What are you reading now?

[Petrushka]

A Delicate Truth by John le Carre

Just finished this and it's quite superb. Le Carre has lost none of his authority and wizardry and this has to be his best book in years. A real page-turning read, wholeheartedly recommended.

[Thropplenoggin]

Is it worth reading, Throppers?

p.50. It's almost too heavy to read. Certainly not portable. Enjoyable thus far, although old Fischer likes his biographical minutiae.

[Pabmusic]

Recent reads include:

Takedown Twenty (Janet Evanovich) - back to her best.
The Cuckoo's Calling (David Galbraith, aka J K Rowling) - the best 'first book' I have read for years.
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time (Mark Haddon) - not the first time I've read this, but a wonderful view of someone with Asperger's (aka Pabmusic)
The Hound of the Baskervilles (Arthur Conan Doyle) - how many times?
A Universe from Nothing (Lawrence Krauss) - a very readable synopsis of the origin and fate of the universe, from a particle physicist.
An Appetite for Wonder (Richard Dawkins) - the first part of his biography. Heavily criticised for being 'predictable' or 'ordinary' - not a demon, but a scientist who enjoys his science!
The Greatest Show on Earth (Richard Dawkins) - not a first read by any means, but proof of just what a good writer he is.
The Adventures of Brigadier Gerard (Arthur Conan Doyle) - not read since my teens, but brilliant vignettes of a Falstaffian character.
The Merde Factor (Steven Clarke) - latest in a lightweight series. Brilliant though (1000 Years of Annoying the French is slightly weightier and well worth a read).
The Fabric of Sin (Phil Rickman) - again not a first reading, but a reminder of what a good writer Rickman is (though I can become sated with exorcisms!).
Various ghost stories of M R James

And the three best short crime stories ever:

The Specialty of the House (Stanley Ellin)
We Know You're Busy Writing, But We Thought You Wouldn't Mind If We Just Dropped In For A Minute (Edmund Crispin)
Eye to Eye (Jeffery Deaver)

[Tevot]

"Mao - A Life" : by Philip Short. Only just started it but it is very well written and compelling (unlike Short's later biography of Pol Pot.)

Looking forward to also getting and reading the following books on C20th Chinese History. Frank Dikotter's "The Tragedy of Liberation" - reviewed here by Rana Mitter http://www.theguardian.com/books/201...ikotter-review

and also Mitter's own study of the Sino - Japanese War 1937-1945: http://www.theguardian.com/books/201...h-japan-review

I've too many books and too little time. Can an old dog learn to use Kindle !?

Best Wishes,

Tevot

[Tevot]

Post Script :-

And I suppose Throppers I'll have to shell out on the Mahler biography having read this review by none other than John Adams...

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/02/books/review/gustav-mahler-by-jens-malte-fischer-book-review.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

Now - can anybody help me out ? - I 'm already strapped for cash so I need the phone number of the IMF...Pronto !!!

[richardfinegold]

Truman, by David McCullough. A lengthy biography that I can't put down. I'm at the halfway point now, where he has become the President after Roosevelt's death and is at the Potsdam Conference with Stalin and Churchill and trying to decide about dropping the bomb on Japan.

[Petrushka]

Moscow 1941 by Rodric Braithwaite.

When I was in Moscow in 1979 I was talking to someone who fought in this battle and was shown the point the Germans reached, just outside Sherametyavo Airport on the road into the city.

I did wonder whether Intourist, the Soviet travel agency, used to engineer meetings like this (it was in the hotel at breakfast) but it was fascinating stuff nonetheless.

[Richard Tarleton]

Nearing the end of Robert Harris's "Selling Hitler", his entertaining account of the Hitler Diary scandal in the 1980s. Seldom did criminality, greed (individual and corporate), gullibility (ditto), vanity and stupidity collide to such spectacular effect.



Also - and I have to declare an interest here, a book by a friend - The Politics of Dissent, a biography of ED Morel -by Donald Mitchell. Topical, as he was a bitter opponent of British foreign policy before World War One, opposed the war, was imprisoned for his efforts in 1917, and defeated Churchill in Dundee in the 1921 General Election (as a Labour candidate). He died in 1924.

He had earlier made his name opposing the rubber trade in King Leopold of Belgium's personal fiefdom of the Belgian Congo. Like his great friend Roger Casement, who fought for the same cause (in the Congo and the Amazon) his career fell into two parts - in Casement's case of course the second part was Irish nationalism. Somewhere up-thread I reviewed Mario Vargas Llosa's El sueño del celta, about Casement.

[aeolium]

That Morel book looks interesting, RT. It's a shame there were not more like him around and in positions of influence. Churchill got so many things wrong in his "middle" period: belligerence over the First World War, Gallipoli, Middle Eastern intervention (bombers over Iraq), intervention in the Russian civil war on the part of the White Russians, putting Britain back on the Gold Standard in 1925 etc.

[Stanfordian]

'Rodion Shchedrin - Autobiographical Memories' pub Schott 2013

'Bismarck: A Life' - Jonathan Steinberg - pub OUP Oxford 2012

[verismissimo]

Two musical tomes:

When Soft Voices Die, the memoirs of Sir George Henschel's contralto daughter, Helen. Very interesting on Henschel's relationships with Brahms. Long out-of-print.

Geoffrey Parsons: Among Friends by Richard Davis. Full of interesting stuff about the leading singers of the second half of the 20th century.

[Beef Oven!]

A preliminary dip into 'Ginger Geezer: The Life Of Vivian Stanshall' - Lucian Randall & Chris Welch (pointed out by Cloughie )

I'm supposed to be saving it for summer holiday reading

[pastoralguy]

Heifetz's Early years in Russia by Galena Kopytova. Very detailed examination of the early life of, arguably, the greatest violinist there has ever been. Quite fascinating.

[Petrushka]

Epitaph for a Spy by Eric Ambler.

Does anyone still read Ambler? Very much a precursor of John le Carre his stories set in 1930s pre-war Europe still hold up well and I've enjoyed reading the few available in the Penguin Modern Classics series.

[DracoM]

More than this / Patrick Ness.