What are you reading now?

[Don Basilio]

How's Adam Bede, sparafucile? It is the one major George Eliot I can't remember re-reading since my teens. I was guiding a groups of American Methodists in Westminster Abbey at Poets' Corner, and the leader hadn't heard of Adam Bede, and made a note of it. (As a good liberal, George Eliot makes sure that the important religious element in her novels is carried by a different tradition - Methodism in Adam Bede, Roman Catholicism in Romola, Judaism in Daniel Deronda. *)

Now reading C S Lewis Out of the Silent Planet. Recently finished Colm Toibin The South.

* And I haven't re-read that either.

[vinteuil]

. Encouraged by this Forum and always eager to improve myself I rashly ordered How to Live, A Life of Montaigne, by Sarah Bakewell, and The Complete Essays by M. de Montaigne. .

Pianorak - me too... hope you've been enjoying them!

I raced through the Sarah Bakewell, which is very good indeed, and does make you want to go back to reading Montaigne.
My bank manager won't be so happy - I thought I was already well-equipped with the old Pléiade edition [1962], but her section on 'the editing wars' convinces me I also need to obtain the new Pléiade [2007] based on the 1595 text...

[Pianorak]

Pianorak - me too... hope you've been enjoying them! . . .

Still reading the S. Bakewell - haven't started on the Montaigne (Penguin edition). Actually got a bit sidetracked (blame the Living with Princes play!) and been reading up on Francis I, Henry II etc. Margaret, Queen of Navarra (1492-1549) - what an absolutely fascinating character. Anyway, back to Bakewell.

[french frank]

Still reading the S. Bakewell - haven't started on the Montaigne (Penguin edition). Actually got a bit sidetracked (blame the Living with Princes play!) and been reading up on Francis I, Henry II etc. Margaret, Queen of Navarra (1492-1549) - what an absolutely fascinating character. Anyway, back to Bakewell.

The power of Radio 3! I went out to lunch with a friend on Tuesday and he produced his latest purchase - How to Live. A Life of Montaigne, by Sarah Bakewell...

[Chris Newman]

Tonight I begin a heftier tome. I have heard amazing things about Dutchman Geert Mak's In Europe which charts (literally) a journey through the 20th Century by going to the places where European history occurred, meeting people, memories and sights. My usual bookshop perusal of three pages from different parts of the book revealed that Mak and his translator Sam Garrett have a very fine sense of style which for me is a strong reason to read any book.

I said that I had heard amazing things about this stylist. I am now a third of the way through the book. A few typos aside it is beautifully written: reminiscent of Patrick Leigh Fermor and places the reader right into times, places and situations with people's feelings of exhilharation, sadness, regret, hatred and forgiveness. It is a very irresistable book; as I read mostly in bed I find I have eventually fallen asleep, lost the page and slept with the light on.

[french frank]

This now leaves the large Waterstones as the only major bookshop in Bristol and that, in spite of its large floor space, only appears to stock relatively popular books - e.g. the books on classical music or fine art are almost at vanishing point.

An interesting item of news for those in the Bristol area: Foyles are to open their first branch outside London in their history, in early March, close to the Apple store and the excellent Brasserie Blanc in Cabot Circus

[sigolene euphemia]

Carlos Fuentes

"Constancia and Other Stories for Virgins"

and to the thread of modalities reversed as in synesthesia, page 163,

" He ( Ruben Oliva) heard them as smells ..."

~

'And Hearing Colors, Tasting Shapes ' if you would like to learn more -

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=hearing-colors-tasting-sh-2003-05

[amateur51]

I said that I had heard amazing things about this stylist. I am now a third of the way through the book. A few typos aside it is beautifully written: reminiscent of Patrick Leigh Fermor and places the reader right into times, places and situations with people's feelings of exhilharation, sadness, regret, hatred and forgiveness. It is a very irresistable book; as I read mostly in bed I find I have eventually fallen asleep, lost the page and slept with the light on.

Until you mentioned him, I had never heard of Geert Mak, Chris. In Europe has gone on to my list and I look forward to tackling it.

Looking at his entry on Amazon there are several other titles that are very appealing - you appear to have opened up a rich new seam of reading.

Drat!

[amateur51]

The Haunted Mind , the autobigraphy (1984) of Hallam Tennyson, who was the youngest great grandson of the poet, and who was murdered in North London in December 2005.

His murder has not been solved.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/hallam-tennyson-521322.html

[sigolene euphemia]

Edinburgh's own. Kate Atkinson.
'One Good Turn"


I am particularly keen on discovering what next for the character, Gloria. And in these past few years of learning the riches of classical music and history it brings more understanding to me, in passages such as this on page 87 of Atkinson's novel; "The storming of the Winter Palace, Lenin arriving at the Finland Station, Shostakovitch broadcasting his Seventh Symphony live in August 1942 in the middle of the siege - it was hard to believe one place could be so heady with history."

s.

[amateur51]

An interesting item of news for those in the Bristol area: Foyles are to open their first branch outside London in their history, in early March, close to the Apple store and the excellent Brasserie Blanc in Cabot Circus

When I was a student in London in the early 70s, Foyles was renowned for stocking everything and for dreadful service supplied by underpaid staff (who were often sacked one day before they had been in Foyles' employ long enough to acquire some employment protection ) and the daftest payment system known to humankind. The result was a shoplifter's paradise.

Since the death of Christina Foyle, the shop's systems & attitudes have improved much for the better and there are a couple of London branches now.

All hail to Bristol's branch - I hope that it is a great success!

[verismissimo]

Following The Hare with Amber Eyes with Bruce Chatwin's UTZ.

[Petrushka]

Currently reading Operation Mincemeat by Ben Macintyre. Second World War students and film buffs will know this true story as The Man Who Never Was. A wonderful read for a train journey - great stuff!

[Sparafucile]

Hi all,
Someone asked a while back how I was finding Adam Bede? I thoroughly enjoyed it. I've bought a copy of Romola, which I intend to read soon. I know for a long while it's been Eliot's least read and least studied novel, but now seems to be enjoying something of a critical renaissance, if you'll excuse the term...

I tried to get into Michael Faber's The Crimson Petal and the White last week, but failed. I could not get to grips with the postmodernist narrative stylisations at all, if that's what they were? A bit Fowles-like, or even Thackeray-esque, the author was prominently present in the narrative from the first page, most distracting for me. It felt like I was trying to read one novel while listening to the audio book of a completely different one.

For a little light relief, I'm reading a Jo Nesbo novel (Nemesis). I'm afraid I have rather been smitten by Scandinavian crime fiction over the last year or so.

Next up, after the Nesbo, I think will be Crime and Punishment. I read The Idiot over 30 years ago, at the prompting of a girlfriend (I'm sure I was only trying to impress her, honestly!), and at that tiime it was the 'heaviest' novel I think I'd ever read. I plan to re-read The Ragged Trousered Philanthopists over the summer too, in order to re-connect with a few things I've let slip from my grasp recently. If ever a single book changed my life, and how I saw the world, it was that one.

[french frank]

After South Wind, I'm about to start on Büchner's Lenz. Shouldn't take long.


Longer than I thought. Much denser than South Wind . A strange work.