What are you reading now?

[vinteuil]

Of interest to readers of The Dead by James Joyce:

https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/l...dead-1.4068361.

... many thanks, Padraig.

Following your nudge, I have just re-read it, after over forty years. Lord, but it's marvellous...



.

[Constantbee]

War-related reading here, too, as a break from the Booker shortlist.

Jonathan Vance: The true story of The Great Escape, Stalag Luft III, March 1944

My father was a POW in that camp, but he spoke very little about his experiences.

That’s interesting, pulci. One of the Stalag 3 survivors, Alan Bryett, was a family friend for many years. He used to give very entertaining after dinner speeches about his experiences, literally the sort of story you could dine out on for the rest of your life.

Hers’s a link to a page from the Forces War Records that might interest you:

https://www.forces-war-records.co.uk/blog/2015/04/02/life-as-a-german-pow-at-stalag-luft-iii

This being Remembrance Sunday I thought I’d better do my bit. My grandfather was on the other side.

[gurnemanz]

This being Remembrance Sunday I thought I’d better do my bit. My grandfather was on the other side.

My wife's grandfather was also on the other side. She has a splendid brownish photo of him wearing a Pickelhaube helmet shortly before his death, shot by a British sniper, almost exactly 105 years ago in November 1914. He was a lieutenant-colonel and in his forties. We also have the last touching letter he wrote to his son, my father in-law, who was eight, thanking him for the nice picture he had drawn. The generations are really stretched in my wife's family. She was not born until 1952 when her father was also well into his forties and another world war had intervened in the mean time.

[Stanfordian]

My (very good) used copy cost £0.01!
OK: I had to pay £2.80 postage.

Hello Pulcinella.

Last week I paid about £4 including postage for a really poor condition copy that was described as very good. A few days ago I paid about a tenner including postage for my new copy before I seeing it for £3 in the shop yesterday.

[Pulcinella]

That’s interesting, pulci. One of the Stalag 3 survivors, Alan Bryett, was a family friend for many years. He used to give very entertaining after dinner speeches about his experiences, literally the sort of story you could dine out on for the rest of your life.

Hers’s a link to a page from the Forces War Records that might interest you:

https://www.forces-war-records.co.uk/blog/2015/04/02/life-as-a-german-pow-at-stalag-luft-iii

This being Remembrance Sunday I thought I’d better do my bit. My grandfather was on the other side.

Thanks for that.
When my father died, I sent his flying log and a camp diary/notebook to the Imperial War Museum, after checking that they would be interested in the material. The back of the notebook had a very carefully drawn map of the long march he was subjected to at the end of his captivity (I assume recreated when he got home). How the book survived the trek in such good condition I don't know.

Hello Pulcinella.

Last week I paid about £4 including postage for a really poor condition copy that was described as very good. A few days ago I paid about a tenner including postage for my new copy before I seeing it for £3 in the shop yesterday.

I hope you find the book as fascinating a read as I did.
One of the things my father DID occasionally talk about was what is described as 'goon baiting'.

[Petrushka]

War-related reading here, too, as a break from the Booker shortlist.

Jonathan Vance: The true story of The Great Escape, Stalag Luft III, March 1944

My father was a POW in that camp, but he spoke very little about his experiences.

I don't know whether or not you got the idea to read this book from my #2135 above but I hope so. It's an excellent book. I saw the graves of two of the shot escapers in Poznan in Poland several years ago but cannot remember who they were.

One of the directors at an old workplace of mine in the 1970s was imprisoned in Colditz during the war but in those days you wouldn't dare ask a director about their war experiences so, alas, I never found out his story.

[Pulcinella]

I don't know whether or not you got the idea to read this book from my #2135 above but I hope so. It's an excellent book. I saw the graves of two of the shot escapers in Poznan in Poland several years ago but cannot remember who they were.

One of the directors at an old workplace of mine in the 1970s was imprisoned in Colditz during the war but in those days you wouldn't dare ask a director about their war experiences so, alas, I never found out his story.

Yes I did, so many thanks.

[Padraig]

... many thanks, Padraig.

Following your nudge, I have just re-read it, after over forty years. Lord, but it's marvellous...



.

I'm glad I put you up to it, vinteuil.

Over forty years! Time for revised thoughts, then?

But, I myself wouldn't dare - would not have the courage - to respond to many of the thoughts and emotions provoked by the writing in this 'marvellous' story.

I have just re-read it too, but much more recently.

The star of this clip is James Joyce's guitar.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5AN9YRPPIWY

[Joseph K]

I'm really enjoying Will Self's memoires a great deal - which I expected to, and my expectations have certainly been met.

Though I did spot this error: '... and Will, who's preoccupation with them is self-evident...'.

[LMcD]

'The Hare With Amber Eyes'by Edmund de Waal- absolutely fascinating. I found this in a charity shop just 24 hours after hearing an item on this very topic on 'From Our Own Correspondent'

[DracoM]

'Northern Lights' / Pullman [again!!]

[Stanfordian]

Frederick Forsyth - 'The Fox'

Anselm Gerhard - 'The Urbanization of Opera: Music Theater in Paris in the Nineteenth Century'

[Pulcinella]

I'm really enjoying Will Self's memoires a great deal - which I expected to, and my expectations have certainly been met.

Though I did spot this error: '... and Will, who's preoccupation with them is self-evident...'.

Errors too in Timothy Day's I saw eternity:
One establishment is described as having borders (I'm sure it does, but he really meant boarders!)
Leant instead of lent (in the sense of a loan)
Confusion between practice and practise

But far worse for me (I am no fan of footnotes!) was a faux-coy style of not naming people:

A chorister said.........(footnote/reference X).
One organist reported........(footnote/reference Y)
A prominent critic wrote.......(footnote/reference Z)

And occasionally we'd get things like:

A visitor from America commented that ......
(New sentence)
John Smith had .......
So, is John Smith the visitor or not?

Sometimes the footnotes (which are a mixture of references and notes) identify the person, but not always.
Infuriating.

If I'd been the editor it would have been sent back for rewriting!

[Don Basilio]

I'm three thirds through Lawrence Durrell's Alexandria Quartet. The descriptive set pieces are wonderful. The painstaking analysis of sexual relations (particularly in the first part, Justine) bore me. Why can't they just enjoy a bit of slap and tickle?

I was inspired to read it again after reading his account of life on Corfu Prospero's Island. I have just acquired brother Gerald Durrell's account of their life there, My Family and other Animals, which looks an easier a read and far funnier. Although the opening sentence describing a rain swept Bournemouth is almost as rich as brother Larry's prose.

The word "pretentious" kept coming to mind as I read the first two parts of the Quartet.

[gradus]

Bill Bryson, The Body: A Guide for Occupants
Rivetingly interesting.