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[medjuck]

1 hour ago, kinuta said:

Depends. If I can't get into it at all, I'll stop at 50pgs.

If I'm on the fence I might read a third of the book.

Agree with your second sentence completely.

 

 

I'm just  about the same but I must admit I usually stop at 50 pages if I'm not into it-- though that rarely happens. 

[Brad]

50 pages seems to be a good indicator. 

[Matthew]

On 5/6/2019 at 6:49 AM, mjazzg said:

very much enjoying this. Took me a while to warm to it but thoroughly warmed now.  I still remember the impact of 'Time Of Our Singing' ('Orfeo', a lot less)

An apt follow on from this that I've just finished

 

I admit that I gave up on Richard Powers after Galatea 2.2: A Novel -- it was the law of diminishing returns. Might dip my toe again.... maybe....

[ejp626]

I'm not very good at abandoning books, but I am getting better, having learned that a book I am not digging doesn't miraculously turn around and get better, and indeed, often the author really can't stick the landing (at least for me).  I gave William Trevor's The Boarding-House 50 pages, but only 30 to Mitzi Bytes (a novel about the unmasking of a mommy blogger).  And for novels that really squick me out (father-daughter incest or violence against women and children) it's more like 10 pages.  I was so disappointed with PKD's Confessions of a Crap Artist, where the narrator feels humiliated by having to buy his sister a box of Tampax, so he ends up punching her in the stomach and getting into a real brawl.  I could not even contemplate finishing the novel after that scene.  Basically felt the same about the loathsome narrator from Donleavy's The Ginger Man and won't ever finish that one up either.

[Larry Kart]

As good as any Brit-based espionage fiction I know (and that includes LeCarre)  is Mick Herron's series of Slough House novels: "Slow Horses," "Dead Lions," "Real Tigers," "Spook Street," and "London Rules." And there's another after that "Joe Country," which I have yet to see on a library shelf. Finished "Spook Street" last night  -- superb. Grim when grimness is called for, with bouts of urgent action/tension and surprises, Herron's novels also can be  acidly funny but without undercutting the grimness and tension -- quite a feat.

From an interview with Herron:

1.       Mr. Herron ... your new thriller, DEAD LIONS, comes out on May 7, 2013. Tell us a bit more about this book.

It’s the second in a series, the first book being SLOW HORSES. The so-called slow horses are failed spies; spooks who’ve messed up important assignments and been banished from the centre of operations to Slough House, a building in a fairly seedy corner of London, where they’re given humdrum tasks meant to bore them into resigning. But – twice so far – they’ve found themselves at the centre of major events.

In DEAD LIONS, this takes the form of the reappearance of a Soviet-era bogeyman; a Moscow Centre agent who never really existed, but who was dreamed up in order to get the Western intelligence services chasing their tails. When a former spy who once claimed to have encountered the mythical Alexander Popov in the flesh is found dead on a bus in Oxfordshire, it begins to seem as if Popov might not have been a legend after all.

2.       Who is Jackson Lamb and how did you go about creating his character?

Lamb, head spook at Slough House, is a former Cold War operative gone to seed. Unlike the others [in Slough House], he has no desire to return to where the action is – his experiences have left him with a jaundiced view of the way the intelligence services operate, and he prefers the lazy life: tormenting his underlings, drinking too much, and eating Chinese takeaways. He’s overweight, grubby, has appalling personal habits, and spends most of his life in a darkened room.

Much of the time, his character is determined by my wondering, “What’s the worst possible thing anyone could say in this situation?”, and then having him say it. But I wouldn’t try putting anything over him. He’s quicker, and more cunning, than he looks.

[kinuta]

[ghost of miles]

[erwbol]

Just started reading Total Sh*t Donald Trump by Paul Orwell. Released today and free on Kindle: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07QMSX3WD

 

 

Hey, is that an On the Corner box set in Donnie's hands?

[Brad]

I have avoided reading any books on current politics.  It pervades our life as it is and I don't want to spend my spare time reading about it.  That is my view anyway.  

 

[Brad]

[kinuta]

[kinuta]

2nd part of the trilogy.

[Marzz]

Superb Edith Wharton novel - Age of Innocence (1920) that I first read many years ago.

Edited May 16, 2019 by Marzz

[Marzz]

On 4/3/2019 at 8:06 PM, ejp626 said:

It is pretty hard to tell about translations, which is most faithful vs. which is most personally appealing.  I did compare 3 translations of Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita and ultimately liked Pevear/Volokhonsky the best.

I believe I now have all the major novels by Dostoevsky translated by them, as well as Anna Karenina and War and Peace.

I missed your post until now - 6 weeks later!! Coincidentally I just bought the Pevear/Volokhonsky translation of Brothers Karamazov last weekend. The local bookshop has recently stocked a large number of the Penguin "Everyman's Library" editions and Karamazov just happened to be their translation. Never got around to reading this one for some reason.

Edited May 16, 2019 by Marzz

[ejp626]

13 minutes ago, Marzz said:

I missed your post until now - 6 weeks later!! Coincidentally I just bought the Pevear/Volokhonsky translation of Brothers Karamazov last weekend. The local bookshop has recently stocked a large number of the Penguin "Everyman's Library" editions and Karamazov just happened to be their translation. Never got around to reading this one for some reason.

Hope you enjoy it.  I'll never be an expert in such matters, but P/V do the job well for me.  I'll probably be reading their Crime and Punishment this fall and maybe Karamazov in another year or two.

[Brad]

I’m not a big fan of theirs. I don’t care for their translation of The Death of Ivan Illyich and Other Stories. I actually may seek out another translation. Their translation seems lifeless. 

1 hour ago, Marzz said:

Superb Edith Wharton novel - Age of Innocence (1920) that I first read many years ago.

Did you ever read Ethan Frome. That is amazing. 

[Marzz]

On 5/16/2019 at 5:54 AM, Brad said:

I’m not a big fan of theirs. I don’t care for their translation of The Death of Ivan Illyich and Other Stories. I actually may seek out another translation. Their translation seems lifeless. 

Did you ever read Ethan Frome. That is amazing. 

Yes!  Actually I've read it 3 times, Brad! The first time I was 'forced' to in High School and didn't really care for it - although I did enjoy the writing and it was mercifully short. But now it resonates with me deeply. Funny how that can sometimes happen with age/experience. I love her writing style. Incredible to me how she can pack so, so much into relatively few words.

I've also read and enjoyed 'House of Mirth'. Have you (or anyone else) read Custom of the Country or perhaps another Wharton novel that you'd recommend?

Edited May 17, 2019 by Marzz

[Brad]

10 minutes ago, Marzz said:

Yes!  Actually I've read it 3 times, Brad! The first time I was 'forced' to in High School and didn't really care for it - although I did enjoy the writing and it was mercifully short. But now it resonates with me deeply. Funny how that can sometimes happen with age/experience. I love her writing style. Incredible to me how she can pack so, so much into relatively few words.

I've also read and enjoyed 'House of Mirth'. Have you (or anyone else) read Custom of the Country or perhaps another Wharton novel that you'd recommend?

Marzz, that was the only one I’ve read so far. I was in a used book shop recently and picked it up and found it moving. That’s the only I’ve read so far. I take it you enjoyed House of Mirth?

[Marzz]

17 hours ago, Brad said:

Marzz, that was the only one I’ve read so far. I was in a used book shop recently and picked it up and found it moving. That’s the only I’ve read so far. I take it you enjoyed House of Mirth?

Yes, very much so. Given that you liked Ethan Frome I'm sure you'd enjoy it as well. Or Age of Innocence. Some of the themes carry over.

[Brad]

12 hours ago, Marzz said:

Yes, very much so. Given that you liked Ethan Frome I'm sure you'd enjoy it as well. Or Age of Innocence. Some of the themes carry over.

Thanks. I was at the used bookstore today and they had Custom of the Country so I picked that up.  

[kinuta]

[jlhoots]

Lisa Ko: The Leavers

[ghost of miles]

Finally getting around to reading this recent biography of Chester Himes (by Lawrence P. Jackson, author of an excellent study of mid-20th-century African-American writers):

[Matthew]

Cane by Jean Toomer

[Larry Kart]

https://www.amazon.com/Receding-Tide-Vicksburg-Gettysburg-Campaigns/dp/1426205104/ref=sr_1_1?crid=COCLBE2E683Q&keywords=receding+tide&qid=1558289330&s=books&sprefix=Receding+tide%2Caps%2C1003&sr=1-1

Probably the best battle accounts and among the best campaign accounts I've ever read. One always feels that author Edwin C. Bearss has zeroed in on the crucial moments and levels of decision-making, in many cases (e.g. Gettysburg), in ways that were new to me. I knew not much about Vicksburg, a good deal about Gettysburg, but didn't know how closely interwoven those two campaigns were -- in time (Vicksburg surrendered on July 4, 1863; the last day of combat at Gettysburg was the day before) and in strategic importance. Indeed, the fall of Vicksburg was of immense importance -- opening up the Mississippi to commerce from the Union North to the perviously captured port of New Orleans and virtually severing the South from the slave-holding states in the southwest, e.g. Texas, Arkansas. Further, I had no idea that Grant's campaign against Vicksburg was such a masterly and complex act of generalship and of political savvy too.

That Robert E. Lee pretty much screwed the pooch at Gettysburg was not news to me, but Bears leads one to see that given the circumstances (Lee was prone to issuing ambiguous orders, and he had lost a host of key subordinate commanders (Stonewall Jackson, in particular) who pretty much knew how to read Lee's mind and/or were aggressive in the right ways on their own hook; plus as is well known, Jeb Stuart's rather narcissistic adventurism before and during the battle deprived Lee of the cavalry's key role as the eyes of his army.

The battle then, painting in broad strokes, came down to heroic fighting by many units on both sides, a lack of leadership by a fair number of Confederate commanders, and a lot of excellent leadership by a good many Union commanders under Meade (Winfield Scott Hancock was virtually everywhere on the field at Gettysburg, wheeling/hurling reserves into place just as needed; and Meade himself made some crucial good decisions and no bad ones, unless one considers his decision not to attack Lee's withdrawing forces on July 4th to be one such. In the aftermath, Lincoln thought it was a grave error; Bearss' verdict: "Lee wants to shorten his battle line on July 4, so he orders Ewell to fall back through Gettysburg [i.e. the town] and dig in along Oak and Seminary Ridges. Soon breastworks and rifle pits extend for two and a half miles ... on the western slope of the ridge line, hidden by trees. If Meade attacks on July 4 it will be across open ground against well-defended positions."

Also, Beers takes  some of the air out of the balloon of one stalwart Union officer, Joshua Chamberlin,  who also was a great promoter of his own achievements and those of his men at Little Round Top on the far left on July 3, while Bearss turns a spotlight on the arguably no less important and  almost certainly more stalwart defense on the far right of Culp's Hill (the Union forces there faced much greater odds) under the leadership of  the almost forgotten Gen. George Greene and Col. David Ireland.