What are you reading now?

[verismissimo]

I'm wading through Malcolm Gladwell's Blink. Not as good as Outliers, which I loved.

[Don Basilio]

Re-reading Barbara Pym's Jane and Prudence, (which is my least favourite of her published novels) and The Lord of the Rings, for the first time since my teens.

[french frank]

Oh, do I really have to confess? :cool2:

On the recommendation of the absent arcades, I'm half way through Marx: A Guide for the Perplexed, by John Seed (if arcades looks in, I'm up to page 117 but events have rather overtaken things).

I never got into reading Barbara Pym as a habit though I fancy she could become addictive to the unresisting. I've just inspected my bookshelves and there's nothing between JB Priestley and Joseph Roth so the one I had has obviously found its way to the Amnesty bookshop. But she does create an engaging 'world', doesn't she?

The Lord of the Rings, I think I (still) have but it's never been reread.

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

.. i am reading The Brain That Changes Itself by Norman Doidge - really excellent, this kind of book is so rarely this good!

http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=Qw7qj5nXSPUC&pg=PA298&dq=doidge+plastic+brain&hl=en&ei=HrvvTL_cEJG4hAfw9L3RAw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=book-thumbnail&resnum=1&ved=0CDIQ6wEwAA

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Harry Potter - all the books in chronological order.

[Bax-of-Delights]

I have all the Harry Potter books as well - but they remain unread (well, I did read OUT LOUD the first two books to my step-daughters when they were of an age. I had to adopt "voices" for the various characters to distinguish them and I have to admit that some were probably inappropiate - but the kids didn't spot it!). The set of first editions are there as an investment these days.

At present I'm reading Massie: Nicholas and Alexandra. Fascinated by the juxtaposition of a private tragedy (the haemophiliac son, Alexis) and the wider political upheaval, as well as the disastrous involvement of Rasputin in the Tsar's family. If the attempted assassination of Rasputin in 1913 had been successful and the chauffeur of Franz Ferdinand's car in Sarajevo had taken the intended diversion rather than the wrong turning then the whole of 20th century history would have been so different. (But the Royal families of all the European states were such blustering buffoons AND related to each other....)

[Exonian]

Bax-of-Delights :

I hope you do not mind me replying, but would add that Massie's book still holds up very well, though written in 1967 and superceded by any mount of new theory and information. You may also be interested in his updated version published in 1995 as 'The Romanovs : The Final Chapter', which is also very good.

[Bax-of-Delights]

Thanks Exonian.
It is a book that has been on my shelf for years, decades even, and in the small hours of the morning a week or so ago, unable to sleep I browsed the shelves here and decided I might like to embark on the account. It reads very well and sold very well (I was at the UK publisher when it came out and it got an extra boost when the film was released) although I do realise that history is always being revised as documents and new information comes to light. I had my eye on the book you mention as a follow-up so will certainly avail myself of your suggestion.
Best wishes

[Stanley Stewart]

Now steeped in Wm Boyd's, "Any Human Heart" and the linear line of the journals, 1923 - 1991, should complement my viewing of the C4, Sunday evening, transmission, adapted by Boyd, for the next three weeks. Was pleased to get a hardback "as new" edition from Amazon for a few pounds. A stylish read of "riotous and disorganised reality".

[Russ]

Strangely enough, Any Human Heart is one of the few Boyds I haven't read, and I wished I had. (Cos of the TV version, y'know - that dilemma - will it spoil the book, or will reading the book first make the TV a let down?)

Russ

[StephenO]

Terry Pratchett's Unseen Academicals. I keep meaning to reread the whole Discworld series from the beginning but never seem to have time.

[Stanley Stewart]

A quick hunch, Russ. Part 1 (of 4 parts - 6 hours, in toto) is mainly scene-setting and starts when the protagonist, Logan Mountstuart, is in his 80s and we are gradually introduced to his younger self, then as an Oxford student with the older character intercut. Three actors play the same role. In turn, the novel is linear and the journals and footnotes can instantly provide a sense of texture which will take longer to establish in the TV drama. I'm probably getting the best of both worlds but will reserve judgement until the end of the series although I'm likely to enjoy both in tandem. I assume that the novel will be reissued to coincide with the TV presentation. The copy I got from Amazon for a few pounds, an American pressing, is in splendid condition.

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

..just read the 2 Dec issue of LRB, the punchline to an excellent diary by August Kleinzahler had me laughing so much i spilt the coffee all over myself and bed ....

LRB = London Review of Books

[umslopogaas]

I just finished reading two classics, and re-reading a third. First time for Melville's 'Moby-Dick' and Stella Gibbons' 'Cold Comfort Farm'. The first is gripping and surprisingly easy to read: I'd always thought of it as one of those unreadable classics, you know, the ones that everyone has on their shelves and no-one has actually read. In fact, I couldnt put it down and stayed up to two in the morning to read the ultimate fate of the crazed Captain Ahab. And 'Cold Comfort Farm' is one of the most wickedly funny reads I can remember: the final metamorphosis of mad Aunt Ada is an absolute hoot.

The re-read was Thomas Mann's 'Doctor Faustus'. A very dark masterpiece indeed and even more forbidding on a re-read, when you know what's going to happen. But required reading for anyone with an interest in twentieth century music. Mann had really done his homework. Do others know this work? I'm usually met with incomprehension when I mention it. Handle with care, I swear I can smell burning sulphur whenever I open it.

For a bit of light relief, I'm now reading Jasper Fforde's 'Lost in a Good Book'. A friend recommended the first in the series, 'The Eyre Affair' and I enjoyed it so much I've started on the sequel, of which, happily, there are several more. Funny, knowing, littered with literary references which are rather maddening to me, because I often recognise their existence but dont know the work to which they refer. The further adventures of Thursday Next, literary detective, and, I suspect the imminent reappearence of arch-villian Acheron Hades, despite having been despatched at the end of 'The Eyre Affair'.

[Bax-of-Delights]

umslopogaas:

I always thought Moby Dick was one of those classic unreadables and shied away from it but I did pick it up last year and at least begin it (a house move somewhat interrupted the subsequent flow). I also found it easier to read than I imagined possibly because Melville kindly chopped it up into very manageable shortish chapters. I shall persevere.

Jasper Fforde I know quite well and he was kind enough to include me as a character in "Something Rotten". I appear on p345 and following. A little detective work will work out my actual name...