Now reading...

[paul secor]

Kate Atkinson: When Will There Be Good News?

[thedwork]

on the recommendation of my step-mom:

i'm a bit more than halfway through and i'm not enjoying it at all. i actually rather dislike it, as opposed to simply disliking it in a 'disinterested' way, but will finish it out of respect for my step-mom. we'll see what happens. maybe since i've been reading so much non-fiction for the last 5-6 years i just don't like reading fiction much anymore? could be...

Edited November 12, 2011 by thedwork

[TedR]

The Civil War of 1812 by Alan Taylor

[Morganized]

Following recomendation from friend and comments on this board

[BillF]

Excellent!

[paul secor]

Haruki Murakami: The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

One helluva journey!

[Leeway]

Marching bravely forward on my Dickens marathon. Now on to:

[Brad]

Recommended for students of Lincoln and the Civil War.

[thedwork]

on the recommendation of my step-mom:

i'm a bit more than halfway through and i'm not enjoying it at all. i actually rather dislike it, as opposed to simply disliking it in a 'disinterested' way, but will finish it out of respect for my step-mom. we'll see what happens. maybe since i've been reading so much non-fiction for the last 5-6 years i just don't like reading fiction much anymore? could be...

finished it. not for me, but i see how others would enjoy it.

[BillF]

Read this after rewatching the film recently. Profound, moving.

[jlhoots]

Alice Hoffman: The Dovekeepers

[ejp626]

on the recommendation of my step-mom:

i'm a bit more than halfway through and i'm not enjoying it at all. i actually rather dislike it, as opposed to simply disliking it in a 'disinterested' way, but will finish it out of respect for my step-mom. we'll see what happens. maybe since i've been reading so much non-fiction for the last 5-6 years i just don't like reading fiction much anymore? could be...

finished it. not for me, but i see how others would enjoy it.

I haven't read this, but I did read Moth Smoke, which had its moments. I will say that of Pakistani novelists, I prefer Kamila Shamsie to Mohsin Hamid.

[A Lark Ascending]

Read this after rewatching the film recently. Profound, moving.

That film was relatively new when I was training as a teacher and clips were used as a critique of what was wrong with the education system.

I hope we've got much better with most youngsters, but the basic inequalities are still there, the sense of alienation amongst the most disadvantaged too.

I'm really enjoying the fourth of David Downing's wartime Berlin based novels, this one set as the Russians close in in April 1945.

[BillF]

Read this after rewatching the film recently. Profound, moving.

That film was relatively new when I was training as a teacher and clips were used as a critique of what was wrong with the education system.

I hope we've got much better with most youngsters, but the basic inequalities are still there, the sense of alienation amongst the most disadvantaged too.

In his Afterword to the 1999 edition, Barry Hines noted that the only significant employment opportunity on Kes's territory, mining, had now been killed off. Today, twelve years later, national youth unemployment figures speak for themselves.

Edited November 18, 2011 by BillF

[Justin V]

[ejp626]

So I am about halfway through Norman Rush's Mating. It's pretty slow going and I am getting bored with it, so I will probably just stop. It is definitely at least 100 pages too long. Life's too short.

I positively hated Donleavy's The Ginger Man. Basically only for those who find intellectual-poseurs and drunkards compelling (as found in Withnail and I). And then to add to that, the main character is a wife-beater who treats all women equally shabbily, basically trying to screw all the women in Dublin. Maybe this was genuinely liberating in the 1950s and early 60s, but it strikes me that the only liberation that mattered was for men. I can't imagine Donleavy remaining in the literary pantheon (in fact he's probably not there now). A poor man's Norman Mailer, basically (not even sure Mailer will be in the pantheon in another 50 years). Ultimately, it was the physical abuse of the women that make me stop reading -- I skipped to the last 25 pages and he was still a complete shitheel, so I tossed the book into a donation box. Life is definitely too short to read books that glamourize violence against women.

Starting Kroetsch's Badlands. Mahfouz's Cairo Trilogy is around the corner. Boy, that is going to be a tough book to digest. I imagine it will take a month at my current rate of reading.

[A Lark Ascending]

In his Afterword to the 1999 edition, Barry Hines noted that the only significant employment opportunity on Kes's territory, mining, had now been killed off. Today, twenty-two years later, national youth unemployment figures speak for themselves.

I'm a bit south of Hines area and with a little more diversity to pick up on the loss of the coal mines, but still a 'social priority area'. It's starting to get hit hard - we're noticing a renewed attitude of hopelessness in some of the kids. Why bother to work/conform/behave when dad, mum, uncle are out of work or in really low paid jobs? - much more fun to tweak the noses of the teachers.

Edited November 18, 2011 by A Lark Ascending

[BillF]

So I am about halfway through Norman Rush's Mating. It's pretty slow going and I am getting bored with it, so I will probably just stop. It is definitely at least 100 pages too long. Life's too short.

I positively hated Donleavy's The Ginger Man. Basically only for those who find intellectual-poseurs and drunkards compelling (as found in Withnail and I). And then to add to that, the main character is a wife-beater who treats all women equally shabbily, basically trying to screw all the women in Dublin. Maybe this was genuinely liberating in the 1950s and early 60s, but it strikes me that the only liberation that mattered was for men. I can't imagine Donleavy remaining in the literary pantheon (in fact he's probably not there now). A poor man's Norman Mailer, basically (not even sure Mailer will be in the pantheon in another 50 years). Ultimately, it was the physical abuse of the women that make me stop reading -- I skipped to the last 25 pages and he was still a complete shitheel, so I tossed the book into a donation box. Life is definitely too short to read books that glamourize violence against women.

Starting Kroetsch's Badlands. Mahfouz's Cairo Trilogy is around the corner. Boy, that is going to be a tough book to digest. I imagine it will take a month at my current rate of reading.

I read The Ginger Man when it was a cult book c.1960 and found it utterly trivial then. Funny, but the only bit I can now remember is when someone flushes the toilet in a rickety house and the contents end up in living quarters in the storey below.

[ejp626]

I positively hated Donleavy's The Ginger Man. Basically only for those who find intellectual-poseurs and drunkards compelling (as found in Withnail and I). And then to add to that, the main character is a wife-beater who treats all women equally shabbily, basically trying to screw all the women in Dublin. Maybe this was genuinely liberating in the 1950s and early 60s, but it strikes me that the only liberation that mattered was for men. I can't imagine Donleavy remaining in the literary pantheon (in fact he's probably not there now). A poor man's Norman Mailer, basically (not even sure Mailer will be in the pantheon in another 50 years). Ultimately, it was the physical abuse of the women that make me stop reading -- I skipped to the last 25 pages and he was still a complete shitheel, so I tossed the book into a donation box. Life is definitely too short to read books that glamourize violence against women.

I read The Ginger Man when it was a cult book c.1960 and found it utterly trivial then. Funny, but the only bit I can now remember is when someone flushes the toilet in a rickety house and the contents end up in living quarters in the storey below.

Yes, I did read that part. It actually ends up in the kitchen! And then Sebastian buggers off and won't help clean up in the slightest (though it was he that flushed the toilet) and he is too afraid to even confront the landlord to see about getting it fixed. That was basically the moment I decided this book wasn't worth my time, and I skimmed a bit more, then skipped ahead to the end.

[Chuck Nessa]

Just finished the Norman Granz bio. Think less of him now and have some unanswered questions. Bummer.

[ValerieB]

Just finished the Norman Granz bio. Think less of him now and have some unanswered questions. Bummer.

i would say that my warped sense of humor thinks that's pretty damn funny as well as pathetic, Chuck!! i passed last weekend on going to a book-signing, film and concert dedicated to Mr. Granz. i also heard it was quite under-attended!

on my stack at the moment:

Steve Jobs bio

Roger Ebert memoir and

Wendy Wasserstein bio

just finished Clark's autobio, which i enjoyed.

[ejp626]

So I'm looking at tackling Ralph Ellison's Juneteenth, which I've had for a long, long time. This was the core of his unfinished second novel where he had some really powerful blockage going on. He actually wrote and wrote and wrote, but just couldn't bring himself to finish the novel. Anyway, Juneteenth came out over 10 years ago, but then a year or two ago a much longer expanded version of this unfinished novel came out called Three Days Before the Shooting. It is three times as long and just under 1200 pages. I have to be honest, the plot of Juneteenth doesn't really grab me (a white boy is raised by a Black preacher but then grows up to be a race-baiting U.S. Senator), though I think I can make it through this novel, but I can't imagine reading 1200 pages' worth. Anyway, just wondering if anyone had read either version.

[Morganized]

Fascinating

I agree.

Don't know why Roth hasn't won the Nobel prize.

Read it some years ago. Seem to remember it as a very strong novel that went into serious decline towards the end. The details escape me now.

I agree with the last quote, good read but falls apart a bit at the end.

[BillF]

Some mind-boggling tricks with time in this one! Really enjoyed it.

Edited November 26, 2011 by BillF

[jazzbo]

Yes, that's a fun one! Was the second one I read I think, the first PKD I read was "The Zap Gun."