Now reading...

[ejp626]

I reread Calvino's Invisible Cities -- always worth revisited.  I also read Primo Levi's The Periodic Table.  I liked it quite a bit.

I've finally gotten a few chapters into Vanity Fair.  It's quite interesting so far, but it is a brick of a novel.  My edition has all the illustrations Thackeray did, and is well over 800 pages!

[BillF]

10 hours ago, ejp626 said:

 

I've finally gotten a few chapters into Vanity Fair.  It's quite interesting so far, but it is a brick of a novel.  My edition has all the illustrations Thackeray did, and is well over 800 pages!

Wow! Another one that was on my university reading list. I didn't even attempt it!

[Leeway]

11 hours ago, BillF said:

Wow! Another one that was on my university reading list. I didn't even attempt it!

VF is a funny book.  If one catches the current of its humor, it's clear sailing. 

Just finished:

 

A useful book, with a wealth of detail, but sometimes wearying. O'Brian also seems to share his subject's chauvinism, and he's a bit too John Bull at times. The lack of photos and reproductions is another drawback. 

[A Lark Ascending]

I read Vanity Fair about thirty years back and enjoyed it thoroughly (and I have a bad habit of giving up on very long, canonised tomes [probably as much for the canonised as the long] - didn't have any problem with this one. I was probably sustained by the prospect of the Battle of Waterloo turning up at some point.).

There was a very good BBC TV adaptation in 1998 with Natasha Little as a very fetching Becky Sharp. Out there on DVD somewhere. Won't get you culture vulture points but it's very entertaining.  

Edited January 5, 2017 by A Lark Ascending

[kh1958]

On ‎1‎/‎3‎/‎2017 at 11:55 AM, jlhoots said:

Han Kang: The Vegetarian

We are reading the same book.

[jlhoots]

Thomas Mullen: Darktown

[BillF]

A strange book, with its African setting quite unlike any other Bellow novel. Come to think of it, each of Bellow's first six novels, from Dangling Man  to Herzog, has its own distinctive character. After that - and I've only read the next two - he seems to be reworking a well-established furrow.

[Leeway]

2 hours ago, BillF said:

A strange book, with its African setting quite unlike any other Bellow novel. Come to think of it, each of Bellow's first six novels, from Dangling Man  to Herzog, has its own distinctive character. After that - and I've only read the next two - he seems to be reworking a well-established furrow.

Not too long ago, I tried re-reading Henderson (I recall liking it considerably when I first read it several decades before) but gave up on it by page 50.  I found it cringe-inducing, I think mainly for the African setting, but the whole novel seemed meretricious.  I must have been in the wrong frame of mind, but am not sure I'm keen on trying again, even though one is always challenged by a Bellow work. 

[ejp626]

12 hours ago, BillF said:

 

A strange book, with its African setting quite unlike any other Bellow novel. Come to think of it, each of Bellow's first six novels, from Dangling Man  to Herzog, has its own distinctive character. After that - and I've only read the next two - he seems to be reworking a well-established furrow.

I agree.  I read his novels in chronological order, and they really started to sound about the same -- an uncle that cheated the narrator out of some large amount of money, one (or two) nagging ex-wives, generally some poking fun at the liberal sacred cow of the moment, etc.  I believe Ravelstein, his final novel, does break the mold, though I never got around to reading that one.  Of the late Bellow novels, the only one I really liked was The Dean's December.

[BillF]

5 hours ago, ejp626 said:

I agree.  I read his novels in chronological order, and they really started to sound about the same -- an uncle that cheated the narrator out of some large amount of money, one (or two) nagging ex-wives, generally some poking fun at the liberal sacred cow of the moment, etc.  I believe Ravelstein, his final novel, does break the mold, though I never got around to reading that one.  Of the late Bellow novels, the only one I really liked was The Dean's December.

I haven't read any of the late ones, but I'll give The Dean's December a try on your recommendation.

[Leeway]

16 hours ago, ejp626 said:

I agree.  I read his novels in chronological order, and they really started to sound about the same -- an uncle that cheated the narrator out of some large amount of money, one (or two) nagging ex-wives, generally some poking fun at the liberal sacred cow of the moment, etc.  I believe Ravelstein, his final novel, does break the mold, though I never got around to reading that one.  Of the late Bellow novels, the only one I really liked was The Dean's December.

I really enjoyed Ravelstein and would recommend it. I believe it's his heartfelt yet ironic tribute to his friend, philosopher Allen Bloom. 

[BillF]

5 hours ago, Leeway said:

I really enjoyed Ravelstein and would recommend it. I believe it's his heartfelt yet ironic tribute to his friend, philosopher Allen Bloom. 

Will add it to the list.

[alankin]

Peter Maas – The Terrible Hours: The Man Behind the Greatest Submarine Rescue in History (HarperTorch)

A non-fiction book on the rescue of men from the Squalis in 1939, U.S. Navy officer Charles "Swede" Momsen.  The submarine went down several hundred feet to the bottom of the sea in the North Atlantic.  I think this was the first successful rescue of men from a sunken submarine.  Momsen had been researching how to do an underwater rescue since the 1925 sinking of the S-51.   He work was often fought against by the Naval beauracracy.  Thrilling story.

[A Lark Ascending]

Been reading about six books at once over the last couple of months (not recommended!) and finally brought three to completion:

Longest novel I've read in a long time. Absolutely superb. Set in the period leading up to and just after the Russian counter-offensive at Stalingrad. Like War and Peace, there are a dozen or more scenarios with interlocking characters - Stalingrad itself, prisoner of war camps, the Lubyanka, Auschwitz, scientific laboratories, etc. Can get hard to to keep tabs on who is who, not helped by using surnames at some points, first name and patronym at others and then nicknames (there's a helpful dramatis personae at the end).  

A stunning evocation of the survival of the human spirit within both the maelstrom of war and the iron grip of totalitarianism. The way the main character, a nuclear scientist, is gradually trapped into betraying his fundamental beliefs by the oppressive system is brilliantly handled.   

I read a lot of Russian novels a few decades back - this has reignited my interest.

 

A fairly run of the mill Scandi-noir. 

Enjoyed this very much. A book that pulls in two directions - you can sense that Toop's heart lies in the non-linear and he can give this free rein when describing music; but he's also writing a sort of chronological history which requires a degree of conventional narrative (the parts a square like myself like best). Fascinating accounts of early attempts at playing 'free' going right back to Percy Grainger - I particularly enjoyed the section on Derek Bailey playing in theatre and variety bands and then going off to The Little Theatre to play solo.

A bit po-faced and prone to take itself too seriously (I think that goes with the territory in the genre) but it did what all good music books do - had me re-listening to records and seeking out new ones to hear. Two more volume to follow taking the story into the 70s.   

Edited January 9, 2017 by A Lark Ascending

[Leeway]

Part pulp Western, part political manifesto, part anarchist cookbook, part Vietnam War flashback, and more, this is an interesting gallimaufry. It's been a while since I read Abbey, and am still a fan of his Desert Solitaire, one of the great books of eco-literature. This one is more troubling, albeit entertaining. 

[BillF]

Good jazz biography, stylistically divided between transcribed verbatim recollections by Stan and author's narrative. The latter are in a flamboyant style which recalls Mark Myers' writing in JazzWax. Is this today's jazz writing style? Curiously there are links with my other current reading, the novels of Saul Bellow. Stan speaks the language of Augie March, which I suppose isn't surprising as both were mid-20th century, Jewish urban Americans who moved from low life to social respectability..

Edited January 11, 2017 by BillF

[Leeway]

6 hours ago, BillF said:

 

Good jazz biography, stylistically divided between transcribed verbatim recollections by Stan and author's narrative. The latter are in a flamboyant style which recalls Mark Myers' writing in JazzWax. Is this today's jazz writing style? Curiously there are links with my other current reading, the novels of Saul Bellow. Stan speaks the language of Augie Marsh, which I suppose isn't surprising as both were mid-20th century, Jewish urban Americans who moved from low life to social respectability..

That's a nice connection with Augie. 

[Brad]

Had started this awhile ago but put it down.  Picked it up again.  Enjoying it more the second time around.

[Leeway]

An interesting if rather baffling novel from Ishiguro.

[alankin]

 

Daniel James Brown  - The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics

Pretty amazing story that centers on the story of one of the men, Joe Rantz, a working-class teenager growing up during the Great Depression who essentially loses his family several times but...well, you can imagine the rest.  

[ejp626]

I'm in the home stretch of Vanity Fair and should wrap it up later today.  In general, I enjoyed it, though the pace flags at some places, especially in the second half.  I read that at one point Thackeray was planning for 18 installments and then the success led him to expand to the customary 20 installments.  I would have been satisfied with 18, I think.

I'm going to jump to a couple of relatively contemporary novels -- Steven Sherrill's The Minotaur Takes His Own Sweet Time, which is a just published sequel to The Minotaur Takes a Cigarette Break.

Then Elmore Leonard's Tishomingo Blues (2002).  They are thematically linked, since both involve Civil War re-enactments.

After this, back to the classics -- Smollett's The Expedition of Humphry Clinker, which is generally considered Smollett's best novel.

 

[T.D.]

[paul secor]

P.G. Wodehouse: Leave It to Psmith

[Leeway]

Another ambivalent, ambiguous, elusive fiction from Ishiguro. 

[jlhoots]

Robert Gordon: Muddy Waters bio.