What are you reading now?

[amateur51]

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?

Indeed I am hoping to go on Monday evening, french frank but I had to postpone last week's showing because of a bad cold which has now turned into a chesty cough. My cough sounds like a tractor that hasn't been started for 20 years :(

[french frank]

Indeed I am hoping to go on Monday evening, french frank but I had to postpone last week's showing because of a bad cold which has now turned into a chesty cough. My cough sounds like a tractor that hasn't been started for 20 years :(

Commiserations, am51 - hope you haven't been feeling too rotten.

Meanwhile, on reading: I took Le Clézio's Onitsha with me to lunch today as I was meeting a friend and she said she might be late. She was, but I read The Independent instead, and then about the first half page of the novel. Then she arrived. Not sure whether I'm reading it, or whether I've already given up on it.

Have just reread Basil: the Freshest Boy by F Scott Fitzgerald. It was the extract which Philidor quoted from The Cruel Sea on another thread that sent me back to it, and a memorable bit that always strikes me:

"It isn't given to 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. They will not be cured by our most efficacious drugs or slain with our sharpest swords."

[Anna]

Reading, of no interest to anyone else, 'Frozen in Time' the Fate of the Franklin Expediton to the Arctic in 1848 which ended on the shores of King William Island until the bones and remains were discovered in 1981 by the University of Alberta. Complete with photographs and records of starvation, scurvy and cannibalism. Bit of light reading! Soon to start on Cosima Wagner's Diaries.

[Angle]

I am just about half way through Rebecca West's BLACK FALCON AND GREY LAMB (1941), a beautifully written and often very funny account of her travels in Yugoslavia just before the outbreak of the Second World War. It runs to just over a thousand pages of description of locations, conversations she has with locals, histories of events and places, all amounting to a quite gripping read; by far tghe mopst intersting travelogue I have ever read.

Not usually held by tomes, this one has me hooked. Her account of events leading to the assassination on Franz Ferdinand, a widely detested man, are enlightening in a most readable way.

I hope to finish it by the New Year but in the meantime is anyone ready to recommend some lighter, funnier reading? Before Wodehouse and Beerbohm are named I ought to say I have read almost everything published, but I do need to laugh, and soon.

Don
Liverpool

[umslopogaas]

M109 Angle

I mentioned this earlier, but am delighted to be given an excuse to plug it again. Something funny? Stella Gibbons 'Cold Comfort Farm'. Available in Penguin Classics. Unlikely as it may seem to find humour in those black covers, its an absolute hoot.

Also Posy Simmonds 'Tamara Drewe'. Wickedly funny, accurate skewering of intellectual pretensions.

[french frank]

I am just about half way through Rebecca West's BLACK FALCON AND GREY LAMB (1941), a beautifully written and often very funny account of her travels in Yugoslavia just before the outbreak of the Second World War. It runs to just over a thousand pages of description of locations, conversations she has with locals, histories of events and places, all amounting to a quite gripping read; by far tghe mopst intersting travelogue I have ever read.

Angle, if you liked West in Yugoslavia, you might be interested in EM Delafield (Yes, the Provincial Lady)'s Straw without Bricks. I visit Soviet Russia of which amazon has a copy at £8.99. I bought a secondhand copy years ago and it doesn't seem to be widely available now.

I was very struck by the contrast between the suburban, middle-class daffiness of the Provincial Lady and the tough, observant woman of this work. So not exactly a comedy but ...

[aeolium]

I hope to finish it by the New Year but in the meantime is anyone ready to recommend some lighter, funnier reading?

Angle, I recommend "The Most of S J Perelman" - some wonderfully funny pieces in there. And there is Beachcomber (J B Morton) and Leo Rosten's Education of Hyman Kaplan (I think this was mentioned on a similar thread on the now defunct R3 board).

[2LO]

I'm enjoying Fantômas by Marcel Allain and Pierre Souvestre (Penguin). French crime with knobs on, circa 1910. All plot, stupid characters and dialogue, no characterisation or poetry but thoroughly enjoyable by the (gas) fire on these cold evenings.

As long as the introduction's ignored until finished - as it contains spoilers.

[vinteuil]

2LO - good to find someone else who is absorbed by "Fantômas"! - I used to read it voraciously... tho' I never completed all 32 volumes.

It was much appreciated by many significant figures such as Apollinaire, Aragon, the surrealists, Perec.

If you like Souvestre & Allain - you might also enjoy the 'Nestor Burma' stories of Léo Malet.

[Angle]

Very many thanks for the suggestions. I read CRAZY LIKE A FOX (Perelman) years ago and enjoyed it immensely. Like wise, COLD COMFORT FARM which is far better than any radio adaptations made of it. I might read both again but on the other hand I am attracted by FANTOMAS and tomorrow shall look for it in Waterstone's (We have two of them now but no other book shops in the city centre.) Christmas in Normandy, if I get there, looks brighter already and I say "thank you", again.
Don
Liverpool under ice

[2LO]

Vinteuil: shared tastes obviously! Léo Malet's Nestor Burma books certainly feature among my favorites, as my French can just ABOUT manage their brevity - especially with help from Jacques Tardi's sublime BDs!

32 Fantômas books would leave you tired of life, I think - but a few more in translation would be appreciated.

Angle: Hope your Waterstones has a copy of Fantômas. It might be an American-only Penguin (mine's only got a dollar price on the cover), although easily ordered when anything moves in frozen Britain.

[verismissimo]

Just embarked on Dr Faustus, thanks to umslopogaas.

First hurdle is the small print size in my 2nd hand Penguin edition. Carrying on regardless. :)

[Angle]

Ah, well, Liverpool might have been Capital of Culture in 2008 but getting books you really want now from Waterstones' stores is next to impossible. They did not have any FANTOMAS books nor any S J Perelman but they helpfully told me I could get them on line within a month! Not much use for Christmas reading this year. Maybe next. Nevertheless, thanks for all your help.

I had to resort to browsing and if I enjoy what I have chosen, I shall tell you later.

Meanwhile, how do I format text (with accents) here?

Happy Christmas everyone.

Don
Liverpool under ice, still

[amateur51]

Well Don there is a possible solution - you can get two volumes of Fantomas stories on Kindle!

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Messengers-Further-Account-Devices-Fant%C3%B4mas/dp/B001XJ1PLK/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1292957571&sr=1-1

This means that they are 'downloadable'

Me, personally, speaking for myself, I have not used one of these machines but I do know people who have who tell me that it is just the thing for when you are travelling and trying to cut down on the weight of your luggage.

I'm sure they're right - but I don't carry books to increase the weight of my luggage

Anyway ... over to you!

[2LO]

Ah, well, Liverpool might have been Capital of Culture in 2008 but getting books you really want now from Waterstones' stores is next to impossible.

Not surprised at all, Angle - that US Penguin copy of Fantomas I procured was all alone on a shelf in maybe the fifth bookshop I tried and looked like it had only got there by oversight - and that's central London. Seems like technology has made it harder to find "what you really want, NOW" than ever. Mail order's all very well, but . . .

Christmas greetings all.