What are you reading now?

[LMcD]

I'd also recommend To Lose a Battle by Alistair Horne which is about the Fall of France in 1940.

If you can find it I strongly recommend Major General Sir Edward Spears' two volume memoir Assignment to Catastrophe. I picked up both volumes in a 1954 hardback edition from a book market many years ago and it's a terrific read. Some publisher really needs to get this reissued. Spears was Churchill's liaison officer with the French and he gives a thrilling insight into the 1940 disaster.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assignment_to_Catastrophe

https://www.abebooks.co.uk/book-sear...author/spears/

I've recently reread 'To Lose A Battle', which I consider to be one of the finest books written about World War II (or any military conflict, for that matter). Alistair Horne shares with Antony Beevor and Ben Macintyre the ability to seamlessly blend individual experiences with the overall strategic picture.

[Belgrove]

One for all you residents of Gormenghast (you know who you are).

Mordew by Alex Pheby is a steampunk cross between Dickens, Peake and Pullman. A seething, downtrodden and subservient underclass eke out a miserable existence in the eponymous city ruled over absolutely by The Master. But there is something truly unsettling and horrible, literally and metaphorically, beneath the surface. Fabulous ideas rendered in controlled and compelling prose to transport you to somewhere that you (hopefully) dare not have imagined.

[gurnemanz]

After having gone through life so far just picking up bits of classical mythology as I went along I recently decided to do a more thorough job via Penguin. I then realised the time had come for Ulysses which has sat there no more than dipped into over the decades. Taking my time and only about a quarter way through I have been reading online on my tablet. I have found the Joyce Project with its hyperlink annotations to be a riveting and rewarding way of doing it.

[Joseph K]

After having gone through life so far just picking up bits of classical mythology as I went along I recently decided to do a more thorough job via Penguin. I then realised the time had come for Ulysses which has sat there no more than dipped into over the decades. Taking my time and only about a quarter way through I have been reading online on my tablet. I have found the Joyce Project with its hyperlink annotations to be a riveting and rewarding way of doing it.

I recently started reading Finnegans Wake.

[Richard Barrett]

I recently started reading Finnegans Wake.

In 1991 I looked, for varying amounts of time, at every page of Finnegans Wake in the published order. I think that's probably as close as I'll ever get to reading it. I've read the first chapter of Ulysses a few times without getting any further. In some way I can't quite put my finger on, I'm getting the message that Joyce isn't for me.

[Joseph K]

In 1991 I looked, for varying amounts of time, at every page of Finnegans Wake in the published order. I think that's probably as close as I'll ever get to reading it. I've read the first chapter of Ulysses a few times without getting any further. In some way I can't quite put my finger on, I'm getting the message that Joyce isn't for me.

I remember in my first year of uni I started reading Ulysses and telling my mum how far into it I was, she mentioned something about a funeral and I was none-the-wiser. Seems I'd read past that part without realising it was a funeral. This irritated my mum and I think I gave up not long after. But later, in 2012 I think, I sort of read it, right through to the end.

As for Finnegans Wake, I think it's going to have to get something to read alongside it, just for a bit of relief - I have Hobsbawm's Age of Revolution and Louis Fitch's book on Ferneyhough by my bed, so maybe either one of those. Also by my bed is the annotations to Finnegans Wake, if I feel like looking up any of the polyglottic puns in that book, just for fun (though the thought of going through the entire book with the annotations beside it makes me a bit dizzy).

[HighlandDougie]

One for all you residents of Gormenghast (you know who you are).

Mordew by Alex Pheby is a steampunk cross between Dickens, Peake and Pullman. A seething, downtrodden and subservient underclass eke out a miserable existence in the eponymous city ruled over absolutely by The Master. But there is something truly unsettling and horrible, literally and metaphorically, beneath the surface. Fabulous ideas rendered in controlled and compelling prose to transport you to somewhere that you (hopefully) dare not have imagined.

Sounds right up my street. Duly ordered to be sped by pigeon post to France. Hope that there might be the essence of China Miéville in there too. Many thanks for the heads-up!

[muzzer]

I have disappeared down a rabbit hole of non-fiction, reading in and around William James and related figures in American pragmatism. I’ve been there some time and there are no signs of an imminent escape. But it’s overall very nourishing and should bear fruit sooner or later.

[Joseph K]

Last night I encountered some of the Wake's self-referentiality -

and Gutenmorg with his cromagnom charter, tintingfast and great primer must once for omniboss step rubrickredd out of the wordpress else is there no virtue more in alcohoran. For that (the rapt one warns) is what papyr is meed of, made of, hides and hints and misses in prints. Till ye finally (though not yet endlike) meet with the acquaintance of Mister Typus, Mistress Tope and all the little typtopies. Fillstup. So you need hardly spell me how every word will be bound over to carry three score and ten toptypsical readings throughout the book of Doublends Jined (may his forehead be darkened with mud who would sunder!) till Daleth, mahomahouma, who oped it closeth thereof the. Dor.

[french frank]

Just about to start rereading Ivo Andrić, The Bridge on the Drina (about which I confess I remember little. It's mixed up with other works I was reading about Bosnia shortly after the war). I'm not usually keen on fictionalised history, as I like to be sure I understand what is fact and what fiction. Don't want to make silly mistakes about that

[Rjw]

After having gone through life so far just picking up bits of classical mythology as I went along I recently decided to do a more thorough job via Penguin. I then realised the time had come for Ulysses which has sat there no more than dipped into over the decades. Taking my time and only about a quarter way through I have been reading online on my tablet. I have found the Joyce Project with its hyperlink annotations to be a riveting and rewarding way of doing it.

Thanks for the link.

[groovydavidii]

Re-reading “The Rudiments of Paradise” Michael Ayrton, (Secker & Warburg 1972) ‘various essays on various arts’ so says the sub-title. The multi-talented sculptor/artist/writer Ayrton may be remembered for the ‘golden honeycomb sculpture and Minotaur sculpture for the Arkville Maze he created in America. These wide-ranging essays cover Renaissance/modern paintings, music, ‘the ‘lost-wax’ techniques on producing bronze sculpture, a book worth looking-out for.

[Rjw]

The Fatal Shore by Robert Hughes very interesting about the creation of New South Wales as a convict settlement.

[LMcD]

English Passengers by Matthew Kneale - 'down a bit' from NSW!

[Rjw]

English Passengers by Matthew Kneale - 'down a bit' from NSW!

I will read that one next¡