What are you reading now?

[Constantbee]

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/mar/15/books-to-read-while-quarantined-coronavirus

A dystopian reading list, with one notable omisssion, and my personal favourite: 'Journal of the Plague Year', Daniel Defoe (1722), containing some shrewd observations of human behaviour we might have seen recently.

Jane Eyre was a surprise. Jane survives an epidemic at a girls' boarding school before Mr Rochester enters the story.

[Joseph K]

https://www.theguardian.com/books/20...ed-coronavirus

A dystopian reading list, with one notable omisssion, and my personal favourite: 'Journal of the Plague Year', Daniel Defoe (1722), containing some shrewd observations of human behaviour we might have seen recently.

Jane Eyre was a surprise. Jane survives an epidemic at a girls' boarding school before Mr Rochester enters the story.

I've thought that there was something decidedly Ballardian about our situation...

[Don Basilio]

I'm having a Robertson Davies binge. I have read the Deptford Trilogy and What's Bred in the Bone which are wonderful. I have just finished his earliest trilogy, the Salterton Trilogy. These were his first novels and the influence of Jung is not yet apparent. The first of the set, Tempest Tost, is about an am dram production of The Tempest, which gives him plenty of opportunity for social satire and good humoured and tolerant acceptance of human vanity and self deception. The third in the series, Mixture of Frailties, goes a bit deeper and touches the tragic although very, very funny at times.

I would best describe Davies as a Canadian Jungian Dickens.

[Pulcinella]

I'm having a Robertson Davies binge. I have read the Deptford Trilogy and What's Bred in the Bone which are wonderful. I have just finished his earliest trilogy, the Salterton Trilogy. These were his first novels and the influence of Jung is not yet apparent. The first of the set, Tempest Tost, is about an am dram production of The Tempest, which gives him plenty of opportunity for social satire and good humoured and tolerant acceptance of human vanity and self deception. The third in the series, Mixture of Frailties, goes a bit deeper and touches the tragic although very, very funny at times.

I would best describe Davies as a Canadian Jungian Dickens.

I remember enjoying Rebel Angels very much, too.

[DracoM]

Mission Song - John Le Carre

[Bella Kemp]

Dorothy Wordsworth - The Grasmere Journals. One of those books that you really want never to end. I even find myself slowly re-reading pages in the way that one sometimes may gaze at photographs or pictures.

[Count Boso]

I may not read much of it, but out of curiosity I downloaded Project Gutenberg's Daniel Defoe, A Journal of the ****** year, but I don't feel quite ready yet to investigate the way people thought, felt and behaved which (I assume) he describes. Perhaps when I feel completely inured to the situation, if that ever happens. At the moment I'm too busy to sit down and record my own experiences in detail, though no doubt others are doing so.

[richardfinegold]

I started Grant, by Ron Chernow (of Hamilton fame)

[Pulcinella]

I'm having a Robertson Davies binge. I have read the Deptford Trilogy and What's Bred in the Bone which are wonderful. I have just finished his earliest trilogy, the Salterton Trilogy. These were his first novels and the influence of Jung is not yet apparent. The first of the set, Tempest Tost, is about an am dram production of The Tempest, which gives him plenty of opportunity for social satire and good humoured and tolerant acceptance of human vanity and self deception. The third in the series, Mixture of Frailties, goes a bit deeper and touches the tragic although very, very funny at times.

I would best describe Davies as a Canadian Jungian Dickens.

Finished the latest Hilary Mantel yesterday, so have started reading The Deptford Trilogy again (bought 14 October 1983, in Old Aberdeen, I wrote in the front).

[Rjw]

The Military Orchid, by Jocelyn Brooke

[LMcD]

The Military Orchid, by Jocelyn Brooke

The Betrayal by Helen Dunmore

[jayne lee wilson]

Wasn't sure where to place this..... effectively a hauntingly insightful prose-poem that I hope will fascinate, soothe and reward many....
Peering closely at the almost-micro-environment that lies almost-hidden, all around us.... finding a rich history within it.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/apr/08/country-diary-the-sheer-gall-of-a-wasp-writing-american-constitution-ink

[DracoM]

Norman Nicholson's collection of poems 'A Local Habitation'.

[johncorrigan]

Wasn't sure where to place this..... effectively a hauntingly insightful prose-poem that I hope will fascinate, soothe and reward many....
Peering closely at the almost-micro-environment that lies almost-hidden, all around us.... finding a rich history within it.

https://www.theguardian.com/environm...nstitution-ink

Thanks, jayne. Really enjoyed that piece of writing, especially the question, 'What possessed our ancestors to pound marble galls into powder, steep them in water as a brown soupy sludge, then add rusty iron and gum arabic from acacia trees, to turn the liquid so black it was almost blue?'

[Padraig]

Thanks, jayne. Really enjoyed that piece of writing . . .

Yes John, and Jayne. Prose poem indeed. Poor little wizened heroic wasp.