What are you reading now?

[eighthobstruction]

Merlin Sheldrake's Entangled Life. As John Cage was fond of pointing out, Mushrooms and Music go together well, particularly in many dictionaries.

What is it about....??

[Bryn]

What is it about....??

The intricate role of fungi in just about all aspects of life on the planet. Merlin, his forename notwithstanding, is a far more down to Earth scientist than his father, Rupert. There is nothing of 'morphic resonance' about this tome. Neither the concept nor Rupert gets an index listing. The illustration shows oyster fungal fruiting bodies growing from a treated and spored copy of the book. It's a fascinating, thoughtful and often very funny book. It was serialised, in abridged form, on Radio 4 in the past week. Well worth listening to. Apparently, though I have not followed them up, there are online sources of free to download pdf and "e" versions of the book.

[Dave2002]

The intricate role of fungi in just about all aspects of life on the planet. Merlin, his forename notwithstanding, is a far more down to Earth scientist than his father, Rupert. There is nothing of 'morphic resonance' about this tome.

I believe that in an earlier life I knew Rupert. Really a nice guy, IIRC. I did read one of his books, which put forward some of his ideas, which were not tested at the time, though I think they have been since, with as far as can be determined negative results. I'm not absolutely sure that Rupert has acknowledged this - though I think he has recognised that some of the concepts have been tested.

This site does at least mention morphic resonance as a hypothesis - nothing more than that - https://www.sheldrake.org/

I see nothing wrong with people having hypotheses, even if later they turn out not to fully, or even slightly, represent "the truth".
Some people, of course, fail to acknowledge recognisable and verifiable facts, or any evidence, which fails to match their own preconceptions - which personally I find unacceptable.

[Bryn]

I believe that in an earlier life I knew Rupert. Really a nice guy, IIRC. I did read one of his books, which put forward some of his ideas, which were not tested at the time, though I think they have been since, with as far as can be determined negative results. I'm not absolutely sure that Rupert has acknowledged this - though I think he has recognised that some of the concepts have been tested.

This site does at least mention morphic resonance as a hypothesis - nothing more than that - https://www.sheldrake.org/

I see nothing wrong with people having hypotheses, even if later they turn out not to fully, or even slightly, represent "the truth".
Some people, of course, fail to acknowledge recognisable and verifiable facts, or any evidence, which fails to match their own preconceptions - which personally I find unacceptable.

Rupert does get mentioned, as "my father", in the epilogue, and with great affection as a formative scientific influence who encouraged the child Merilin's investigatory activities with the decomposition of leaves., piles of which Merlin would bury himself in and wonder at their changing form and smell as they decomposed. I was introduced to Rupert's hypothesis by friends of artistic bent and training who lived and farmed near Totnes. They were also into much other 'New Age' thinking. Nuff sed?

[Dave2002]

They were also into much other 'New Age' thinking. Nuff sed?

I always thought that Rupert was quite a serious scientist, at least perhaps compared with another person I knew slightly later - https://www.davidlorimer.co.uk/sample-page/ David L was also very pleasant, and I didn't realise he'd gone more "new agey", and arguably influential in that arena, until recently.

[Dave2002]

Follow up to the above - https://galileocommission.org/

which leads on to Quackwatch via Stephen Barrett - https://quackwatch.org/

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

I'd probably better stop there ..... I don't want to be seen to be promoting fake news or alternative truths.

[Pianoman]

Laura Tunbridge. - 'Beethoven: A Life in Nine Pieces'

Beautifully written and thought-provoking, and of course makes one dive straight in to listen to the works discussed. Highly recommended.

[gurnemanz]

Winter Journey, Ian Bostridge. Reads nicely in the opening few pages. Interesting production values in the pb edition.

Great piece of work and clearly labour of love. I liked the dedication: Der schönen Müllerin gewidmet - presumably his wife, Lucasta Miller.

Susan Youens also recommended reading: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Retracing-W...=UTF8&qid=&sr=

[eighthobstruction]

Merlin Sheldrake's Entangled Life. As John Cage was fond of pointing out, Mushrooms and Music go together well, particularly in many dictionaries.

....yes very very good....https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m000pm12....

[french frank]

O. Goldsmith, The Vicar of Wakefield. (I thought TL Peacock's Crochet Castle a bit of a potboiler. )

Sadly, I had to abandon The Glass Bead Game as I have several times before with my edition. A cheap paperback on cheap brownish paper with fuzzy printing. I find that unreadable, and couldn't make any headway with the work until a friend lent me his hardback with good quality printing and a better translation. I haven't managed to find a secondhand copy of it (tr. Mervyn Savill) for a reasonable price.

I don't know if anyone else has this experience. I also bought a cheap World Classics edition of Gissing's The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft and kept starting it and stopping after a few pages. I bought a little pocket classics edition in a secondhand bookshop and whizzed through it in no time.

[vinteuil]

. I also bought a cheap World Classics edition of Gissing's The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft and kept starting it and stopping after a few pages. I bought a little pocket classics edition in a secondhand bookshop and whizzed through it in no time.

... happy memories. Nine years ago!

Re The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft, Constable pocket edition

Am51

Yours must be the reprint of February 1912. Mine is September 1926. These are all the same edition but, as at Sept 1926, there had been 17 reprints after the original publication in January 1903.

It just shows what a cultured reading public there once was. Given that if a passenger had picked up my book, they only had to hand it to the driver on their way off the bus, I really had very high hopes that it would have ended up in the lost property office - as it did. Now, if it had been a Stieg Larsson ...

TPPoHR is a wonderful volume to have in your pocket to dip into when waiting - and that's exactly why I took it to the pub yesterday (I always have to wait for my friend because I live much further away). My friend was once in the secondhand book trade and we discussed it, the paper, the clarity of the printing, the sturdiness of the binding, the sheer pleasure of holding it and turning over the pages ... and that for what was, at the time, quite obviously an everyman's edition. Imagine! seventeen reprints in little over 20 years (none between March 1914 and October 1918)!

[french frank]

... happy memories. Nine years ago!

Memory as good as ever, even with my advancing years

[french frank]

About to start Cavendish's Life of Wolsey. V worthy, and one I have had (unread) for thirty-odd years. Not sure how far I'll get with it. The Vicar of Wakefield was quite amusing, like a cross between Jane Austen and an Agatha Christie mystery, where the tension builds up and the unsuspected dénouement comes suddenly in the final chapter - not without a hint of 'cheating' on the author's part.

[gradus]

The Saturday Book a sort of Arts review/essay collection from the early sixties, includes a fascinating article on Pierrot and the development of comic character from Roman times to the 20th century.

[Joseph K]

Last night I finished Hobsbawm's Age of Revolution. I am really quite tempted to go and buy and read the rest of the books in that series, but before that I have Lois Fitch's Brian Ferneyhough to read. (Finnegans Wake is also an ongoing project).