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  • Joseph K
    Banned
    • Oct 2017
    • 7765

    I bought Yanis Varoufakis' newly-translated book Talking to My Daughter About the Economy - A Brief History of Capitalism yesterday. I'm now half-way through - it's superb, brilliant... I highly recommend it! Far-reaching discussions and arguments that encompass anthropology, history, economics, politics... I was toying with the idea of buying David Harvey's new book, but I've read his last few and comments on his new one led me to believe his new one didn't add too much... but I was in Waterstones when I saw this Varoufakis book - it's title really speaks for itself. It's also deeply indebted to Marx, it alludes to Capital several times... but then that is not surprising for anyone who knows about Varoufakis...

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    • Conchis
      Banned
      • Jun 2014
      • 2396

      Originally posted by french frank View Post
      I bought five Maxwell novels a few years back, including SLSYT. Quite enjoyed at the time but never since revisited.
      I've got four but have only fread SLSYT. I finsihed it at my second attempt, the first having been interrupted last Christmas. Like you, i enjoyed it without finding it life-changing.

      Comment

      • vinteuil
        Full Member
        • Nov 2010
        • 12779

        Originally posted by un barbu View Post
        This thread has been most enjoyable. ... I have just finished reading, for about the fourth time, John Gross's 'The Rise and Fall of the Man of Letters' and this thread was very much in my mind when reading his nicely acerbic account of the baneful influence of Dr Leavis.
        .
        Originally posted by DracoM View Post
        John Gross was my tutor! Good Grief!!
        ... thank you for this : to my shame, not a book I knew. (My landlady when I first moved to London in 1976 wrote for the TLS, and John Gross was a regular caller-in, but I was not aware of him as a Great Man ). I'm reading it now : it is wonderful. I see it came out in 1969, just before I went up to university to read English. I so wish I had read it then!


        .





        .
        Last edited by vinteuil; 15-11-17, 13:52.

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        • Conchis
          Banned
          • Jun 2014
          • 2396

          Currently: The Rack by A.E. Ellis

          I read about this book in Michal Blakemore's memoir 'Stage Blood'. He commissioned a play from the author, whom he calls 'the most pessimisitc man I have ever met'.

          The Rack garnered a lot of acclaim 60 years ago but now seems to be largely forgotten. Ellis (a pseudonym, borrowed from Ruth - the last woman to be hanged) never followed it up.

          Comment

          • un barbu
            Full Member
            • Jun 2017
            • 131

            Originally posted by vinteuil View Post
            .


            ... thank you for this : to my shame, not a book I knew. (My landlady when I first moved to London in 1976 wrote for the TLS, and John Gross was a regular caller-in, but I was not aware of him as a Great Man ). I'm reading it now : it is wonderful. I see it came out in 1969, just before I went up to university to read English. I so wish I had read it then!


            .





            .
            It is a fine piece of work, isn't it? I was half way through my English degree when it came out and was unaware of its publication until much later.
            Barbatus sed non barbarus

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            • Beef Oven!
              Ex-member
              • Sep 2013
              • 18147

              Originally posted by Joseph K View Post
              I bought Yanis Varoufakis' newly-translated book Talking to My Daughter About the Economy - A Brief History of Capitalism yesterday. I'm now half-way through - it's superb, brilliant... I highly recommend it! Far-reaching discussions and arguments that encompass anthropology, history, economics, politics... I was toying with the idea of buying David Harvey's new book, but I've read his last few and comments on his new one led me to believe his new one didn't add too much... but I was in Waterstones when I saw this Varoufakis book - it's title really speaks for itself. It's also deeply indebted to Marx, it alludes to Capital several times... but then that is not surprising for anyone who knows about Varoufakis...
              read that in the summer - he was quite figure at uni. Helped me with a stats assignment (Quantitative Methods), I'm absolutely sure he would not remember me!

              Coincidentally, I'm currently reading "Adults In The Room".

              Comment

              • ardcarp
                Late member
                • Nov 2010
                • 11102

                Howards End...after a 40-year break! Interseting to see how BBC1 does it. (Surprised it is on BBC 1)

                Comment

                • LMcD
                  Full Member
                  • Sep 2017
                  • 8401

                  'A Most Wanted Man' by John le Carré

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                  • muzzer
                    Full Member
                    • Nov 2013
                    • 1190

                    Likewise Howard’s End, for the first time and prompted by the Beeb. Was there on the shelf gently mocking me with others by Forster, for a mere thirty years unread. Loved it. Now onto Comrade Tulayev by Victor Serge to try to get some tangential context for the Kabakov at Tate Modern, which I found haunting. But more Forster soon, for sure.

                    Comment

                    • french frank
                      Administrator/Moderator
                      • Feb 2007
                      • 30233

                      Not actually reading atm, but have just bought a 1p copy of Dostoevsky's From the House of the Dead, having just spent the evening in a claustrophobic Siberian prison with Welsh National Opera. Cheers
                      It isn't given 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.

                      Comment

                      • Conchis
                        Banned
                        • Jun 2014
                        • 2396

                        Originally posted by french frank View Post
                        Not actually reading atm, but have just bought a 1p copy of Dostoevsky's From the House of the Dead, having just spent the evening in a claustrophobic Siberian prison with Welsh National Opera. Cheers
                        I don't wish to be discouraging but I recently re-read my Diary from late 2001 and came across the followiong sentence: 'Finally finsihed From The House Of The Dead. Thank God!'

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                        • DracoM
                          Host
                          • Mar 2007
                          • 12958

                          Book of Dust: La Belle Sauvage / Philip Pullman

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                          • french frank
                            Administrator/Moderator
                            • Feb 2007
                            • 30233

                            Originally posted by Conchis View Post
                            I don't wish to be discouraging but I recently re-read my Diary from late 2001 and came across the followiong sentence: 'Finally finsihed From The House Of The Dead. Thank God!'
                            Well, I did feel a bit numb after the opera last night. But I don't do light fiction
                            It isn't given 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.

                            Comment

                            • Joseph K
                              Banned
                              • Oct 2017
                              • 7765

                              Originally posted by Beef Oven! View Post
                              read that in the summer - he was quite figure at uni. Helped me with a stats assignment (Quantitative Methods), I'm absolutely sure he would not remember me!

                              Coincidentally, I'm currently reading "Adults In The Room".
                              Cool!

                              I finished that book (Talking to my Daughter...) today. I am really spoilt for choice as to what to read next, I have so many unread books in my possession (and quite a few which I could read again!) Tonight I'll finish the last 30 or so pages of War and Peace. Then tomorrow I'll probably start Dante's Inferno, which I had promised myself I'd read.

                              Comment

                              • un barbu
                                Full Member
                                • Jun 2017
                                • 131

                                I missed Simon Gray's diaries when they first appeared but I am catching up now with 'The Smoking Diaries.' Moving and funny, laugh-out-loud funny, too.
                                Barbatus sed non barbarus

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