Now reading...

[Matthew]

Deadball Stars of the American League. A totally captivating book put out by the Society For American Baseball Research, which contains 136 biographies of American League baseball players from the "Deadball Era" of 1901 - 1919. Fascinating reading of players long dead and forgotten; the "Deadball Era" has always held me enthralled, an era with an unique style of play, and of an America way of life long gone. I just ordered the National League version....

[BruceH]

Finally got around to finishing "The Terrorists," the final Martin Beck novel. I'd been going slow with it because I didn't want it to end. Great series.

[gslade]

Just Started a Norman Partridge Novella Dark Harvest

[BillF]

Back to the classics!

[medjuck]

Finally got around to finishing "The Terrorists," the final Martin Beck novel. I'd been going slow with it because I didn't want it to end. Great series.

Great series. There were a couple of good films based on it. One American (The Laughing Policeman) and one Swedish (Man on the Roof-- based on The Abominable Man).

Great read.

I'm almost through it. I keep reading reviews that say how great that it's more about music then sex and drugs. Sure there's some stuff about music but not nearly as much as there is about sex and drugs.

[ejp626]

I guess this can go here as well as anywhere. I think Stefan Zweig's name has come up a couple of times. Anyway, there are a few days left to hear a radio adaptation of his chess-based novella The Royal Game: Zweig

It shares many characteristics with Nabokov's The Defense. Wasn't super crazy about either, but liked Zweig's a bit better.

I have started reading Treasure Island to my son, who now seems old enough not to be completely scared of pirates. It should take a week or two. After this, it will be Kidnapped. Hard to believe, but I've never read either up to now.

As far as my own reading, I did start Shamsie's Kartography, which seems promising. Somewhere towards the end of the month, I am going to tackle Mahfouz's The Cairo Trilogy. I'm excited but a little daunted. Also I think it is too bulky to take on the train, which would slow me down considerably!

[B. Goren.]

Heinrich Böll: The Lost Honour of Katharina Blum.

[BillF]

After this, it will be Kidnapped. Hard to believe, but I've never read either up to now.

Read it as a boy and have never forgotten David Balfour's ascent of the stairway. Still, I'll leave it to you ...

[jlhoots]

Roberto Bolano: The Insufferable Gaucho

[mikelz777]

Matterhorn: A Novel of the Vietnam War - Karl Marlantes

[paul secor]

James Hanley: Against the Stream

A fine writer who seems to fly under the radar - at least in the U.S.

[GA Russell]

I've learned this week about a website called goodreads.com, which is something of a social website for readers.

I've decided to keep track of my books in 2011, so I have started a list which you can see here:

http://www.goodreads.com/review/list/4689852

[jlhoots]

Jennifer Egan: A Visit From The Goon Squad

[Van Basten II]

Heinrich Böll: The Lost Honour of Katharina Blum.

Are Criterion making books now, are they as expensive as their DVDs ?

Seriously, I guess you could not find an image of the book so you put a picture of the DVD instead.

Edited December 24, 2010 by Van Basten II

[jlhoots]

Lisa Arana: Lima Nights

[Jazzmoose]

Albert Camus - The Plague

Enjoying this very much.

You know, I picked up a copy of that in '76, and still haven't read it... I guess it was the tail end of my Camus obsession, and I just never got to it. But I transport it from place to place rather than getting rid of it, so I guess there's still hope.

[Elissa]

=

Now on:

Part of a great 30s/40s series (they overlap but are not a series or chronological). This one is based in Poland in 1937.

Read a few of these, awfully good aren't they. Very romantic, the Polish resistance. Just saw the new Peter Weir film, The Way Back, tonight about a number of fellows, some Poles among them, who escaped from the Gulags in Siberia and WALKED to India. Astounding cinematography even if a lil predictable. It was in a double bill with the new Mike Leigh, Another Year, which I loved.

I'm reading Robt Gottlieb's new bio of Sarah Bernhardt now, which is a great read - a christmas gift I've almost polished off.

[BillF]

Albert Camus - The Plague

Enjoying this very much.

You know, I picked up a copy of that in '76, and still haven't read it... I guess it was the tail end of my Camus obsession, and I just never got to it. But I transport it from place to place rather than getting rid of it, so I guess there's still hope.

It's been on my shelf for months. It's quite apt at the minute, as we are on the verge of a flu epidemic/pandemic (can't remember which) here in England, with a nice little pocket where I live, in the North West. Are you listening Bill?

Indeed I am - and I got my free anti-flu injection for the over-65s last week!

As for Camus, far and away the most significant one for me has always been The Outsider (L'étranger). I've read it twice in English and twice in French - its very short length and plain-statement style made the latter possible.

[Jazzmoose]

I've never read it in French (it's a crime in the U.S. to know more than one language...), but that was my favorite, followed by The Fall. I read it first as an impressionable teen, so it became a big influence on my thinking, for better or worse.

[A Lark Ascending]

A page turner even though there was more gratuitous violence than I care for; and the characters were cardboard cut-out. None of the depth of Mankell.

[jlhoots]

David Mitchell: Cloud Atlas

[ejp626]

David Mitchell: Cloud Atlas

I really enjoyed this one. I wasn't that taken with Number9Dream. Haven't read his latest two, but will probably get to them one day.

On a bit of a tangent, I am wondering when Murakami's 1Q84 comes out in English. I was somewhere where I actually saw it in Japanese (probably just the first volume), but it would have been pointless and pretentious to have bought it.

[ghost of miles]

Over the past couple of days, these two:

Edited January 3, 2011 by ghost of miles

[A Lark Ascending]

Loved this. See-saws between grim murder mystery and tall, whimsical tale. I think the latter just wins out. A larger than life tale but a fun one.

Now on:

Leon's books always make me hungry - Inspector Brunetti's wife always makes such wonderful meals!

Edited January 4, 2011 by A Lark Ascending

[jostber]

Norman Lewis - I Came, I Saw

Edited January 8, 2011 by jostber