Now reading...

[alankin]

Alan Furst - Night Soldiers

[ejp626]

Slowly, oh so slowly, getting into Proust. I recall having trouble for the first couple hundred pages getting into the pacing of Trollope, and this is even more extreme. It actually takes 50 pages for him to get to the madeline cookie that sets off the whole series. I am going to have to find a way to spend more time with this, as at my current rate I won't finish until Dec.! It has some subtle payoffs, but I simply cannot imagine ever reading this a second time.

On the side, I am nearly done with Heller's Portrait of an Artist, as an Old Man. It has fallen further in my estimation. It simply is not a good book at all (what a shame), though it is short, so I will finish reading it.

[paul secor]

Hakan Nesser: Borkmann's Point

A good police procedural

[A Lark Ascending]

Alan Furst - Night Soldiers

Great series. Just finished watching the BBC dramatisation of Spies of Warsaw last night - they did it well.

If you don't know them you might enjoy this series:

They start in Germany in the 30s. I have his most recent paperback in the to read pile which moves to post-1945.

Edited September 7, 2013 by A Lark Ascending

[alankin]

I'll look out for the BBC Spies of Warsaw. Haven't heard of the David Downing series. I'll check it out.

[A Lark Ascending]

WWI novel (give away cover!) but centred on two Australian nurses. I've just reached the arrival at Gallipoli. Very impressive - I recall being overwhelmed by 'Confederates' thirty odd years back.

Edited September 8, 2013 by A Lark Ascending

[Jerry_L]

The Bridge at Remagen: A Story of World War II (Presidio War Classic; World War II)

by Ken Hechler (Author)

Edited September 9, 2013 by Jerry_L

[jlhoots]

Margaret Coel: Buffalo Bill's Dead Now

[medjuck]

Alan Furst - Night Soldiers

I read several books in this series before I got to this one which is the first. IMHO it's the best and certainly the place to start.

[Blue Train]

A trailer for Thomas Pynchon's new book. It's being released Sept. 17th.

http://vimeo.com/73716114

[ejp626]

A trailer for Thomas Pynchon's new book. It's being released Sept. 17th.

http://vimeo.com/73716114

This intrigues me, but I might as well hold off a year or two and get it at a bargain price. (That's what I did with Wallace's The Pale King...)

I have at least 24 months of books in my TBR pile.

[B. Goren.]

[paul secor]

John Banville: Prague Pictures

[jlhoots]

Messud: The Woman Upstairs

[Blue Train]

I haven't read it, but Duke: A Life of Duke Ellington by Terry Teachout made the 2013 National Book Award Nonfiction Longlist,



http://www.thedailybeast.com/cheats/2013/09/18/the-national-book-awards-longlist-for-nonfiction-announced.html

[jazzbo]

[jlhoots]

Mantel: Bring Up The Bodies - not a time period I often read - but I'm really going to try to like it.

[paul secor]

Muriel Spark: Momento Mori

A novel which concerns old age, illness, dementia, and death. Surprisingly, it has many comic moments.

[John Litweiler]

Muriel Spark: Momento Mori

A novel which concerns old age, illness, dementia, and death. Surprisingly, it has many comic moments.

Not long ago I went on a Muriel Spark binge and read probably the great majority of her fiction. A lot of the time I felt she was inspired by grudges and settling scores. She also seemed to me to be afflicted with some residual British empire racism. But her characters are so vivid and her satire is so juicy and her humor is so sly and mainly that she wrote so very well, that I'm afraid I can't resist her An addiction.

[medjuck]

I'm reading both Ted Gioia's The Jazz Standards and Will Friedwald's Stardust Melodies. Frieldwald gives the history and an analysis of 12 of

"America's Most Popular Songs". All but two of them are amongst the 252 songs covered by Gioia. I'm having fun jumping back and forth between them. Also reading our John Littweiller's "Sundido".

[paul secor]

Muriel Spark: Momento Mori

A novel which concerns old age, illness, dementia, and death. Surprisingly, it has many comic moments.

Not long ago I went on a Muriel Spark binge and read probably the great majority of her fiction. A lot of the time I felt she was inspired by grudges and settling scores. She also seemed to me to be afflicted with some residual British empire racism. But her characters are so vivid and her satire is so juicy and her humor is so sly and mainly that she wrote so very well, that I'm afraid I can't resist her An addiction.

This is the second of her novels I've read. I've enjoyed both and plan to read more.

[Jazzmoose]

First time I've read this author. Impressive.

[patricia]

Just a suggestion, but I found a book that might be worth your checking out.

It's "More Than Night - film noir and it's contexts", a history of the film noir genre. It discusses the inception of the genre, from the forties to the present and is really interesting, if you like dark themes, as I do.

[Jerry_L]

The Light at the Edge of the Universe Paperback

by Michael D. Lemonick (Author)

Will the universe expand forever? Or will it collapse in a Big Crunch within the next few billion years? If the Big Bang theory is correct in presenting the origins of the universe as a smooth fireball, how did the universe come to contain structures as large as the recently discovered "Great Wall" of galaxies, which stretches hundreds of millions of light years? Such are the compelling questions that face cosmologists today, and it is the excitement and wonder of their research that Michael Lemonick shares in this lively tour of the current state of astrophysics and cosmology.Here we visit observatories and universities where leading scientists describe how they envision the very early stages, the history, and the future of the universe.

Not the best book on the subject, and a bit dated, but I've had it on the shelf for about 15 years and wanted to finally get through it. I got some enjoyment and knowledge from it, though there's almost as much about the personalities and social lives of scientists as there is about their theories. Which is o.k., makes it a fairly breezy read for a science book.

Edited September 23, 2013 by Jerry_L

[erwbol]

The Light at the Edge of the Universe Paperback

by Michael D. Lemonick (Author)

Will the universe expand forever? Or will it collapse in a Big Crunch within the next few billion years? If the Big Bang theory is correct in presenting the origins of the universe as a smooth fireball, how did the universe come to contain structures as large as the recently discovered "Great Wall" of galaxies, which stretches hundreds of millions of light years? Such are the compelling questions that face cosmologists today, and it is the excitement and wonder of their research that Michael Lemonick shares in this lively tour of the current state of astrophysics and cosmology.Here we visit observatories and universities where leading scientists describe how they envision the very early stages, the history, and the future of the universe.

Not the best book on the subject, and a bit dated, but I've had it on the shelf for about 15 years and wanted to finally get through it. I got some enjoyment and knowledge from it, though there's almost as much about the personalities and social lives of scientists as there is about their theories. Which is o.k., makes it a fairly breezy read for a science book.

I thought the following news was fascinating.

From io9 (link):

Over at Quanta Magazine, Natalie Wolchover has authored a stunning feature on the "amplituhedron" – a jewel-shaped, geometric object that could give scientists a new perspective on the quantum world, while "[challenging] the notion that space and time are fundamental constituents of nature."