What are you reading now?

[french frank]

This afternoon my Christmas favourite - Travels with a Donkey.

[richardfinegold]

I am rereading Huck Finn as a prelude to begin the Novel James

[Lordgeous]

A fascinating autobiography by flautist Richard Adeney called "Flute". Lots of uninhibited personal observations on conductors, composers and fellow musicians he knew. Had to read the whole book in one go!

[johncorrigan]

'The Wager: a tale of shipwreck, mutiny and murder' by David Grann

[richardfinegold]

Glitz by Elmore Leonard

[Master Jacques]

R. C. Hutchinson's Elephant and Castle.

1949. Rich, complex and panoramic novel set in the working class south of the river. Third reading. As absorbing and pleasurable as ever.

[Jonathan]

I've decided that I've read enough murder mysteries for the moment so starting Jodi Taylor's first book in The Chronicles of St. Marys - "Just one damned thing after another".

[smittims]

Thanks, vinteuil. The Penguin Classics edition mentions Sanger's work. I look forward to reading it.

[vinteuil]

Re-reading Wuthering Heights, I'm impressed by the symmetry and intricate structure of the novel . I didn't appreciate this last time.

... I think it was the barrister and leading authority on mathematical and statistical economics CP Sanger who first established the remarkable symmetries within Wuthering Heights in his 1926 essay

https://www.thebrontes.net/criticism/sanger

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[smittims]

Re-reading Wuthering Heights, I'm impressed by the symmetry and intricate structure of the novel . I didn't appreciate this last time.

[vinteuil]

... after Jocelyn Brooke, Aldous Huxley. After Crome Yellow (which was fun: a spoof on the Ottoline Morrell set at Garsington) almost at the end of Antic Hay. Very funny, desperately sad. A satire on the 'bright young things' of London in the 1920s, trying manically to 'have a good time' as a diversion from the awfulness of the Great War from which they have just escaped.

Influenced by the character of Pasteur Mercaptan in Antic Hay, I shall now have to read la Sopha of Crébillon fils...
.

... currently half way through la Sopha, which I'm enjoying a lot. It's a sort of further night of the Thousand and One Nights, our narrator relating to the sultan the time when he was transmogrified in to a sofa, or series of sofas, and all that he thereby witnessed. Part of the joy is that the sultan is an ignorant lout who keeps interrupting and not getting the point of the delicate nuanced narration...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sofa:_A_Moral_Tale

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[Belgrove]

Just finished Sue Prideaux’s biography ‘Wild Thing: A Life of Paul Gauguin’, which reappraises his somewhat louche reputation (probably established, soon after his death, by Maugham’s fictionalised treatment of his life in The Moon and Sixpence). It’s a fascinating and illuminating read (I hadn’t realised he spent time as a labourer digging the Panama Canal), and reveals new evidence regarding the medical conditions he suffered from towards the end of his life. Prideaux states that Gauguin was a devotee of Wagner’s music, and was synaesthesic. But Prideaux also states that Wagner was synaesthesic, a claim which I have never before encountered. Have any of the learned folk here heard tell of this?

[Ian Thumwood]

Just finished the latest Rebus. Wonder what anyone ekse felt about it. Nice to see ine character get his just desserts but surely Rankin can onky squeeze one more book out of this character ?

[Ian Thumwood]

I thought that Claudia Pineiro's 'A crack in the wall ' was a clever bit of writing. On the face of it the book was about a murder but the plot was pretty smart in dealing with the consequences. It seemed compelling but a little predictable until two thirds through when it reveals that many of the principle characters are also carrying out their own crimes. No so much a twist but a slight of hand where your sympathies change once you realise what is happening. Beautifully written but all very smart. I really recommend this out of the ordinary writer .

Now reading the latest Rebus book by Ian Rankin. Not sure how people will receive this book with the main character locked up inside prison. The most interesting element of the story concerns Malcolm Fox who looks like getting his come uppance

[Ein Heldenleben]

I had an ex colleague who self published on Amazon . The book did well. They got picked up by a publisher and I estimate they now make a pretty good living - correction very good living - 2 million copies worldwide. It can be done .