What are you reading now?

[smittims]

I'm glad I read Trollope's 'Palliser ' books after seeing the TV series, and not before, or I'd have been fuming at the way they mangled the plot and cut out some favourite characters.

I've just started re-reading 'Mrs. Dalloway' for perhaps the fifth time. An encouragement to start reading Virginia Woolf came from a university professor fifty years ago who , seeing one of her books in my hand said 'that's the first step to perdition'. I told David Lodge about this and he snorted and grimaced with scorn.

[teamsaint]

I'm glad I read Trollope's 'Palliser ' books after seeing the TV series, and not before, or I'd have been fuming at the way they mangled the plot and cut out some favourite characters.

I've just started re-reading 'Mrs. Dalloway' for perhaps the fifth time. An encouragement to start reading Virginia Woolf came from a university professor fifty years ago who , seeing one of her books in my hand said 'that's the first step to perdition'. I told David Lodge about this and he snorted and grimaced with scorn.

I mentioned David Lodge to a recent English lit and creative writing graduate very recently. Never heard of him.

Which is pretty astonishing really.

[french frank]

I mentioned David Lodge to a recent English lit and creative writing graduate very recently. Never heard of him.

Par for the course I took a vol of O. Wilde short stories to read in the caff over lunch and didn't quite finish 'The Portrait of Mr W.H.' The caff is so interesting in itself, reflecting the local area. It rather resembles the endless fascination of a Cour des Miracles: local office workers, students, solitary regulars who twitch and mumble to themselves, some accompanied by their minders who urge them to speak more quietly, other people studying ancient Tokharian, people with a variety of physical disabilities, middle-class ordinary-ordinary. Hard to concentrate on reading

[Globaltruth]

Huge thanks for finding this, vints. Sinclair has offered me a crucial salve these past three or so years - his insightfulness a connective route through present-day confusions to matters of lasting significance. And how I envy his writing skills!

80 yesterday & still pyscho-geographic...

interview from when he was a youngster of 70

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/nov/01/iain-sinclair-interview

[smittims]

I'm well into 'Framley Parsonage' for the third time as part of my re-reading the Barchester Chronicles this year.

[Serial_Apologist]

80 yesterday & still pyscho-geographic...

interview from when he was a youngster of 70
https://www.theguardian.com/books/20...lair-interview

[Pulcinella]

Cormac McCarthy: The road

Not read it before, though I have read The Border Trilogy and Blood Meridian.
I haven't read No country for old men, for that matter.
(Peter Brookes' cartoon in yesterday's Times was absolutely brilliant: as an RIP for McCarthy the book cover he illustrated featured Biden and Trump!)

[Mal]

Not reading this as yet, but yesterday at the Goose Green Fair, for £2.50 I picked up a copy of Iain Sinclair's 2014 book "London Overground - A Day's Walk around the Ginger Line", parts of which were filmed by John Rogers at the time it was taking place and put on youtube; I am greatly looking forward to getting into this as soon as the warm sunny days arrive and I can do it while sunning myself on the lawn.

I've read a couple of Macfarlane's books and find them wonderful psycho-geographical reads, especially "Underland"... but he's a bit too extreme, for me, to take as role model! I keep on meaning to read Sinclair. Is London Orbital the one to start with?

[Mal]

I've just begun rereading 'The Sense of an Ending'. I'm not fond of recent novels, many if not most of which seem written by women for women to read so it was a relief to find in Julian Barnes a writer whose novels redress the balance a little by having something to offer the male reader.

I just finished reading "Old Filth" by Jane Gardam, which centres on a male protagonist... Also recently completed "The Balkan Trilogy" and "The Levant Trilogy" by Olivia Manning, which (OK) has a strong female lead, but the husband is a good joint lead and there are some excellent, and mosty male, minor characters throughout. So female authors can do strong male characters, I feel. And vice versa - I'm reading "the English Patient" (Ondaatje) at the moment, which has a strong female character (the nurse...) - but it has several strong male characters: the patient of course, and especially the Sikh bomb disposal officer.

[Joseph K]

The Crystal World by JG Ballard, which is proving to be very good, and Transforming Moments by Richard B, which is so far interesting, though I'm not far into it yet (just finished the introduction).

[Joseph K]

I finished The Crystal World last night. I thoroughly enjoyed it, it's a wonderful novel. Today I shall begin Ballard's Concrete Island.

[smittims]

Having polished off Framley Parsonage last night I'm ready to begin re-reading either To the Lighthouse or Under the Greenwood Tree, depending on what I'm in the mood for.

[Belgrove]

I finished The Crystal World last night. I thoroughly enjoyed it, it's a wonderful novel. Today I shall begin Ballard's Concrete Island.

Joseph - have you sampled Ballard’s substantial output of short stories? They teem with thought provoking ideas. ‘Report on an unidentified Space Station’, moves in a few pages from a quotidian ’captains log’ to a profound and disturbing reflection of the infinite - a remarkable example of his writing.

[Joseph K]

Joseph - have you sampled Ballard’s substantial output of short stories? They teem with thought provoking ideas. ‘Report on an unidentified Space Station’, moves in a few pages from a quotidian ’captains log’ to a profound and disturbing reflection of the infinite - a remarkable example of his writing.

No, but I do have the first volume of his collected short stories waiting to be at least sampled. I intend to start on them once I've finished Concrete Island.

[Bryn]

In tandem, Ian Hernon's "Anti-Semitism and the Left" and Asa Winstanley's "Weaponisig Anti-Semitism". The former, published but 3 years ago, has already been effectively remaindered (new hardback) from £20 to £3 on amazondotcodotuk. Unfortunately, it quickly became obvious why, its very opening displays how very shallow is Hernon's level of background reading. He regurgitates the myth that Marx's rejoinder to Bruno Bauer "On the Jewish Question" was anti-Semitic, whereas it was actually an argument for the emancipation of Jews in what is now Germany. The supposedly anti-Semitic tropes in Marx's rejoinder were those he was effectively challenging. Hopefully, there is more cogent information, about the very anti-Semitism to be found in the Labour movement, elsewhere in the book. I well recall the graffiti equating the Star of David with the Nazi swastika that some on the 'left' engaged in, back n the 1980s. The Winstanley book looks to be far more thoroughly researched, so far.