What are you reading now?

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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).

[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.

[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?

[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!)

[Serial_Apologist]

80 yesterday & still pyscho-geographic...

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

[smittims]

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

[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

[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

[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.

[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.

[DracoM]

Shetland books came to me long after I'd seen telly versions, so was able to imagine those faces, scenery etc when reading.

[Ian Thumwood]

Ann Cleeves 'Shetland' series.

My Mum loved these books but I read about three of them and was always struck at just how much an improvement the TV series were. The characters seemed to be more fleshed out in the latter and new characters were added which gave the stories more depth. I always considered crime fiction to be the lowest form of novels but reading Reginald Hill for the first time many years ago made me revisit this judgement.

I would have to say that two crime writers really stand out for me. The Ian Rankin Rebus series are terrific and the excitement comes from the juxtaposition of various, familiar characters who are shaken up in a variety of contexts which make the stories really compelling. I suppose the Rebus books are more about office politics than anything else. I would then recommend Philip Kerr's exceptional Bernie Gunther series which are broadly set aound the period of the eaely thirties to late fifties and concern the impact of Nazi Germany on Europe - more often than not in scenarios which are not familiar such as the influence of countries such as Greece, Switzerland and Croatia. I really loved these books and it was unfortunate that PK sadly passed away just as his hero's fortunes started to improve. The books are very "noir" in character but there are a few which tip their hat towards other writers such as Agatha Christie and Ian Fleming. This is a series I really enjoyed.