Now reading...

[fasstrack]

https://www.amazon.com/Westies-Inside-New-Yorks-Irish/dp/0312362846

Gruesome stuff. I guess entertaining if you like reading about dismemberments and beheadings ...

[A Lark Ascending]

"The Origin of Species" (mentioned above) would be too much for me but I wanted to know a bit more about Darwin, more from the historical/cultural impact point of view than the science (my brain can't take in too many finches' beaks before wandering). The Johnson book is a short but compelling survey of his life and influence, achievements and limitations. 

My scientific knowledge is very poor (I blame jumping between four different secondary schools) but every now and then I get curious because of things I come across in my historical reading. Bryson would probably drive readers with a strong scientific education nuts but his jokey manner works well for what I need. 

Also just started:

 

David is an excellent military historian writing for the popular history market. Detailed and analytical but never losing the sense of narrative that carries the non-specialist reader through. 

[BillF]

Was very enthusiastic about this in the early stages of reading, but 475 pages later I see it as verbose and somewhat self-indulgent. The work of a by-then-highly(over?)-acclaimed author. Many individual paragraphs are exemplary, but it could have done with some serious editing IMHO.

[alankin]

Charles Simic – Dime-Store Alchemy: The Art of Joseph Cornell (Ecco Press)

 

[Brad]

Almost done with Grand Hotel by Vicki Baum.

[paul secor]

1 hour ago, alankin said:

Charles Simic – Dime-Store Alchemy: The Art of Joseph Cornell (Ecco Press)

 

I saw a Cornell exhibition at MOMA about thirty years ago. Unique art.

[paul secor]

Haruki Murakami: A Wild Sheep Chase

[Leeway]

On July 22, 2016 at 3:33 AM, BillF said:

Was very enthusiastic about this in the early stages of reading, but 475 pages later I see it as verbose and somewhat self-indulgent. The work of a by-then-highly(over?)-acclaimed author. Many individual paragraphs are exemplary, but it could have done with some serious editing IMHO.

Pretty much agree with that estimate. 

Just finished:

Wharton has created a memorable character in Undine Spragg, a monster of vanity, selfishness and ambition. The novel suffers a bit from an over-reliance on coincidence and sketchy turns of plot, but Undine pulls one along. I think I still prefer Wharton's House of Mirth with another memorable female character, Lily Bart. 

[BillF]

5 hours ago, Leeway said:

Pretty much agree with that estimate. 

Just finished:

Wharton has created a memorable character in Undine Spragg, a monster of vanity, selfishness and ambition. The novel suffers a bit from an over-reliance on coincidence and sketchy turns of plot, but Undine pulls one along. I think I still prefer Wharton's House of Mirth with another memorable female character, Lily Bart. 

House of Mirth is the only Wharton I've read. My memories of it are pretty positive.

[ejp626]

Just about to wrap up Willa Cather's My Antonia.  I'm enjoying it a fair bit.  Some good insights in there about the transition from rural to urban lifestyle, as well as how immigrants fit into (or didn't) the vastness of the prairies.  I'm a bit sorry I didn't encounter this sooner (I probably should have read in high school but I skipped over American literature).

I've just started Sinclair Ross's As For Me and My House.  My initial reaction is very positive -- I think this is one of those underrated classics.  The tone (and topics covered) in the few pages I've read put me in mind of Marilynne Robinson's Gilead, which is a surprisingly good novel.  If you are a fan of Gilead (or the others in that series), you probably would also like As For Me and My House.

(Actually, I may have to qualify this, in that I may have pre-judged the resolution of the novel, which may be considerably more depressing, while Gilead is more uplifting.  The writing is still sharp though.)

After this, for a complete change of pace, Philip Roth's Sabbath's Theater.

Edited July 28, 2016 by ejp626

[BillF]

6 hours ago, ejp626 said:

Just about to wrap up Willa Cather's My Antonia.  I'm enjoying it a fair bit.  Some good insights in there about the transition from rural to urban lifestyle, as well as how immigrants fit into (or didn't) the vastness of the prairies.  I'm a bit sorry I didn't encounter this sooner (I probably should have read in high school but I skipped over American literature).

I've just started Sinclair Ross's As For Me and My House.  My initial reaction is very positive -- I think this is one of those underrated classics.  The tone (and topics covered) in the few pages I've read put me in mind of Marilynne Robinson's Gilead, which is a surprisingly good novel.  If you are a fan of Gilead (or the others in that series), you probably would also like As For Me and My House.

(Actually, I may have to qualify this, in that I may have pre-judged the resolution of the novel, which may be considerably more depressing, while Gilead is more uplifting.  The writing is still sharp though.)

After this, for a complete change of pace, Philip Roth's Sabbath's Theater.

Once tried to read Willa Cather's O Pioneers!  but didn't get very far with it.

On my re-reading list is Philip Roth's Goodbye, Columbus of which I have good memories.

[Leeway]

Re-read this novel to get a firmer recollection of Wharton's writing. Very rewarding. 

[Leeway]

"THE VANISHING VELAZQUEZ: A 19th Century Bookseller's Obsession with a Lost Masterpiece" by Laura Cumming. The story of John Snare and a supposedly lost portrait of Charles I by Velazquez, and a larger appreciation of the artist himself. An entertaining account, although occasionally beset by a surplus of supposition and speculation, as well as hero-worship of Velazquez. . 

[paul secor]

Haruki Murakami: Wind/Pinball

His first two works. He was just beginning, but Pinball, 1973 is a worthy effort. By the time he wrote his next book, he was off and running.

 

[fasstrack]

Re-reading Robin Kelleys Monk biography---for the 3rd time...

[ejp626]

I finished Sinclair Ross's As For Me and My House, which turned out to be super depressing.  It is almost a complete inversion of Gilead -- bitter, small town residents and an embittered minister's wife and the minister who doesn't believe in what he preaches.  It's still good, solid writing, but I felt soiled at the end.

I ripped through Jonathan Lethem's Men and Cartoons, which was slight and disappointing.

I'm now into a much more substantial book: Sabbath's Theatre and I'm also reading Elizabeth Bowen's The Death of the Heart.

(I'll definitely need to read something more cheerful soon!)

[BillF]

14 hours ago, fasstrack said:

Re-reading Robin Kelleys Monk biography---for the 3rd time...

A great jazz biog, tho' I wouldn't have the time for 3 reads!

11 hours ago, ejp626 said:

I finished Sinclair Ross's As For Me and My House, which turned out to be super depressing.  It is almost a complete inversion of Gilead -- bitter, small town residents and an embittered minister's wife and the minister who doesn't believe in what he preaches.  It's still good, solid writing, but I felt soiled at the end.

I ripped through Jonathan Lethem's Men and Cartoons, which was slight and disappointing.

I'm now into a much more substantial book: Sabbath's Theatre and I'm also reading Elizabeth Bowen's The Death of the Heart.

(I'll definitely need to read something more cheerful soon!)

Death of the Heart is a fine novel.

Now reading:

A very strange book. Ostensibly a novel, it is a ragbag of - admittedly readable - musings on the French author. I guess postmodernism has something to do with this game playing. In the end, the adjective I always come up with for Barnes - and Ian McEwan for that matter - is "slight".

[fasstrack]

Just started Something to Live For: The Music of Billy Strayhorn (Walter van de Leur).

As the title implies, the volume delves into (and analyzes) Strayhorn's works. David Hajdu's biography Lush Life does not, though it gives tremendous insight into Strayhorn the man (and his complex relationship with Ellington)...

https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=something+to+live+for+the+music+of+billy+strayhorn

http://www.organissimo.org/forum/index.php?/topic/79455-something-to-live-for/#comment-1501595

 

Edited August 4, 2016 by fasstrack

[ejp626]

On 8/3/2016 at 1:44 AM, BillF said:

Death of the Heart is a fine novel.

 

I have gotten just under halfway through.  I have to say it reminds me a lot of Elizabeth Taylor's A Game of Hide and Seek, which I enjoyed a bit more.  They are both well-written stories about juvenile love (or at least a love story that started in youth) but they focus on characters that bore me terribly.  I wouldn't want to spend more than half an hour in Portia's company, as she seems like such a dullard.  In the U.S. context, we have nothing but contempt for college age boys (and Eddie's just a bit past that) that hang around high schools, trying to date the sophomores and juniors.  I just can't shake that revulsion...

Anyway, I have just put this on my library hold list and should have it by September: Tim Murphy's Christodora

The write-up seems pretty intriguing.  http://www.groveatlantic.com/?title=Christodora

I don't know quite how I feel it being optioned for TV already before it has even hit the bookstores and found an audience.  Well, the TV series may or may not become a reality.

 

[BillF]

6 hours ago, ejp626 said:

I have gotten just under halfway through.  I have to say it reminds me a lot of Elizabeth Taylor's A Game of Hide and Seek, which I enjoyed a bit more.  They are both well-written stories about juvenile love (or at least a love story that started in youth) but they focus on characters that bore me terribly.  I wouldn't want to spend more than half an hour in Portia's company, as she seems like such a dullard.  In the U.S. context, we have nothing but contempt for college age boys (and Eddie's just a bit past that) that hang around high schools, trying to date the sophomores and juniors.  I just can't shake that revulsion...

 

 

Written in 1938, it predated by many years the liberalisation of youth that came in the 50s and 60s. Couldn't have been much of a world for teenagers to grow up in.

[ejp626]

Bowen in particular more than Taylor, seems to be starting off in Austen territory.  We often find out how much each of the characters makes per year.  On top of all the other reasons he is unsuitable, Eddie has less guaranteed income than Portia will, once she comes of age.  However, Portia is certainly not rich enough to support an idle husband, so the match really is impossible for all kinds of reasons.

I can't really remember the age gap in the majority of Austen relationships.  Certainly many of the movies play it down.  In Bowen, she seems to be writing in an era when, at least for quite a few of her middle class strivers, they were heading into marriages of the Italian type (much older men finally being able to marry young wives).  This was a theme that came up in Bowen's The Hotel.

Literature wouldn't be too interesting if it was just about people making good or appropriate choices, but you still need to want to spend time with the characters.  Up to this point, Taylor succeeds for me in a way that Bowen generally doesn't.

[BillF]

Another DeLillo novella. Intensity of perception remarkable.

[A Lark Ascending]

Finished 'The Honourable Schoolboy' last week (long book!). Very, very good. Le Carre of this vintage spoils you for thriller writing - he takes his time with the narrative, often losing you in insider jargon, half-references to things you don't quite understand and there are long passages which are essentially about bureaucracy (a tremendous chapter about a meeting where Smiley tries to get approval for an operation from competing mandarins - the way he brings out the internal politics and jealousies and tracks Smiley's restrained nudging of the agenda is masterful). The main character - a foppish, seedy public school boy who is actually a ruthless operator - immediately put a picture of Boris Johnson in my head which stayed with me through the book! Wonderful depictions of Hong Kong, Vietnam, Laos, Thailand and Cambodia in 1975 especially in the second half when the 'action' picks up. 

Also Saul David's marvellous book on the Zulu War of 1879 - only ever knew about Rorke's Drift from the classic film. Turns out that it was quite a minor event and a lot of the VC awarding was something of a smokescreen to deflect attention from the main action at Isandlwana where the British were comprehensively beaten and massacred.  

Archaeologist goes on nine walks (well, one's a boat journey and another a motorbike trek) through landscapes associated with 'Dark Age' Britain. Chapters interspersed with short sections about a walk along Hadrian's Wall taken over a year from his home nearby. Highly evocative of both the landscape and the historical period. Gets a bit huffy at points about lack of people walking and some of the contemporary estates he comes across but very enjoyable. He has a book on the golden age of Northumbria that I'll read in the autumn.

Just started:

  

Did a lot of reading about prehistory several decades back. At some point it disappeared off the secondary school curriculum (some genius secretary of state deciding that older history was best suited to primary children, later to secondary!) and my interests went elsewhere. A visit to Stonehenge last week (and a recent TV documentary series) made me want to re-familiarise myself with pre-Roman Britain. This one puts the focus on family and home as a guiding theme. 

[BillF]

10 hours ago, A Lark Ascending said:

Finished 'The Honourable Schoolboy' last week (long book!). Very, very good. Le Carre of this vintage spoils you for thriller writing - he takes his time with the narrative, often losing you in insider jargon, half-references to things you don't quite understand and there are long passages which are essentially about bureaucracy (a tremendous chapter about a meeting where Smiley tries to get approval for an operation from competing mandarins - the way he brings out the internal politics and jealousies and tracks Smiley's restrained nudging of the agenda is masterful). The main character - a foppish, seedy public school boy who is actually a ruthless operator - immediately put a picture of Boris Johnson in my head which stayed with me through the book! Wonderful depictions of Hong Kong, Vietnam, Laos, Thailand and Cambodia in 1975 especially in the second half when the 'action' picks up. 

 

 

Agreed - masterful writing. Really enjoyed that one - as I did all the more recent Le Carrés, which I discovered late.

[A Lark Ascending]

1 hour ago, BillF said:

Agreed - masterful writing. Really enjoyed that one - as I did all the more recent Le Carrés, which I discovered late.

I'm working my way forward, slowly. I read at least one of his more recent ones a few years back. Enjoyed it but it seemed more straightforward than his earlier style - you don't get the bureaucratic fogs that can be trying but ultimately give much of the atmosphere to the books. I have the recent biography on the shelves to read fairly soon - intrigued to know where all this came from.