What are you reading now?

[Cockney Sparrow]

This forum has many things to offer, I'm so glad it didn't disappear into the graveyard of powered down servers... I can find cookery suggestions & ideas, compile reading lists, shop for bargains without fisticuffs at checkouts and seek tips on veg gardening. Oh, and then there is all the musical discussions as well....

[LMcD]

Currently reading 'Red Sky At Noon' by Simon Sebag Montefiore.

[ardcarp]

Reading Lampedusa's The Leopard for the third time. I first read it as a student, then in middle life and now.....
It is ASTONISHING. What I can't understand is how it manages to be so good in translation. Is the language and the dark humour as good in Italian, or is the translator (one Archibald Colquhoun) an especial genius?

[kernelbogey]

Tony Judt: Postwar, A history of Europe since 1945 (2005) [933pp!]. Still on very early chapters of this monumentally erudite work. I am fascinated by the detail of the postwar chaos being brought into order by the Allies on one side and the Soviet Union on the other - my cradle years....

[Alain Maréchal]

Tony Judt: Postwar, A history of Europe since 1945 (2005) [933pp!]. Still on very early chapters of this monumentally erudite work. I am fascinated by the detail of the postwar chaos being brought into order by the Allies on one side and the Soviet Union on the other - my cradle years....

I recommend this to everybody. Too dense for me to read in English, even in translation it was a fresh and timely overview. Judt's other work is well-known in France: he was scathing about (although he understood the causes) the reluctance to face up to the treatment of French Jews, and may have prompted the present open appreciation of the subject. (In this town, there are people I know who remember it well, and it took a great deal of effort to erect a penitential memorial - almost opposite Pétain's apartment). The overwhelming impression I received from Judt's book was of missed opportunities (sometimes deliberately not taken).

ps re The Leopard. Should we a start a thread on "books worth rereading several times"?

[Pulcinella]

ps re The Leopard. Should we a start a thread on "books worth rereading several times"?

Yes, better than one on “books I'd happily never read again!”, for fear of going down in others' estimation.

Reading Lampedusa's The Leopard for the third time. I first read it as a student, then in middle life and now.....
It is ASTONISHING. What I can't understand is how it manages to be so good in translation. Is the language and the dark humour as good in Italian, or is the translator (one Archibald Colquhoun) an especial genius?

My partner has read this in Italian, but says he does not really recognise/remember dark humour aspects. He's just dug out the English (Colquhoun) translation he has, which neither of us has read, so I might give it a go after I've ploughed through the Booker list.

[Beef Oven!]

[ardcarp]

He's just dug out the English (Colquhoun) translation he has, which neither of us has read, so I might give it a go

I'd love to hear your comments when (if?) you do. The level of description and comment on inner feelings are just breathtaking throughout. For humour, try Don Fabrizio's visit to a closed nunnery, or his shooting trip with Donnafugata's church organist. [Don Fabrizio is a Sicilian prince-ling and I suppose the whole book revolves around his feudal obligations..and a few privileges..in a changing society.] In case I've made it sound like a Don Camillo novelette...it isn't!

[Pulcinella]

I'd love to hear your comments when (if?) you do. The level of description and comment on inner feelings are just breathtaking throughout. For humour, try Don Fabrizio's visit to a closed nunnery, or his shooting trip with Donnafugata's church organist. [Don Fabrizio is a Sicilian prince-ling and I suppose the whole book revolves around his feudal obligations..and a few privileges..in a changing society.] In case I've made it sound like a Don Camillo novelette...it isn't!

It certainly sounds more interesting than I promessi sposi (The betrothed), which all Italian students have to read, I think.

[Petrushka]

The Bombing War: Europe 1939-1945 by Richard Overy.

Just started this and already it's apparent that here is a book that at last treats the subject on the scale it deserves instead of concentrating on the Blitz or the air war over Germany. Engrossing stuff and wonderfully well written.

[eighthobstruction]

Reading Lampedusa's The Leopard for the third time. I first read it as a student, then in middle life and now.....
It is ASTONISHING. What I can't understand is how it manages to be so good in translation. Is the language and the dark humour as good in Italian, or is the translator (one Archibald Colquhoun) an especial genius?

....great reading about the Unification of Italy 1800's....unusual rich novel...

[eighthobstruction]

....interesting man and ideas....give us the lowdown on it please

[Richard Barrett]

Reading Lampedusa's The Leopard for the third time. I first read it as a student, then in middle life and now.....
It is ASTONISHING. What I can't understand is how it manages to be so good in translation.

Maybe Italian literature is easier to translate than books in other languages? Apart from Lampedusa I could mention Eco, Calvino and Ferrante as other authors with whose work you're seldom aware of reading a translation.

What I am reading now is Beyond Nature and Culture by the French anthropologist Philippe Descola, which seems so far a worthy successor to the most eye-opening and thought-provoking books on related subjects by Claude Lévi-Strauss.

[Conchis]

Just finished The Beetle by Richard Marsh - a novel that was published contemporaneously with Dracula, which it outsold back in the day.

Then to finish off The Plot Against America by Philip Roth.

[richardfinegold]

The Bombing War: Europe 1939-1945 by Richard Overy.

Just started this and already it's apparent that here is a book that at last treats the subject on the scale it deserves instead of concentrating on the Blitz or the air war over Germany. Engrossing stuff and wonderfully well written.

Thanks for the recommendation. Any mention of the Spanish Civil War?
Addendum--I just checked Amazon under Overy and I realize that I read his previous book, the one that is precisely about the bombing campaign over Germany, 1940-45. Have you read his previous work, Perrushka? How much of the new book is recycled material?