What are you reading now?

[muzzer]

I have just started Enlightenment by Sarah Perry. I never read anything new so this is a punt for me. And it’s great.

[Pulcinella]

Man in the Dark, Paul Auster.

The New York Trilogy, Paul Auster.
£3.99 in Oxfam last week!

[kernelbogey]

Man in the Dark, Paul Auster.

[richardfinegold]

The Hate You Give, a coming of age book whose narrator is an adolescent black girl who is driving with a childhood drug dealing friend and watches him being killed by a policeman during a routine traffic stop. The story rises above trope-ism because the narrator lives in a gang infested ghetto but commutes to a largely white private school and has a white boyfriend who lives in a house with black servants. She feels as if she fully doesn’t belong to either milieu.

[Xerber]

I'm wading through Malcolm Gladwell's Blink. Not as good as Outliers, which I loved.
As I prepare for a nursing essay, I found valuable assistance through https://www.nursingpaper.com/discounts/ Their service ensures top-notch essays, allowing me to focus on my studies while saving money. It's a win-win for my academic journey and my love for literature!

The Shining by Stephen King

[Jonathan]

Having been disappointed with The Left Handed Booksellers of London a few weeks ago, I returned to a more familiar author for the next read; Tom Holt and "The Eight Reindeer of the Apocalypse", much better! Now on the 8th Rivers of London book, "Lies Sleeping" by Ben Aaronovitch.

Once I get back home from holiday, I'll resume working on my 3rd novel. Book 2 will be published on 14Jun2024 ?. Publicity will be in place before then too!!

[smittims]

I've just begun The Waves for,, I think, the fourth time, and am , as always with Virginia Woolf, enjoying it more than before.

[LMcD]

Currently enjoying 'Adrian Mole And The Weapons Of Mass Destruction'. Next up is 'The Battle Of The River Plate - A Grand Delusion' by Richard Woodman.

[AHR]

I agree on L Woolf. Read many years ago but still fondly remembered. And on 'The Ambassadors.' We are reading it at a book every two days, much how we navigated 'The Man Without Qualities', 50 pages a day more or less. It doesn't take long to warm to Strether.

[smittims]

I think I prefer The Ambassadors even to The Wings of the Dove and certainly to The Golden Bowl, but it doesn't have ahigh critical reputation.

I'm reading Downhill all the way by Leonard Woolf, for the Umpteenth time. Oneof the most readable writers; I'd love to have met him.

[AHR]

Henry James, 'The Ambassadors', last read forty years ago. I'm reading it for an online [social media but NOT X] reading group to which I belong.

[Padraig]

Published four years ago, but probably attracting more attention lately.

Denis Bradley Peace Comes Dropping Slow: My life in the Troubles.

Published recently, not entirely irrelevant to your choice f f.

[french frank]

Looking forward to reading Rashid Khalidi's The Hundred Year's War on Palestine. Very well reviewed but there are a few warning lights: a Wikipedia article of which the neutrality is disputed (of the article not the book), a Guardian review by an author on the same subject flagged at the bottom as 'This article was amended on 7 and 9 May 2020 to comply with Guardian style'. Eh??. I can see opportunities for propaganda (and I'm probably sympathetic to the general bias), so it will be good to keep a critical approach. Factually, it will certainly be useful.

Published four years ago, but probably attracting more attention lately.

[richardfinegold]

Richard

Baughen's point was that the British, American, French and Germans were all beset by issues with aircraft being unable to fulfil their design criteria. The reason so many aircraft from the 1930s are unknown is because they did not remain in service too long. They ether quickly became obsolete or, more often the case, performed poorly. It is quite an interesting book to read if you ever have been involved with procurement.

I am crrently reading Harry Sidebottom's "The Falling sky." I picked this up cheaply and was interested as it is a fictionalised account set during the civil war between Postumus and Gallienus in 265 AD and alot of the action takes play in Autun and Lyon which I both know . The first few chapters were dreadful and I wondered if this book was really intended or teenagers. As I have progressed, it is interesting for the historical context even though I find the dialogue to be a bit crass.

I am not disputing that French aircraft were inferior to every one else in 1940. The point that I keep making is that they didn’t use them in a time of dire need. Inferior or not, it was s—- hit the fan time. German columns were bunched in the Ardennes for a few days-even a Blitzkreig can’t squeeze an Army through a toothpaste tube- and inferior planes or not, an attack at that point would have been preferable, and done some damage, compared to leaving them in their hangers.
Smittems point that the French were concerned that a bomb might land on the wrong side of the Ardennes border and provoke some sort of incident is nonsense. By that time the French and Germans had been actively fighting each other in Norway and the Phoney War was over. The Germans had attacked French Civilians as well as Military from the air in the first day of the assault on France, not to mention Belgium. Hitting German columns whether they were on one side of the Border or the other was meaningless-the genie was out of the bottle. Nor did the blockade of Germany provoke the Blitz on the UK. The Blitz occurred because Hitler couldn’t mount an amphibious invasion of the UK. He hoped that a severe attack would convince the defeatist elements in the UK that especially with France gone, further English resistance was pointless

[smittims]

Yes, I must admit that, although the Civil War is an old interest of mine I hadn't heard of that book, but anything by Christopher Hill has to be worth reading.

I've just started The Garrick Year by Margaret Drabble , a surprisingly modern novel for 1964 . Despite writing about physical attraction, marriage and adultery firmly from a woman's point of view, it isn't a feminist rant, but quite fair to both sides, I think . The reader who passed it on to me said it was 'full of swearing and blaspheming' but I haven't found any so far.