What are you reading now?

[LeMartinPecheur]

Most of the way through Wolf Solent (John Cowper Powys). A pretty slow, sluggish, baffling, infuriating read if I'm honest but I'm not giving up. Difficult to imagine what sort of ending could make the slog worthwhile but I shall persevere!

Having perhaps put you all off JCP, I would recommend A Glastonbury Romance. Must reread it when it emerges from store!

[french frank]

Having perhaps put you all off JCP, I would recommend A Glastonbury Romance. Must reread it when it emerges from store!

I don't have A Glastonbury Romance; I do have Wolf Solent. I think I tried to read it once. I read Mr Weston's Good Wine by TFP some while ago

[vinteuil]

I don't have A Glastonbury Romance; I do have Wolf Solent. I think I tried to read it once. I read Mr Weston's Good Wine by TFP some while ago

... I remember enjoying Mr Weston's Good Wine a lot. And thinking that Theodore Francis Powys was much more interesting than the bloated oeuvres of John Cowper P


.

[french frank]

... I remember enjoying Mr Weston's Good Wine a lot. And thinking that Theodore Francis Powys was much more interesting than the bloated oeuvres of John Cowper P


.

Just finished reading Wolf Solent. I obviously hadn't read much of it previously (perhaps I just took it off the shelf and then put it back again) as I hadn't realised that Wolf Solent was the name of a person. I'd rather fancied it was a place. Well done, LeMartinPecheur.

[LeMartinPecheur]

I don't have A Glastonbury Romance; I do have Wolf Solent. I think I tried to read it once. I read Mr Weston's Good Wine by TFP some while ago

ff: Glastonbury not too far down the road from Bristol and the whole book very location-specific in and around the place. And the romance element is far more the medieval meaning than Barbara Cartland

[french frank]

ff: Glastonbury not too far down the road from Bristol and the whole book very location-specific in and around the place. And the romance element is far more the medieval meaning than Barbara Cartland

I knew the title, and was not absolutely sure I didn't have a copy, but it appears I don't. Having now finished Barnaby Rudge - I found it a much more interesting novel than contemporary and modern criticism would suggest - I am now looking for a follow-up. Dickens? or have I had enough of him for now?

[Maclintick]

Currently indulging in an oral-history binge by hopping dilettantishly between Gustav Mahler - A Study, by Bruno Walter, Gustav Mahler. Memories & Letters, by Alma Mahler, & Charles Ives Remembered, by Vivian Perlis.

[french frank]

Attempted to reread Hard Times but after a page or two decided that I had had enough of Dickens for the time being, Hard Times not nearly as interesting as Barnaby Rudge.

So, to an old favourite: Travels with a Donkey, by RL Stevenson. Immense appeal for me (will definitely repel others ): buying a donkey somewhere up in the French mountains and walking with my pack animal down through the Cévennes, recording all the things I encountered. A hugely enjoyable and humorous account of attempting to control the recalcitrant, wilful Modestine, with advice from a procession of slightly scornful villagers on the way.

Stevenson much, much more as a writer than Treasure Island and Kidnapped.

[vinteuil]

Stevenson much, much more as a writer than Treasure Island and Kidnapped.

... o yes. He was one of Borges's favourite writers. I'm particularly keen on his South Pacific writings - The Ebb Tide, The Beach of Falesá. And I have a soft spot for The Wrecker, jointly written with Lloyd Osborne.

.

.

[french frank]

... o yes. He was one of Borges's favourite writers. I'm particularly keen on his South Pacific writings - The Ebb Tide, The Beach of Falesá. And I have a soft spot for The Wrecker, jointly written with Lloyd Osborne.

.

.

Both Borges and M. Vinteuil - a great recommendation. Having had Treasure Island read to me at school when I was about 8 or 9, I was moved to read it for myself about 20 years ago. Although the type of story, the ripping yarn, was not then to my taste I was immensely impressed by his style. He was an enormously versatile writer, prolific and died just after his 44th birthday. Just a very interesting character.

[LMcD]

'Operation Pedestal' by Max Hastings.

[vinteuil]

He was an enormously versatile writer, prolific and died just after his 44th birthday. Just a very interesting character.

... I can very much recommend -

Rankin, Nicholas (1987). Dead Man’s Chest: Travels after Robert Louis Stevenson

London: Faber. Repr. London: Phoenix Press, 2001.


[a unique in-the-footsteps travel book (the most successful of its kind) covering the whole of Stevenson’s life and arranged in appropriate chronological order (so following both footsteps and life-stages), weaving together an account of Stevenson’s life with the biographer’s experiences along the way. The result is an essayistic sequence of chance encounters by the biographer and his lines of thought all held together within the framework of Stevenson’s life and Rankin’s attempt to understand it. Rankin also researches in libraries (and tells us of the library visits): discovers the Devonia passenger list (pp. 122-3), a manuscript account of Stevenson on Molokai by Sister Leopoldina Burns (pp. 281-84; very possibly the same as Bushnell 1982), and Graham Greene’s preparatory notes for a biography of RLS (pp. 74-7). he also interviews eminent Stevensonians Barry Menikoff (pp. 267-68) and Roger Swearingen (pp. 167-68). But the most significant meeting is with Jorge Luis Borges, which opens the book (pp. 1-5) and to whom Rankin returns on several occasions, creating one of the threads that hold together this fascinating and sui generis reportage-biography]

( from the RLS website)

.

[french frank]

... I can very much recommend -

Rankin, Nicholas (1987). Dead Man’s Chest: Travels after Robert Louis Stevenson

London: Faber. Repr. London: Phoenix Press, 2001.

That does sound worth a look. The only work I'd come across was Richard Holmes's Footsteps, in the first chapter of which Holmes, aged 18 (Stevenson was 28), followed in his footsteps down the Cévennes. There's now an RL Stevenson walkers' route and "Robert Louis Steamson" is still remembered (well, not actually remembered but certainly is well-known). Holmes captures Stevenson's love of travel as adventure, risk, journeying into the unknown and coping with what turns up, and he's not merely travelling but sleuthing to uncover facts about Stevenson in the process.

[Stevenson also designed and had made a special 'sleeping sack' to cover the eventuality of dusk approaching and no friendly auberge being anywhere in sight.]

[teamsaint]

Just galloped through an advance of “ Out of the Darkness: Greenham Voices 1981-2000”

A wonderful collection of new testimonies from Greenham women. A startling and revelatory book, that deserves a wide audience. New light is cast on how the women ran the camp, the myriad forms of non violent direct action they employed, the way they educated each other, their extraordinary strength in the face of consistent and undeserved hostility.
It is a truly inspirational and humbling guide to real empowerment, that seems exactly right for the current moment, when we too need to move out of the darkness. And it is not remotely worthy or preachy, but frequently funny, illuminating, and actually a really easy read, that can speak to all of us regardless of our own political views.

Read it in three sittings, and I cannot recommend it highly enough. Let’s hope that the mainstream media outlets, so complicit in the attacks on the women during the existence of the camp, can give it the right coverage.
Published in September.

[Petrushka]

'Agent Zigzag' by Ben Macintyre.

There have been some incredible stories to come out of the Second World War but the story of double agent Eddie Chapman must be the most amazing of them all. You read with utter disbelief how he managed to get away with it. I can't recommend this book enough and will be truly sorry when I finish it.