What are you currently reading?

[SimonNZ]

[NikF]

[Crudblud]

In an attempt to be more varied and active in my reading I'm going through some history with Rise to Globalism by Ambrose and Brinkley. I'm also looking at Norman Stone's Europe Transformed, 1878-1919. Taking them both very slowly so that I don't get my head stuffed with a bunch of stuff that just disappears the next day.

On my way to meet a friend yesterday I picked up William Gibson's Neuromancer and Joseph Conrad's Nostromo from an Oxfam bookshop. Looking forward to reading those soon. While the shop is reasonably priced I must protest at their use of stickers with segmented flaps, which make it quite a pain to remove them cleanly. I mean, I don't like stickers on books at all; my favourite bookshop, now closed down as of almost a year ago, just used to lightly pencil the price on the inside cover.

[Jaakko Keskinen]

Soon, I'm going to re-read The Silmarillion (amazing book, easily my favorite Tolkien work) and then probably read for the first time The book of lost tales. Although I've read that they (along with Unfinished tales) deal mostly with the same material only written a bit differently (IIRC, Melkor is still called Melko in The Book of Lost Tales).

[ritter]

Before embarking on the reading of José Lezama Lima's monumental Paradiso (widely regarded as one of the greatest novels written in Spanish in the 20th century), I've bean leafing through the magazine Orígenes, which the author (along with a group of collaborators) edited in Havana from 1944 to 1956, and which in those years established itself as one of the leading art and literature periodicals in the Spanish speaking world. Apart from Lezama, there are contributions by most relevant Cuban authors of those years, as well as by prestigious authors from Spain (Juan Ramón Jiménez, Luis Cernuda, Vicente Aleixandre), Latin America (Octavio Paz, Gabriela Mistral) and other countries (T.S. Eliot, Paul Valéry, Paul Éluard...).



All the issues were published again in 1992 in facsimile form (in 7 volumes) jointly by publishers Turner from Spain and El Equilibrista from Mexico, with funding from Spain's Fifth Centennial Commission. The set is an object of beauty...

[Moonfish]

These two... 

[Jaakko Keskinen]

These two... 

Great!  Haven't read that Rachmaninov study but anything related to that great composer must be great. As for Buddenbrooks, it is one of my favorite German novels ever.

[vandermolen]

'The President's Hat' by Antoine Laurain. VG

[listener]

From the Score to the Stage: An Illustrated History of Continental Opera Production and Staging

large format, beautiful presentation on opera stagecraft



https://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/0226035085/ref=od_aui_detailpages00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

[Cato]

Great!  Haven't read that Rachmaninov study but anything related to that great composer must be great.

As for Buddenbrooks, it is one of my favorite German novels ever.

Amen  0:)  and Amen again!  0:)

I am currently near the end of proof-reading my own latest novel:

From the Temples of the Cloud  It is a counterpart, if not exactly a sequel, to an earlier novel from c. 4 years ago, From the Caves of the Cloud.

[Moonfish]

From the Score to the Stage: An Illustrated History of Continental Opera Production and Staging

large format, beautiful presentation on opera stagecraft



https://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/0226035085/ref=od_aui_detailpages00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

That looks extremely enticing!!!!!  I think that will end up on my reading list towards the end of the summer thanks to you, Listener! 

[NikF]

On the train today -

[Ken B]

The seven volume The Accursed Kings by Maurice Druon, translated from the French. This is the first

[asin]0007491263[/asin]

I have almost finished the second now. Seems like a Florestan kind of book, or Mookalafalas.
And Moonfish too, as an I, Claudius fan.

[Florestan]

The seven volume The Accursed Kings by Maurice Druon, translated from the French. This is the first

[asin]0007491263[/asin]

I have almost finished the second now. Seems like a Florestan kind of book, or Mookalafalas.

I have read the whole series long ago and enjoyed it immensely.

[Ken B]

I have read the whole series long ago and enjoyed it immensely.

Glad to know I haven't lost my touch 
And that it's good!

Do you know Robert Merle's series, The Fortunes of France? It looks interesting but I was put off by a random page I looked at.

[Florestan]

Glad to know I haven't lost my touch 
And that it's good!

For me every volume was a page turner.

Do you know Robert Merle's series, The Fortunes of France? It looks interesting but I was put off by a random page I looked at.

Never heard of him. 

[bwv 1080]

Great historian and writer, attempts to answer the question:

By 1943, the war was lost, and most German officers knew it. Three quarters of a century later, the question persists: What kept the German army going in an increasingly hopeless situation?

[aligreto]

On the train today -

Interesting as I have recently begun to read Balzac's "Pierrette".

[Draško]

Gradac is Serbian art magazine, with themed issues, in book format. This one is triple issue (300 pages) and the theme is Dandyism.

It opens with an article on English 18th century 'Fashionable Novel' (Disraeli & co.) and critique of it by Thomas Carlyle and William Hazlitt. Continues with excerpts from Gautier's Mademoiselle de Maupin, Baudelaire's writings on Gautier, Balzac and Barbey d'Aurevilly articles on George Brummell, article on Robert de Montesquiou (Huysmans' model for des Esseintes and Proust's for Baron de Charlus), excerpts from Huysmans, Wilde, Proust and articles by Sartre, Camus and Roland Barthes among others.

[NikF]

Interesting as I have recently begun to read Balzac's "Pierrette".

And how are you finding it?