What are you currently reading?

[Daverz]

I read a number of Jacques Le Goof's books

I'm expecting the literary equivalent of Jacques Tati.

[SimonNZ]

Ah, I actually posted that.

My first instinct is to blame autocorrect which creates far more problems than it solves, but on the other hand I know I'm capable of lazy typing without proofreading.

Apologies to the memory of a historian I much admire. Insult and schoolyard name calling were unintended.

[Dry Brett Kavanaugh]

Talking To Myself, an autobiography of Chris Jagger, a brother of Mick Jagger, looks very interesting. An article about him is below.

https://www.mirror.co.uk/3am/celebrity-news/mick-jaggers-brother-chris-past-24906842

[Artem]

Lova Aira. This is another great novella with a detective/crime kind of twist.

[aligreto]

Galbraith: Troubled Blood





What I do know is that I thoroughly enjoyed this book. I enjoyed the real life aspects of it: the plot, the characters, the sense of place and the excellence of the conversational element in the book. It was all really very well written. The book is 900+ pages but it never felt like it, except when I was trying to hold it late at night!
What I did not know, until I finished the book, was that Robert Galbraith and JK Rowling are one and the same person.

[vers la flamme]

Just started, around midnight last night, Vladimir Nabokov's Pale Fire



I cannot remember who in this thread brought this book to my attention, but whoever you are, thank you. I don't know what to make of it so far. I find the "commentator" Kinbote utterly irritating, but the poem itself is vividly written and fascinating.

[aligreto]

Hamsun: Victoria





This is a story about Love. It is not a happy one however. It is quite dark. The writing style is quite terse and lean which seems to enhance the bleakness of the tale.

[Dry Brett Kavanaugh]

Lost Victories. Field Marshal Erich von Manstein.

[SimonNZ]

Just started, around midnight last night, Vladimir Nabokov's Pale Fire



I cannot remember who in this thread brought this book to my attention, but whoever you are, thank you. I don't know what to make of it so far. I find the "commentator" Kinbote utterly irritating, but the poem itself is vividly written and fascinating.

2/3 way through a second reading of Pale Fire

And feeling the same way I did when first read in my late teens: the poem itself is astonishingly beautiful and its a pity Nabokov didn't write more poetry, and the unreliable biographer/critic stuff is often good parody - but the seemingly endless "Land of Zembla" stuff kills my enjoyment and turns what should have been fun into a slog. No doubt the Zembla story all works on some higher level of meaning if I was willing to read numerous interpretations, but now as before I don't see why I should bother.

TD: still going with the book on Thatcher's Britain, but in the meantime finished this:

[Artem]

Was it your first Didion?

[SimonNZ]

Was it your first Didion?

No, I've read most of her nonfiction prior to that one. Just last year I read Miami for the first time, and I've been thinking I'd like to read it again soon - it caught me off guard and deeply impressed me. The first two famous essay collections I've read a couple of times now.

Never tried the novels, though.

You're familiar with her work? What are your favorites?

[Artem]

I only read The Year of Magical Thinking a few years ago, but it didn't make me pursue her other work at that time. I wouldn't mind reading something else by her though.

[SimonNZ]

I can tell you that it's not at all typical of her nonfiction and highly recommend at the very least her collections Slouching Towards Bethlehem and The White Album as a more representative introduction to her work and style.

[Spotted Horses]

How it All Began, by Penelope Lively.



This is "literary fiction," but on the light side. At the beginning of the story an older lady is mugged and has to stay with her daughter during her recuperation of some months. The novel centers how the effects of this event propagates outward and significantly effects the lives of people who don't even know her.

The narrative technique bears some superficial similarity to William Faulkner's As I Lay Dying, with the story told by different characters. However in this case, it is like different cameras viewing different parts of the same scene from different angles. We don't have the dramatic differences of interpretation by the various characters. A pleasant read, not earth-shattering.

I came across this book by Book Bub, a service that notifies you of deep discounts on ebooks from a list of your favorite authors. I think Lively is on my list because I liked another of her novels, The Photograph.

[Jo498]

Galbraith: Troubled Blood

-snip-

What I did not know, until I finished the book, was that Robert Galbraith and JK Rowling are one and the same person.

This is a remarkable feat. You might have been one of the last persons in the Western World to be unaware of this fact. They "leaked" the identity around the publication of the first book of the series years ago (I think the current one is the 5th) when it became clear that it would not sell well on its own merits...

My sister collected the first few, so I think I read all/most of the earlier ones but this one eventually but I don't think I will suffer through almost 1000 pages as I was not at all fond of #4 "Lethal White". They were not horrible but not getting better either and I came to thoroughly dislike the protagonists. In any case, fwiw I think the first two (if you have not read them) are better than the following ones.

[Ganondorf]

Finally finished Mcteague. It's a rather short book yet it took me ages to read it because the first half or so was mostly terrible and not up to the Stroheim's film adaptation. The second half was much better although I still prefer the film.

[André]

Finally finished Mcteague. It's a rather short book yet it took me ages to read it because the first half or so was mostly terrible and not up to the Stroheim's film adaptation. The second half was much better although I still prefer the film.

One of the most compelling films ever made. Well, what we have of it. Stroheim's work was taken from him and butchered by the Goldwyn studio.

[Karl Henning]

On my e-reader, I've just started a novella by a chap I follow on Twitter: Green Door by Wm Meikle. In print, starting to re-read A Handful of Dust by Evdeleyn Waugh.

[Artem]

I can tell you that it's not at all typical of her nonfiction and highly recommend at the very least her collections Slouching Towards Bethlehem and The White Album as a more representative introduction to her work and style.

Thank you for your suggestion. I'll consider it next time I'm buying books.

[SimonNZ]

Thank you for your suggestion. I'll consider it next time I'm buying books.

If you're seriously considering them then I'd suggest getting the Everyman edition that contains her first seven volumes of nonfiction called  We Tell Ourselves Stories In Order To Live (the title is the opening sentence of Slouching Towards Bethlehem). That volume also contains the book Miami which I praised earlier.

Edit ; just double checked that and actually it's the opening sentence of the second volume The White Album.