What are you reading now?

[Petrushka]

Currently reading Beethoven: the Music and the Life by Lewis Lockwood.

[LMcD]

I will read that one next¡

...and I, in turn, will add The Fatal Shore to my (ever-growing) list of 'books to read next'!

[Joseph K]

Currently reading Beethoven: the Music and the Life by Lewis Lockwood.

That's pretty good from what I recall (and not being an expert...)

[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.

Absolutely excellent! A great recommendation - somehow it seemed particularly appropriate for our "unsettling and (just a bit - my insertion) horrible" times.

[Belgrove]

Glad you enjoyed it HighlandDougie. It’s the most original and imaginative novel I’ve read in years. And the book is a beautiful object too, right down to its silk-thread marker.

[Pulcinella]

Having finished Vikram Seth's A suitable boy earlier this week, I'm staying in India with Rohinton Mistry's A fine balance.
Mordew is about to be delivered today.
I gave up trying to read the Gormenghast trilogy again, but have high hopes for Mordew, given the recommendations here.

[LMcD]

(1) Joanna Trollope - Next Of Kin
(2) A N Wilson - The Victorians
(I like contrasts)

[Pulcinella]

Having finished Vikram Seth's A suitable boy earlier this week, I'm staying in India with Rohinton Mistry's A fine balance.
Mordew is about to be delivered today.
I gave up trying to read the Gormenghast trilogy again, but have high hopes for Mordew, given the recommendations here.

Oh dear!
I didn't enjoy Mordew at all.


Just back from the library, where I tried to donate it, but they're not accepting any donations until January.
Picked up The secret commonwealth, volume two in Philip Pullman's new The book of dust trilogy.
Even by page 5 I can tell I'm going to enjoy it: SO much better written (imho, of course).

[gradus]

Re-reading William L. Shirer's masterly The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. Utterly absorbing and brilliantly told. My thanks to Richard F. for his recent reminder about the excellence of William Shirer's writing.

[french frank]

Now half way through The Bridge on the Drina - which I had certainly not read before, as I thought. It recounts the history of Bosnia from the time the bridge was built over the Drina in Višegrad in the sixteenth century by the occupying Ottomans, and the bridge itself plays a central role as each major historical event is depicted in the form of fictionalised narratives. I've just reached the arrival and occupation by the Austrian army. As the novel was published in 1945, I presume it will cover the assassination of Franz Ferdinand and the aftermath. Andrić, of course, didn't live to see the upheaval of the 1990s or his hopes for future peace in the country would have been shattered. Višegrad was then the scene of massacres, ironically of Bosniaks by Serbs.

It goes well with Gregor von Rezzori's The Snows of Yesterday which is autobiographical but covers his upbringing in Romania before World War II. The bridge is now a World Heritage site.

[teamsaint]

Ok, shameless plug time, but you'll thank me.

It has been a while, but several months ago, I read the finished text of " Jeoffry: The Poet's Cat" by Tippett biographer Oliver Soden. He won multiple awards for that book, and we were very excited to acquire this title for our autumn list.
The book is a fictional biography of both Jeoffry and Christopher Smart. We follow Jeoffry from his birth in a Covent Garden brothel, as he grows up on the streets of Georgian London, is adopted by Smart in the Asylum, through to ending his days, somewhat surprisingly in Ottery St Mary ! I know I would say this, but it is quite beautifully written, and with great creativity. But don't take my word for it, check out the endorsements on the Amazon page from a glittering array of writers, including Hilary Mantel, Alexander McCall Smith and many others.
It is beautifully presented in a blue cloth bound cover, and would be the perfect gift for the cat/poetry/music lover in your life. It deserves to be a big hit, and we have thrown everything we have at making it one. Unfortunately, without a Penguin sized marketing budget, we do have to work doubly hard, but I am convinced this can do great things.
Out next Thursday, unless you get lucky......

Buy link:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Jeoffry-Poets-Cat-Oliver-Soden/dp/075099567X/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=

Or from your friendly local onliner at a great price

https://agreatread.co.uk/jeoffry-the-poets-cat-9780750995672/

Or of course from your local bookshop, Hive, Waterstones or wherever.

[muzzer]

Inside Story by Martin Amis. I can’t see it winning him any new fans, but I think it’s great.

[DracoM]

A Small Town in Germany/ Le Carre

[Pulcinella]

"Jeoffry: The Poet's Cat" by Tippett biographer Oliver Soden.
....
Out next Thursday, unless you get lucky......

I got lucky.

Recommendation endorsed.
My favourite line: page 48. For a cat may look at a king.
Such a splendid and clever echo of a typical line in the Smart poem.
And of course the inscription on the tablet where he is buried: Geoffrey [sic: Mrs Ramm's spelling of his name] Requiescat.

[Richard Barrett]

Re-reading William L. Shirer's masterly The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. Utterly absorbing and brilliantly told. My thanks to Richard F. for his recent reminder about the excellence of William Shirer's writing.

It's a great book although it would have been better if Shirer or his editor had excluded the phrase "homosexual pervert" which as I recall occurs several times.