What are you reading now?

[salymap]

I still have problems with my eyes but am slowly getting though 'The Queens and the Hive' by Edith Sitwell.
The Sitwell family have always fascinated me.
Now have sidetracked to 'A Mingled Chime' by Sir Thomas Beecham,Bart, as it says! An early autobiography, published in 1944 and taken from my bookshelves due to references to Josef Holbrooke who is the subject of one of our threads.

[Globaltruth]

Hi all,
I'm about 200 pages into an extraordinary novel called Alone in Berlin by Hans Fallada, first published in 1947 and based in part on true events. It's been republished by Penguin in new translation and gained a lot of admirers. At times it reminds me of Bulgakov's Master and Margarita, and is full of a wry and indomitable humour. A novel I fully expect to return to at some point.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/014118938X/ref=pd_lpo_k2_dp_sr_1?pf_rd_p=103612307&pf_rd_s=lpo-top-stripe&pf_rd_t=201&pf_rd_i=184614082X&pf_rd_m=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE&pf_rd_r=1ARCDGDBB5Z39JFBW4HG

Best wishes,
Sparafucile

Information is not knowledge. Knowledge is not wisdom. Wisdom is not truth. Truth is not beauty. Beauty is not love. Love is not music. Music is the best...

I've also recently read that on the recommendation of a friend, without knowing anything of the background (which I only discovered at the end of the book). Oddly it was then serialised on r4 - quite a good serialisation in fact.

[eucalyptus44]

Salymap, I wondered if you'd tried an e-reader to read books using the size of font that suits you or perhaps have an ipod/mp3 player for listening to unabridged books? I was finding standard print increasingly hard to read but the kindle e-reader has been a revelation for me with its adjustable fonts. The selection of large print books in our library seems to be very limited.

Listening to books is also a huge pleasure and there's a vast choice of downloadable titles now. Just a thought....

[salymap]

eucalyptus thanks but I have just bought 2 expensive daylight lamps. It is fine if one can settle down with a book but not worth setting up for a quick look at something.

[Uncle Monty]

I'm reading "Whom The Gods Love" by Michael Barlow, which is about George Butterworth: I've had this some time, but am only now getting down to it.

Also reading "The Mahler Symphonies: An Owner's Manual" by David Hurwitz.

Depends which room I'm in. . .

[verismissimo]

Still ploughing on with Zuleika Dobson. Mildly amusing.

Fashions in humour change and so much of Beerbohm tries to be satirical but just seems snobbish to me.

Keep falling asleep after a few pages, but will finish!

What are YOU on to now?

[sigolene euphemia]

Since I met a hedgehog this past Friday at an art gallery on the arm of a patron, I pulled out the book "The Elegance of the Hedgehog" to read once again. It is not of a hedgehog what so ever, but a remarkable book where classical music is rich and abundant through out the pages.

[Pianorak]

South Wind by Norman Douglas.
The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ by Philip Pullman.

South Wind is a re-read which never fails to amuse, and the Pullman is just what every atheist is bound to enjoy.

[Sparafucile]

Hi,
I've just finished Gordon Campbell's most excellent history of the King James Bible, and have almost finished Charles Nichol's The Reckoning about the murder of Kit Marlow. Novel-wise, now 100 pages or so into Jo Nosbo's The Redbreast.

[Bax-of-Delights]

I do have de la Grange's 4 volume Mahler biography but only ever got half-way through Volume 1. (I'm saving the rest for a time when I seriously don't have anything to do).

Now reading Bob Shaw: The Shadow of Heaven. I don't read much SF but Shaw has always entertained and his concept of slow glass - refracting the light so much that the glass, made into spectacles allows the wearer to view things that happened in the past - a fascinating concept.

[umslopogaas]

M 96 verismissimo

Verismissimo, keep trying with 'Zuleika Dobson'. I must admit, its about forty years since I read it and memories are a little hazy (and my copy is distinctly brown round the edges), but I think the trick is to recognise it as genuine period piece. And I think you were quite lucky to find a copy, it struck me that though I believe Max Beerbohm was once a massive eminence, he has utterly sunk out of sight. "Well known as a writer, caricaturist and wit" according to the biographical blurb in my copy, but does anyone know anything at all about him, any more? Maybe Penguin have rediscovered him? Must have a look next time I'm in Waterstones.

I've finished 'Dracula' - great read, but oh, is that a scary book! I had an enthusiastic chat about the Hammer film with the assistant in Waterstones, remembering the scene where Dracula leaves his castle at night by crawling vertically out of a window and down the walls. Brrr!

Thanks to another poster on this thread (sorry, its got too long to check back and remind myself who it was), I've bought a copy of Elizabeth Gaskell's 'Ruth'. I've started, with some trepidation - its not a period of fiction I know much about - and am finding the style easier than I expected, but I have a sinking feeling that all will not end well. In fact, I know for certain it wont, because the cover summary says so: "... the cruel twist of fate that confronts her again with her worthless lover, with appalling consequences." I dont think I'm going to enjoy this.

I am enjoying 'Something Rotten', last in Jasper Fforde's Thursday Next series. I'll keep an eye open for Bax-of-delights (post 15), but havent got that far yet. Fforde has really got a style and wit all of his own, sly and knowingly funny.

[verismissimo]

Bax-of-Delights, my sense is that de la Grange's Mahler is for research, not for reading. Full of info. Turgid in style.

Thanks for your encouragement re Zuleika, um. In fact, as I write a good deal about Beerbohm's period, in fact I know quite a lot about him and his graphic work, but had never got through the novel. This time though... in the home straight!

[LeMartinPecheur]

Intimate letters - Leos Janacek to Kamila Stosslova, ed. and trans. John Tyrrell.

Weirdly fascinating, if only because it so completely fails to reveal what Janacek found in Stosslova to inspire all his passion and all that marvellous music. Well, so far at least, which is letter 538 of 18/12/1927...

I don't necessarily mean that I think KS was unworthy of LJ's love, just that the root of his passion remains completely obscure. Maybe that is inevitable, though I don't think so - surely there are other sets of artists' amatory correspondence where it is possible to see the spark jumping from one to another? KS seems neither particularly attractive physically, nor in any way an artistic or intellectual soulmate. Was his passion something essentially he created in his own brain and projected onto her?

[Angle]

Sub-titled films

Viewing only sub-titled films seems to be the only way of guaranteeing that a good quality non-American production can be expected. Were it not for the sub-titlted films shown on BBC4 (rare, I agree||) I doubt if I would watch any films at all.

[french frank]

Viewing only sub-titled films seems to be the only way of guaranteeing that a good quality non-American production can be expected. Were it not for the sub-titlted films shown on BBC4 (rare, I agree||) I doubt if I would watch any films at all.

There's a thread started about Des hommes et des dieux (which I'm hoping am51 will see and report back on). If there are any films you've seen recently which you can recommend, perhaps you'd like to mention them there?