What are you currently reading?

[Papy Oli]

Just read what he says on Haydn op 33. It's very good -- clear and well put. It's a keeper. Thanks @Papy Oli

Nice one @Mandryka , glad you find it of interest 

[Scion7]

Although I have 4 different editions, re-reading this classic again in this edition from 1979:

[Florestan]

A very interesting book, containing some ideas and thoughts I've been ruminating on for years --- I am only too glad, and frankly quite proud, to find them confirmed by no less an authority than Dahlhaus. 

[ando]

The Book of William, Paul Collins (2010, Bloomsbury)

On 8 November 1623, Isaac Jaggard, printer, and Edward Blount, bookseller, went to the Stationers Hall in London to register their publication: Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies, finally completed after two years' effort.

Shakespeare's First Folio will be 400 years old tomorrow. The performance history is much more intriguing but a look at the history of its reception and circulation outside of that is interesting, too. I also picked up an Arden edition of The Tempest in commemoration.

[SimonNZ]

Shakespeare's First Folio will be 400 years old tomorrow.

The latest episode of the Shakespeare Unlimited podcast has Emma Smith talking about the First Folio:

400 Years of Shakespeare's First Folio, with Emma Smith

I've had her book on the First Folio Unread for a while and must put it back near the top of the pile:



related, I recently knocked off these two quick reads:



Dromgoolie was director at the Globe and Doran was director at the RSC, but the books take seperate paths in telling their authors stories.

Dromgoolie is focused on showing how Shakespeare shaped his personal development throughout his life even from an early age (he was born to a family of actors, and was in productions from primary school) with just a little of his own production history. Doran is focused on each of his RSC performances, drilling down on working through the text with the actors, with a much smaller amount of biography mixed in.

[ando]

The latest episode of the Shakespeare Unlimited podcast has Emma Smith talking about the First Folio:

400 Years of Shakespeare's First Folio, with Emma Smith

I've had her book on the First Folio Unread for a while and must put it back near the top of the pile:



related, I recently knocked off these two quick reads:



Dromgoolie was director at the Globe and Doran was director at the RSC, but the books take seperate paths in telling their authors stories.

Dromgoolie is focused on showing how Shakespeare shaped his personal development throughout his life even from an early age (he was born to a family of actors, and was in productions from primary school) with just a little of his own production history. Doran is focused on each of his RSC performances, drilling down on working through the text with the actors, with a much smaller amount of biography mixed in.

Thanks!

[Daverz]

Just started reading



The New Roman Empire: A History of Byzantium
by Anthony Kaldellis

Already some really great insights in the early pages.  I hope it doesn't take me as long to read it as the Eastern Empire lasted.

[Florestan]

[Spotted Horses]

The Fraud, the latest by Zadie Smith



I'm a big fan of Zadie Smith, but this is a big change in style, from contemporary subjects to historical fiction.

The focus of the book is the Tichborne affair. Roger Tichborne was lost at sea in a shipwreck in South America in the early 19th century. Many years later a rumor reached Ticborne's mother that a ship bound for Australia picked up some survivors from the shipwreck and transported them to Australia. Tichborne's mother advertised widely in Australia and a man claimed to be Roger Tichborne. The claimant appeared to be a bankrupt butcher from Wagga Wagga who had fled to Australia and changed his name to avoid his debts, but Roger's mother and a few other individuals, including a Bogel, a former slave and later paid servant of Roger Tichborne, supported his claim. The other focus of the book is William Ainsworth, an author who was very popular at the tie but whose fame died with him. The book is narrated by Ainsworth's cousin, and describes her reaction to the trials, to the intriguing character of Bogle, and the London social scene she has access to through her connection with Ainsworth. At first the focus of the book seemed scattered to me, but ultimately it came to a satisfying conclusion.

[vers la flamme]

The Fraud, the latest by Zadie Smith



I'm a big fan of Zadie Smith, but this is a big change in style, from contemporary subjects to historical fiction.

The focus of the book is the Tichborne affair. Roger Tichborne was lost at sea in a shipwreck in South America in the early 19th century. Many years later a rumor reached Ticborne's mother that a ship bound for Australia picked up some survivors from the shipwreck and transported them to Australia. Tichborne's mother advertised widely in Australia and a man claimed to be Roger Tichborne. The claimant appeared to be a bankrupt butcher from Wagga Wagga who had fled to Australia and changed his name to avoid his debts, but Roger's mother and a few other individuals, including a Bogel, a former slave and later paid servant of Roger Tichborne, supported his claim. The other focus of the book is William Ainsworth, an author who was very popular at the tie but whose fame died with him. The book is narrated by Ainsworth's cousin, and describes her reaction to the trials, to the intriguing character of Bogle, and the London social scene she has access to through her connection with Ainsworth. At first the focus of the book seemed scattered to me, but ultimately it came to a satisfying conclusion.

Wow, interesting timing. Right before I clicked on this thread I finished reading Jorge Luis Borges' The Improbable Impostor Tom Castro, which is also about the Tichborne affair.

[steve ridgway]

Andre Norton: The Time Traders (in a Kindle anthology).

[Daverz]

Andre Norton: The Time Traders (in a Kindle anthology).

Wow, that brings back memories of my childhood.



There was also this one:

[steve ridgway]

Wow, that brings back memories of my childhood.

That's what I'm hoping to do; I used to read loads of such stuff back in the 1970s.

[Pohjolas Daughter]

Boy, I haven't read any books by her in ages!  I suspect that I mostly read the anthologies.

I did just see one image which caught my eye and I'll have to check out:  Catfantastic (looks like she and others wrote and compiled a series of these books).

PD

[ritter]

Reading Emilio Carrere's Ruta emocional de Madrid ("Emotional Itinerary through Madrid"), a book originally published in 1935 and that was released again last year.



Carrere (1881 - 1947) was one of the leading figures of bohemian Madrid in the the years from the beginning of the 20th century to the outbreak of the civil war in 1936. His book is a collection of short poems dealing with streets and everyday scenes of old Madrid, a city that was changing quickly (some would say, disappearing) when the book was written. Yet, much of what is described can still be perceived today... . The focus is on popular neighbourhoods and lower-class characters...

Not great poetry IMO, but a very enjoyable book for anyone who loves this city...

Some nice prints by Fernando Marco, reproduced from the original 1935 release, are included in this carefully prepared and annotated edition.

[Mandryka]

Time to tackle a biggie.

Astonishing prose - Shakespearean - like « Out, out brief candle. » or « What a piece of work is man. »  Faulkner could turn a good phrase.

At first I thought - this is too gothic for me. But I'm completely seduced. I'm up to Chapter Five - Rosa talking to Quentin. Just amazing prose! Who cares whether it makes sense?  Not me! I really don't want to spoil the experience with close reading or philosophical analysis, I just want to enjoy the music of it, the poetry of it.

I kind of wish I knew a bit more about the context - American history and culture. Is there a sort of « American Studies for dummies » book?  Something important  obviously happened in 1865 . . .

A month after reading Absalom   I've discovered this

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Civil_War_(miniseries)

Maybe you guys all know about this stuff, but for me, it is completely new.  I'm really surprised there's so much photographic material -- imagine if the camera had been invented in  1848!  There's even TV material of the veterans.

[JBS]

A month after reading Absalom   I've discovered this

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Civil_War_(miniseries)

Maybe you guys all know about this stuff, but for me, it is completely new.  I'm really surprised there's so much photographic material -- imagine if the camera had been invented in  1848!  There's even TV material of the veterans.

This may interest you.
https://www.nps.gov/gett/learn/photosmultimedia/devil-s-den-then-and-now.htm

The seventh photo is one of the most famous pictures of the Civil War.

[Mandryka]

No voice in the North in favour of allowing cessation? No white voice in the South against slavery and for remaining in The Union?  That's the impression I'm getting from the first video.

Mary Chestnut is interesting vis-a-vis Absalom. She talks about silence of the blacks. (Faulkner (in the voice of Sutpen)  talks about the laughter of the blacks making them inscrutable almost, threatening. )

Also interesting to learn how politically ruthless Lincoln was.  I may have to find a biography if him,.

[Brian]

No voice in the North in favour of allowing cessation? No white voice in the South against slavery and for remaining in The Union?  That's the impression I'm getting from the first video.

I'm not sure about the first question. There were certainly voices in the North that did not much care about slavery and did not much like Lincoln, but more or less everyone believed that the Union was inviolable and that nobody should be allowed to leave. This is why during the first two or so years of the war, more or less all the Union propaganda points were about restoring the nation and bringing rebels back into the fold.

As for Southern voices against slavery and for union, they did exist but were quickly suppressed or chose to stay in the north. I can think of two examples. Sam Houston, the Texas independence hero, for whom the city of Houston is named, was anti-slavery and pro-union and quickly hounded out of leadership. And the southern army general George H. Thomas quickly decided that his conscience required he stay loyal to the federal government, so he joined the Union army against the forces of his home state.

[Mandryka]

Just one passing comment gave me pause for thought in the documentary -- that the confederate states were legally entitled to leave the union, and would never have joined the union if they thought they wouldn't be allowed to leave.

I was really surprised to learn that Lincoln's focus was preserving the union, and not at all on abolishing slavery.

I've just discovered another real interesting sounding character who I'd like to investigate more -- I'm sure he's well known to Americans but I never heard him mentioned in my education -- George McClellan.

Just a random thought about the Faulkner


In Absalom, Thomas Sutpen (who's an important character) is from West Virginia, which I think was a Confederate state. Yet (importantly in the novel) he did not have any awareness of  slavery and its associated racist/exploitative/apartheid values when he was a child, so if that's right the South was not homogenous politically at all. And another main character, Shreve McCannon, is from Canada -- I'm not at all clear what that implies about him politically (I think Canada was British, I don't know what the British involvement in this war amounted to.)

Americans == do southerners still feel they suffered defeat?