What are you reading now?

[JasonPalmer]

Reading immediate action by andy mcnab, his autobiography. Gripping stuff.

[smittims]

Now well into Under the Greenwood Tree. I put it off because it is perhaps the cheesiest of Hardy's novels, but re-reading it has been delightful.

[muzzer]

Elizabeth Finch by Julian Barnes. Very good indeed, though I’m swayed by echoes of Muriel Spark.

[Joseph K]

I finished Ballard's Concrete Island last night. I enjoyed it a lot although not quite so much as The Unlimited Dream Company, which is one of my favourite novels by anyone - an astonishing work.

Tonight I'll start sampling his short stories, and might start sampling Will Self's latest collection of nonfiction Why Read? ...

[RichardB]

I enjoyed it a lot although not quite so much as The Unlimited Dream Company

I don't think he wrote anything quite on that level, although for me Crash and The Atrocity Exhibition come close. I don't like short stories that much, but I make an exception for Ballard, especially the Vermilion Sands series.

I have been working my way through the novels of Claire North. Currently on The Pursuit of William Abbey which is a pretty exciting story.

[smittims]

I'm about halfway through 'To the Lighthouse' for at least the fourth time, reading my Penguin copy bought in 1974 for 35p. It's I think my favourite of her novels, with 'The Years', which, though disparaged by critics, including Leonard Woolf, was her biggest seller in her lifetime, especially in America.

[gurnemanz]

Just finished my first detailed history of the First World War, The Western Front by Nick Lloyd. Recommended by a speaker at our local Historical Soc. for giving a balanced line on the simplistic "lions led by donkeys" interpretation and for giving full attention to the German and French perspective.

Following on appropriately, both chronologically and with obvious current relevance, I have just continued my Antony Beevor journey which started at Stalingrad, with his latest, Russia: Revolution and Civil War, which recently appeared in paperback.

[CallMePaul]

Just finished The Sloth Lemur's Song by Alison Richard, a British-born Yale academic specialising in primatology and environmental science, about the environmental history of Madagascar since the break-up of Gondwanaland. She produces evidence to challenge received opinion (in Madagascar as well as in the West) on issues such as environmental degradation and extinction.

[Petrushka]

Just finished my first detailed history of the First World War, The Western Front by Nick Lloyd. Recommended by a speaker at our local Historical Soc. for giving a balanced line on the simplistic "lions led by donkeys" interpretation and for giving full attention to the German and French perspective.

Following on appropriately, both chronologically and with obvious current relevance, I have just continued my Antony Beevor journey which started at Stalingrad, with his latest, Russia: Revolution and Civil War, which recently appeared in paperback.

I read Beevor's book on the Russian Revolution and Civil War last year when it came out in hardback and have to say I found it pretty hard going. It's well researched and well written, as you'd expect, but there is a disturbing focus on the very many atrocities committed by just about everybody and hardly a page goes by without at least one in gruesome detail. The phrase 'hacked to death' appears constantly like a refrain and it all becomes a bit too much. Not his best, in my view.

[gurnemanz]

I read Beevor's book on the Russian Revolution and Civil War last year when it came out in hardback and have to say I found it pretty hard going. It's well researched and well written, as you'd expect, but there is a disturbing focus on the very many atrocities committed by just about everybody and hardly a page goes by without at least one in gruesome detail. The phrase 'hacked to death' appears constantly like a refrain and it all becomes a bit too much. Not his best, in my view.

Just started. See how it goes.

[Lordgeous]

Goodbye Russia: Rachmaninoff in Exile by Fiona Maddocks

[smittims]

I hadn't heard of that; it sounds fascinating.

[Lordgeous]

Its good so far! It's new, just published.

[Pulcinella]

Goodbye Russia: Rachmaninoff in Exile by Fiona Maddocks

I hadn't heard of that; it sounds fascinating.

Its good so far! It's new, just published.

Erik Levi gives it 5 stars in the August 2023 issue of BBC MM that's just dropped through the letterbox.

It gets a pretty decent full page review from David Fanning in August's Gramophone (similarly just arrived) too.

[ardcarp]

Geraldine McCaughrean's Where the World Ends. It's about the population of Hirta, which is one of the St Kilda island group. The story (which is loosely based on fact) is set in the century before the population of the islands had to be removed because living there was no longer tenable.

The reason I'm posting this now is because a rare St Kilda folk melody was played by Nicola Benedetti* at the recent Scottish musical event/service for the Royals...and by co-incidence I'd just read the book. The story is how all the teenage (and perhaps younger) boys of Hirta were landed...with difficulty... by boat on a remote rocky island 'Stac' in the company of two adults to 'harvest' gulls' eggs and the gulls themselves plus feathers to provide food and income for the coming year for the small population of Hirta. The suspense in the book rests on the fact that no-one came to pick them up again. Time went on, the seasons passed, and their struggle for survival against all the odds as seasons came and went (including a couple of deaths and extreme hardship) seems to have no reason. I won't do a spoiler, in case anyone wants to read this extraordinary book.

*Back to Nicola Benedetti. Fabulous playing, of course, from her and the RSNO. However, the folk song, which was passed down by aural tradition, was almost 'arranged' out of existence. How much more telling had it been played (or sung?) in its Gallic simplicity. A plus though. Four minutes of Radio 4 time on the Sunday Morning Radio 4 news programme were given over to this music...with no talking over.