Now reading...

[Brad]

I lost interest in the second one half way through but eventually did return to it and finish it. 

I started the third one but didn’t make it that far. One of these days I will return to it.  

[jlhoots]

Mohsin Hamid: Exit West

[soulpope]

[Matthew]

Even in Our Darkness: A Story of Beauty in a Broken Life by Jack Deere. Deere is famous in the charismatic world, at one point in his life working with John Wimber, founder of the Vineyard Church movement in Anaheim, CA. Not your typical memoir that goes from "glory to glory"; well written, but one of the saddest accounts I've read. Comes from a family background where his father committed suicide, and his mother had a difficult personality. Deere marries a woman, who turns out to have serious emotional issues stemming from being sexually abuse by her father (he did not find this out until later in the marriage, after she tried to commit suicide a number of times), and to top that all off, his son committed suicide at the age of 23. Numerous times in his life, he tells us, he put himself first, and everyone else second, and comments he used "proclaiming the gospel" as an excuse to hide the damage he was doing to family and friends by his actions from himself. His account of his relationship with Wimber is heartbreaking in this regard. He writes of coming to be aware of all this, and I get a heavy sense of sadness and regret as he looks over his life. "Knowing yourself," it turns out, is not as easy as it sounds.

Edited June 7, 2018 by Matthew

[soulpope]

Priceless read about one of the classical piano all-time greats ....

[ejp626]

Dickens' Hard Times.  Not enjoying this at all.  It is a total slog.  Gaskell's North and South, while on the same topic, is vastly better. 

Philip Roth's The Professor of Desire next.  That should definitely be more stimulating...

 

[Brad]

I finished All for Nothing and started this book

A very odd book. Written during the Ceausescu regime, it is absurdist literature but a little too out there for me. I read one review saying that it’s best digested in small pieces. Not for me. 

I have picked this one up by the great crime writer Dorothy Hughes

Edited June 9, 2018 by Brad

[paul secor]

Graham Greene: The Comedians

Great cover design by Geoff Grandfield

[BillF]

Earlier Greene for me.

[Brad]

I received this list from Penguin and thought it might be of interest.

Around the World in 32 Books 

[ejp626]

18 minutes ago, Brad said:

I received this list from Penguin and thought it might be of interest.

Around the World in 32 Books 

Interesting list.  I've only read 4.  I quite liked Half of a Yellow Sun. 

Might be a bit of a missed opportunity for Costa Rica to be represented by Joan Didion.

[jlhoots]

Tommy Orange: There There

[ejp626]

About halfway into Philip Roth's The Professor of Desire.  Not bad, though I preferred his Zuckerman novels. 

I'll read The Dying Animal next to close out the trilogy, then Banfield's Ancient Light. (Oops - Banville's Ancient Light)

Edited June 21, 2018 by ejp626
typo

[ejp626]

Midway through Banville's Ancient Light.  I didn't realize until too late that it is the third book of a trilogy, though they are fairly loosely linked and I don't feel I missed too much by skipping the others.  It reminds me in just a few ways of Robertson Davies's Deptford Trilogy, though I liked that considerably more.  I don't think it is terribly likely I will read the other two.

Edited June 21, 2018 by ejp626
typo

[jlhoots]

Bill Browder: Red Notice

[paul secor]

Karl Geary: Montpelier Parade

[sgcim]

 It's the end of the world.

[T.D.]

[ghost of miles]

[paul secor]

Evelyn Waugh: A Handful of Dust

[BillF]

4 hours ago, paul secor said:

Evelyn Waugh: A Handful of Dust

[Brad]

I was a Latin American Studies major and then a master's candidate so I'm returning to my "roots."

[Utevsky]

David Copperfield -- This was my first Dickens, at about 14.  Haven't gone back to it since then.  It's even better now.

 

[ejp626]

Kafka's Amerika (the newish translation).

 

Benjamin's The Immortalists has just turned up at the library, so that will be next.

[Brad]

On 6/9/2018 at 9:20 PM, Brad said:

I have picked this one up by the great crime writer Dorothy Hughes

After a few detours, I finished this book. It’s both a crime novel and a commentary on race relations in the early 60s as the accused is a black doctor who, but for his race, would be treated differently.  This is my second Hughes club and they’re well worth reading.