What are you currently reading?

[Mookalafalas]

I picked this up for my kindle and nibble at it now and then...

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[Ken B]

This is sometimes assigned in middle school in Germany (we did it in 8th grade or so, although the most popular Dürrenmatt for school reading are the plays "The visit" (of an elderly lady) and "The physicists"). To my recollection, this is quite good.

There are a few more crime novels by Dürrenmatt, some with the same protagonist but this is the first and probably the best (it's been a long time I read them).

I do not know if all of them have been translated but there are another handful of somewhat unconventional Swiss (and with more local feeling than Dürrenmatt) mysteries: Friedrich Glauser's "Sergeant Studer" and sequels (written and taking place in the 1930s). Glauser died 1938 in his early 40s after years of drug addiction.

I ordered one of Glauser's novels in the Studer series off Amazon.

[Jo498]

I hope you like it. They are somewhat "slow" compared to contemporary (or 1930s hardboiled) crime fiction and some of the peculiarly Swiss moods and manners are probably lost in translation. (They are basically written in standard German but better German edition do have a glossary for Swiss regionalisms).

[Karl Henning]

Well, and are we surprised?

The US has embraced more-liberal ideas of policing in the wake of a number of fatal confrontations between police and black men. But a spike in crime is testing that shift.

RTHT here.

[Ken B]

Well, and are we surprised?

RTHT here.

Depends on whom you mean by 'we'. I am not. I was in Cincinnati during and after the anti-police riots after a white cop killed a fleeing black petty criminal. Afterwards the cops basically left parts of the city alone for a while. Crime exploded, and the murder rate (rather low so the effect might be just chance) doubled. The big losers were, of course, the mostly poor, mostly black, folks who lived in those areas. The Czech social justice warrior faction may get different mileage.

(BTW the way the Cinci cops handled the case of the officer involved was disgraceful. He was found in an internal investigation to have acted recklessly and violated all sorts of department policies. (He avoided conviction for manslaughter because it's hard to prove he didn't think he saw a gun.) They "fired" him with much fanfare. But the firing was a sham; a week later he was silently hired by the police force in one of the suburbs. In essence they moved him a few miles. The blue wall in action.)

[Karl Henning]

It wants fixing, not the show trials . . . .

[NikF]

Anais Nin



A selection from two of her short story collections - I think 'Delta of Venus' and 'Little Birds'.

[Karl Henning]

Last year, for the first time, the number of unmarried American adults outnumbered those who were married.

[Drasko]

[Mookalafalas]

Gary Giddins, the great Jazz critic and anthologist's bio of Bing.  I'm only up to 1929, but great so far.  Not exciting or novelistic, but very well researched with lots of socio-historical details that really add rich background to the events.

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[Karl Henning]

Brilliant!

[North Star]

Brilliant!

I'll be finishing that one during the autumn myself.

My holiday reading (well, a Finnish translation of the Renoir). Both brilliant, of course.
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[Jo498]

Brilliant!

Isn't that the last one with the Gussie-Madeline-story?
In any case this edition has a big spoiler on the title illustration...

[Karl Henning]

Isn't that the last one with the Gussie-Madeline-story?

I never dug into the proper chronology . . . I've just read stories/novels pell-mell.

[Drasko]

Brilliant!

'Tis.

Isn't that the last one with the Gussie-Madeline-story?

No, it's the first one. The Code of the Woosters is something of a sequel, after that I don't know.

edit: after The Code of the Woosters, come The Mating Season and Stiff Upper Lip, Jeeves.

[Fëanor]

The Evolution of God by Robert Wright

A good combination of anthropological fact and reasoned speculation.

[Moonfish]

I began this behemoth today! Wish me luck! It is definitely intriguing in its scope.

Jürgen Osterhammel: The Transformation of the World - A Global History of the Nineteenth Century

Review from NYRB.

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[Ken B]

I began this behemoth today! Wish me luck! It is definitely intriguing in its scope.

Jürgen Osterhammel: The Transformation of the World - A Global History of the Nineteenth Century

Review from NYRB.

[asin] 0691147450[/asin]

Interesting looking but ... Let us know.
I see Tyler Cowen blurbed the book. The world knows few greater masters of the incomprehensible sentence, the garbled paragraph, than Tyler Cowen.

TD
Just started a novel, The Homesman by Glendon Swarthout

[Jo498]

No, it's the first one. The Code of the Woosters is something of a sequel, after that I don't know.

edit: after The Code of the Woosters, come The Mating Season and Stiff Upper Lip, Jeeves.

right! I consider "The mating season" (where I think no less than 4 couples have to be sorted out) as the proper finale, the last one is not as good I seem to recall (although it does have the fearful Spode!)

[Karl Henning]

At new erato's suggestion, I started reading this on the bus ride home yesterday:

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As Sam Gamgee is reported to have said, this is an eye opener, and no mistake.