What are you reading now?

[teamsaint]

St Peter's , Cardross.
Birth, Death and Renewal.
Diane M Watters.

Santa dropped this off, and it is proving to be a very readable insight into a rather specialised world.
Recommended, although at this stage it would have been good to see (even) more photgraphs of the architects wider work,especially in English universities.
But I suppose there is plenty to see of that work online and elsewhere.

[DublinJimbo]

Until very recently I was the only person in the known universe who hadn't read Catcher in the Rye. Then I put that right, basically on my daughter's recommendation, and I found myself wishing I'd read it when I was her age (14). What a (goddamn) marvellous book, I can't get it out of my head.

Whenever I'm asked to name my favourite book of all time, this is the one that I nominate. I came across it again a few months ago and enjoyed it just as much as I had all those bygone years ago. Holden Caulfield is a remarkable creation, his sister is an absolute delight, and the language is phenomenally good. One of the greats, without a doubt.

[DracoM]

Just finished Rowling / Casual Vacancy.
Erm.................right.

[jayne lee wilson]

Peter Conrad - Mythomania: Tales of Our Times from Apple to Isis.
Much expanded book version of a series of Radio 4 talks, this cultural analysis of image and media is a brilliant successor to Roland Barthes' original classic, Mythologies.

Sarah Bakewell - At The Existentialist Café: Freedom, Being and Apricot Cocktails.
Biographical and analytical, a brilliant revisionist romp through the free-thinking mind...

Both of these writers have a memorably lucid prose style, the gift of making complex concepts pleasurable...

[Conchis]

Just finished Rowling / Casual Vacancy.
Erm.................right.

Rowling has far too many readers. Far, far too many.

[Lat-Literal]

I haven't read this book yet but I want to flag it up and the accompanying interview which I have listened to in full.

Alice in Westminster - The Political Life of Alice Bacon - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Alice-Westm.../dp/1784537683

Interview with Rachel Reeves MP on BBC Parliament TV's "Booktalk" - http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b085kdzr

This is significant to me because as soon as modern politicians reach for history they immediately get an additional couple of stars from me. That was how, for example, I was able to have any time for William Hague and several (not many) similar others. Rachel Reeves, who I think comes across quite well here, is to be congratulated for digging deeper into Labour Party history at a time when her party has identity problems. That she should have become something of an expert on women in the party before 1997 is especially good because they are very important to its foundations unlike those in the era of the Harmans and the Jowells. This would be a good read alongside John Bew's new biography of Attlee.

[gradus]

Istanbul - A Traveller's Reader, ed. L Kelly.

[verismissimo]

The Quiet Shownan - biography of Sir David Webster by Montague Haltrecht. Breezy and well-informed. Webster took Covent Garden back from being a dance hall in WW2 and turned it into a front-rank opera and ballet house (again). Ip plus postage!

[pastoralguy]

About to start re-reading 'Train Spotting' by Irvine Welsh. A book that made a huge impression on me when I first read it 20 years ago. Very gritty book!

[Richard Barrett]

Whenever I'm asked to name my favourite book of all time, this is the one that I nominate. I came across it again a few months ago and enjoyed it just as much as I had all those bygone years ago. Holden Caulfield is a remarkable creation, his sister is an absolute delight, and the language is phenomenally good. One of the greats, without a doubt.

I'm looking forward to taking another look at it a few years down the line.

In the meantime I read most of Salinger's Nine Stories. I don't generally like short stories that much but some of these are quite brilliant.

Before I got to the end, though, I started into Elena Ferrante's My Brilliant Friend, the first of her four-part "Neapolitan Series", and I've found it completely captivating. I'm a few pages from the end and feeling highly relieved that there are another three books to go. I'm not sure it's going to be enough.

[Stanfordian]

'Franco Zeffirelli - The Biography'

[Radio64]

Alan Bennet's compendium of memoirs 'Untold Stories'.

[Tevot]

Just finished, last week, "Unbroken" by Laura Hillenbrand. It is the story of Louis Zamperini who as a young man - after a troubled childhood, was touted for greatness at the 1940 Olympics. Of course, fate intervened and instead he found himself joining the USAAF as a bombardier - flying a B24 Liberator in the Pacific Theatre. In May 1943 Zamperini was shot down - and the book is a compelling and well written account of Zamperini's subsequent treatment at the hands of the Japanese. Unbroken was made into a film recently which had decidedly mixed reviews. I would however recommend the book. I found it a quite remarkable and moving story.

Best Wishes,

Tevot

[verismissimo]

Dashing for the Post: The Letters of Patrick Leigh Fermor

Much more interesting and enjoyable than the previous volume of letters to/from Debo.

However it becomes blindingly clear how snobbish he was. While he takes an interest in literary types, his whole life seems devoted to sucking up to aristos. Despises the middle classes and purports to like the workers - so long as they are peasants.

Nevertheless, what a way with words.

[Petrushka]

A Mad Catastrophe by Geoffrey Wawro (mentioned upthread, I think). An excellent read and especially interesting for those of us keen on the history of pre-1914 Vienna. The main focus of the book later is the inept performance of the Austrian Army in the disastrous battles on the Eastern Front early in the First World War and the collapse of the Habsburg Empire.

We really do need a major study in English of the social, political and cultural history of Vienna from 1867 to 1913. Wawro's main focus is military/political with the cultural naturally excluded. The city that was home to Mahler, Schoenberg, Hitler, Stalin, Freud, Klimt, Trotsky etc, etc, all at the same is a fascinating story, the reverberations of which are still with us today. If such a study exists I'd be pleased to know about it.