Now reading...

[BillF]

Not too happy with this one. Ghost written, but supposedly in Basie's own words, it too often descends to repeating what can be found in recorded or written sources, while the Count candidly admits "I don't really remember." So, too many passages read like this: "We began our tour of Europe in London on the third of October and spent the rest of the month hopping to The Hague, Paris, Brussels, Berghausen, Munich, Frankfurt, Helsinki, Stockholm, Milano, Koln, Hamburg, Berlin, Nancy, Antwerp, Zurich, Geneva, arriving back in Great Britain in time for Edinburgh, Scotland and a few days off in London before a four-night gig in Ronnie Scott's wonderful place."

Perhaps the best things are the anecdotes, for example this about the 1938 Joe Louis-Max Schmelling fight:

"John Hammond took me along as his guest, and he had ringside tickets. So what happens? We're getting settled in our seats just as the fight is about to begin, and I dropped my goddamn straw hat and it's rolling about down by my feet and I'm trying to pick it up. I'm bending down there looking for my hat so I can settle back in my seat and watch Joe take that cat apart, and everybody started jumping to their feet, hollering, and I looked up and the goddamn fight was all over."

And this about Billy Eckstine: "Whenever we are working together on the same bill somewhere, he is always subject to go out and introduce my set by telling the audience some joke about me, such as that I've been using that three-note tag phrase at the end of "One O'Clock Jump" ever since I first played it as an amen to the blessing for the Last Supper."

Edited July 8, 2017 by BillF

[jlhoots]

Don Winslow: The Force

[ejp626]

On 7/1/2017 at 6:11 AM, ejp626 said:

Currently in the middle of Rousseau's Confessions.  Perhaps he does protest a bit too much.  The edition I am reading is nearly 600 pages!

 

I slogged through 450 pages before finally throwing in the towel.  So tedious. 

Instead of The Confessions, this book should be titled Some Self-Recriminations, More Self-Justifications and 1000 Examples of How People I Trusted Done Me Wrong.

 

[paul secor]

Peter May: The Lewis Man

[HutchFan]

Just finished:

'

Genesis: Chapter & Verse
Fascinating reading -- at least for a long-time fan like myself.

 

Next up:

Eric Ambler - Journey Into Fear

[BillF]

2 hours ago, HutchFan said:

Just finished:

'

Genesis: Chapter & Verse
Fascinating reading -- at least for a long-time fan like myself.

 

Next up:

Eric Ambler - Journey Into Fear

Ambler's always a great read!

[HutchFan]

1 hour ago, BillF said:

Ambler's always a great read!

I've been meaning to pick up one of Ambler's books for years. Finally getting around to it.

I've read most of Alan Furst's novels, and Ambler seems to be the author to whom he's compared most often.

[BillF]

1 hour ago, HutchFan said:

I've been meaning to pick up one of Ambler's books for years. Finally getting around to it.

I've read most of Alan Furst's novels, and Ambler seems to be the author to whom he's compared most often.

I've never read Alan Furst. I must give him a try.

[T.D.]

1 hour ago, BillF said:

I've never read Alan Furst. I must give him a try.

Huge fan of Ambler, though I must say some of his classics feature improbably naive narrator/protagonists. A Coffin for Dimitrios is one of my all-time favorites (in spite of the narrator).

Alan Furst is pretty good in the "wartime historical fiction" genre, and I enjoyed the first few of his novels I read, but I got a little tired of his general style.

[Added] Have you read any of Philip Kerr's Bernie Gunther series? I like the series a lot and try to keep up with it (w. some lag in order to get library copies ).

Edited July 10, 2017 by T.D.

[HutchFan]

2 hours ago, T.D. said:

Alan Furst is pretty good in the "wartime historical fiction" genre, and I enjoyed the first few of his novels I read, but I got a little tired of his general style.

Yes, his more recent books seem to have become a bit formulaic. But the early novels -- particularly Night Soldiers -- are excellent, I think.

 

2 hours ago, T.D. said:

Have you read any of Philip Kerr's Bernie Gunther series? I like the series a lot and try to keep up with it (w. some lag in order to get library copies ).

Yes!  I've enjoyed those tremendously.

[HutchFan]

3 hours ago, BillF said:

I've never read Alan Furst. I must give him a try.

Begin with Night Soldiers.  It's his first (and best, imho).  

[BillF]

1 hour ago, HutchFan said:

Begin with Night Soldiers.  It's his first (and best, imho).  

Have made a library reservation for The Polish Officer. (They don't have Night Soldiers.)

[kinuta]

Has to be the definitive account of the end of the third reich.

Very readable and engrossing, never strays into dry academia.

[Larry Kart]

6 hours ago, BillF said:

Have made a library reservation for The Polish Officer. (They don't have Night Soldiers.)

That's a very good one, but the first three are dynamite and more or less form a trilogy.

[erwbol]

Has anybody here read Ibram X. Kendi's Stamped from the Beginning or formed an opinion on it?

[paul secor]

Penelope Lively: The Purple Swamp Hen and Other Stories

[paul secor]

James Joyce: Dubliners

[ejp626]

Just finished Jhumpa Lahiri's The Lowland.  It was ok, though I thought she chose an awkward ending.  I much preferred her previous novel, The Namesake.

I'm launching into Uzma Khan's Trespassing.

After that, Jane Eyre.  Incredibly this will be the first time I've read it, though I know the broad outlines of the plot.  In university, we read Wuthering Heights instead...

Edited July 15, 2017 by ejp626

[kinuta]

 

It's an ongoing mystery why this major work has never been made into a film or tv series.

Perhaps budgetary restraints prevented it at the time. It would make a great film.

Any casting suggestions ?

[BillF]

2 hours ago, kinuta said:

 

It's an ongoing mystery why this major work has never been made into a film or tv series.

Perhaps budgetary restraints prevented it at the time. It would make a great film.

Any casting suggestions ?

Yes, one of the best Le Carrés. 

Wikipedia's lengthy summary of the plot suggests filmmakers would have quite a job on their hands:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Honourable_Schoolboy

 

[sidewinder]

Short but very sweet..

[jlhoots]

Timothy Hallinan: Pulped

[BillF]

A review of the current movie - which I haven't seen - got me onto this. Melodramatic, yes, but a great page turner. As one reviewer called it, "unputdownable".

[paul secor]

Haruki Murakami: Men Without Women

[ejp626]

Nearing the halfway mark in Jane Eyre.  It's a strange case where I didn't read it as a kid, and as an adult I know the big secret, so it's hard to sustain the same interest a true first-time reader would have.

As soon as I am done with this, I'll go ahead and read Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys, as the two are interlinked.