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[ejp626]

Carol Shields -- Unless (Her final novel)

Leonard Cohen -- Beautiful Losers

[BillF]

10 hours ago, ejp626 said:

Carol Shields -- Unless (Her final novel)

 

Now that's one I never got round to. I very much enjoyed Shields's The Stone Diaries and Larry's Party.

P.S. I have read it. Obviously didn't have as much impact as the others.

[ejp626]

19 hours ago, BillF said:

Now that's one I never got round to. I very much enjoyed Shields's The Stone Diaries and Larry's Party.

P.S. I have read it. Obviously didn't have as much impact as the others.

I vaguely remember reading Cohen's Beautiful Losers but I didn't remember much about it.  So I decided to read it again.  It's definitely different, sort of about a failed love triangle.

[A Lark Ascending]

4th of a murder mystery series set in Cambridge. Standard for the genre but with nice characters and a good sense of place. I have a few long-hauls on the go so this was a bit of break.

[mjazzg]

David Toop - Into The Maelstrom: Music Improvisation And The Dream Of Freedom, Before 1970

I'm finding this a lot more enjoyable than I thought I would. A very interesting survey drawing on precedents and influences from across the arts with some interesting interviews and a dash of lightheartedness to undermine any po-facedness. I think anyone broadly interested in the subject would get something from this

[medjuck]

Zadie Smith:  "Swing Time".  Surprised to discover that the title refers to the Fred Astaire movie. 

[A Lark Ascending]

19 hours ago, mjazzg said:

David Toop - Into The Maelstrom: Music Improvisation And The Dream Of Freedom, Before 1970

I'm finding this a lot more enjoyable than I thought I would. A very interesting survey drawing on precedents and influences from across the arts with some interesting interviews and a dash of lightheartedness to undermine any po-facedness. I think anyone broadly interested in the subject would get something from this

I very nearly bought a copy of that in Fopp last week. Might give it a go next time I see it. 

[ejp626]

I'm also reading Butler's The Way of All Flesh for the first time.  I'm not quite sure where it is going, but I do find the sly asides that the narrator inserts into the story are amusing.

[BillF]

5 hours ago, ejp626 said:

I'm also reading Butler's The Way of All Flesh for the first time.  I'm not quite sure where it is going, but I do find the sly asides that the narrator inserts into the story are amusing.

Now that was one on my university reading list that I never got round to reading!

[ejp626]

11 hours ago, BillF said:

Now that was one on my university reading list that I never got round to reading!

I actually have a post dedicated to books I should have read (mostly for university) but didn't for one reason or another.  The one I feel worst about is Bennett's The Old Wives' Tale.  It looks like I will finally get to it by next fall.

[BillF]

9 hours ago, ejp626 said:

I actually have a post dedicated to books I should have read (mostly for university) but didn't for one reason or another.  The one I feel worst about is Bennett's The Old Wives' Tale.  It looks like I will finally get to it by next fall.

In my case the university reading lists were often unrealistically long - and were condemned as such by academics in another university where I subsequently did a postgraduate degree - so missed texts were understandable and normal. More interesting are the ones I set out to read, but which defeated my efforts to finish them. There were only two: Middlemarch and Sir Walter Scott's Heart of Midlothian. Surprisingly, I had no trouble at all in reading Gibbon's Decline and Fall, although only a limited number of volumes were set. 

[A Lark Ascending]

I was obsessed with the French Revolution in the 80s/90s. I stopped teaching it around 1999 and haven't read a thing since. So this was like going back to a once favourite musical genre.

The last Robespierre bio I read was of a 'yes he killed lots of people but his intentions were good' type. Scurr, whilst telling the tale largely with an historian's detachment, can't hide her distaste for Robespierre's priggishness, self-absorption and ultimate indifference to the real suffering of human beings in his pursuit of the interests of abstract humanity. Excellent study of what happens when the machinery of a state falls apart and then the country falls victim to the ambitions of a sequence of politicians prepared to up the ante and manipulate popular discontent to further their own interests. 

I had a university tutor who maintained that you could read the whole of human experience in a study of the French Revolution. Couldn't help but be reminded of that hearing various contemporary politicians claiming to speak on behalf of 'the people' in pursuit of personal power.     

[Leeway]

13 hours ago, BillF said:

In my case the university reading lists were often unrealistically long - and were condemned as such by academics in another university where I subsequently did a postgraduate degree - so missed texts were understandable and normal. More interesting are the ones I set out to read, but which defeated my efforts to finish them. There were only two: Middlemarch and Sir Walter Scott's Heart of Midlothian. Surprisingly, I had no trouble at all in reading Gibbon's Decline and Fall, although only a limited number of volumes were set. 

I'm a fan of George Eliot, and that goes for Middlemarch, which I've read at least a couple of times.  However, I've never had any luck with Scott.  Not that I've tried very hard. 

[BillF]

14 hours ago, Leeway said:

I'm a fan of George Eliot, and that goes for Middlemarch, which I've read at least a couple of times.  However, I've never had any luck with Scott.  Not that I've tried very hard. 

I concede I might feel differently about Middlemarch now. My failure to finish it was over 50 years ago. 

 

Edited November 27, 2016 by BillF

[A Lark Ascending]

I struggled with 'Middlemarch' when I had to do it for 'A' Level - don't think I got more than 1/3 through - rescued by changing schools to different set texts. But I re-read it some years later (all the way through) and really enjoyed it (and I'm a lightweight who has little patience for or persistence with books that bore me, whatever canon they are part of).   

Edited November 28, 2016 by A Lark Ascending

[ejp626]

6 hours ago, A Lark Ascending said:

I struggled with 'Middlemarch' when I had to do it for 'A' Level - don't think I got more than 1/3 through - rescued by changing schools to different set texts. But I re-read it some years later (all the way through) and really enjoyed it (and I'm a lightweight who has little patience for or persistence with books that bore me, whatever canon they are part of).   

I found the majority of the male characters to be thoroughly unappealing, particularly Will Ladislaw, who seemed quite a drip actually.  And Fred Vincy seemed to have too easy a path to redemption.  Too much fell into his lap, even if it didn't seem that way to him at the time.  I guess Sir James was reasonably sensible.  The book only really held my interest when we saw Lydgate struggling.

[jlhoots]

Nathan Hill: The Nix

[ghost of miles]

I've been on a Budd Schulberg kick--finished What Makes Sammy Run a couple of days ago and am about 100 pages into The Disenchanted.  Excellent, often humorous and incisive writing.

[medjuck]

Read the Schulbergs many years ago (I think before I knew that Disenchanted was about Fitzgerald).  At a Planned Parenthood book sale I found a paperback copy of Faces in the Crowd.  Your post reminded me that I should read it. 

[jazzbo]

[Leeway]

Book 2 of the Alexandria Quartet.  I'm enjoying Durrell's work so far, although with some reservations. Three is occasionally a bit of "artiness" the creeps in from time to time, but I suppose I'll need to complete the Quartet to form a more complete judgment. 

[BillF]

The Alexandria Quartet was very fashionable reading in the 60s. As far as I recall, I found them a bit superficial - at least when compared with the other unquestioned classics I was reading at the time.

Edited November 29, 2016 by BillF

[BillF]

Clever satire which palls after a while. Although written nearly 20 years ago, its depiction of England's retreat from internationalism into olde worlde insularity leaves you feeling uneasy today.

 

Edited December 2, 2016 by BillF

[Matthew]

Nature; Address and Lectures by Ralph Waldo Emerson.

Edited December 1, 2016 by Matthew

[A Lark Ascending]

On 12/1/2016 at 7:36 AM, BillF said:

Clever satire which palls after a while. Although written nearly 20 years ago, it's depiction of England's retreat from internationalism into olde worlde insularity leaves you feeling uneasy today.

 

I enjoyed that when I read it a few years back (hadn't thought about it's connection with our current rush to 'independence'). Agree about it losing its grip - an interesting idea that doesn't quite sustain its promise.