What are you reading now?

[Richard Tarleton]

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.

[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.

[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! ...

[Globaltruth]

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.

[aeolium]

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.

[Beef Oven]

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

[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.

[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!

[Panjandrum]

the most left-wing University on the planet to read Economics and Politics!

Pyongyang School of Cultural Studies?

[Beef Oven]

Pyongyang School of Cultural Studies?

Might as well have been!! Although we called it Phnom Penh back then!

.

[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.

[MrGongGong]

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

[Beef Oven]

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!

[DublinJimbo]

Robertson Davies: The Cunning Man

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

[Pianorak]

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.