What are you reading now?

[marthe]

At the moment, I'm halfway through "The Volcano Lover" by Susan Sontag.

[french frank]

The Essays of Elia, by Charles Lamb.

[verismissimo]

Just embarked on Edmund de Waal's The Hare with Green Eyes.

Like it from the start - he quotes Charles Swann/Proust on collecting:

Even when one is no longer attached to things, it’s still something to have been attached to them; because it was always for reasons which other people didn’t grasp...

[french frank]

Just embarked on Edmund de Waal's The Hare with Green Eyes.

Do you mean The Hare with Amber Eyes? Or has he written another one?

It's not that I know the book but I was just checking on him because he was on one of Radio 3's Work in Progress series a while back - 5-minute discursive talks, Monday to Friday, by writers, artists &c. For totally unrelated reasons I knew his aunt and my brother knew his father at one time, so I had a particular interest in him.

Edit: Did I misremember? Was it the John Tusa interview that I was thinking of?

[vinteuil]

after the version of Tristia this morning I thought I would try - for the umpteenth time - to see if I could get in to Senancour's Obermann. Well, it could be me - or the half bottle of beychevelle - or the self-indulgence and introspection of Senancour - but it brought on an early siesta... I shall try again tomorrow...

[french frank]

I was yesterday in Waterstone's university branch yesterday and was shocked to see it was closing in a couple of weeks' time. A two-university city and no university bookshop (not that it was a business decision - apparently the university wants the premises back )

Anyway, as there was a very small selection of sale goods, I bought the Political Writings of the Abbé Sieyès, including his debate with Tom Paine, and, of course, What is the Third Estate? It goes against my principles to buy a translation of something I can read in the original, but perhaps I should be secretly relieved ... It may not figure in More Pleasures of Reading

Senancour, Obermann, I know by name only - it never came my way.

[vinteuil]

Senancour, Obermann, I know by name only - it never came my way.

But it seems to have been important for many - not only Liszt, but also Matthew Arnold (whom I revere), who wrote two pomes on Obermann, and Sainte-Beuve (whom I respect), who wrote enthusiastically about it... and yet I find it all but unreadable...

[tony yyy]

I seem to keep starting books but never finishing them, probably because I don't understand them. At the moment, the main ones are:

Plato: Phaedo. I don't have much of a clue what he's on about but, irritating as it sometimes is, I'm determined to finish it one day.

Fulling: Aspects of Quantum Field Theory in Curved Space-Time. Probably well out of date by now.

Fortson: Indo-European Language and Culture. Only a beginner's book but beyond me, really.

I sometimes wonder why I bother.

[Anna]

I'm a bit like tony yyy, I may start something but find I abandon it. Yet, I feel if I have the time to read it should be something improving like Homer or Plato even if it means I don't enjoy it very much it's doing me good and I will be a more virtuous person

Have gone back now to John Donne, which I do really enjoy.

[Pianorak]

I am every bit like tony yyy in that respect. Encouraged by this Forum and always eager to improve myself I rashly ordered How to Live, A Life of Montaigne, by Sarah Bakewell, and The Complete Essays by M. de Montaigne. The latter, running to close of 1300 pages, should make a useful door stopper - probably sooner rather than later.
My current book: If It Bleeds by Duncan Campbell. It's a London gangland novel. Not my usual fare but as it was highly recommended on R4's A Good Read I thought I'll give it a go.

[Chris Newman]

I have had a light nostalgic read since Christmas. Firstly, a Christmas present. Daniel Tatarsky's Dan Dare: The Biography was a fascinating insight into Dan and Digby's adventures with the Rev Marcus Morris, Frank Hampson and Frank Bellamy. Not great literature but an insight into the struggles to build and gradual decline of a boys' comic that my generation loved.

I also read (rather belatedly as I found it in a remainder shop) Stephen Isserlis's Why Beethoven Threw the Stew. An hilarious romp through the lives of Bach, Beethoven, Stravinsky and others. I wish he had written it earlier as I am sure my grown-up kids would have loved me reading it to them in bed. Isserlis does not talk down to kids: his affectionate portrait of the high-pitch voiced Brahms is tempered by the tragic story of the unstable Hans Rott after Brahms (mistakenly, most of us would say) criticised his symphony.

Tonight I begin a heftier tome. I have heard amazing things about Dutchman Geert Mak's In Europe which charts (literally) a journey through the 20th Century by going to the places where European history occurred, meeting people, memories and sights. My usual bookshop perusal of three pages from different parts of the book revealed that Mak and his translator Sam Garrett have a very fine sense of style which for me is a strong reason to read any book.

[antongould]

For no better reason than I was tidying out the study, well sort of, The Good Companions by J. B. Priestley which I read as a Polytechnic student 42 years or so ago. Amazingly I am enjoying it - would any popular novel of today "set the scene" for the first 250 pages and 250 pages of very small print at that!

[salymap]

Small print, the story of my life at the moment. Idon't think new specs, special lights etc make any difference. I end up taking off my specs, shutting one eye [!] and peering closely with the other. What I am attempting to read is the Richard Morrison book about a century of the LSO. I am also re-reading Balletomania by Arnold Haskell, after a gap of many years. I want to find some large print Charles Lamb, FF has awakened my interest.

[Sparafucile]

Hi,
I'm off work at present, having suffered a recurrance of the stress-related episode suffered last autumn. I have OK days and less-OK days, but I'm coping and reassembling myself, like a flat-pack bookcase with a few bits left over that I don't know what to do with, or what their purpose is. Not a good place to be in.

Thank heaven for books!
Finished last week, Lady Audley's Secret, quite wonderful, a real romp!, followed rapidly by Susan Hill's ghost story, The Mist in the Mirror. Not quite M.R James or Dickens, but enjoyable and atmospheric. Now about a third of the way into Adam Bede, and loving it. Beautiful writing, so evocative and wryly funny.

[johnb]

I was yesterday in Waterstone's university branch yesterday and was shocked to see it was closing in a couple of weeks' time. A two-university city and no university bookshop (not that it was a business decision - apparently the university wants the premises back )

I was shocked when I paid a visit a couple of weeks ago. Not only that but Blackwells (George's as was) seemed to be undergoing renovations and was limited to one 'room' with an exceedingly megre range.

This now leaves the large Waterstones as the only major bookshop in Bristol and that, in spite of its large floor space, only appears to stock relatively popular books - e.g. the books on classical music or fine art are almost at vanishing point. (Strangely, I seem to remember the Bath branch has, or had, a very music wider range.)