What are you reading now?

[vinteuil]

I thought you might have been reading this - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syntactic_Structures

... Lordy, haven't looked at that (or even thought about it... ) since the first year as an undergraduate back in 1971. I think I still have in a loft somewhere that very same battered blue Mouton edition....

.

[Beef Oven!]

I thought you might have been reading this - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syntactic_Structures

I have tried that work, more than 30 years ago, but it was too difficult for me, I couldn't get my head around it.

I don't think it's worth trying again because I find it even harder these days to understand difficult works than I did when I was younger.

[LMcD]

Currently reading Michael Palin's 'Erebus The Story of a Ship'

[Joseph K]

Still reading Will Self's Umbrella.

I'm thoroughly enjoying it.

I wish I had read it earlier, to be honest. I bought it in early 2017. Several times it mentions something called oculogyric crisis. A few months ago I discovered that that was something which I had been experiencing, from the latter half of 2016 until a few months ago, when I finally met a psychiatrist who knew what it was I was suffering from!

[Richard Barrett]

I'm almost finished with Constantin Floros' book on Mahler symphonies, which has been filling in a few gaps in my understanding of these works in terms of things like structural and thematic interconnections, although it isn't exactly full of profound and original insights. Never mind, it's a handy thing to have alongside the scores. Next up is David Lynch's Room to Dream.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

... oculogyric crisis. A few months ago I discovered that that was something which I had been experiencing, from the latter half of 2016 until a few months ago, when I finally met a psychiatrist who knew what it was I was suffering from!

Blimey! Hope all's well now, Joseph.

[Joseph K]

Blimey! Hope all's well now, Joseph.

It is, thank you.

[Dave2002]

I have tried that work, more than 30 years ago, but it was too difficult for me, I couldn't get my head around it.

I don't think it's worth trying again because I find it even harder these days to understand difficult works than I did when I was younger.

There are a couple of Chomsky’s books for 99p on the Amazon Kindle store today - Friday 7th December. Interested?

[Beef Oven!]

There are a couple of Chomsky’s books for 99p on the Amazon Kindle store today - Friday 7th December. Interested?

Thanks very much Dave.

There were 9/10 great bargains. I availed myself of 7, the others I've already got (paid quite a bit more than 99p for them!).

I guess I have more than enough Chomsky to last me for the foreseeable!

[richardfinegold]

I just finished Ben McIntyre The Spy and The Traitor, about KGB defector Oleg Gordievsky and American CIA traitor Aldrich Ames. The book is 90% Gordievsky and very little about Ames, probably because Gordievsky was interviewed by the Author in depth and Ames not at all...but a very enjoyable read nontheless

[Richard Tarleton]

I just finished Ben McIntyre The Spy and The Traitor, about KGB defector Oleg Gordievsky and American CIA traitor Aldrich Ames. The book is 90% Gordievsky and very little about Ames, probably because Gordievsky was interviewed by the Author in depth and Ames not at all...but a very enjoyable read nontheless

Indeed, richard - the title is odd in that respect, it only occurred to me after finishing the book that it referred to Ames , who makes his first appearance on page 125. The jeopardy in which every double agent finds himself - the possibility that a double agent on the side he's spying for will reveal him to his own side.....

I'm tearing through Alan Walker's superlative new biography of Chopin. They're currently at Nohant in 1839, after their disastrous 59 days [I always imagined it to be longer] on Mallorca. An ornithologist on the editorial team would have picked up on the folowing, however (a pedant writes): "When the downpour ceased, a thick mist sometimes roled down the mountainside, enveloping the monastery in a wintry shroud. Under its cover the eagles and vultures that circled overhead would swoop down and snatch the sparrows perched on the branches of the pomegranate tree just outside Sand's window". This would have been worthy of one of Walker's illuminating footnotes: obviously Sand lacked binoculars and a good field guide. Mallorca has a small resident population of black vultures, which eat carrion, and [in winter - booted eagles are summer visitors] Bonelli's eagle - known in Spanish as the partridge eagle (Aguila perdicera). As it happens, these are currently being reintroduced to the island. But snatching sparrows - those would have been sparrowhawks .

[ardcarp]

Nothing very elevated I'm afraid, but a good read and a cleverly constructed book:

Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman. (Her first and prize-winning novel.)

[Dave2002]

Thanks very much Dave.

There were 9/10 great bargains. I availed myself of 7, the others I've already got (paid quite a bit more than 99p for them!).

I guess I have more than enough Chomsky to last me for the foreseeable!

Glad to have been helpful. I didn't mean to encourage you to buy a whole lot more - merely the 99p ones!

Ah well - there are always CDs or downloads to buy.

[french frank]

Just trying (again) to get into How the French Think, by Sudhir Hazareesingh. I bought it when it first came out in paperback in 2016 and I'm getting to know the first chapter quite well


PS Just found a bookmark in p.6-7.

[ardcarp]

I'm tempted to get a copy...though you don't sell it very well! Does it explain why the French are so much readier to defend [what they see as] their rights by taking to the streets? Whilst I don't condone violence of any sort, I really think we Brits, and especially youngsters, are supine. I mean if France had tripled University fees in one go can you imagine what their students might have done???