What are you reading now?

[Serial_Apologist]

https://www.theguardian.com/books/20...don-overground

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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!

[vinteuil]

Iain Sinclair's 2014 book "London Overground - A Day's Walk around the Ginger Line"

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/jun/12/the-ginger-line-iain-sinclair-on-the-london-overground

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[Serial_Apologist]

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.

[DracoM]

<< appalling BBC alleged adaptation, which was a complete rewriting of the story, and an inept one at that…..>>

Spot on!

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

I’ve just reread Great Expectations as a tonic, following watching that appalling BBC alleged adaptation, which was a complete rewriting of the story, and an inept one at that…

[gradus]

'Cursed Kings', vol. 4of Jonathan Sumption's history of the Hundred Years War. There is no other word for it - Brilliant.

[DracoM]

Ann Cleeves 'Shetland' series.

[muzzer]

Well said, muzzer. I wonder if you also like Barbara Pym. I loved 'Jane and Prudence' and re-read it with pleasure. I liked 'A Glass of Blessings' too but haven't been tempted to re-read that yet, so I'm afraid that makes me a luke-warm Pym fan, unlike Philip Larkin who admired her work intensely.

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.

Yes I’ve read quite a few Pyms, she’s very good. Agree also about Julian Barnes. I think he and Martin Amis were reconciled some time after their famous falling out. I hope so. MA dominating all thoughts this morning. He’s one of my heroes and like many others I’m devastated.

[eighthobstruction]

1619 Project : Nikole Hannah-Jones Edited essays - controversial in USA due to CRT debate....went straight to the top of the list as a book certain sections of US politicans etc wanted to ban in educational places....Excellent, pointing to the very many ways slaves are exploited/ suppressed- but in no way just a list of torture methods....then later the book evolves into unfurling the tendrils of modern US culture and the influence of black people on it....

[Petrushka]

I'm not fond of recent novels, many if not most of which seem written by women for women to read.

The listings of new issues I get emailed to me by Waterstones are so dominated by books of this kind that I now routinely ignore most female novelists and probably end up missing the odd one that is well written and offers genuine insight.

[smittims]

Well said, muzzer. I wonder if you also like Barbara Pym. I loved 'Jane and Prudence' and re-read it with pleasure. I liked 'A Glass of Blessings' too but haven't been tempted to re-read that yet, so I'm afraid that makes me a luke-warm Pym fan, unlike Philip Larkin who admired her work intensely.

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.

[muzzer]

This week has been all Muriel Spark. I picked up a paperback of her first novel The Comforters a couple of weeks ago in the charity shop, and that sent me back to all the others I have. In order. And then to a US first edition of The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie on eBay for a very reasonable £12.50. She’s quite the most amazong writer, and this seems to have freed me up a bit in the work I need to do on something I’m trying to write myself. But Spark is highly recommended to anyone who revels in comic humanity and the reality of everything everywhere being contained in every instant. Good and bad.

[muzzer]

Crossing to Safety, 1987, Wallace Stegner. He was wholly unknown to me before, a chance charity shop purchase. Two American couples meet in the early 1930s and become close friends, in different ways. This was his last novel, published when he was 78: it carries the four's story through until old age. I found it very moving.

So many authors I didn't even know existed. Still some time to read and learn.

Stegner is a very interesting writer. I enjoyed Crossing To Safety.

[Jonathan]

I finished the first in a series of murder mysteries set in Scotland yesterday, it's called "A litter of bones" by J D Kirk. It was well worth a read so I started book 2 today. I believe there are currently 16 in total and another one on the way.

[Historian]

Crossing to Safety, 1987, Wallace Stegner. He was wholly unknown to me before, a chance charity shop purchase. Two American couples meet in the early 1930s and become close friends, in different ways. This was his last novel, published when he was 78: it carries the four's story through until old age. I found it very moving.

So many authors I didn't even know existed. Still some time to read and learn.