Now reading...

[paul secor]

What's your take on Man in Profile? From a couple of the reviews I've read, it seemed as if his writings were much more interesting than his life - though that's often the case with writers.

[paul secor]

The Man Booker 2015 longlist:

http://www.themanbookerprize.com/news/man-booker-prize-announces-2015-longlist

I'm going to try and read some of the ones that look interesting to me (Yanagihara, Obioma, James, Enright, perhaps one or two more) before the shortlist is announced in September.

[ejp626]

The Man Booker 2015 longlist:

http://www.themanbookerprize.com/news/man-booker-prize-announces-2015-longlist

I'm going to try and read some of the ones that look interesting to me (Yanagihara, Obioma, James, Enright, perhaps one or two more) before the shortlist is announced in September.

A few look good and then there also is the Guardian Not the Booker prize (http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/jul/27/the-magnificent-70-guardian-not-the-booker-prize-longlist-announced), but I know I won't get to any of these this year.  I'll see which ones seem to have some staying power and add a small handful to my reading list next summer.

Nearly done with Bruno Schulz.  Both books are good, but I liked Street of Crocodiles aka Cinnamon Shops a bit better.

I'm about to start Gabrielle Roy's Street of Riches.

[paul secor]

The Guardian's list looks interesting, but 70 books is a lot to even glance at the titles.

[BillF]

Another one first read at the age of 16! Landmark classic and wonderful writing, of course.

[jazzbo]

Richard Stark, "The Rare Coin Score" (a Parker novel).

[A Lark Ascending]

 

Pete Townshend - Who Am I? Enjoyable if somewhat narcissistic auto-bio. 

 

Elizabeth George -    With No one as Witness        Probably my favourite of the detective writers. Wonderful characterisation, dense plots...after the first two or three in the series where she was still finding her feet, every book is an absolute forest of plots and sub-plots. Strong sense of place too - you would never guess the author was American, her depiction of contemporary Britain being so convincing. I even find myself drawn to the aristocratic leading characters, wonderfully contrasted with the pop-tart eating rogue sidekick. The covers make these books look like they are frothy - 'great art ('darling')' they may not be but if you enjoy thrillers and police procedural novels these are highly recommended. Start 3 or 4 in and then go back to the first few if you get hooked.

 

Robert Goddard - The Ways of the World. Had to give up on this after 150 pages. I've read a fair few of his historical mysteries over the years - often good holiday yarns even though the characters are stereotyped and the plots full of improbable twists. I can't care at all for the characters in this one who are so cardboard. I knew Goddard in the 70s - we were on the same teacher training course. He never seemed a natural for state education and I'm glad he's found success as a writer - even then I remember him talking about historical fiction well before his first novel. 

 

Ha-Joon Chang - 23 Things They Don't Tell You About Capitalism - the one area of history I've always struggled with is economic history. Too many variables - I've got my head round one and another comes along and I lose the plot. This is easily the clearest book on economics I've ever read. Demonstrates with good humour and no anti-capitalist venom how the total free marketeers have controlled the narrative since the mid-70s...and the huge flaws in that narrative. Written in the last days of New Labour the assumptions are even more the driving force under the newly unshackled Cameron/Osborne government. I can't imagine they would have read this!

 

Looking forward to reading his more general economics primer.

[Leeway]

POINT COUNTER POINT (1928) - Aldous Huxley

Huxley's 3rd novel and his longest and most ambitious (longer than the first 2 novels together). Huxley plumbs the cynicism, despair and sexual mores of the age. A lot to admire here, but maybe too long, and the philosophical debates can become tedious at times. I also miss the humor of Crome Yellow and Antic Hay.  Interestingly, the Intro to my edition is by Nicholas Mosley, novelist and son of British Fascist Oswald Mosley (whom Huxley satirizes in the book in the form of Everard Webley, leader of the "Britsh Freemen" Greenshirts). Nicholas asks in his remarks if a man has to be a "creep or a shit" to attract women! 

[paul secor]

Deirdre Madden: Molly Fox's Birthday

[BillF]

Thought I'd read most of the Ballards, but came across this in a new edition in a library. Vivid, almost frightening landscapes reminiscent of Hieronymus Bosch:

[A Lark Ascending]

Patrick O'Brian - The Fortune of War

Stalled half way through this last year. Got back into it this week and finished it. I usually struggle with historical fiction before the 20thC but O'Brian gives a real sense of early 19thC patterns of thought. Set at the start of the War of 1812. Apparently Keith Richards is an O'Brian fan. Could imagine him as a gnarled deckhand.

Edited August 6, 2015 by A Lark Ascending

[HutchFan]

[ejp626]

I'm off to see an adaptation of Moby Dick in Chicago in a couple of weeks.  It's been getting great reviews, and I've seen other great work by Lookingglass, so I'm pretty excited.

Anyway, I have read the novel but it was a long time ago, so I've decided to try to tackle it again, though I suspect I will skim parts of it...

[T.D.]

Don't read so much fiction any more, but just finished Malcolm Mackay's "Glasgow Trilogy" (3 novels about a Glasgow hit man)

Recently finished 

Just in time for US pre-election circus, started

[Matthew]

War Against The Weak: Eugenics and America's Campaign to Create a Master Race.  A very interesting, and very scary book.  

[jlhoots]

Jonathan Tropper: Everything Changes

[medjuck]

Anyone else read this?  I thought it was great.  

Edited August 10, 2015 by medjuck

[Leeway]

TONO-BUNGAY - H.G. Wells

I rarely give up on a book, but I had to do so with Tono-Bungay. I made it to page 200, but could not face finishing the remaining 172 pages. I found the book surprsingly badly written and prolix. On page 190, Wells has the following sentence: "In the end of this particular crisis of which I tell so badly, I idealised Science." A previous library reader pencilled in after "badly, "and at such length," which I think sums up the defects of the book. Wells tells it badly (just look at that specimen sentence!) and at excruciating length. I surrender!

[jlhoots]

Bruce DeSilva: Providence Rag

[johnblitweiler]

Long ago I began to read Wells novels and even  read "Tono-Bungay." Got so disgusted with "The Research Magnificent" - the pompous soul of Wells revealed - that I avoided his writings ever since.

Just finished "The African Equation" by Yasmina Khadra and highly recommend it, along with the 3 previous Khadra books that came out in English. He may be best appreciated by reading those 4 in chronological order, beginning with :The Swallows of Kabul." Big heart and intelligence, wide sympathies. A European is captured by pirates in waters off east Africa, sees the pirate gang from the inside.

[BillF]

The first Bainbridge I've read, and a good start!

[Head Man]

Anyone else read this?  I thought it was great.  

Yes, I've just finished it and found most of it very enjoyable. A couple of the interviews went over my head but the others provided a pretty good picture of what it must have been like to be a jazz musician in 1960s New York. Not sure it was worth the price I paid for it mind you.

A very well written biography of the Labour Prime Miinister that never was. Shades of the current ructions surrounding the election of the next Labour leader...what a shambles!

[BillF]

[Matthew]

What's a Trot?

[BillF]

What's a Trot?

Follower of the teachings of Leon Trotsky.

 

Edited August 13, 2015 by BillF