What are you currently reading?

[Peter Power Pop]

I'm currently reading Sound Man by Glyn Johns.

It's enjoyable enough, but not as enjoyable as my favourite autobiographies by rock music producers (which are All You Need Is Ears by George Martin and Abbey Road To Ziggy Stardust by Ken Scott).

[Dry Brett Kavanaugh]

I didn't know that! I'll have to watch once I finish.

I remember you saying Tanizaki used to be a favorite of yours; how did you rate Makioka when you were reading his books?

Makioka was not my favorite. I liked his early short, and twisted, stories, including "Secret" and "Children." The former is about a crossdresser in Tokyo before WWI.


https://tonysreadinglist.wordpress.com/2017/12/28/the-gourmet-club-a-sextet-by-junichiro-tanizaki-review/

https://www.complete-review.com/reviews/tanizaki/gourmet_club.htm

[Dry Brett Kavanaugh]

[foxandpeng]

Joel Beeke and Paul Smalley's Reformed Systematic Theology Volume 1 of 3.

Last couple of hundred pages to go in  volume 1. If you like this sort of thing, so far this has been a solid 900ff pages out of 1200 or so. One of the best systematic theologies I have read.

[SimonNZ]

I was going to say I read that a couple of years ago, but it looks like its closer to four. How are you finding it?

Finished:



"Great" here meaning notable or worthy of attention - a few are damning portraits, including one on Adolf Hitler assessing and warning of his menace and ambition as viewed at the time of writing in 1935.

On the whole an excellent collection of biographical and psychological portraits (well, except for his unconvincingly positive assessment of Haig). I'm surprised it hasn't remained one of Churchill's more popular books.

[Dry Brett Kavanaugh]

I was going to say I read that a couple of years ago, but it looks like its closer to four. How are you finding it?

I just read the chapters of Hitler and Joseph Chamberlain. Great writing and nice insights. Have you read Nixon's  "Leaders"? You may like it.

[Florestan]

A fascinating piece of cultural history which confirms a trend I've been noticing over the years: the older I get, the more I identify with, and uphold, the middle-class values, culture and way of life. The days of my misspent youth when I grew my hair long, wore leather jackets and booths and listened to heavy metal are long gone. Nowadays I'm an unabashedly complacent bourgeois. Puccini good, Marinetti bad.

[JBS]

[Florestan]

The days of my misspent youth when I grew my hair long, wore leather jackets and booths and listened to heavy metal are long gone. Nowadays I'm an unabashedly bourgeois.D

IOW you had a typical middle class youth with the values of the typical middle class youth: unabashedly bourgeois.

[Though perhaps not complacent--which is why I snipped it out when quoting you.]

[Florestan]

[Florestan]
IOW you had a typical middle class youth with the values of the typical middle class youth: unabashedly bourgeois.

[Though perhaps not complacent--which is why I snipped it out when quoting you.]

Hah! 

Well, as my heavy metal phase wore out, I was increasingly aware that behind all those wild and uncouth bands there were some very middle-class people, tie, suit and all, who were regularly getting their fat paychecks and making big money out of the supposedly nonconformism and rebellion.

My current avatar is the perfect embodiment of my current values: a dashing, nonchalant Alfredo Campoli* enjoying the good things of life: elegant clothing, cigarettes (although I have never smoked) and always a smile on one's face, all the while being able to play the most demanding and "serious" Romantic violin concertos. IOW, bourgeois complacency. 

*(Maybe it's not mere coincidence that he was Italian born, Rossini immediately comes to my mind...)

[vandermolen]

An interesting take on this dark subject:

[SimonNZ]

^I read that recently and was a little disappointed by it. I thought they would be unearthing unknown personal diaries by regular people. Instead they were reusing a lot of already familiar previously published memoirs.

It was fine, but could have been more with some spadework in the archives, imo.

[Mandryka]

A fascinating piece of cultural history which confirms a trend I've been noticing over the years: the older I get, the more I identify with, and uphold, the middle-class values, culture and way of life. The days of my misspent youth when I grew my hair long, wore leather jackets and booths and listened to heavy metal are long gone. Nowadays I'm an unabashedly complacent bourgeois. Puccini good, Marinetti bad.

You've become a centrist dad

https://www.macmillandictionary.com/dictionary/british/centrist-dad

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/03/15/centrist-dads-back-smugger-ever/

[Florestan]

You've become a centrist dad

https://www.macmillandictionary.com/dictionary/british/centrist-dad

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/03/15/centrist-dads-back-smugger-ever/

a middle-aged man of moderate political views --- yes, that's me alright. 

Another, more detailed way of putting it:

My father, a wise and grave man, gave me serious and excellent counsel against what he foresaw was my design. He called me one morning into his chamber, where he was confined by the gout, and expostulated very warmly with me upon this subject. He asked me what reasons, more than a mere wandering inclination, I had for leaving father's house and my native country, where I might be well introduced, and had a prospect of raising my fortune by application and industry, with a life of ease and pleasure. He told me it was men of desperate fortunes on one hand, or of aspiring, superior fortunes on the other, who went abroad upon adventures, to rise by enterprise, and make themselves famous in undertakings of a nature out of the common road; that these things were all either too far above me or too far below me; that mine was the middle state, or what might be called the upper station of low life, which he had found, by long experience, was the best state in the world, the most suited to human happiness, not exposed to the miseries and hardships, the labour and sufferings of the mechanic part of mankind, and not embarrassed with the pride, luxury, ambition, and envy of the upper part of mankind. He told me I might judge of the happiness of this state by this one thing - viz. that this was the state of life which all other people envied; that kings have frequently lamented the miserable consequence of being born to great things, and wished they had been placed in the middle of the two extremes, between the mean and the great; that the wise man gave his testimony to this, as the standard of felicity, when he prayed to have neither poverty nor riches.

He bade me observe it, and I should always find that the calamities of life were shared among the upper and lower part of mankind, but that the middle station had the fewest disasters, and was not exposed to so many vicissitudes as the higher or lower part of mankind; nay, they were not subjected to so many distempers and uneasinesses, either of body or mind, as those were who, by vicious living, luxury, and extravagances on the one hand, or by hard labour, want of necessaries, and mean or insufficient diet on the other hand, bring distemper upon themselves by the natural consequences of their way of living; that the middle station of life was calculated for all kind of virtue and all kind of enjoyments; that peace and plenty were the handmaids of a middle fortune; that temperance, moderation, quietness, health, society, all agreeable diversions, and all desirable pleasures, were the blessings attending the middle station of life; that this way men went silently and smoothly through the world, and comfortably out of it, not embarrassed with the labours of the hands or of the head, not sold to a life of slavery for daily bread, nor harassed with perplexed circumstances, which rob the soul of peace and the body of rest, nor enraged with the passion of envy, or the secret burning lust of ambition for great things; but, in easy circumstances, sliding gently through the world, and sensibly tasting the sweets of living, without the bitter; feeling that they are happy, and learning by every day's experience to know it more sensibly.


The Telegraph article is behind a paywall so I couldn't read it.

[vandermolen]

Interesting. That's been on my "to read" list for a long time, just hasn't made it to the top (yet).   The author is an occasional "talking head" on the various Third Reich documentaries which seem to be running on permanent loop on British TV.

That's very useful.  I did riffle through a copy in a bookstore recently, wondering should I or not, but in the end didn't.

One I am looking forward to reading is this (just published) :



I thought Blood and Iron, her history of Prussia, was excellent, and this has had very good reviews too.

I gave it to my son-in-law for Christmas (Travellers in the Third Reich) and he seems to be enjoying it.

[vers la flamme]

Makioka was not my favorite. I liked his early short, and twisted, stories, including "Secret" and "Children." The former is about a crossdresser in Tokyo before WWI.


https://tonysreadinglist.wordpress.com/2017/12/28/the-gourmet-club-a-sextet-by-junichiro-tanizaki-review/

https://www.complete-review.com/reviews/tanizaki/gourmet_club.htm

Having finished, and deeply enjoyed The Makioka Sisters (or Sasameyuki, which crudely translates to "light snow", as it is properly called, a title I do not understand whatsoever—I suppose I'd have to be Japanese to get it) I will seek out some of your favorites. This was my third Tanizaki after Naomi & Some Prefer Nettles, and by far my favorite of the three, though they were all excellent. (I also have and have read his aesthetics essay In Praise of Shadows.)

Edit: Browsing on Amazon just now, I didn't realize how prolific Tanizaki was nor how many of his works had been translated into English. Wow.

[Dry Brett Kavanaugh]

Having finished, and deeply enjoyed The Makioka Sisters (or Sasameyuki, which crudely translates to "light snow", as it is properly called, a title I do not understand whatsoever—I suppose I'd have to be Japanese to get it) I will seek out some of your favorites. This was my third Tanizaki after Naomi & Some Prefer Nettles, and by far my favorite of the three, though they were all excellent. (I also have and have read his aesthetics essay In Praise of Shadows.)

Edit: Browsing on Amazon just now, I didn't realize how prolific Tanizaki was nor how many of his works had been translated into English. Wow.

Sasame-yuki could be directly translated as thin-snow. But it means fine snow flakes or light snowfall.

[vers la flamme]

Sasame-yuki could be directly translated as thin-snow. But it means fine snow flakes or light snowfall.

My confusion has something to do with the fact that it never once snows in the book that I can remember, although one of the main character's names is Yukiko.

Is that a manga adaptation of the Tanizaki book, or is the name a coincidence? I do see four sisters there, though that's not really how I pictured any of them 

[Dry Brett Kavanaugh]

My confusion has something to do with the fact that it never once snows in the book that I can remember, although one of the main character's names is Yukiko.

Is that a manga adaptation of the Tanizaki book, or is the name a coincidence? I do see four sisters there, though that's not really how I pictured any of them 

I don't know if it's true or not, but somebody on the web said that the title is about Yukiko- Snow Lady. She is strong in contrast to the appearance of fragility.

[SimonNZ]

I thought Blood and Iron, her history of Prussia, was excellent, and this has had very good reviews too.

Thanks for the heads-up about this. Have just ordered a copy.

Meanwhile, have started this:

[vers la flamme]

Picked up Jan Swafford's Johannes Brahms again, and hoping to finally finish it sometime. It's an absolutely excellent biography (I haven't made it all the way through just yet but I've enjoyed every page); I wish more composer bios were written in a style like this.