What are you currently reading?

[NikF]

http://www.gq.com/story/cary-grant-on-style

Still perfectly applicable 50 years later.

Yeah, and so much he refers to is about the fit and function. Good stuff.


Anyway...

Sparring with Hemingway: And Other Legends of the Fight Game by Budd Schulberg

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[NikF]

Selected Works - Cesare Pavese.

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[Ken B]

Some short stories by John O'Hara selected more or less at random.

[Drasko]

Yeah, and so much he refers to is about the fit and function. Good stuff.

Definitely. Though I have to admit to have sinned when it comes to function(ality), often in my younger days, but fit in men's clothes/style is absolutely paramount (as in location, location, location).

[NikF]

Definitely. Though I have to admit to have sinned when it comes to function(ality), often in my younger days, but fit in men's clothes/style is absolutely paramount (as in location, location, location).

I think we all have past fashion indiscretions...

Capote is yet another author I havent read all that much of, however I've a 'complete stories' collection somewhere, I think.

[Christo]

For the second time in my life (cause am supposed to write an essay on it); William Golding, Lord of the Flies (1954). About 35 years ago this was the last of Golding's novels that I read (his last three were still to appear) and just like then, I think I literally prefer all of his other novels, especially the middle ones and the posthumously published The Double Tongue. How to explain the popularity of this early novel, actually his first one? 

[ritter]

Starting volume 1 of Hans Mayer's memoirs:

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A major figure in literary critique in Germany after WW2, and also soemone who had a passion for music (his books on Wagner are quite succesful), Mayer's oeuvre doesn't seem to travel well, and I have not seen any translations into English or Spanish. The career of a man who as a communist, a jew and a homosexual really had trouble in the dark years, to later become quite a prominent personalty in the Federal Republic, promises to be an interesting read.

[Mahlerian]

Just finished the second volume of Walsh's Stravinsky biography.  Walsh treats the many delicate issues surrounding these years with skill and tact.  He does not vilify Robert Craft, though he does show him as vulnerable, frustrating, occasionally sympathetic and sometimes infuriating.  Stravinsky's own creativity remained fully undiminished up until 1966, and if we have Craft to thank for even a portion of that artistic life, Walsh suggests, history will treat him far better than the composer's children, with whom he developed an acrimonious relationship before and after their father's death.  Above all, the book shows a respect for its subject that is not tainted by sanctimonious reverence, and Stravinsky emerges as a complex, deeply flawed individual, albeit one far more likable on a personal level than I had previously imagined.  Walsh clearly loves the composer and his music, and that love is infectious.

[Jaakko Keskinen]

Re-visiting perhaps my favorite novel of all time.

[kishnevi]

Re-visiting perhaps my favorite novel of all time.

I need to revisit Hugo. Curious how the titles of his big two novels are treated.  Les Miserables is always presented with the French title untranslated  (or at least, I have yet to see a version which gives an English language equivalent), while Quasimodo is promoted to the status of title character even though in the original French, the cathedral itself is the title "character".

[Jaakko Keskinen]

I agree and even the closest human character to fit the role of the protagonist IMO fits more Frollo rather than Quasimodo.

[Spineur]

Re-visiting perhaps my favorite novel of all time.

Read it at 15.  Never again.  My favorite Victor Hugo is 93.  And then all the poetry. 

[Jaakko Keskinen]

"What would the throne of France be to me when I could rebuild the empire of the Orient?"

[Ken B]

The Big Clock, by Kenneth Fearing

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[NikF]

The Big Clock, by Kenneth Fearing

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Ken, I've noticed you read crime novels. You ever read this one? I'm thinking of ordering it.

Black Wings Has My Angel by Elliott Chaze.

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[Ken B]

Nik
No. Never seen that one before.

[Spineur]

The Big Clock, by Kenneth Fearing

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I read all of them.  My favorite is Cornell Woolrich "I married a dead man", then Mc Cain "The postman rings twice".  The big clock is not quite in the same league nor is nightmare alley, but they are still good reads.

[NikF]

Nik
No. Never seen that one before.

Thanks anyway. I'll probably give it a try in any case.

[Ken B]

I read all of them.  My favorite is Cornell Woolrich "I married a dead man", then Mc Cain "The postman rings twice".  The big clock is not quite in the same league nor is nightmare alley, but they are still good reads.

All of these have been filmed, some several times. I have seen Nightmare Alley, but have not yet decided if I will read it. I am quite liking Clock, halfway through.

[Florestan]

My favorite Victor Hugo is 93. 

Mine, too. And Les travailleurs de la mer (Toilers of the Sea)