What are you reading now?

[cloughie]

Linda Ronstadt: Simple Dreams - A musical memoir

[Rjw]

Kate Atkinson. Big Sky

A really awful book. Not a patch on her recent serious novels.

[Richard Tarleton]

Yes, there are several Kate Atkinsons. I loved her early stuff, and the Jackson Brodie stories, I'm afraid I found Life After Life annoying and too clever by half, disliked her short stories (Not The End of the World)....I think I've given up on her.

[richardfinegold]

Quite. A modern-day novelist would surely stretch credibility too far were they to concoct a scenario in which 2 GRU goons -- let's call them Petrov & Boshirov (not their real names) -- who attempt to murder a Russian dissident -- let's call him Sergei Skripal -- in England in 2018, end up killing one Brit and maiming another instead of their intended target. Readers surely wouldn't believe the "sophisticated" GRU capable of such incompetence, would they ?

Heh heh. Yes, standards are slipping under Putin, not like the good old efficient KGB of the U.S.S.R.

[Bella Kemp]

The Twyborn Affair by Patrick White. It's an astonishing novel about the nature of sexuality and sexual identity and indeed the very nature of any identity that we might adopt and present to the world, but it's a bit of a slog at times. I'm a great fan of Patrick White - I think his Riders in the Chariot stands in the top ten novels of the last century - but few people seem to read him these days. I would be fascinated to hear of any other forumistas who like his work.

[muzzer]

I’ve just finished The World As I Found It, a fictionalised account of the relationship between Wittgenstein and Russell. It had been sitting untouched on a shelf for getting on for 30 years waiting for me to realise I needed to read around that period in philosophy ;). It’s quite an achievement as a book, to put it mildly.

[greenilex]

E.S.Thomson, Surgeons Hall; splendidly gruesome Victorian medical students and assorted corpses in Edinburgh and London.

[Rjw]

The walls have ears by Helen Fry.

Story of the surveillance of German Pows.

Very interesting, but could do with a bit of editing.

[pastoralguy]

E.S.Thomson, Surgeons Hall; splendidly gruesome Victorian medical students and assorted corpses in Edinburgh and London.

Sounds interesting!

Duly reserved from Edinburgh City Library!

[Padraig]

In tandem - Burned, by Sam McBride: the inside story of the 'cash for ash' scandal; and March of the Lemmings by Stewart Lee.

[DracoM]

The Secret Agent / Conrad
The Spire / William Golding

[Constantbee]

BBC Music Guides, Bach Cantatas, J A Westrup, BBC Publishing 1966 (Reprinted 1975)

Another used book bargain, and a reminder of the days when the BBC was a much bigger publisher in its own right that could still attract eminent writers for its publications.

This volume is one of a series produced in the 60's and 70's covering clearly and narrowly defined subject areas in classical music, including things like Haydn String Quartets, Mozart Divertimenti and Dances, Montiverdi Madrigals. You name it. Lucky the few who grew up with little gems like these. There’s nothing like them now

The format is similar to the OUP (Oxford University Press) Very Short Introductions, but with a much wider subject area. They’re slightly smaller and shorter (extended essay form? pp 60) pocket guides, very digestible, and a lot are now coming up 2nd hand, presumably as the generation that owned them empties its bookshelves.

This won’t be the last one I read

[pastoralguy]

The volume on Beethoven Symphonies by Robert Simpson was very good indeed. They seem to be available very cheaply on Amazon.

[teamsaint]

How Shostakovich Changed my Mind.
Stephen Johnson.

Excellent so far, which is not very. And a beautifully produced little volume.
I really wish we had more SJ on R3.

[LMcD]

'Wish You Were Here' by Graham Swift.