What are you reading now?

[Joseph K]

Trip reports on Erowid.

It's the closest to tripping I get to these days, having given up absolutely every non-medical substance use...

Apologies for unseemly topic...

[Rjw]

The Big Six by Arthur Ransome

Always a treat, I read it as a child, read it to my children and now I find it as good as ever sixty years after my first reading!

[LMcD]

'Will' by Jeroen Olyslaegers (translated by David Colmer) This novel is set in Antwerp in the present day and in the period of Nazi occupation. It's very hard to put down despite its unflinching depiction of increasingly grim events and the moral dilemmas which they pose for the Belgian policeman who is the central character.

[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.

Nicely considered piece by the author about Jeoffry here.

https://www.gramophone.co.uk/features/article/benjamin-britten-ruth-gipps-and-jeoffry-the-poet-s-cat

Get your Xmas pressie copies while stocks last.....

[french frank]

Just finished Joseph Roth's novella The Legend of the Holy Drinker and have started rereading I Served the King of England by Bohumil Hrabal - one of Simon Howard's recommended writers.

[Bryn]

Dipping, rather than reading, but Nicolas Slonimsky's Music Since 1900, Fifth Edition (1994) taking the chronological reports (not quite journal since many days are skipped) up to 23 Decemger 1991. I was alerted to the existence of the tome by a posting by Ian Pace on his FB page. I was extemely lucky to find a near mint condition ex-reference library copy for £12.58 including p&p at £4.48 due the considerable mass of the hardback book (1280 pages).

[DracoM]

'Serpentine' / Pullman.

[Leinster Lass]

As a result of discoveries made when looking into my County Kerry and Dublin forebears, I've started taking an interest in military history, and have just finished reading Tim Bouverie's 'Appeasing Hitler.' Scrupulously researched, it's also so beautifully written that it reads like a thriller.

[Rjw]

Here We Are by Graham Swift

Very enjoyable book.

[Rjw]

As a result of discoveries made when looking into my County Kerry and Dublin forebears, I've started taking an interest in military history, and have just finished reading Tim Bouverie's 'Appeasing Hitler.' Scrupulously researched, it's also so beautifully written that it reads like a thriller.

I remember enjoying this book when I read it. Still relevant today.

[Joseph K]

A day or two ago I took a break from Hobsbawm's Age of Revolutions to read Miles: The Autobiography from roughly the year 1966 to when he decides to take a break - 1975. The book sure is riveting and captures his tone very well.

It is evident, though, from the way he talks at times that he might have had what could be described as a personality disorder - if one thinks such things exist... other people might just say "not a nice person" but then, that would doubtless depend on who you were (to him).

[verismissimo]

A day or two ago I took a break from Hobsbawm's Age of Revolutions to read Miles: The Autobiography from roughly the year 1966 to when he decides to take a break - 1975. The book sure is riveting and captures his tone very well.

It is evident, though, from the way he talks at times that he might have had what could be described as a personality disorder - if one thinks such things exist... other people might just say "not a nice person" but then, that would doubtless depend on who you were (to him).

Like most very talented people?

[Joseph K]

Like most very talented people?

Don't think so - in terms of being violent to women.

[verismissimo]

Don't think so - in terms of being violent to women.

Seems to me that, one way or another, most very talented people don't pass any kind of 'niceness' test. Still, it always provides rich fodder for biographers …

[DracoM]

Dombey and Son / Dickens
More absorbing and anger-making than I ever remember it. Am amazed that more women's organizations do not champion it.
Mr Dombey.........crikey - as chilly a monster as has been drawn in literature.