What are you reading now?

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  • Pulcinella
    Host
    • Feb 2014
    • 10872

    Originally posted by Historian View Post

    That's another example: I loved Moby Dick but could see how many others might find it impossible to get along with.
    Sounds like you and my friend would really hit it off!

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    • smittims
      Full Member
      • Aug 2022
      • 4034

      A much-loved rarity: Commonplace, a novella by Christina Rossetti. A quiet family drama, it would make an excellent BBC costume mini-series. Like Margaret Drabble more recently , Rossetti had the art of writing from a woman's perspective without sounding like a ranting feminist, and thus has something to offer the male reader.

      Comment

      • DracoM
        Host
        • Mar 2007
        • 12954

        Re-iterating my support for the quiet, finely narrated 'In the Heart of the Country' by JM Coetzee.
        Truly worth reading and re-reading. An author I have been delighted to follow for years.

        Comment

        • smittims
          Full Member
          • Aug 2022
          • 4034

          see my R3 jazz over New Year above. I agree.

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          • gradus
            Full Member
            • Nov 2010
            • 5601

            Back to Evelyn Waugh after a long gap, Vile Bodies remains very funny but I found Put out more Flags a bit flat although being EW there are always smiles to be had.

            Comment

            • Pianorak
              Full Member
              • Nov 2010
              • 3127

              Michel Barnier: My Secret Brexit Diary. Fascinating trip down memory lane. Somwhow seems like ancient and modern history rolled into one.
              My life, each morning when I dress, is four and twenty hours less. (J Richardson)

              Comment

              • AHR
                Full Member
                • Mar 2024
                • 15

                'Injury Time' by D. J. Enright. I knew him only as a poet so this, part journal, part memoir, part splendidly in defence of language, has been quite a discovery.

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                • smittims
                  Full Member
                  • Aug 2022
                  • 4034

                  Richard III, to follow my re-reading of the Henry VI plays. On ething I hadn't appreciated before was the variety of writing in these plays, which of course has given rise to much speculation about joint authorship , especially in Henry VI part One.

                  These plays have had many different attempts ot interrpet them on stage, including the very realistic TV version with Bendict Cumberbatch. Reading them again convinces me that I would prefer a more ritualistic, symbolic approach. Trying to put two armies on one stage is doomed to failure, as Shakepeare admits in the prologue to Henry V. But the verse is fascinating and would repay being brought into relief by a less active staging.

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                  • smittims
                    Full Member
                    • Aug 2022
                    • 4034

                    Lady Anna, one of Anthony Trollope's less-well-known novels , dating from 1874, after Phineas Redux.

                    Unusualy for Trollope it has only one plot. Usially there are at least two; it's a familiar story of a wronged heiress contesting a will and finding love,etc. but what made me post this is the type face for this Oxford World Classics reprint. It is notoceably larger than normal , and seems to be an enlargement of the old miniature World's Classics hardbacks, if you remember them; they were much on sale inthe 1970s.

                    This set me thinking about cheap reprints. Does anyone remember Heron Books, who used to advertise on the backs of magazines, tempting you to subscribe to a whole series of what looked like leather-bound 'fine editions' but which were actually laquered paper and card , and usually reprints of 19th-century editions. A neighbour of mine had shelves full of them , which sadly he never got around to reading.

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                    • LMcD
                      Full Member
                      • Sep 2017
                      • 8396

                      Just started John Updike's 'Terrorist'

                      Comment

                      • Jazzrook
                        Full Member
                        • Mar 2011
                        • 3061

                        Margaret Renn’s recent biography of the great investigative journalist and revolutionary socialist, Paul Foot:

                        As her biography of Paul Foot is launched, Margaret Renn discusses his legacy as an investigative journalist. His notable columns appeared in Private Eye, So...


                        JR

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                        • smittims
                          Full Member
                          • Aug 2022
                          • 4034

                          I remember Paul Foot's fearless writings. We need more people like him today.

                          I'm re-reading Smoke. one of Turgenev's shorter novels , about a man whose life is turned upside down by the reappearance of a first love . I find more and more in Turgenev every time I re-read him. He was much admired by other novelists.

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                          • richardfinegold
                            Full Member
                            • Sep 2012
                            • 7638

                            Originally posted by LMcD View Post
                            Just started John Updike's 'Terrorist'
                            I read that. I always enjoyed Updike but remember thinking he was a bit out of his depth there

                            Comment

                            • richardfinegold
                              Full Member
                              • Sep 2012
                              • 7638

                              John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath. I’m reading it for a book club. I had read it when I was 14-it was a standard of American Education of the day- and its depiction of people chewed up by capitalism and being helpless and destroyed is timeless. Steinbeck is quite preachy nd repetitive and if I had been his Editor I would have left most of these out and let the story speak for itself

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                              • smittims
                                Full Member
                                • Aug 2022
                                • 4034

                                Yes, I see what you mean, thought I didn't notice that so much when I read it. The thing that struck me was that it lacked a satisfactory conclusion.

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