What are you reading now?

[DracoM]

And more...................

[Beef Oven!]

What's not to like??

[cloughie]

What's not to like??

What's to like??

[Beef Oven!]

What's to like??

Where does one begin?

[cloughie]

Where does one begin?

You’ll be saying next ‘to tell the story of how great a love can be’!

[Conchis]

Ay well, mmm!

The title and the colour seem to have been cunningly chosen to ensnare Prince fans.

[Beef Oven!]

Julian Barnes - 'The Noise Of Time'

[Richard Tarleton]

Julian Barnes - 'The Noise Of Time'

How far have you got, Beef? I was disappointed by it.

And I'm fed up with the "small but perfectly formed" tendency amongst some of our contemporary "literary" novelists.

I spotted Julian Barnes near the Farmers' Market on Hampstead Heath once.

[Beef Oven!]

How far have you got, Beef? I was disappointed by it.

And I'm fed up with the "small but perfectly formed" tendency amongst some of our contemporary "literary" novelists.

I spotted Julian Barnes near the Farmers' Market on Hampstead Heath once.

About twenty pages. I'm a bit disappointed so far. But to be fair, it was late last night when I started it and I was tired. Maybe it will get bettter.

[Richard Barrett]

You’ll be saying next ‘to tell the story of how great a love can be’!

[Conchis]

G.W. Target - The Teachers

A 1960 novel, written 'in the style of James Joyce'. I have a feeling I might not stay the course....

[Tevot]

Timothy Snyder - The Road to Unfreedom

This covers how Vladimir Putin consolidated his hold on power in Russia by exploiting its sense of exceptionalism and by promoting the nationalistic and fascist ideas of the ideologue Ivan Ilyin (1883-1954) The book surveys how Putin set out to weaken Russia's near neighbours and chronicles how Facebook and other social media was weaponised to foment confusion and division in the Ukraine and The Baltic States. The extent of Russian interference in the Brexit Referendum and the US Presidential Election is also explored. Fascinating and horrifying reading imho.

[Pulcinella]

Any thoughts on this year's Man Booker shortlist?
I usually get the set from The Book People (used to be really cheap; now still good value at just unde4 £40 for the set), but this year's choices seem to be described as a rather depressing read, and I'm not sure I want to be made any gloomier than I feel at present (because of the prospect that dare not be mentioned in our threads).

https://www.thebookpeople.co.uk/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/qs_product_tbp?productId=964543&catalogId=10051&searchTerm=man+booker+2018

[Richard Tarleton]

Robbie Millen, The Times's literary editor, agrees with you -

Quick. Think of some depressing things. What about sexual abuse during the Troubles? Mass incarceration in women’s prisons. Dementia and abandonment. Any other gloomy thoughts? Post-traumatic stress disorder among homeless veterans. Deforestation. Slavery.
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the shortlist of the 2018 Man Booker prize. It was announced yesterday, not to a fanfare but to massed kazoos of disappointment.
Of course it’s unfair to reduce these six novels to one or two words. I even liked one of them unreservedly — Esi Edugyan’s uplifting Washington Black, about the adventures of an escaped 11-year-old slave from Barbados. But the overall list is as depressing as a drizzly February night in Finland’s fourth biggest city without booze. It is as if the judges were trying to concoct the most reader-repellent list possible.

And the judges have been saying that some of the books before them were in need of a good edit - "Inside some books was a better one, sometimes a thinner one, wanting to get out", says panel chairman Kwame Anthony Appiah. [So why put them on the short list, wonders someone in The Times online ]

So no! But I also feel short-changed by the sort of long short stories we get from Booker favourites like...well, you know who they are. I'm afraid it's nearly 30 years since I read and re-read a great Booker Prize winner - AS Byatt's Possession - many years I don't read any at all. The dangers of being guided by the shortlist, let alone the winner, underlined to me when I took Midnight's Children on holiday in 1982, which I found to be unreadable, and had to find something in the bookshop in Puerto Pollensa. I don't know what the Booker is for, really.

My current pile includes Ben Macintyre's new book on Oleg Gordievsky, Max Hastings's on the Vietnam War and David Gilmore's on The British In India (strong personal/family history interest in that). Just near the end of Yuval Noah Harari's 21 Lessons for the 21st Century, still gathering my thoughts on that.

[Richard Barrett]

I was disappointed by it.

Me too. I suppose it might be interesting for people who know nothing about DSCH, but the insights it provides into his character and thinking or his relationship to the Soviet regime aren't really any deeper than you'd get from a run-of-the-mill CD liner note.