Now reading...

[jlhoots]

Shalom Auslander: Hope: A Tragedy

[BillF]

Glad you guys are discussing Le Carre; after seeing the Gary Oldman flick, I'm ready to dive in. Any suggestions as to where to start?

In view of the way the discussion has gone, start with a shorter, early one. I think The looking Glass War is great - full of atmosphere from the first page.

Good choice. 'The Spy Who Came in from the Cold' would be another.

Am currently reading the more recent Le Carrés and have just finished this:

While they don't equal the earlier classics, they still stand out nowadays as exemplary writing. Of these newer ones, the best I've come across so far is this, but I haven't got to the end of the list yet!

[jlhoots]

Dana Spiotta: Stone Arabia

[jazzbo]

The liner note booklet to Dylan Bootleg Vols. 1-3.

[alankin]

Peter Lovesey - Swing, Swing Together: A Sergeant Cribb Investigation

[Jazzmoose]

Finally started Now Wait for Last Year.

[A Lark Ascending]

Continuing my journey through this series - this time an evocative setting in Cambridge. You'd never know the writer was American given her geographically accurate descriptions of various parts of Britain and her character descriptions.

Enjoying this long but engaging biography. He's just arrived in Gaul and is chasing down the Helvitti.

[alankin]

Elmore Leonard - Pronto

[crisp]

You surprise me Crisp. Those three novels, published collectively as 'Smiley vs Karla' are easily my favourite Le Carre's and are generally regarded as not only his best work but the best of the genre. While they all have complex plots I never found them particularly difficult to follow, just superb storytelling.

Perhaps because I'm a journalist, I'm rather into simple, solid sentences these days, so perhaps that's part of the problem I had with Tinker. As I said, I didn't read the others, although I started Schoolboy before abandoning it. I'm currently reading Somerset Maugham's The Razor's Edge, which has a complicated structure and grapples with some quite ineffable themes but is a masterpiece of clarity. The odd Oxford comma aside, each sentence is beautifully composed.

[jazzbo]

Maugham was an awesome writer. I need to re-read some of his novels.

[crisp]

This my first Maugham, though I've long been aware of his work. I also have Of Human Bondage lined up. Which ones are your favourites?

[A Lark Ascending]

Of Human Bondage is superb. I did it for 'A' Level in 1972-3..and still enjoyed it!

[BillF]

Elmore Leonard - Pronto

Must try that one. Just finished this:

[jazzbo]

I need to read that one day. I've seen two movies adapted from it, and enjoyed them both!

[jlhoots]

John Burdett: Vulture Peak

[Jazzmoose]

Of Human Bondage is superb. I did it for 'A' Level in 1972-3..and still enjoyed it!

I'm trying to rememver if I've ever heard a more positive review of a book in my life; don't think so.

[A Lark Ascending]

Of Human Bondage is superb. I did it for 'A' Level in 1972-3..and still enjoyed it!

I'm trying to rememver if I've ever heard a more positive review of a book in my life; don't think so.

Actually, 'A' Level was quite encouraging.

The downer was two terms doing an English literature subsidiary at university. We read a book and then went to a lecture where a) it was assumed we'd read everything else by the author and his/her contemporaries and b) we were told why we shouldn't have enjoyed it.

I was relieved to get to 100% History in the latter part of my first year.

Edited February 17, 2012 by A Lark Ascending

[alankin]

Donald E. Westlake as Richard Stark - The Mourner

Edited February 17, 2012 by alankin

[crisp]

I already do enough stuff which bores me, so it's been ditched.

Well put. One shouldn't be afraid of abandoning books one finds dull just because they are highly rated.

Now reading Nelson ALgren's "Man With The Golden Arm"

I liked this one, although it's a little stodgy; it could have done with an edit. If you enjoy it, I recommend you try A Walk on the Wild Side, which is much better.

Edited February 17, 2012 by crisp

[jazzbo]

Alternating between "The LOST Encyclopedia" and the book within the Louis Armstrong "Ambassador of Jazz" box set.

[paul secor]

Ian Rankin: Resurrection Men

Edited February 18, 2012 by paul secor

[TedR]

Isabel Wilkerson - The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration

[Leeway]

[Jazzmoose]

Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea for the first time since sixth grade. It's better than it has any right to be, but I'm still trying to figure out why H.G. Wells gets credit for starting SF...

[ejp626]

I wrapped up Banville's The Sea. Flashes of Ford Maddox Ford's The Good Soldier towards the end. Not sure I felt they were earned. In general, I wasn't particularly moved or even interested in this book. At least it was short. Pretty inconceivable that it won the Booker.

I am enjoying David Bezmozgis's The Free World considerably more. This is a novel about the movement of Soviet Jews towards other countries in the late 1970s, primarily Israel, U.S. and Canada. The family at the heart of this novel is waiting out their time in Rome until they get clearance to enter Canada. Bezmozgis's own family chose this route (he resides in Toronto), though I don't know if this is lightly fictionalized version of his personal history or he just takes this migration as a starting point for inventing new characters out of whole cloth. I'm leaning towards the latter.