What are you reading now?

[Joseph K]

I've just finished reading J. G. Ballard's The Unlimited Dream Company. It's the most surreal book I've ever read - and that is exactly something I'm after. Superb book.

I have found this interesting interpretation of this novel -

http://www.holli.co.uk/udc/text.htm

The idea that it might contain elements of fascism didn't altogether elude me as I read it. However, some of the symptoms of fascism are not the exclusive preserve thereof. The kind of psyche conjured in the novel is akin to psychosis - 'confusion between inner and outer worlds' or (obviously) a dream world. I think there are many facets of the novel which contradict each other - indeed, it is in these contradictions that lies the work's great richness. It evokes in the reader the kind of disconnection from reality that is the preserve of certain altered states of consciousness, and is like living for a while in a surrealist painting. There are quite a few uncomfortable taboo sexual aspects, namely paedophilia, though these are recognised quite dispassionately by the narrator and IIRC recognised as being disturbing, but there is almost a sense that, given the reactions from other characters towards this, it's like there is a conspiracy about this; indeed, not only this, but a conspiracy about the narrator's other transgressions. I'd say the weirdness is counterpointed by just enough reality for it to throw the weirdness into relief, if that makes sense. While there are elements of fascism and demagoguery, there is also a fair amount of religious imagery and the ending or climax is a kind of transcendence. It induces in this reader more than one kind of disconnection so that all one can do is stand back and marvel at this feat of imagination.

[DracoM]

Ballard one of my favourites. Try John Christopher's 'Death of Grass' as well. Makes both environmental and post-nuclear concerns very clear.

If you wanted some more hard reading, I am being propelled through JM Coetzee's novel 'The Age of Iron'. The real stuff about South Africa and the months of rioting et etc. that eventually led to the end of Apartheid.

Crikey.

[Joseph K]

Ballard one of my favourites. Try John Christopher's 'Death of Grass' as well. Makes both environmental and post-nuclear concerns very clear.

If you wanted some more hard reading, I am being propelled through JM Coetzee's novel 'The Age of Iron'. The real stuff about South Africa and the months of rioting et etc. that eventually led to the end of Apartheid.

Crikey.

[muzzer]

Where are you, Jim? You’re needed now more than ever.

[LMcD]

(Re)reading 'A Short Walk from Harrods' by Dirk Bogarde.

[gradus]

Self and I by Matthew De Abaitua. The author was Will Self's amanuensis for a 6 month period in the late nineties. The subtitle 'A Memoir of Literary Ambition' catches it well.

[Joseph K]

Self and I by Matthew De Abaitua. The author was Will Self's amanuensis for a 6 month period in the late nineties. The subtitle 'A Memoir of Literary Ambition' catches it well.

Haven't read that but it looks interesting.

I am looking forward to Will Self's own memoir, which will be published in November.

[Pulcinella]

Tombland, by CJ Sansom, the latest in his Brother Shardlake series, finally on the shelves in the local library (I wasn't that desperate to bother reserving it!).
Ideal outdoor (garden) reading matter as a break from the new Tippett biography.

[LMcD]

When I was 10 years old, and knew next to nothing about world affairs, I became aware of a fierce battle being fought at a place called Dienbienphu. Max Hastings's 'Vietnam, An Epic History of a Tragic War', describes this highly significant event in the light of what came before and what came after. He effortlessly intersperses his exposition of the overall picture with frequently harrowing personal reminiscences. I'm only 50 pages or so in and am completely hooked! Antony Beevor has declared this to be MH's masterpiece, and it's easy to see why.

[Stanfordian]

Tombland, by CJ Sansom, the latest in his Brother Shardlake series, finally on the shelves in the local library (I wasn't that desperate to bother reserving it!).
Ideal outdoor (garden) reading matter as a break from the new Tippett biography.

Library! The council has shut ours.

[Padraig]

Library! The council has shut ours.

Too bad Stan. Ours has reopened after a refurbishment.

If you know where to find a portrait of Madison, you'll know what I'm reading just now.

[LMcD]

Library! The council has shut ours.

Credit where its due to Suffolk County Council and its partners: our library now incorporates a CAB-style help desk for those with social security queries and the like and upstairs meeting rooms, and hosts mother-and-children play and reading groups and a weekly cake and plant stall - and it's now open 7 days a week (it was previously closed on Mondays). I may be one of its most assiduous members, as I'm constantly reserving books and occasionally rent DVDs or classic or recent TV series and films. Book reservations are free, and DVDs are £1 a week (£3 for 'premium', i.e. recently released, films). AND the library's book purchasing fund has been ring-fenced.

[DracoM]

The Dangling Man by Saul Bellow

[Richard Tarleton]

When I was 10 years old, and knew next to nothing about world affairs, I became aware of a fierce battle being fought at a place called Dienbienphu. Max Hastings's 'Vietnam, An Epic History of a Tragic War', describes this highly significant event in the light of what came before and what came after. He effortlessly intersperses his exposition of the overall picture with frequently harrowing personal reminiscences. I'm only 50 pages or so in and am completely hooked! Antony Beevor has declared this to be MH's masterpiece, and it's easy to see why.

I'm looking forward to this, it's next on my pile!

I'm currently reading Javier Cercas's El monarca de las sombras (Monarch of Shadows), a true memoir in novel form of the author's quest to discover the reality behind a great uncle nobody talked about because he fought on the fascist side in the Civil War - and was killed aged 19 in the Ebro Offensive in 1938. Cercas's parents moved from a tiny village near Trujillo in Extremadura to Catalunya when they were young, but he still has relations and a house back in the village. Interviewing surviving family members and friends he pieces together a much more complex and nuanced story than he had imagined, and he explores why people of similar social and economic backgrounds found themselves on opposite sides in a dreadful civil war - people who had travelled no further than Trujillo or Caceres in their lives. Curious format - a novel and not a novel - not unlike his 2003 novel Soldados de Salamina (Soldiers of Salamis) which also delves into a real but shadowy episode in the Civil War.

[Mal]

My library had a new copy Salinger's Catcher in the Rye, so I thought I'd read it again, after several decades. It's holding up quite well. Brings back memories of "dangling boyhood".