What are you reading now?

[AHR]

'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.

[Pianorak]

Michel Barnier: My Secret Brexit Diary. Fascinating trip down memory lane. Somwhow seems like ancient and modern history rolled into one.

[gradus]

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.

[smittims]

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

[DracoM]

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.

[smittims]

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.

[Pulcinella]

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!

[Pulcinella]

If nothing else, Moby Dick is memorable for the first chapter. How many people wake up sharing a bed with a cannibal?

Very true!

[richardfinegold]

I felt bad, as it was given to me by a work colleague, whose favourite book (closely followed by Moby Dick, another I struggled with) it was.
As you say, all very individual.

If nothing else, Moby Dick is memorable for the first chapter. How many people wake up sharing a bed with a cannibal?

[Historian]

I felt bad, as it was given to me by a work colleague, whose favourite book (closely followed by Moby Dick, another I struggled with) it was.
As you say, all very individual.

That's another example: I loved Moby Dick but could see how many others might find it impossible to get along with.

[Pulcinella]

And that is a reaction I can also understand entirely because it is so individual.

I only recommend books by saying that I enjoyed it, you might.

I felt bad, as it was given to me by a work colleague, whose favourite book (closely followed by Moby Dick, another I struggled with) it was.
As you say, all very individual.

[Historian]

Tried twice (different translations) and just never got on with it.

And that is a reaction I can also understand entirely because it is so individual.

I only recommend books by saying that I enjoyed it, you might.

[Pulcinella]

Just finished Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita which I found compelling and extraordinary.

Tried twice (different translations) and just never got on with it.

[Historian]

Just finished Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita which I found compelling and extraordinary.

[french frank]

Had lunch out and took Kafka's short story In the Penal Colony to read. It's a grisly tale which piles on the agony until at one point, inappropriately, I laughed as it hit the level of Kafkaesque/Borgesian absurdity. Much interpreted, it surprised me with its ending.