What are you currently reading?

[Karl Henning]

Exactly what I was hoping, Poe was one my earliest literary loves . . . and a sane bio has been wanted for a long time, it seems.

(. . . and then, to be sure, I wandered to the University of Virginia, which maintains a kind of Poe shrine adjacent to The Lawn.)

This is excellent, and everything I had hoped for, and more. Thanks again, David.

[milk]

For me, just some light reading:



(That's The Destruction of the European Jews, by Raul Hilberg. Just started volume one. That's what my set looks like, but that's not my photo.)

I think I read this but I don't remember it being so long! 3 volumes?

[Jaakko Keskinen]

1/3 through "No name" already. Collins did it again, he sucked me in with The Moonstone last winter and now with this. Collins, though 12 years younger than Dickens, learned very early one vital lesson which apart from an exception here or there took Dickens until his very latest novels to learn. Namely, that having characters with depth in them is more interesting than unceasing flow of well-made but in large doses tiresome caricatures. Plus the fact that having too much painted in black and white reduces suspense between the characters. And oh boy, I love it how even though in many cases I anticipate the plot twists Collins prepares, he still manages to pull them off convincingly. I think you could even argue that creating predictable plot twists that work in spite of being predictable, shows even greater skill in plotting than having completely unpredictable ones work.

[bwv 1080]

Kotkin convincingly portrays Stalin as a rational (and ruthless) ideologue rather than some sort of deranged psychopath.  All he did was obstinately apply Leninist ideology, refusing any concessions or compromise.

Now into the Great Terror.  Kotkin refrains from speculating on Stalin's psychology, but does state that it went well beyond  a cold, calculated effort to preemptively eliminate any potential rivals. 

One tidbit- one purge list of 'Trotskyite Fascists' that Stalin had drawn up included Mao Zedong, but for some reason this list was never acted upon.

[Jaakko Keskinen]

More British literature - started The Hound of the Baskervilles.

[milk]

[Alek Hidell]

I think I read this but I don't remember it being so long! 3 volumes?

Well, there's an abridged version that's much more readily available (I think it's all you can find on Amazon, for example). Maybe you read that?

Anyway, I found my copy of this unabridged version on AbeBooks.

[ComposerOfAvantGarde]

I should really read some of her science fiction work. Sad to hear of her recent passing, but she left a good amount of stuff for us all to read!

[milk]

I should really read some of her science fiction work. Sad to hear of her recent passing, but she left a good amount of stuff for us all to read!

I can't find anyone quite like her. I do recommend her "Hainish" books. They're not continual or chronological. You can read any one of them (the first novella isn't great but after that they're all interesting and fun too). She really wrote a kind of imaginary sociology and presented problems that shine a mirror on our assumptions about the self and human culture. Le Guin was very economical. She didn't "waste words," unlike most contemporary sci-fi writers. Her language is often beautiful but never extravagantly so. I don't find her peer, really.

[ComposerOfAvantGarde]

I can't find anyone quite like her. I do recommend her "Hainish" books. They're not continual or chronological. You can read any one of them (the first novella isn't great but after that they're all interesting and fun too). She really wrote a kind of imaginary sociology and presented problems that shine a mirror on our assumptions about the self and human culture. Le Guin was very economical. She didn't "waste words," unlike most contemporary sci-fi writers. Her language is often beautiful but never extravagantly so. I don't find her peer, really.

Thanks for that overview! I have wanted to read the Hainish cycle for a while but never got around to it. Now, I plan to read them after I finish a couple of books I gotta read first................

[ritter]

A selection of the prose by Victoria Ocampo (extracts from her autobiography and sketches about other people):

[asin]8492543795[/asin]

Ocampo was a member of an extremely wealthy Argentinian family, but had intellectual inclinations that led her to frequent the company of many renowned figures of her time (e.g., Ernest Ansermet and Pierre Drieu La Rochelle). At the behest of José Ortega y Gasset, she founded Sur (one of the most influential literary reviews in the Spanish-speaking world during the middle years of the 20th century).

Perfectly fluent in French (as was the custom among the aristocracy in South America in the early to mid 1900s), she performed the title rôles in Stravinky's Perséphone—under the composer—and Honegger's Le Roi David—under Ansermet—in Buenos Aires  (even if she was never a professional actress).

Victoria's younger sister Silvina Ocampo (also a writer) was married to Adolfo Bioy Casares (and they were all close to Jorge Luis Borges).

So far, the book has covered the childhood and adolescence of a rich girl, in rather undistinguished prose, but it is a good portrait of the Argentinian beau monde of the time. I suppose it'll get more interesting as her passion for literature and the arts comes into full blossom.

[Ken B]

This.
[asin]B071XN75S1[/asin]

A somewhat odd book. The name comes from a huge apartment block in which lived many Old Bolsheviks and high officials in Russia in 1931. The book is about them, their fate, their mindset. Parts of it drift off into theory, but mostly it's a convincing portrait of a community of True Believers. He likens bolshevism to other millenerian cults, like early Christianity.
It does assume a basic familiarity with the history. The NEP is not explained for example, not even the acronym, and the details of Stalin's rise are assumed, etc.   Overall an outstanding book so far, a little over half way through.

Recommended for Andrei

[Ten thumbs]

Off the Skelligs
by Jean Ingelow

Ingelow is not everybody's cup of tea (frequently enters into moral and religious argument), but at least she's original. I'm nearly halfway through and I've no idea what's going to happen yet.

This is actually a very good novel and contains some powerful scenes. Ingelow is not a Romantic, which makes a change and she is definitely not sentimental. Ought not to be forgotten.

[SimonNZ]

Finished:



Started:

[Draško]

The World of Jeeves

Complete Jeeves & Wooster short stories, thirty-something of them. I've been enjoying them for most of last year. Bit by bit, they never should be read back to back. 

[Jo498]

Of the short stories I usually read them in bunches as they were grouped in the older collections. Overall, I think they are usually better than the longer novels. Especially the later novels are not that good anymore although usually Jeeves and Wooster is still better than the late "Blandings" novels. (The earlier Blandings are among the best but I tend to find Galahad insufferable.)

A few days ago I finished a rather interesting SF novel by Lem: Niezwyciężony (The Invincible). Written in 1964 this already has a fully fledged conception of something like "nanobots" and I wonder if Lem was the first one with the idea. Maybe not (wiki says "one of the first" without source/citation) but it is very well explained and developed.

[bwv 1080]

rereading from about 25 years ago, mostly the audiobook, which is well done but you need the book sometimes to see the section changes.  There does not seem to be much thought into the audiobook chapters other than each of the 43 'chapters' is about 50 minutes long.  The book itself has four large chapters with numerous unnumbered sections within

[Brian]

(The earlier Blandings are among the best but I tend to find Galahad insufferable.)

Galahad is my favorite, but I have noticed that he is best when he doesn't appear often, and you wish for more of him, rather than when he is a central character.

[Mirror Image]

Re-reading:

[Karl Henning]

rereading from about 25 years ago, mostly the audiobook, which is well done but you need the book sometimes to see the section changes.  There does not seem to be much thought into the audiobook chapters other than each of the 43 'chapters' is about 50 minutes long.  The book itself has four large chapters with numerous unnumbered sections within

As with tagging mp3s (?) there is a tension between cookie-cutter organization, and variations in the organization of an artwork