Now reading...

[sidewinder]

The only thing swinging on Chesil Beach is the windsock on the Portland causeway road !

[BillF]

1 hour ago, A Lark Ascending said:

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. 

Someone knew used to say that McEwan's novels contained enough for a good short story. I guess it's true of that one, though not of The  Innocent, which I'm about to read.

[billyboy]

Just finished this, and am going to start Book 2 immediately.  I plowed through this book, couldn't stop reading it.  I was reluctant to start a 6-volume Norwegian memoir, but  I was completely engrossed in it.  From the “Hoarders-“ like fascination with cleaning the house after his father dies, to sneaking alcohol to a party in high school, to his love of books and music, this was exactly what I was in the mood to read.  Can’t recommend it enough!

[Matthew]

Connie Mack and the Early Years of Baseball by Norman L. Macht.  Volume One of a three volume, 1,800+ page biography of Connie Mack, the old owner / manager of the Philadelphia Athletics.  If you're a baseball fan, it is very interesting to read about the early days of MLB, and the characters that crossed his path.  Looking forward to the other two volumes.

Edited January 14, 2016 by Matthew

[jlhoots]

Nick Stone: The Verdict

[niels]

Nexus 70 - De terugkeer van Europa (The Return of Europe)
This is a bundle of essays collected by the Nexus institute. This institute tries to keep the values of European humanism alive in these days and age of neo-liberalism, capitalism, declining moral values, and an almost "religious belief" that everything has to be measured by economic (or politic) value. The fantastic essays deal with the questions of what Europe really is (because it is not the EU/Brussel), what makes one a European, what are (or rather were) the European values, how did we lost it (or didn't we?) and is there a way to get back on the right track again. 

Most of the essays are by thinkers/philosophers/intellectuals etc. of today (Robert Skidelsky, Adam Zagajewski, Adam Zamoyski,  Javier Marias, Aykan Erdemir a.o), but throughout the book (like the thread of Ariadne) also ten classic essays have been published from people like: Winston Churchill, Karl Jaspers, Joseph Roth, Stefan Zweig and Robert Musil. 

I think this book should be essential stuff for everybody who feels himself deeply European and/or connected to the European tradition, but feels very sad when they look at the way things are heading right now with conservatism (and I see this with the Right and the Left) nationalism and post-fascism growing all across Europe.

[ejp626]

I wrapped up Narayan's The Financial Expert.  There were a few good scenes (especially in Madras) but this seemed to me to try too hard to be clever.  Plus, I didn't care for the main character, I absolutely detested his spoiled son, and I couldn't really fathom the motivations of the third character (they seemed all over the place and just not internally consistent).

I have to say I think God's Grace by Malamud is just not for me.  It is a very strange book, but almost anything I write about it would be a spoiler.

Speaking of spoilers, the latest edition of Nabakov's Invitation to a Beheading has a blurb on the back that spoils the entire novel!  Are you kidding me?  I honestly don't know if I should bother now, even though this is the publisher's fault and not Nabokov's (and I realize plot is not usually the main point of reading Nabokov, but still...).  I'll get a chapter or two in and see if I am still feeling it, but I have a strong intimation I will abandon this.

After I clear out all this, I have Faulkner in the batter's circle: Go Down, Moses.  I'm pretty sure this is a book I will enjoy without major reservations.

[Joe]

Had been looking forward to this one. A bit disappointing: the prose is intentionally dry, the narratives conceptual. I suppose I wanted more of a display of imagination, and beyond the tropes of a North American magical realism. Perhaps the best piece in the collection is "Rivers," in which a manumitted Jim relates the story of his life post-HUCK FINN.

[BillF]

Just finished a re-read. Interesting Cold War setting of Berlin at the time of Operation Gold. One can pick holes in McEwan's technique/style, but always readable.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Gold

[jazzbo]

[johnblitweiler]

Speaking of wasting time, I recently read about half of "Timescape" by Kurt Vonnegut with a sense that the author had become awfully smug and trivial in his old age. Too bad.

[jlhoots]

Don Winslow: The Cartel

[HutchFan]

Yesterday, I picked up Graham Lock's Forces in Motion: The Music & Thoughts of Anthony Braxton from my local library. I'd requested it through inter-library loan, and they finally got a copy for me.

I'm already half-way through it.  Fascinating stuff.

 

 

On 1/10/2016 at 6:45 AM, 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.   

 

A few years ago, I went on a big Philip Roth bender. I read maybe a dozen of his books. I enjoyed every one of them. But I think American Pastoral was the best of the bunch.

 

On 1/10/2016 at 10:59 AM, jlhoots said:

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

Yes. I agree.

Edited January 18, 2016 by HutchFan

[A Lark Ascending]

15 hours ago, HutchFan said:

A few years ago, I went on a big Philip Roth bender. I read maybe a dozen of his books. I enjoyed every one of them. But I think American Pastoral was the best of the bunch.

Now you've spoilt it for me. 

[HutchFan]

1 hour ago, A Lark Ascending said:

Now you've spoilt it for me.

Ha! I hope not!  Like I said, they're all very good.  

Also, don't overlook Patrimony: A True Story. Instead of a novel, it's a memoir. Roth reflects on his relationship with his father, as well as his friendship with Primo Levi. Some of it is very sad, but it all rings true.

[A Lark Ascending]

1 hour ago, HutchFan said:

Ha! I hope not!  Like I said, they're all very good.  

Also, don't overlook Patrimony: A True Story. Instead of a novel, it's a memoir. Roth reflects on his relationship with his father, as well as his friendship with Primo Levi. Some of it is very sad, but it all rings true.

Thanks, HutchFan. Sounds like one to try when I've read a few of the novels. Just as long as there's not too much baseball! 

[Leeway]

Finished off this second novel in the Barchester series. Enjoyable especially for its portrait of the slimy Reverend Obadiah Slope and the formidable Mrs. Proudie. One annoying thing about Trollope is how he insists on pulling back the curtain and showing how the novel is constructed. He loves puncturing the fictive illusion. He gets away with it mostly, because his storytelling abilities are so strong.

[ejp626]

43 minutes ago, Leeway said:

 

Finished off this second novel in the Barchester series. Enjoyable especially for its portrait of the slimy Reverend Obadiah Slope and the formidable Mrs. Proudie. One annoying thing about Trollope is how he insists on pulling back the curtain and showing how the novel is constructed. He loves puncturing the fictive illusion. He gets away with it mostly, because his storytelling abilities are so strong.

I've not seen it but Alan Rickman was Obadian Slope in The Barchester Chronicles.  I probably should snag a copy, though I really would prefer watching it after I read the books, and that is several years away.

[Brad]

On Tuesday, January 5, 2016 at 4:44 PM, ejp626 said:

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.

This is my first experience with him.  Have ordered the continuation of the Trotta saga, The Emperor's Tomb.

What would be your recommendation after that?

 

[ejp626]

28 minutes ago, Brad said:

This is my first experience with him.  Have ordered the continuation of the Trotta saga, The Emperor's Tomb.

What would be your recommendation after that?

 

I quite like Hotel Savoy, which is my favorite novel by Roth.  The Legend of the Holy Drinker is good, but probably better to get out of the library.  It's fairly short.

I've heard good things about The Leviathan, but I've not read it.  That can be read as a stand-alone or in his Collected Stories.

I also like his reportage quite a bit.  I'm wrapping up The Hotel Years, which is good.  His non-fiction is also collected in What I Saw and The White Cities.

It's a bit out of left field, but I'm finding some interesting parallels between Roth and Emmanuel Bove, so he might be a writer worth checking out at some point.  For Bove, My Friends/Mes Amis is a good starting point, as well as the newly translated Henri Duchemin and His Shadows (NYRB).

[Larry Kart]

2 hours ago, ejp626 said:

I quite like Hotel Savoy, which is my favorite novel by Roth.  The Legend of the Holy Drinker is good, but probably better to get out of the library.  It's fairly short.

I've heard good things about The Leviathan, but I've not read it.  That can be read as a stand-alone or in his Collected Stories.

I also like his reportage quite a bit.  I'm wrapping up The Hotel Years, which is good.  His non-fiction is also collected in What I Saw and The White Cities.

It's a bit out of left field, but I'm finding some interesting parallels between Roth and Emmanuel Bove, so he might be a writer worth checking out at some point.  For Bove, My Friends/Mes Amis is a good starting point, as well as the newly translated Henri Duchemin and His Shadows (NYRB).

Harvey Pekar was a big fan of Bove. When I was editor of the Chicago Tribune Books section, Harvey lobbied to review a recently translated Bove novel. I was happy to tell him "yes."

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1995-08-06/entertainment/9508060144_1_emmanuel-bove-carol-volk-night-departure

[ejp626]

45 minutes ago, Larry Kart said:

Harvey Pekar was a big fan of Bove. When I was editor of the Chicago Tribune Books section, Harvey lobbied to review a recently translated Bove novel. I was happy to tell him "yes."

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1995-08-06/entertainment/9508060144_1_emmanuel-bove-carol-volk-night-departure

Larry, thanks for this.  That's a solid review.  I own Night Departure/No Place (as well as Quicksand) but haven't gotten to them yet.  I hope to before too long.

[Brad]

Thanks.

I know NYRB Classics has published a Bove book.

[ejp626]

6 hours ago, Brad said:

Thanks.

I know NYRB Classics has published a Bove book.

Yes, it is called Henri Duchemin and His Shadows.  It's five or so short stories and one slightly longer story (not quite a novella).  It's good, but probably not the best introduction to Bove.

[A Lark Ascending]

Don’t read classic books because you think you should: do it for fun!
A new poll shows Britons are weighed down with regret over novels they haven’t found ‘time and patience’ for. Why do we shame ourselves over entertainment?

http://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2016/jan/21/dont-read-classic-books-because-you-should-war-peace-fun

Not that good an article but I love the idea behind it (and not just with regard to lit-er-a-tuh. The stranglehold elite ideas of 'culture' continue to have over those of us with a middle or more class education is more than a little remarkable). I too have a copy of Ulysses that I never got more than 50 pages through. On the other hand I'm currently having a second crack at Moby Dick - not an easy read with all those diversions and biblical references but am enjoying it. Can't manage more than two or three chapters at a time so it'll take a couple more months (about 200 pages through at present). I imagine Moby Dick is something of a white whale for many a reader with those elite cultural prejudices. 

[Hard to believe 7% of Brits have read Moby Dick...I somehow doubt the 1 664 people used in the survey were a proper socio-economic reflection of Britain]

This is excellent - a military history of the 1775-1783 war. I only have the vaguest knowledge of this conflict - lots of names like Benedict Arnold, Trenton, Saratoga that I know without having any context for (for some reason I know exactly what Yorktown was all about!). Just the right balance between narrative and analysis. I've just got to the American victories at Trenton and Princeton.

Funny how you can warm to one book and be cold to another. I tried to read Rory Muir's first volume on Wellington last year and had to give up; just found something in the writing style utterly unengaging. Yet this one completely grabs me. Both clearly excellent historians who have carried out the spadework. For some reason with Muir I had this vision of a dreary academic don. With Ferling I get this sense of someone really excited by his subject.   

 

Edited January 22, 2016 by A Lark Ascending