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  • smittims
    Full Member
    • Aug 2022
    • 4161

    Was 'The Passenger' the source of the Antonioni/Jack Nicholson film of the same title? I liked that.

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    • Sir Velo
      Full Member
      • Oct 2012
      • 3229

      Originally posted by ChandlersFord View Post
      I think Dombey and Son may indeed be the longest: other contenders are Martin Chuzzlewit and Little Dorrit.

      I read it many years ago, and can recall enjoying it. However, it isn't all that good and can never compete with the 'biggies'.
      Reaching for the Penguins on my shelf, Bleak House comes in at 965 pages, Dombeyt at 948; MC at 930 and LD at 888.

      Comment

      • Sir Velo
        Full Member
        • Oct 2012
        • 3229

        Originally posted by smittims View Post
        Was 'The Passenger' the source of the Antonioni/Jack Nicholson film of the same title? I liked that.
        Wasn't that written by Antonioni himself?

        Comment

        • gradus
          Full Member
          • Nov 2010
          • 5609

          Mediaeval Children, Nicholas Orme's wonderful and engrossing study of a neglected area of history.

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          • Padraig
            Full Member
            • Feb 2013
            • 4237

            Originally posted by Padraig View Post

            I'm reading Middlemarch, as if for the first time.
            It was 'as if for the first time'. I hardly remembered large chunks - but the advantage was precisely that. I read most carefully - not like the first time when I was conscious of reading a great English classic. This time the dilemmas and mistakes of the characters caught my attention, and I thought more about my own experiences than about their struggles. I got over my infatuation with Dorothea from earlier reading and marvelled at George Eliot's painful digging into true motives and self analyses that her characters had to undergo. Like one member here I noticed the author's omniscience at play, but I found that totally absorbing, and helpful in patching the different parts of the widespread fabric. I also found and appreciated many instances of wit and humour that I had previously missed.
            I started reading on 13 November, and closed the last page on New Year's Eve. And, Yes! It was a most wonderful read. I can say that now with honest conviction, having fooled myself that I had read it before.

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            • Petrushka
              Full Member
              • Nov 2010
              • 12253

              Back in the Day by Melvyn Bragg.

              I just love books like this. The book is an autobiographical memoir in which Bragg tells of his early life in Wigton, Cumbria. He has an extraordinary knack of bringing the people he knew to life and tells his story with an intense poetic beauty that has me reaching for Cider with Rosie as a comparison. Late 1940s/early 1950s Cumbria seems just as much of a vanished world as the early 1960s Midlands in which I grew up and I compare my own childhood experiences with his, my own parents to his as I read.

              I've just read his description of the girl morris dancers at Wigton Carnival, a wonderfully moving passage, full of innocence and simple pleasure that is writing of the highest quality.

              I can't recommend this book highly enough!
              "The sound is the handwriting of the conductor" - Bernard Haitink

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              • ChandlersFord
                Member
                • Dec 2021
                • 188

                Over Christmas, I re-read The Magic Mountain.

                I then read Sylvia Townsend Warner's Lolly Willowes (good).

                I went on to Three Plays by Philip Ridley (Pitchfork Disney, Fastest Clock In The Universe, Ghost From A Perfect Place) - a display of increasing brilliance. Why is this man not recognised as britain's greatest living playwright? He's better than Stoppard and Churchill.

                Currently: Henry & June by Anias Nino. Hmmm.....not sure I'll stick with this.

                Comment

                • gradus
                  Full Member
                  • Nov 2010
                  • 5609

                  The Life and Adventures of Arminius Vambery, hugely enjoyable, rather like a Hungarian Michael Palin of the Victorian era.
                  Next to Nature by Ronald Blyth, rural writing at its best.
                  Colditz, Prisoners of the Castle, Ben Macintyre's terrific account of the POW's held, but not always, in the seemingly impregnable fortress.

                  Comment

                  • Petrushka
                    Full Member
                    • Nov 2010
                    • 12253

                    Originally posted by gradus View Post
                    The Life and Adventures of Arminius Vambery, hugely enjoyable, rather like a Hungarian Michael Palin of the Victorian era.
                    Next to Nature by Ronald Blyth, rural writing at its best.
                    Colditz, Prisoners of the Castle, Ben Macintyre's terrific account of the POW's held, but not always, in the seemingly impregnable fortress.
                    I had Ben Macintyre's 'Colditz' for Christmas and is next on my 'to read' list. One of the directors at my then place of employment many years ago had been imprisoned in Colditz during the war. He was a friendly type but in those days (late 1970s) you really didn't dare ask your director about such things but I still very much regret not doing it anyway.
                    "The sound is the handwriting of the conductor" - Bernard Haitink

                    Comment

                    • smittims
                      Full Member
                      • Aug 2022
                      • 4161

                      My listening to 'King Priam' recently drove me to re-read the Iliad. Rather a slog this time , I'm afraid. It's a curious work. Now I've moved on to Shakespeare's 'Troilus and Cressida' which is much more my cup of tea.

                      Comment

                      • JasonPalmer
                        Full Member
                        • Dec 2022
                        • 826

                        Read the telegraph on Monday, have been dipping into an issue of the new statesman my mother in law got me for Christmas. Have been learning more about Ruskin from the guild of st geoerge tweeting a video of several members reading his writing and searching YouTube for lectures about him.
                        Annoyingly listening to and commenting on radio 3...

                        Comment

                        • Bryn
                          Banned
                          • Mar 2007
                          • 24688

                          Originally posted by JasonPalmer View Post
                          Read the telegraph on Monday, have been dipping into an issue of the new statesman my mother in law got me for Christmas. Have been learning more about Ruskin from the guild of st geoerge tweeting a video of several members reading his writing and searching YouTube for lectures about him.
                          Good job it was the Guild of St George and not the League.

                          Comment

                          • JasonPalmer
                            Full Member
                            • Dec 2022
                            • 826

                            Indeed https://www.guildofstgeorge.org.uk
                            Annoyingly listening to and commenting on radio 3...

                            Comment

                            • Serial_Apologist
                              Full Member
                              • Dec 2010
                              • 37691

                              Originally posted by JasonPalmer View Post
                              Read the telegraph on Monday, have been dipping into an issue of the new statesman my mother in law got me for Christmas. Have been learning more about Ruskin from the guild of st geoerge tweeting a video of several members reading his writing and searching YouTube for lectures about him.
                              Ruskin Park is located 2 miles north of me - named after Ruskin, who lived at two Herne Hill addresses, it lies adjacent to Kings College Hospital. Three years ago the Herne Hill History Society conducted a guided walk around the district, at the end of which we arrived at a small grassed area behind the tall council flats facing the area where Ruskin had lived; the organisers had arranged a wonderful surprise to round the event off - a lady "mysteriously" emerged from one of the council houses bearing a trayful of schooners of sherry, and served to all in attendance!

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                              • ChandlersFord
                                Member
                                • Dec 2021
                                • 188

                                Originally posted by smittims View Post
                                My listening to 'King Priam' recently drove me to re-read the Iliad. Rather a slog this time , I'm afraid. It's a curious work. Now I've moved on to Shakespeare's 'Troilus and Cressida' which is much more my cup of tea.
                                Read T&C a couple of years back, and found it disappointing. Then I saw an rsc production at Stratford, which was ..... even more disappointing.

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