off my cravings!

Edited January 3, 2012 by A Lark Ascending

[BillF]

Recent Le Carré continues in great form.

[jlhoots]

C.J. Box: Cold Wind

[Head Man]

Read these three over the holidays. An excellent set of thrillers from Oz.

Also read the latest by Kate Atkinson, |Again, very good - just like all her other ones!

Started this yesterday. It has had very good reviews over here:

[jlhoots]

Empire Of The Summer Moon is a good read.

It may or may not be "history" depending on your definition.

[Leeway]

I thought I'd curtail my Dickens marathon (Nicholas Nickleby, Tale of Two Cities, Oliver Twist, Great Expectations, Our Mutual Friend) with "Little Dorrit," but decided I had to go for one more, "Hard Times." If ever there was a novelist for the "Occupy" movement, it is Dickens, who voiced many of the same concerns more than 150 years ago. People have sentimentalized his work, but a clear-eyed reading of his novels shows how deeply committed he was to economic justice.

[gslade]

Finally found a reasonably priced copy of Dark Carnival

[Head Man]

Reading Franzen's Wikipedia entry suggests his books have been subject to unusual and highly effective promotion methods, but I find them good all the same.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Franzen

This is the second of his I've read, having got through The Corrections earlier this year. "Sprawling" is the word often used to describe them and each took me about a month to read. Anyone else tried them?

I have both "Freedom" & "The Corrections" in my "to read" pile next to the bed.

I really must put this pile into some sort of order....what, though?

[BillF]

Both pretty good - hard to choose. Perhaps read them in the order of publication, that is Corrections first, but if you're particularly interested in green issues in America today, then start with the other.

Edited January 5, 2012 by BillF

[jlhoots]

Francine Prose: My New American Life

[kinuta]

[BillF]

A good yarn!

[ejp626]

I've given up on a number of disappointing books lately. I'm definitely doing that more now. Mating by Norman Rush and Hopeful Monsters by Nicholas Mosley.

I'm just starting If He Hollers Let Him Go by Chester Himes. It is pretty raw and not really my cup of tea, but it is relatively short (and the prose is better than the much longer novels above that I have dropped). In the introduction, some commentator says this novel is more important than Himes' Harlem crime novels. Not sure about that, but the Harlem books are just so much more entertaining that I would always gravitate towards them (over this one).

[jazzbo]

Alright! Gil Kane on a Penguin book!!!

Actually, it's a cover credited to Dave Cockrum, originally appearing here:

Though it sure is from the Kane John Carter template!

[B. Goren.]

[jazzbo]

Re-reading one of my Dad's books.

[jazzbo]

[ejp626]

I really liked this one. Wasn't quite as taken by his next novel Too Late The Phalarope, which isn't nearly as memorable. I did read a few of Paton's short stories and thought they were fine.

Anyway, I wrapped up Himes' If He Hollers Let Him Go. It stayed pretty raw throughout. One thing that I wasn't crazy about is how unstable the main character seemed, not exactly in an on edge, near madness sort of way (though he was that way a lot), but how he would be in one frame of mind, then suddenly shift to another. Finally you thought he might be getting on a more even keel, then external events force him into a very bad spot. I think the person who wrote the introduction alluded to Camus's The Stranger, and that isn't a bad comparison. It is a bit of a period piece in the heavy reliance on dreams to comment on the action and (to my way of thinking) a weird mix of civil rights awareness and existentialism. The end certainly has a bit of a nightmare feel to it (Richard Wright's Native Son by way of Camus?), but the ironic denouement kind of salvaged the book for me.

Just started Robert Pharr's S.R.O. and this is already a wild ride. The main character is a Black waiter who has fallen pretty hard (he's alcoholic) and he ends up at a Harlem S.R.O. which is populated almost entirely by junkies and prostitutes. The writing is really gripping. I will certainly look into Pharr's other novels down the road, including The Book of Numbers and Giveadamn Brown (this one looks like it is largely in line with Himes's Harlem novels). Both S.R.O. and Giveadamn Brown are on the Old School Books imprint. This (S.R.O.) may be the best of the bunch, though Man Walking on Eggshells by Herbert Simmons may be of interest as well. It is about a (fictional) jazz musician from St. Louis. Anyone heard of it?

[Leeway]

I remain locked into Victorian lit. I've put Dickens to the side for now after having read consecutively Nicholas Nickleby, Great Expectations, Oliver Twist, Tale of Two Cities, Our Mutual Friend, Little Dorrit, and Hard Times. It was really quite an experience. I'd like to read a few more of his major works, such as Bleak House and Dombey and Sons.

I'm now reading Mill on the Floss by George Eliot.

[jlhoots]

Timothy Hallinan: A Nail Through The Heart

[Hardbopjazz]

Long Island's Most Haunted Cemeteries

One of them is where I was living before I got married. I used to say during spring nights there always a lot of mist in that cemtetery. I didn't know that mist was spirts. Damn, I would have paid a visit there.

[BillF]

Le Carré's latest.