What are you reading now?

[Jonathan]

Now reading another of J D Kirk's Scottish murder mysteries - book 3 The Killing Code.


Not writing anything myself at the moment as work is sapping my creative energies . I'm afraid those who bought my novel will maybe have to wait quite a while for the 3rd book in The Ventos Conspiracy series.

[smittims]

Thanks, vinteuil. Maybe I'll get round to it. I did see the TV film about 30 years ago but I've forgotten it.

[vinteuil]

I'm a George Eliot doubter. /.../ . I don't think I could stomach Daniel Deronda. I fear it might be too preachy.

... many years since I last read Daniel Deronda, but I enjoyed it immensely. My wife read it last year and loved it, 'the best book I've read in ages'.

I don't think you wd find it 'preachy' in the slightest. And the insights into the world of the Jews in 19th century London are just lovely...

.

[richardfinegold]

Somerset Maugham The Razor Edge. It was assigned by one of my book clubs. I read it 30 years ago but only remember the broad outlines

[smittims]

I'm a George Eliot doubter. I couldn't get into The MIll on the Floss. The characters just didn't interest me. I enjoy Middlemarch but I find it structurally faulty; it's well-known that it is a compendium of two separate projected novels. I like Scenes from Clerical Life. I don;tthink I could stomach Daniel Deronda. I fear it might be too preachy.

Yet I've been given to understand that admiring George Eliot is a badge of intellectual respectability in England, silmilar to having read Moby Dick in the USA, and I should be ashamed of preferring Anthony Trollope.

I've just started re-reading Thomas Beecham: An Obsession with Music, by John Lucas. I cannot praise this book too highly.

[Padraig]

I have read, over time, a little about Daniel Deronda. Today, daunted at the prospect, I started reading. I found the first two chapters most engaging and felt my previous admiration for George Eliot once more beginning to revive.
I wonder if I have bitten off . . . too much?

[Pianorak]

Iris Murdoch: The Sea, The Sea (re-read) and Gogol: Dead Souls.

[LMcD]

The Making Of Another Major Motion Picture Masterpiece - a novel by Tom Hanks.

[smittims]

'Great Morning' I think was my favourite. All four volumes are beautifully-written and his depiction of his father and Henry Moat is a classic of literature in a way. It's only fair to point out that Sacheverell Sitwell claimed repeatedly that Osbert's portrait of their father was inaccurate and that Sir George was a kinder, more pleasant man than Osbert implies. Of course one does not expect autobiographies to be strictly accurate, let alone 'the whole truth', and particularly when it comes to a son describing his father, well-exemplified by Matthew Spender's character-assassination of his own famous father in 'A House in St. John's Wood' , for all that it is a delightful read. I may say that that is the main reason I've delayed writing mine; the old boy is no longer here to put his side of the story.


I'm coming to the end of a re-read of Indiana, George Sand's first novel . It's a very odd book and I can't say I found it as enjoyable as Trollope, but I think it did me good to read it ; like listening to Womans Hour, it's a wayof broadening one's horizons.

[gradus]

Osbert Sitwell; I have started his autobiography, Left Hand, Right Hand! Books I've ignored on my shelves for many years, how silly of me.

[Pulcinella]

Not right now, as only just ordered and due next week.
Somehow this passed me by:

https://www.prestomusic.com/books/products/9625851--the-cambridge-stravinsky-encyclopedia

I'm astounded at the price difference between the hardback (£126) and paperback (£28) editions, but no doubt ts could explain.
Presumably once the initial print run has been done/sold, it's time to consider wider circulation at a much reduced price.

[eighthobstruction]

Has anyone on here ever read Leonora Carrington's - The Hearing Trumpet....??

[Pulcinella]

Percival Everett’s novel ”Erasure,” a hilarious plot, narrated at an acerbic witty pitch. Now a major film–“American Fiction.”

Stylistically similar to his Booker Prize shortlisted James, I understand (so I'm unlikely to like that either; see a few posts above/below).

[groovydavidii]

Percival Everett’s novel ”Erasure,” a hilarious plot, narrated at an acerbic witty pitch. Now a major film–“American Fiction.”

[gradus]

Osbert Sitwell's Tales my Father Taught Me, a book of essays that I bought s/h years ago and hadn't got round to reading. Entertaining as it was intended to be.