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  • Richard Tarleton

    Originally posted by Pianorak View Post
    Re-reading one of my favourite books: Gerald Moore: Am I too loud?
    An enchanting book by a lovely man. I was lucky enough to see him right at the end of his career, accompanying a young Janet Baker very early in hers.

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    • old khayyam

      I have at last found a copy of Paperweight by Stephen Fry. I havent read it since it was published and it is far and away his best book, being a collection of 'wireless essays' from radio, and columns he wrote for the Telegraph around 88-92. The fact it is now not quite as hilarious and fascinating as it was then is i think a testament to his influence on society as a whole, or at least in the field of entertainment; by which i mean his style and approach have become absorbed into popular culture. I, for one, was certainly captivated and began to imitate his style.

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      • Mobson7

        I'm reading the new Mary Quant - Autobiography ....talk about being written simplistically - this is not how I remember the sixties London and I was there too! However, I shall stick with it as on page 151 there's a black and white picture of a dress that Royal Mail turned into a stamp in 2009, and which I have hanging in my vintage wardrobe - as long as the moths that invaded the West End last year haven't eaten. I can hear her voice as she writes - but this really could have done with better editing though. This is one hardback I'm glad I didn't pay the full price of £25 for! ...
        Last edited by Guest; 08-03-12, 12:03.

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        • Globaltruth
          Host
          • Nov 2010
          • 4282

          Black mischief by Evelyn Waugh. loosely based on Ethiopia, his 3rd novel published in 1930.

          A lovely Folio Soc. ed., which this picture probably won't do justice too...



          Prior to that Religion and the Decline of Magic by Keith Thomas, from the '70s.
          Too many footnotes and x-refs which I ignored after a while...

          Both recommended.

          Comment

          • aeolium
            Full Member
            • Nov 2010
            • 3992

            I remember enjoying Religion and the Decline of Magic when I read it an age ago, Globaltruth. Thomas was a fine and versatile historian. His Man and the Natural World is also well worth reading.

            Having almost completed E P Thompson's epic The Making of the English Working Class, I am about to reread Richard Holmes' Shelley: The Pursuit.

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            • Beef Oven

              'The Disappearing Consensus', Norman St John Stevas, in Why is Britain Becoming Harder to Govern? Ed. Professor Anthony King.

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              • Panjandrum

                Alessandra Comini: The Changing Face of Beethoven.

                Interesting read on how the great man's image, as it has come down to us, has been manipulated and appropriated by a host of interested parties, not least Beethoven himself. I particularly enjoyed Schindler's description of the famous Kloeber portrait as making Beethoven look like a "master brewer", "without a trace of intellect". Paradoxically perhaps, Schindler was taken with the Schimon portrait in which Beethoven's eyes have practically rolled out of his sockets, giving him a somewhat demented air.
                Last edited by Guest; 04-04-12, 20:29.

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                • Beef Oven

                  'We the Living' - Ayn Rand, 1936.

                  First read it in 1978, just before going to the most left-wing University on the planet to read Economics and Politics!

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                  • Panjandrum

                    Originally posted by Beef Oven View Post
                    the most left-wing University on the planet to read Economics and Politics!
                    Pyongyang School of Cultural Studies?

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                    • Beef Oven

                      Originally posted by Panjandrum View Post
                      Pyongyang School of Cultural Studies?
                      Might as well have been!! Although we called it Phnom Penh back then!

                      .

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                      • rank_and_file

                        Have just finished reading again John Steinbeck’s “The Grapes of Wrath”; a wonderful book as most readers will know.

                        I read somewhere that reading a book for the second time gives more pleasure than the first time. The gap is some four decades (!) and the re-reading most certainly well worth it.

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                        • MrGongGong
                          Full Member
                          • Nov 2010
                          • 18357

                          Originally posted by Beef Oven View Post
                          Might as well have been!! Although we called it Phnom Penh back then!

                          .
                          Well one is in Cambodia and the other in North Korea so not really the same place at all

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                          • Beef Oven

                            Originally posted by MrGongGong View Post
                            Well one is in Cambodia and the other in North Korea so not really the same place at all
                            True, but that's what we called it back then!

                            Comment

                            • DublinJimbo
                              Full Member
                              • Nov 2011
                              • 1222

                              Robertson Davies: The Cunning Man

                              Immediately preceded by the same author's Salterton Trilogy. All being read for at least the third time.

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                              • Pianorak
                                Full Member
                                • Nov 2010
                                • 3127

                                Originally posted by DublinJimbo View Post
                                Robertson Davies: The Cunning Man

                                Immediately preceded by the same author's Salterton Trilogy. All being read for at least the third time.
                                Don't know those, but re-read his What's Bred in the Bone a couple of months ago. Just finished Thomas Mann's Lotte in Weimar.
                                My life, each morning when I dress, is four and twenty hours less. (J Richardson)

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