Now reading...

[paul secor]

Simenon: Maigret and the Madwoman

[ejp626]

I like the Elric stories best; I also like his non-sicence fiction historical novels and fantasies.

At one point I had read nearly all the Moorcock series. Elric is probably the most memorable, but I don't know how the more recent additions to the seris stack up. I kind of liked The End of Time series as well.

I know he's written a number of more serious novels like Mother London and Byzantium Endures, which I've been meaning to read, but have not had the time.

Am juggling three books: Madame Bovary (have never read the entire thing) -- it is part of my "infidelity" mini-challenge. Rushdie's Midnight's Children (re-reading this -- I had planned on seeing the movie afterwards but plans changed).

Amado's The War of the Saints

The later two are overly convoluted, esp. the Amado, and just take too long to get to the actual plot. I definitely liked Midnight's Children more in college, when I was generally more receptive to "playfulness" on the part of the author. Now I value taut storytelling much more and have far less patience with postmodern literary games. (It does make me wonder whether I should re-read Tristram Shandy, which is nothing but digressions.) I don't recall other Amado novels being so disjointed, and I wonder if he was responding to Cortazar's Hopscotch or similar fictiones (I am almost positive I wouldn't want to re-read Hopscotch in my current frame of mind).

[erwbol]

Not my favourite Iain M. Banks novel, but regarded as his best by many.

[A Lark Ascending]

Started this last summer - got as far as World War II and then got distracted by Napoleonic sea-going books.

Picked it up again last week and am well into it.

Not what you would call a rip-roaring read but a superbly written and measured bit of historical biography. Gaddis clearly loves his subject (he knew him) but this is no hagiography. It's as much about where Kennan completely missed his mark as the famous point when everyone ran with his ideas.

You probably need to have an outline knowledge of the Cold War to get much from it; but what I'm finding fascinating is the other directions Kennan kept pointing in. Helps make the whole thing more three dimensional. Looking forward to seeing his reaction to Vietnam - the blurb suggest he was highly critical.

He was a guitar player too!

[jlhoots]

Justin Cronin: The Twelve

[Matthew]

New World Coming: The 1920s And The Making Of Modern America by Nathan Miller. A very interesting account of the 1920s, and how the contemporary world was foreshadowed by the events and culture of the 1920s. Enjoying this very much -- recommended if you're interested in this era.

[BillF]

[Head Man]

Just finished this Christmas present. Complete tosh, unfortunately.

[erwbol]

[ejp626]

Should have tried working on the plane this weekend, but just too cramped, so I gave up and read the books I brought instead. I wrapped up Edward Jones' Lost in the City, comprised of short stories set in Washington D.C. After reading several of them, it struck me that the tone was quite similar to Raymond Carver, though the stories were not nearly as tight. Carver often wrote about working class whites, and Jones is writing about Blacks further down the class spectrum, though there are a handful of children who "escape" and live among the ghosts, i.e. in white neighborhoods in D.C. The stories are accomplished, but boy were they depressing. I'm not sure there is a single one with an uplifting ending.

I also read Mordecai Richler's Barney's Version. This was recently made into a movie, though so much of it covers the same territory as Sideways and Paul Giamatti is in it as well, that it seems really redundant. Anyway, it has some amusing moments, but I did feel somewhat manipulated into siding with a guy who was an absolute boor and drunkard, and whom I would avoid in my real life.

Back to my other reading, I am about halfway through Madame Bovary. It certainly has its moments, but I wouldn't call it a page-turner or anything like that.

[BillF]

[A Lark Ascending]

Must read that again. I loved it when I first read it.

[jazzbo]

Henry Miller "Complete Book of Friends." This British edition sure could have used a better editor, more typos than I've seen in ages in one book.

[medjuck]

Alice Munro's "Dear Life". Probably the last book by the best writer in the English language, and one of her best. (How's that for hyperbole?)

[BillF]

Agree with you about Munro. Very talented writer.

[ejp626]

Completed Madame Bovary. What a downer. Not that I expected things to turn out well for her (that's pretty much a given), but her husband really was such a simpleton. So many people in the novel make such bad choices, though I suppose it really is the Bovarys that end up the worst by the end. Still, I kind of felt Flaubert really piled it on in the last few pages. I guess his point is that there are some people you can't save from themselves, and this includes M. Bovary.

I have some shorter pieces to read, including Mahfouz's Karnak Cafe, and then will try to wrap up Midnight's Children.

[Shawn]

"I, Robot" - Isaac Asimov

[A Lark Ascending]

Finally finished the Kennan bio.

But it made me realise how much US history I've forgotten. I did two major courses from colonial times up to the 60s back in the 1970s at uni; since then I've run into key moments in my teaching, especially foreign policy after 1945 and civil rights, but have huge gaps elsewhere. So I've started this:

[jlhoots]

Ariel Winter: The Twenty-Year Death

[alankin]

David Simon - Homicide

[medjuck]

I'm Your Man: The Life of Leonard Cohen. A good and well written biography but may be more than you want to know about Leonard Cohen. Gets most of the details right but not very good on Canadian geography. (Where have all the editors gone.)

Edited January 22, 2013 by medjuck

[BillF]

[jazzbo]

[ejp626]

How is this? It seems most of the reviews are positive, but always nice to have another opinion.

I am on the home stretch of Rushdie's Midnight's Children. It definitely has its moments, but it feels over-written to me now (on rereading), much too aware of being a "literary" novel, largely in the tradition of John Barth (whom I no longer enjoy either).

Looking forward to rereading Greene's Travels with My Aunt, which I thought was great when younger. Hope that isn't another book that doesn't satisfy as much now that I am somewhat grizzled...

[jlhoots]

Completed Madame Bovary. What a downer. Not that I expected things to turn out well for her (that's pretty much a given), but her husband really was such a simpleton. So many people in the novel make such bad choices, though I suppose it really is the Bovarys that end up the worst by the end. Still, I kind of felt Flaubert really piled it on in the last few pages. I guess his point is that there are some people you can't save from themselves, and this includes M. Bovary.

Read it for our Book Club. I didn't like it either.