What are you reading now?

[MrGongGong]

Middle England by Jonathan Coe. Highly recommended partly-comic take on the “events” of recent years, revisiting characters first seen in The Rotters Club.

[LMcD]

Middle England by Jonathan Coe. Highly recommended partly-comic take on the “events” of recent years, revisiting characters first seen in The Rotters Club.

I greatly enjoyed it, as I did the previous two - I take it you've read The Closed Circle? Have just started 'Paris Echo' by Sebastian Faulks.

[vinteuil]

'Falk' by Joseph Conrad.

... many thanks to DracoM for this - it inspired me to read Falk (marvellous) - and then to move on to more and more Conrad : Because of the Dollars (also the play based on it Laughing Anne), il Conde, The Idiots, Tomorrow (also the play One Day More), An Outpost of Progress, The Tale...

Now time to re-try the biggies - to see if I can get to the end of Nostromo...

[ ... I see I was here back in 2016 -

... can't fault your taste, umslopogaas.

Yes, time to plunge in to Conrad again, I think.

I have to confess that last time I tackled Nostromo I never quite made it to the end - ( I was reassured when meeting an old university friend, now a Conrad scholar, who said that the ending of Nostromo was in any case an irresolvable mess ) - but I loved what I did manage to get through.

Heart of Darkness, just wonderful. And another favourite - The Secret Agent...

good reading!

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[Rjw]

I greatly enjoyed it, as I did the previous two - I take it you've read The Closed Circle? Have just started 'Paris Echo' by Sebastian Faulks.

I read The Rotters Club and The Closed Circle prior to publication of Middle England. I felt that Jonathan Coe, who I have really enjoyed over the past 20 years, was just sorting out the loose ends. Rotters Club was a cracker.

[gradus]

Who Owns England by Guy Shrubsole. A revealing and fascinating book likely to stir latent revolutionary fervour (if present) in the reader.

[muzzer]

I greatly enjoyed it, as I did the previous two - I take it you've read The Closed Circle? Have just started 'Paris Echo' by Sebastian Faulks.

Yes I’ve read the previous two. I find Coe very readable, and I like the references to a quasi imagined British past of sit coms, which has to be at least partly mocking, and the shared past, typified by the 1977 Morecambe and Wise Christmas Show - which is genuinely affecting. This is a poor summary, of course. Where I part company is that I would like to believe that a novel of our times would be more innovative linguistically, but that of course marks me as trapped by a modernism which is no longer current ;) Where is today’s Nabokov, Bellow, Murdoch, Gaddis, Spark?

[Bella Kemp]

Yes I’ve read the previous two. I find Coe very readable, and I like the references to a quasi imagined British past of sit coms, which has to be at least partly mocking, and the shared past, typified by the 1977 Morecambe and Wise Christmas Show - which is genuinely affecting. This is a poor summary, of course. Where I part company is that I would like to believe that a novel of our times would be more innovative linguistically, but that of course marks me as trapped by a modernism which is no longer current ;) Where is today’s Nabokov, Bellow, Murdoch, Gaddis, Spark?

I might suggest that too many novels these days have been produced following MAs in Creative Writing and writing courses - yes, many of these books are pacy and exciting, the characters are well-drawn and the setting believable, but frankly they might all have been devised by a computer program. All the writers you cite here might be identified by a page of their writing as easily as you could distinguish between Haydn and Mozart, Beethoven and Brahms. I offer a challenge: can anyone here suggest a living writer whose identity might be revealed in a paragraph?

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I offer a challenge: can anyone here suggest a living writer whose identity might be revealed in a paragraph?

Martin Amis, Ali Smith, Toni Morrison, Jeanette Winterson, Colm Toibin ... (I've given five to respond to muzzer's last question, too I think I'd also recognise Nicola Barker and Peter Ackroyd in a few sentences.)

[LMcD]

I might suggest that too many novels these days have been produced following MAs in Creative Writing and writing courses - yes, many of these books are pacy and exciting, the characters are well-drawn and the setting believable, but frankly they might all have been devised by a computer program. All the writers you cite here might be identified by a page of their writing as easily as you could distinguish between Haydn and Mozart, Beethoven and Brahms. I offer a challenge: can anyone here suggest a living writer whose identity might be revealed in a paragraph?

Mick Herron.
Antony Beevor
David Starkey
Garrison Keillor

[muzzer]

Martin Amis, Ali Smith, Toni Morrison, Jeanette Winterson, Colm Toibin ... (I've given five to respond to muzzer's last question, too I think I'd also recognise Nicola Barker and Peter Ackroyd in a few sentences.)

Happy to accept all of those :)

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

[Bella Kemp]

Excellent work!

[LMcD]

What does the icon above the beer indicate, and to which posting does the beer refer? (Same questions apply to the following post).

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

What does the icon above the beer indicate

"I'll drink to that" (or similar "comradely" sentiments. A single beer means "cheers"/"thanks"/"I owe you one")

and to which posting does the beer refer?

The one immediately preceding (if somebody posts "in between" whilst I'm writing a post, I edit in a quotation from the post to which I was replying).

[Richard Barrett]

Mick Herron.
Antony Beevor
David Starkey
Garrison Keillor

John Banville
Elena Ferrante
Salman Rushdie