What are you reading now?

[Richard Tarleton]

You don't have to stick with crime fiction - nor even fiction.

Some formative books I've read in recent years:

Yuval Noah Harari - Sapiens; Homo Deus
Jared Diamond - Collapse; Guns, Germs and Steel; The World Until Yesterday (history from an anthropological/ecological/environmental viewpoint)
Alan Weisman - The World without Us (what'll happen after we've brought about our own demise)
Paul Ormerod - Why Most Things Fail (politics, economics, social policy, industry.....)

On the Holocaust: Deborah Lipstadt - Denial, followed by Richard J Evans - Lying About Hitler.....

[jayne lee wilson]

AS KINGFISHERS CATCH FIRE
by Alex Preston, with original paintings and drawings by Neil Gower.

Utterly gorgeous anthology of prose and poetry about birds, each chapter devoted to a single species, with an autobiographical commentary about Preston's own love of nature and literature. Lovely evocative illustrations.
Wonderfully dippable, a beautiful thing to have and to hold, and for its quality not outrageously dear.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1472152247/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o03_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I loved this, about Swifts, by Edward Thomas -

"shrill shrieked in his fierce glee
The swift with wings and tail as sharp and narrow
As if the bow had flown off with the arrow."

[johnb]

I have fairly low-brow tastes but here goes:

"The Invention of Curried Sausage" by Uwe Timm - About both the Invention of CS but also about life in Hamburg towards the end of WWII.

"A Month in the Country" by JL Carr - I love this novel (it is also well worth investigating JL Carr's other novels - especially in the hard copy editions published by his Quince Tree Press).

Edmund Crispin's delightful detective mysteries - they have a wry humour and a touch of the surreal! (Edmund Crispin is the literary alter ego of composer Bruce Montgomery.) In one of his novels, describing the start of a rehearsal for Die Meistersingers:

A few new-comers drifted in and uttered reluctant apologies to Peacock [the conductor]. The tuba-player arrived, unpacked his instrument, and began making a sound like a fog-horn on it, while the rest of the orchestra chanted "Peter Grimes!" in a quavering, distant falsetto.

[Dave2002]

As I mentioned on another book thread here, I also recently found Elena Ferrante's Neapolitan Tetralogy very powerful.

I did look - but perhaps not hard enough. I couldn't see a major book thread. This one seems to be going OK.

[greenilex]

I have always enjoyed Edmund Crispin, but haven't reread them for ages...Oxford in the dark ages for some, no doubt?

[Richard Tarleton]

I did look - but perhaps not hard enough. I couldn't see a major book thread. This one seems to be going OK.

Dave - I think Richard means this one - been going for a few years now - might be worth catching up with that one? My recommendations on this thread have been "best books I've read in recent years" rather than "what I'm reading now"

[Richard Tarleton]

"A Month in the Country" by JL Carr - I love this novel (it is also well worth investigating JL Carr's other novels - especially in the hard copy editions published by his Quince Tree Press).

- including (especially?) The Harpole Report, Frank Muir's Desert Island book

[Belgrove]

Robert Harris' Cicero trilogy, Imperium, Lustrum, Dictator are every bit as good as Graves' Claudius books. Written as political thrillers where the stakes are life and death rather than mere reputation. Perfect holiday reading.

[jean]

They are wonderful - and probably a good deal more historically accurate than Graves, since Cicero has left us so much excellent source material unlike that gossip Suetonius!

[Dave2002]

Dave - I think Richard means this one - been going for a few years now - might be worth catching up with that one? My recommendations on this thread have been "best books I've read in recent years" rather than "what I'm reading now"

Thanks - a useful distinction.

The intention was to filter out the good books - or at least ones which others have enjoyed. What I'm reading now may be neither good, nor interesting to others - hence the title.

[gradus]

AS KINGFISHERS CATCH FIRE
by Alex Preston, with original paintings and drawings by Neil Gower.

Utterly gorgeous anthology of prose and poetry about birds, each chapter devoted to a single species, with an autobiographical commentary about Preston's own love of nature and literature. Lovely evocative illustrations.
Wonderfully dippable, a beautiful thing to have and to hold, and for its quality not outrageously dear.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1472152247/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o03_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I loved this, about Swifts, by Edward Thomas -

"shrill shrieked in his fierce glee
The swift with wings and tail as sharp and narrow
As if the bow had flown off with the arrow."

Bravo Edward Thomas!

[DracoM]

The Year of the Flood / Margaret Atwood

Weirdly ambivalent: very pro-eco, but also keen to snigger at earnest breakaway groups who live the pure life and find themselves under harassment and attack from the kleptocratic pharma / prostitution / capitalist world, then comes he pandemic and then...and then....

Funny, tragic, wincingly relevant.

The 'flood' is called the 'waterless flood' - hence Adam One......etc

[Richard Tarleton]

Just finished: Victoria and Abdul - the strange story of the Queen and her Munshi (teacher) Abdul Karim in the last 14 years of her life, by Shrabani Basu (The History Press). Four years after the death of John Brown, the Queen was enjoying her new status of Empress of India. There was no prospect of Victoria going to India, so she brought India to her - in the form of the Durbar Room at Osborne, and four Indian servants whom she ordered by Imperial mail order. One of these rapidly became her favourite. The Queen was a stranger to racial or class prejudice, even if she did rather treat her Indians as pets - and enthusiastically learnt basic Urdu from Karim. She filled numerous notebooks with Urdu, learnt to speak it a little - in her seventies - and stoutly defended the Munshi against the plots and schemes of her appalling family, not to mention her household, doctor and ministers, all of whom loathed him. He accompanied her wherever she went, brought his wife over, was granted decorations, and land in India (in his native Agra). The book brings out Victoria's essential loneliness - she enjoyed the company of Karim, and Brown before him, as friends. The politicians were concerned she was taking advice from Karim, a Muslim, on how to run India, and that he helped her with her boxes, thus seeing confidential papers including from the Viceroy. No vetting process then. Edward Vll graciously allowed Karim time alone with her body when she died - he was the last so to see her before the coffin was closed - and, days later, sent the heavies (Queen Alexandra, Princess Beatrice, two officials) round to his house to reposess all Victoria's letters to him - which were then destroyed. Edward remained fixated that Karim still had some, and pursued him even after he'd returned to India, and his wife after Karim died in 1909. Only Edward's death in 1910 put a stop to this.

Now a major motion picture, starring Judy Dench as Victoria.

Just started: Fiona Maddocks's Hildegard of Bingen. Fascinating and utterly horrific (the life of an anchorite or anchoress). You attend what is basically your funeral, watched by your family, before being walled into a cell, without en-suite facilities.

[teamsaint]

Just finished: Victoria and Abdul - the strange story of the Queen and her Munshi (teacher) Abdul Karim in the last 14 years of her life, by Shrabani Basu (The History Press). Four years after the death of John Brown, the Queen was enjoying her new status of Empress of India. There was no prospect of Victoria going to India, so she brought India to her - in the form of the Durbar Room at Osborne, and four Indian servants whom she ordered by Imperial mail order. One of these rapidly became her favourite. The Queen was a stranger to racial or class prejudice, even if she did rather treat her Indians as pets - and enthusiastically learnt basic Urdu from Karim. She filled numerous notebooks with Urdu, learnt to speak it a little - in her seventies - and stoutly defended the Munshi against the plots and schemes of her appalling family, not to mention her household, doctor and ministers, all of whom loathed him. He accompanied her wherever she went, brought his wife over, was granted decorations, and land in India (in his native Agra). The book brings out Victoria's essential loneliness - she enjoyed the company of Karim, and Brown before him, as friends. The politicians were concerned she was taking advice from Karim, a Muslim, on how to run India, and that he helped her with her boxes, thus seeing confidential papers including from the Viceroy. No vetting process then. Edward Vll graciously allowed Karim time alone with her body when she died - he was the last so to see her before the coffin was closed - and, days later, sent the heavies (Queen Alexandra, Princess Beatrice, two officials) round to his house to reposess all Victoria's letters to him - which were then destroyed. Edward remained fixated that Karim still had some, and pursued him even after he'd returned to India, and his wife after Karim died in 1909. Only Edward's death in 1910 put a stop to this.

Now a major motion picture, starring Judy Dench as Victoria.

Just started: Fiona Maddocks's Hildegard of Bingen. Fascinating and utterly horrific (the life of an anchorite or anchoress). You attend what is basically your funeral, watched by your family, before being walled into a cell, without en-suite facilities.

As it happens, I'm just finishing Victoria and Abdul myself. Excellent summary of a fine read, Richard. I found that some of the most interesting moments were unexpected insights Into VRI's character and her MO around the court.

Currently: " Who do the English think they are ?" By Derek Taylor, a former ITN journalist and presenter.
It's a look at twenty places and their connections with events that seem to have helped shape English identity, whatever that is.
Perceptive and witty in equal measure. Recommended.

[Pulcinella]

Just finished The Essex Serpent by Sarah Perry. An outstanding read.

Just started The Essex Serpent (courtesy of our local library).
After that will be Margaret Atwood's Hag-Seed (also courtesy of the library).
I need to see if they have Victoria and Abdul, too.