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[A Lark Ascending]

6 hours ago, Jazzjet said:

Recently finished 'Life After Life' by Kate Atkinson. Probably the best novel I read in 2015. about a woman who lives through the most turbulent events of the 20th century, including the London Blitz, and which asks: What if you had the chance to live your life again and again, until you finally got it right? She has also written some detective stories featuring Jackson Brodie which I have yet to try but, on the evidence of 'Life After Life' should be good.

 

I have that on the shelf to read (I cannot enter a book shop without buying something even if I know I'm not going to read it for a while! And when there's a 3 for 2 deal, well...they see me coming.).

The Brodie series is excellent - definitely different from the standard detective sequences. Nice music references too - Brodie is a country/Americana fan. The BBC programmes based around the series was good too, though they did mess around with the books, taking bits from one and slotting them in another.   

3 hours ago, ejp626 said:

I'll be honest and say I didn't much care for this one.  I think I had been spoiled by Timothy Findley's Not Wanted on the Voyage, which I thought was a more entertaining treatment of the topic.  If you do reread the Barnes, try the Findley as well.

Don't know that one. Checking on Amazon it looks like something I might enjoy. Thanks. 

Edited January 2, 2016 by A Lark Ascending

[paul secor]

P.G. Wodehouse: Young Men in Spats

[crisp]

Still on the vintage mysteries:

[A Lark Ascending]

Last night finished:

Good lord, she's had some tough times, from major health issues to abusive relationships.

You don't have to be remotely interested in punk (which she refers to throughout as 'punk') to be absorbed by this book. I enjoyed it most as the tale of a woman from a difficult background trying to make it in the creative world. Her formal education was patchy yet she come across as having enormous curiosity - she makes her way through a world of more privileged and self-confident people with a mixture of insecurity and bloodymindedness, taking her own path. 

All the reviews talk of her brutal honesty and that is there in almost every chapter - you need a strong stomach for parts of it. She doesn't shy away from embarrassing things - supporting Sid Viscous's denials after he's accused of throwing a glass only to be told a year later that he did; unwittingly insulting Don Cherry on a tour bus. Most people would hide those moments away.  

Very impressive.  

[BillF]

Returned to this one after first reading it about 15 years ago. Published in 1987, it's in a more expansive style than McEwan's present-day pared-down mode. Although he always seems like the very clever schoolboy or graduate student, there's a great deal of interest here, not least his predictions of the state of England after 10 more years of Thatcherism. Viewed from 2016, it all seems sadly prophetic.

P.S. 13th Jan. Central theme is the Conservative Prime Minister's personal project to get a book out for parents advocating strong discipline for children. In view of today's news item, need say "prophetic"?

Edited January 13, 2016 by BillF

[A Lark Ascending]

8 hours ago, BillF said:

Returned to this one after first reading it about 15 years ago. Published in 1987, it's in a more expansive style than McEwan's present-day pared-down mode. Although he always seems like the very clever schoolboy or graduate student, there's a great deal of interest here, not least his predictions of the state of England after 10 more years of Thatcherism. Viewed from 2016, it all seems sadly prophetic.

I read that many years ago but can't remember much about it. I remember being especially taken with 'Black Dogs' - there was something about the underlying theme that really haunted me...can't for the life of me remember what it was! 

I get really confused distinguishing between McEwan, Faulks, Banks and Boyd in my memory. I've enjoyed a fair few books by all of them but if you were to give me a title I'd struggle to get the right author.  

Confessions of an absent minded man! 

Edited January 4, 2016 by A Lark Ascending

[medjuck]

The Occupation trilogy by the 2014 Nobel Prize winner.  If you get this edition don't read the introduction till after you've read the novels-- too many spoilers. 

[Leeway]

The heroine, Fanny, is a paragon of virtue, shy, retiring, blushing, and hence, for me, rather boring; the supporting characters, having varying degrees of wickedness,  held my interest much more. Perhaps the most complex of Jane's novels, there are moments of tedium as the plot spins itself out at length. 

[Brad]

On Wednesday, December 16, 2015 at 0:54 PM, ejp626 said:

You might like Joseph Roth a bit better, particularly his Berlin reportage, mostly in What I Saw.  Roth was more of a man of the people, though he didn't fit in with society that well either, and drank himself to death to Paris in 1939 (despite having opportunities to move to the US).

I'm reading the Radetzky March by Roth.  It's a rather unusual book so far (about 1/3 into it) but does paint a picture of the Hapsburg Empire that is different than the way Zweig does.

[ejp626]

15 minutes ago, Brad said:

I'm reading the Radetzky March by Roth.  It's a rather unusual book so far (about 1/3 into it) but does paint a picture of the Hapsburg Empire that is different than the way Zweig does.

I enjoy Roth a fair bit.  It is interesting how his politics shifted over time becoming fairly conservative by the time he wrote The Radetzky March, even though he was essentially drinking himself to death at this time and would have presumably had more in common with the working class that he focused on in his earlier works.  I find this interesting anyway.  I'm enjoying the new non-fiction collection The Hotel Years.  My absolute favorite novel by him is Hotel Savoy.

I'm about halfway done with Paule Marshall's Praisesong for the Widow.  It's ok.  I wish less of the novel had been in flashback.

On deck is Mahfouz's The Thief and the Dogs.

[Niko]

I don't think Roth ever lived a working class life in any narrow sense of that word - and certainly not in 1932 when Radetzkymarsch came out... His behavior was self-destructive already in the early 20s, he was in constant need of money, but this was a high income, high cost life style... he was one of the best-paid journalists of his time ... after 1933 he remained highly productive in exile (another seven novels or so ...), but there were no longer any newspapers that could/would print his work... (in fact, this explains very well why so many of his novels were written so late in his short life...).   I also like Hotel Savoy a lot, maybe the best of his early work... other favorites are Flight without End, The Emperor's Tomb (in a sense Vol 2 of Radetzkymarsch), and Weights and Measures ...

[niels]

21 hours ago, ejp626 said:

 

On deck is Mahfouz's The Thief and the Dogs.

I'm interested to know what you will think of Mahfouz. He is very high on my "writers I want to investigate list" but haven't had the chance to read anything from him yet.

[ejp626]

7 minutes ago, niels said:

I'm interested to know what you will think of Mahfouz. He is very high on my "writers I want to investigate list" but haven't had the chance to read anything from him yet.

I like Mahfouz quite a bit.  He has two main periods (three if you count the trilogy of novels he wrote about ancient Egypt, which I don't find very interesting).  He wrote longer, realistic novels with multiple characters, up through the Cairo Trilogy.  I think Cairo Modern is a good representative novel of this period, and if you like it, you might read a few other early novels and perhaps tackle the Cairo Trilogy.  The only one from this period I don't like is The Beginning and the End.

His later period (the majority of his career) features shorter novels, simpler stories (only a handful of characters), often focused on meetings in cafes.  Also, they are somewhat more fable-like or dream-like.  He mostly started to shy away from writing about politics, though The Day the Leader was Killed, is actually a fairly bold work from this period.  From this period, I might recommend Adrift on the Night or Arabian Days and Nights.  Or indeed The Thief and the Dogs, which is starting out well.

Both periods are good, though I have a bit of a preference for the earlier novels.

39 minutes ago, Niko said:

I don't think Roth ever lived a working class life in any narrow sense of that word - and certainly not in 1932 when Radetzkymarsch came out... His behavior was self-destructive already in the early 20s, he was in constant need of money, but this was a high income, high cost life style... he was one of the best-paid journalists of his time ... after 1933 he remained highly productive in exile (another seven novels or so ...), but there were no longer any newspapers that could/would print his work... (in fact, this explains very well why so many of his novels were written so late in his short life...).   I also like Hotel Savoy a lot, maybe the best of his early work... other favorites are Flight without End, The Emperor's Tomb (in a sense Vol 2 of Radetzkymarsch), and Weights and Measures ...

Fair enough.  I was thinking more along the lines of the heavy drinkers William Kennedy wrote about, but your explanation makes sense.

I think I read The Emperor's Tomb too early and didn't much care for it, but now that I have a fuller understanding of Roth and his work, I will try it again after tackling Radetzkymarsch.

[niels]

16 hours ago, ejp626 said:

I like Mahfouz quite a bit.  He has two main periods (three if you count the trilogy of novels he wrote about ancient Egypt, which I don't find very interesting).  He wrote longer, realistic novels with multiple characters, up through the Cairo Trilogy.  I think Cairo Modern is a good representative novel of this period, and if you like it, you might read a few other early novels and perhaps tackle the Cairo Trilogy.  The only one from this period I don't like is The Beginning and the End.

His later period (the majority of his career) features shorter novels, simpler stories (only a handful of characters), often focused on meetings in cafes.  Also, they are somewhat more fable-like or dream-like.  He mostly started to shy away from writing about politics, though The Day the Leader was Killed, is actually a fairly bold work from this period.  From this period, I might recommend Adrift on the Night or Arabian Days and Nights.  Or indeed The Thief and the Dogs, which is starting out well.

Both periods are good, though I have a bit of a preference for the earlier novels.

Thanks! The Cairo Trilogy where the books on my "want" list, but maybe I should try to tackle some of his earlier books before that.

[Leeway]

Just finished Trollope's The Warden, the first book in the Barsetshire series.  I think I might  read the complete series. I've already enjoyed the Pallisers quite a bit.

[BillF]

I've never tried Trollope. I was probably put off by the fact that he was favourite reading among British Conservative Prime Ministers - John Major, for example. In fact, Harold Macmillan went so far as to say there was nothing he liked better than going to bed with a good Trollope. 

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2011/may/29/mps-night-in-trollope

[ejp626]

29 minutes ago, BillF said:

I've never tried Trollope. I was probably put off by the fact that he was favourite reading among British Conservative Prime Ministers - John Major, for example. In fact, Harold Macmillan went so far as to say there was nothing he liked better than going to bed with a good Trollope. 

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2011/may/29/mps-night-in-trollope

That is so, but Trollope was a working stiff much of his life -- he had a long career at the Post Office and only started earning enough from his writing that he was able to resign at age 52.  Also, he ran as a Liberal in Beverley, though apparently, this was primarily a scheme to show how corrupt the borough was and led to its eventual disenfranchisement: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Trollope

I remember it taking about half of Can You Forgive Her? until I finally got into the rhythm and pace of Trollope -- after that I enjoyed him a lot and finished up the Palliser novels.  However, I did not have the time to read the other 41 novels he wrote!  I've decided in the next 2-3 years I will read some stand-alone novels: The Three Clerks, He Knew He Was Right and The Way We Live Now.  After that I'll try to tackle the Chronicles of Barsetshire.

[A Lark Ascending]

Terrific!

Tried to read this 10+ years ago but it lost me. But this time I was gripped. A pretty despairing tale about the thin veneer of civilisation and what happens when the chaos breaks through (amongst other themes...I like his idea about how we always get the past wrong and always tell it quite differently to how others choose to tell it).

Quite a dense and challenging book. He can get very detailed (I think I could make a glove now if someone handed me the kid-skin!). He is also constantly interrupting the narrative by cut-backs to different points in the past which can leave you frustrated when you're waiting for a major confrontation to unfold; but that's exactly how our brains work, the effect I assume he was aiming at. 

I want to read a couple of other authors first but have 'The Plot Against America' lined up - another counter-factual history.   

 

[ejp626]

While I don't care much for the annoying central character in Nancy Lee's The Age (a teenage girl who is just desperate for love and human connection and who makes some bad decisions as a result), this is a pretty compelling book.  It is about growing up in the 1980s and being sure that nuclear war would break out at any moment.

Coincidentally, I am also reading Bernard Malamud's last completed novel God's Grace, which is about what happens after the entire human race is wiped out except one man.  I'm not very far into this one.

Next up after these are Narayan's The Financial Expert and Munro's The Moons of Jupiter.

 

[BillF]

4 hours ago, A Lark Ascending said:

Terrific!

Tried to read this 10+ years ago but it lost me. But this time I was gripped. A pretty despairing tale about the thin veneer of civilisation and what happens when the chaos breaks through (amongst other themes...I like his idea about how we always get the past wrong and always tell it quite differently to how others choose to tell it).

Quite a dense and challenging book. He can get very detailed (I think I could make a glove now if someone handed me the kid-skin!). He is also constantly interrupting the narrative by cut-backs to different points in the past which can leave you frustrated when you're waiting for a major confrontation to unfold; but that's exactly how our brains work, the effect I assume he was aiming at. 

I want to read a couple of other authors first but have 'The Plot Against America' lined up - another counter-factual history.   

 

Yes, I liked that one. I also recall that Plot Against America went very strongly, but then collapsed at the end. (I may be wrong as it was a long time ago.)

[jlhoots]

Everytime Philip Roth comes up in this thread, I repeat my belief that he deserves the Nobel prize.

[BillF]

2 hours ago, ejp626 said:

 

Coincidentally, I am also reading Bernard Malamud's last completed novel God's Grace, which is about what happens after the entire human race is wiped out except one man.  I'm not very far into this one.

 

 

I haven't read that one, but was very keen at one time on Malamud's novels from the 50s and 60s. Perhaps it's time I got back to his stuff.

[Simon8]

     

[BillF]

Still with Highsmith!

[A Lark Ascending]

Had this sat on the shelf for a few years and only just got around to it. 

Sad little book, evocative of the early 60s, pre-swinging England.