Originally posted by Mahler's3rd
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What are you reading now?
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Mandryka
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From Machiavelli.
Replace 'ruler' and 'prince' with 'government'; 'take up arms' with 'go to the polls'; and, mutatis mutandis, the mobile vulgum is not so changing:
'What happens is that men willingly change their ruler, expecting to fare better. This expectation induces them to take up arms against him; but they only deceive themselves, and they learn from experience that they have made matters worse. This follows from another common and natural necessity: a prince is always compelled to injure those who have made him the new ruler, subjecting them to the troops and imposing the endless other hardships which his new conquest entails. As a result, you are opposed by all those you have injured in occupying the principality and you cannot keep the friendship of those who have put you there; you cannot satisfy them in the way they had taken for granted ...'It isn't given us to know those rare moments when people are wide open and the lightest touch can wither or heal. A moment too late and we can never reach them any more in this world.
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Raintree County by Ross Lockridge Jr
A recommendation on an occasionally-visited blog led me to this, and I'm thankful I found it. That blogger nominated it as a contender for the title 'The Great American Novel' and I find it hard to argue with that. It's a big book with an epic sweep and is utterly involving. I'm a third of the way through its 1000-plus pages, am devouring it at an alarming rate, and know that I will miss it desperately when I get to the end.
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amateur51
Originally posted by Barbirollians View PostDear Lupin - The Letters of Roger Mortimer to his son Charles - very funny .
Sweet Tooth - Ian McEwan - not finding it as compelling as so much of his other work .
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amateur51
I'm about to start The Epigenetics Revolution by Nessa Carey.
Buy The Epigenetics Revolution: How Modern Biology is Rewriting Our Understanding of Genetics, Disease and Inheritance Reprint by Carey, Nessa (ISBN: 9781848313477) from Amazon's Book Store. Everyday low prices and free delivery on eligible orders.
Has anyone else read it or does anyone have any informed views on the science of epigenetics?
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Originally posted by amateur51 View Post
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As noted elsewhere, I'm slugging through Jane Austin's Mansfield Park, my chief impediment being the lack of sympathy I feel for the heroine, Fanny Price. I am also reading Robert Service Spys and Kommisars, about dipomatic maneuvering and skullduggery on the part of both the Bolsheviks and the Allied and Central Powers at the time of the Russian Revolution,
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Mandryka
Andre Bely - Petersburg
Not enjoying it much, so far (I'm up to page 140). Yet more evidence that I don't draw too well with 'magic realism' (if that's what it calls itself).
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The Young Cosima by Henry Handel Richardson.
Richardson (real name Ethel) was a piano and composition student at the Leipzig Conservatorium in the 1890s, but decided that her real talent lay in writing. She is regarded as Australia's first important novelist. Her first novel, Maurice Guest, was set in and around the conservatorium.
The Young Cosima was a latish work (1939), a novel featuring Liszt, von Bulow, Wagner and Cosima.
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The Reichs Orchestra by Misha Aster about the Berlin Philharmonic 1933 - 1945. Not much about music in the book but a fascinating read nevertheless despite being littered with typos and similar errors. A pity because it's a well researched and well written book."The sound is the handwriting of the conductor" - Bernard Haitink
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Originally posted by Petrushka View PostThe Reichs Orchestra by Misha Aster about the Berlin Philharmonic 1933 - 1945. Not much about music in the book but a fascinating read nevertheless despite being littered with typos and similar errors. A pity because it's a well researched and well written book.
Was this book a companion piece to the documentary released by the Orchestra, with the same title, in 2007?
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