Now reading...

[jazzbo]

No, I've never read any Connie Willis.

[alankin]

I have read Connie Willis "To Say Nothing of The Dog" which I enjoyed. I haven't read any Max Allan Collins. Have you read any Richard Stark books? I like the Parker series.

[Bright Moments]

I enjoy time travel stories! Currently reading timeline by Crichton. Willis is very good!!! Haven't yet read Collins or stark.

[jazzbo]

I've read some Stark. Not bad.

[ejp626]

Just read Michel Tremblay's Stories for Late Night Drinkers, which is a very early work of his. Rather than being an investigation of working-class Montreal (like most of his later novels and plays), these are short, fantastic fables sort of in line with the unsanitized version of the Grimm fairy tales. They're ok, but I think his other work is better. I've checked out The Fat Woman Next Door is Pregnant, which I hope to get to by the end of the month.

I'm about halfway through two novels: Molly Keane's The Rising Tide and Marisha Pessl's Special Topics in Calamity Physics. Calamity Physics started off pretty strong, but it's dragging on me as I find myself losing interest in the main character and her travails (being in high school and trying to fit in with the popular crowd and dealing with this film teacher who has sort of adopted them all). Maybe the problem is that as the teacher's life begins spiraling out of control, the whole book is getting just too melodramatic, though maybe that is appropriate after all, since almost nothing is as dramatic as teenagers and their status games.

[Leeway]

Still on my Anthony Burgess marathon. Finished his "Malayan Trilogy," and "The Doctor is Sick." Now reading the book published in-between the last trilogy volume and "The Doctor is Sick," -- The Right to an Answer.

[BillF]

On the whole, I prefer Gray as a playwright.

[Matthew]

Hearing Secret Harmonies by Anthony Powell. Book twelve of the A Dance To The Music Of Time novel cycle. Critics tend to rate this one as the least of the twelve, but I like it a lot, despite the 1960s feel. I think that The Military Philosphers is the weakest link; it just didn't seem to move the story along. Other than to make sure everyone knew what a terrible person Pamala Widmerool is, not much happened that I found interesting. Still, the whole is a great work of art.

PS: It looks like Kindle will have some of Powell's early novels available on March 26.

Edited March 13, 2014 by Matthew

[jazzbo]

[niels]

Re-reading all my Dostoevsky's. Currently busy with "The Idiot"

[Jerry_L]

[A Lark Ascending]

Has neither the rich social context or character depth of Mankell and suffers from what seems like a rather plain translation; but the story has me intrigued. 1/4 to go and I still can't work out who done it (or what was done).

[Leeway]

Have been continuing my trek through Burgess. So far:

• Time for a Tiger, (1956)
• The Enemy in the Blanket, (1958)
• Beds in the East, (1959)
• The Doctor is Sick, (1960)
• The Right to an Answer, (1960)
• One Hand Clapping (1961)

Next up (re-read) A Clockwork Orange, then perhaps The Wanting Seed. I'd like to re-read The Complete Enderby and then the autobiography, Little Wilson. Might need a break after that; we shall see. Of the group of novels listed above, I'd say the first three are superior, followed by The Right to an Answer, The Doctor is Sick, and One Hand Clapping.

[ejp626]

Finished the Pessl. It took quite a swerve towards the end.

Nearly done with Chromos by Felipe Alfau. He only wrote two novels (the other one was Locos, which I haven't read). This is the second time around for me with Chromos. It's a little bit postmodern in the sense of one story leading to another to another (like some of the works of Calvino or John Barth). Like most postmodern fiction, there isn't a lot of emotional connection, at least for me.

This weekend I think I'll tackle Hotel Savoy by Joseph Roth. I'm also making decent headway on Cities of the Plain by Proust.

[BillF]

About quarter way through. Manages to be both scholarly and highly readable.

[Jerry_L]

Quite different than the movie.

Edited March 21, 2014 by Jerry_L

[johnblitweiler]

Intriguing looks at a recent sub-genre that I'm unfamiliar with. I enjoy David Whiteis's writing and often agree / disagree with him. Denise Lasalle's foreword is a charming history of the blues.

[jlhoots]

Lorrie Moore: Bark

[ejp626]

Finished the Pessl. It took quite a swerve towards the end.

Nearly done with Chromos by Felipe Alfau. He only wrote two novels (the other one was Locos, which I haven't read). This is the second time around for me with Chromos. It's a little bit postmodern in the sense of one story leading to another to another (like some of the works of Calvino or John Barth). Like most postmodern fiction, there isn't a lot of emotional connection, at least for me.

This weekend I think I'll tackle Hotel Savoy by Joseph Roth. I'm also making decent headway on Cities of the Plain by Proust.

Another 100 pages on Chromos, which I should wrap up tonight.

I really enjoyed Roth's Hotel Savoy. It had shades of Kafka's The Castle, though with a bit more overt humor. Basically the narrator is a former prisoner of war (WWI) and has returned to the city where his uncle lives. While he waits to find if he can get funds to move on from his uncle, he stays at the Hotel Savoy, where well-to-do individuals stay in the bottom three or four floor, while very poor boarders live in the top stories.

[Matthew]

Those Angry Days: Roosevelt, Lindberg, and America's Fight Over World War II. 1939-1941 by Lynne Olson. Interesting account of the battle for, and against, intervention that took place in America.

Edited March 25, 2014 by Matthew

[paul secor]

Penelope Lively's Dancing Fish and Ammonites

I enjoyed this as a behind the scenes look at Penelope Lively's life and her thoughts on aging, memories, and reading. However, I'm pretty sure that it's her fiction that I'll end up rereading and not this book.

[ejp626]

I've read a fair bit over the past couple of weeks.

Joseph Roth's Hotel Savoy was probably the best

Cristina Garcia's Dreaming in Cuban was actually a disappointment as nearly all the characters displayed some form of mental illness at some point in the story, and I just couldn't feel any emotional attachment to them.

Michel Tremblay's The Fat Woman Next Door is Pregnant was generally pretty good, despite a tendency to rely on what we would now consider magical realism. It felt like a mixture of Under Milk Wood and Ulysses, but set in a working-class neighborhood in Montreal.

Nearly done with Helen Smith's Alison Wonderland -- not doing that much for me, but it is short. Too much whimsy and an over-reliance on incredible situations that then undermine the sections of the book that are supposed to generate tension when the main characters are threatened.

I've started Radclyffe Hall's The Unlit Lamp. While this topic (a mother stifling her daughter) has been done to death, Hall adds a number of droll touches that move things along. However, it is possible that as the story gets darker, these will be sacrificed.

Probably the next book after this will be Molly Keane's Two Days in Aragon.

[jazzbo]

[A Lark Ascending]

Alongside the McLaughlin bio mentioned elsewhere:

Really enjoying this. Starts in pre-Anschluss Vienna and moves through Kristallnacht to wartime London. Will be looking out the others in the series.

Should appeal to David Downing and Alan Furst fans.

[BillF]

About quarter way through. Manages to be both scholarly and highly readable.

Now finished it. Full of fascinating information and recommended without reservation. Having read it, though, I think a more accurate subtitle would have been "The Man Who Used Jazz to Make Money".