What are you reading now?

[Petrushka]

Thanks for the recommendation. Any mention of the Spanish Civil War?
Addendum--I just checked Amazon under Overy and I realize that I read his previous book, the one that is precisely about the bombing campaign over Germany, 1940-45. Have you read his previous work, Perrushka? How much of the new book is recycled material?

I've literally only just started reading this but imagine there must be mention of the Spanish Civil War given its vital importance to the subject. Having not read Overy before, I'm not able to say what might be recycled material but even in the first few pages you immediately get a sense of how wide-ranging this book is. It's a big read so likely to keep me occupied for some while. I picked my copy up from the excellent bookshop in the Imperial War Museum in London earlier this month buying Overy's 'Russia's War' at the same time.

[Barbirollians]

Just finishing Citizen Clem by John Bew lots of interesting detail but a less human biography of Attlee than that by Kenneth Harris in the 1980s which I read as a student .

Will then start on The Uses of Literacy by Richard Hoggett a book I feel I should have read a long time ago .

[Beef Oven!]

....interesting man and ideas....give us the lowdown on it please

I'm only on page 56!

[richardfinegold]

I've literally only just started reading this but imagine there must be mention of the Spanish Civil War given its vital importance to the subject. Having not read Overy before, I'm not able to say what might be recycled material but even in the first few pages you immediately get a sense of how wide-ranging this book is. It's a big read so likely to keep me occupied for some while. I picked my copy up from the excellent bookshop in the Imperial War Museum in London earlier this month buying Overy's 'Russia's War' at the same time.

I just pulled "The Bombers and The Bombed", his earlier tome off the shelf, and I remember being very disappointed with it. I thought that his treatment of the German experience was glib, and I couldn't disagree more with the argument he makes that the campaign was just needless violence and counterproductive to the war aims of the Allies

[gradus]

I can't find the posting that recommended J L Carr but many thanks to whoever did. A Month in the Country is a delight from beginning to end.

[Richard Tarleton]

Thanks for the recommendation. Any mention of the Spanish Civil War?

Richard - we had an excellent holiday in NE Mallorca in 2015 (long a great place for birdwatching, I've been many times, now overrun with cyclists) and our hotel, the lovely Illa d'Or in Puerto Pollensa, is next door to an airfield used by the Condor Legion during the Spanish Civil War . The hotel also the setting for an early Agatha Christie short story, "Problem at Pollensa Bay"

I have a reasonable selection of SCW books but I'm sure you'll know them all. When I first went to Spain in 1972 Franco was still in charge tho he hadn't long to go

[french frank]

Just about to start another reading of Gissing's New Grub Street, with the original Ed Reardon, scribbler.

[Conchis]

Just about to start another reading of Gissing's New Grub Street, with the original Ed Reardon, scribbler.

One of my favourite novels. So glad I've got a Kindle on my iPad as so many out of print Gissing novels are freely downloadable now.

But I do love to collect the beautiful Harvester editions from the 70s.

Have you ever visited his birthplace museum in Wakefield?

[un barbu]

'The Vanishing Man' by Laura Cumming, relating one man's obsession with a supposed Velazquez portrait in the 19th century along with essays on the life and art of Velazquez. Fascinating and instructive. I thoroughly enjoyed this.

[french frank]

Have you ever visited his birthplace museum in Wakefield?

No, I haven't. But a very interesting man, Gissing. I'm quite a fan ["Do you like Gissing?" "I don't know I've n……," - no never mind ]. I only have a motley collection of paperbacks - Everyman, Oxford, Penguin.

One work I really enjoy - travel writing particularly interests me for its digressions and serendipity - is By the Ionian Sea.

[richardfinegold]

Richard - we had an excellent holiday in NE Mallorca in 2015 (long a great place for birdwatching, I've been many times, now overrun with cyclists) and our hotel, the lovely Illa d'Or in Puerto Pollensa, is next door to an airfield used by the Condor Legion during the Spanish Civil War . The hotel also the setting for an early Agatha Christie short story, "Problem at Pollensa Bay"

I have a reasonable selection of SCW books but I'm sure you'll know them all. When I first went to Spain in 1972 Franco was still in charge tho he hadn't long to go

I didn't realize that the Condor Legion had used Mallorca as a base. One of my best friends is of mixed American/Castilian background and has vacationed on Mallorca the last few summers and I intend to get there one day.
Anthony Beavor's book about SCW is the best overall book that I've encountered. I recently finished a book called Spain In Our Hearts that focuses on Americans in the Abraham Lincoln Brigade by Adam Hochsfeld, although there is plenty on many Brits, particularly Orwell, that fought for the Republic. Orwell's own Homage to Catalonia, Hemingway's greatest novel For Whom The Bell Tolls, and the Time In Between novel by Maria Duarte that you had previously recommended constitute the sum of my readings on the conflict.

[Conchis]

No, I haven't. But a very interesting man, Gissing. I'm quite a fan ["Do you like Gissing?" "I don't know I've n……," - no never mind ]. I only have a motley collection of paperbacks - Everyman, Oxford, Penguin.

One work I really enjoy - travel writing particularly interests me for its digressions and serendipity - is By the Ionian Sea.

It's apparently Britain's least visited museum:

http://www.wakefieldhistoricalsoc.org.uk/The%20Gissing%20Trust.htm

[french frank]

It's apparently Britain's least visited museum:

http://www.wakefieldhistoricalsoc.or...ng%20Trust.htm

Thanks for that link, Conch. Who knows, I may get there one day.

[Arnold Bax]

I'm sorry to be a terrible bore, but I've just started re-reading JRR Tolkien's unbelievably wonderful 'The Lord of the Rings' for the thumpingly endless time. I know I should get out more, but I seem to have mislade my copy of 'Captain Corelli's Mandolin'. I suppose that my excuse is that I was at the same school as the Oxford don, but that is not good enough.

[ardcarp]

Not boring at all AB. It must be a fine work, as so many people are hooked on it. I'd be grateful (and I mean this, really) if you'd give me a few tips on how to approach it and enjoy it? I inevitably read The Hobbit to my kids eons ago, but despite several attempts at The Lord otR, I've never been able to suspend disbelief sufficiently to become immersed in Tolkiens ingenious but fantastical world. The book sits glaring down from a high and somewhat dusty shelf, taunting me to try again