What are you reading now?

[amateur51]

Just finished re-reading : christ recrucified by nikos kazantzakis, and Zorba the Greek [by the same author]....two of my favourite books, they always hit the spot....full of vitality....a great writer in my opinion....

Another book highly rated by Sir Colin Davis

[eighthobstruction]

Just finished William Dalyrymples : Return of a King, about the disasterous first Afghan War....what a arrogant nation we were/are .... the egos and machiavellian thrusting of the British elite in 1840's

[amateur51]

Just finished William Dalyrymples : Return of a King, about the disasterous first Afghan War....what a arrogant nation we were/are .... the egos and machiavellian thrusting of the British elite in 1840's

I agree eighth0 - should be required reading for all politicians with interventionist ambitions

[Beef Oven]

The Downing Street Years - first volume of her memoires. Fascinating read (re-read in my case). I'm a bit of a glutton for politician's memoires.

[amateur51]

The Downing Street Years - first volume of her memoires. Fascinating read (re-read in my case). I'm a bit of a glutton for politician's memoires.

That LOOK INSIDE featurette doesn't work - obviously not very revealing memoirs

[french frank]

I've not read Closely Observed Trains but I love the film, currently available for very little money

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Closely-Obse.../dp/B0001DI4YU

It's very short, and I was reminded of the comic description (strange thing, humour ) of Miloš's grandfather, the professional hypnotist, standing in front of the advancing convoy of German tanks as it rolls into the village and 'spraying with his eyes' the thought, 'Turn round and go back'.

The film doesn't sound quite the same as the book.

[vinteuil]

I turn instead to 'Closely Observed Trains' by Bohumil Hrabal, which in comparison is a picnic.

... coïncidentally, have been re-reading that excellent study of alienation - Simenon's "L'Homme qui regardait passer les trains" !

[Thropplenoggin]

... coïncidentally, have been re-reading that excellent sudy of alienation - Simenon's "L'Homme qui regardait passer les trains" !

One of the few Simenon novels I have read, en anglais, helas.

[anotherbob]

To War With Whitaker.
The Wartime Diaries of the Countess of Ranfurley 1939-45.

A window into another world and an insight into why Labour won the post war election.

[Thropplenoggin]

Has anyone here read this?

[amateur51]

Has anyone here read this?

Not yet, but I have handled it 'live' and it weighs a fair bit

Tempted but like you Throppers I'd like to hear from someone who's read it

[amateur51]

For book-loving Londoners and book-lovers within travelling distance... The Second Annual Charing Cross Road Festival 22-23 June 2013

http://lovecharingcrossroad.com/

[Petrushka]

Not yet, but I have handled it 'live' and it weighs a fair bit

Tempted but like you Throppers I'd like to hear from someone who's read it

Currently wending my leisurely way through the final volume of Henri-Louis de la Grange's Mahler biography with Mitchell still to go! Weighty tomes all. Couldn't manage another one just now.

[amateur51]

Currently wending my leisurely way through the final volume of Henri-Louis de la Grange's Mahler biography with Mitchell still to go! Weighty tomes all. Couldn't manage another one just now.

That strikes me as a huge effort, Pet both in terms of volume of reading and cost - well done!

Has it been worthwhile?

[Richard Tarleton]

Just finished Vol 3 of Alan Walker's magnificent biography of Liszt. The fourth biography of him I've read - a composer who has always fascinated and puzzled me, both as man and musician.

I read Ernest Newman's disgraceful and wholly misleading character assassination "The Man Liszt" many years ago, and more recently inherited an old copy of Sacheverell Sitwell's affectionate but similarly inaccurate one. Earlier this year I read Eleanor Perenyi's, picked up in a second hand bookshop, again loads of inaccuracies, no good on the music, and it stops dead at the end of the Weimar years in 1861, with a large chunk of Liszt's life and work still to come. I'm grateful to ostuni, up-thread, for alerting me to the Walker which somehow I'd missed. At last Liszt leaps into focus, over three fine volumes, the seeming mysteries and inconsistencies in his life making sense at last. The scholarship is immense, many topics which would slow down the narrative are continued in absorbing footnotes. A central, pivotal figure in 19th century musical history - the importance of his relationships with Berlioz and Wagner cannot be exaggerated.