What are you currently reading?

[Ken B]

There is a very watchable Russian-produced 2012 miniseries on Life and Fate.  It was available on Amazon prime in the US



Another good and very readable Chinese history book. Platt also wrote a great book on the Taiping Rebellion (the costliest war of the 19th century BTW) a few years back

I read God's Chinese Son. Might have been by him  interesting anyway.

[SimonNZ]

Murakami's first two novels "Hear The Wind Singing" and "Pinball, 1973" repackaged together as "Wind / Pinball".

Received wisdom is that these are unlike his later style, but I found them immediately recognizable as Murakami, both in prose style and subject preoccupations. The first work I liked very much, the second a little less so.

[Draško]

[Ken B]

I hear good things about Akunin but am deeply skeptical. I am not sure why.  Let us know how it is.

[Mandryka]

I'm about 100 pages in and it's funny, laugh out loud funny. Whether it will turn out to be more than that is a question I can't answer.

Nouvel Obs said it was a masterpiece, the greatest thing since Extension du domaine de la lutte, which is a book I very much appreciated. We shall see.

4/5  through and it's totally mediocre. Flat style of writing, conventional structure, peopled with caricatures who are there just for moving along a pretty episodic plot, no digging deep into any ideas at all,stuffed with mannerisms which get rapidly annoying (detailed descriptions of food and restaurants, pointless scientific details),  the only good bit is the description of a video where a beautiful Japanese lady gives a blow job to a couple of dogs.

[Draško]

I hear good things about Akunin but am deeply skeptical. I am not sure why.  Let us know how it is.

I've read four Akunin's Erast Fandorin novels before and I definitely like them. I'm not big reader of mystery/detective novels in general so can't quite compare them with anything else out there. They're well written, clever, with an occasional nod to some famous literature, like Master and Margarita in the first one. Cover period that hasn't been done to death (late 19th century imperial Russia) and Akunin definitely knows his way around that period. They don't repeat themselves neither in subject nor stylistically, some are first person view, some are narrated from point of view of some supporting character, sometimes Fandorin is a supporting character for most of the novel. The aspect I especially liked is that novels are chronological, in the first one Fandorin is this eager 20 year old civil servant of the lowest rung working in St.Petersburg police in 1876, and as years and novels go on he gets more capable, kind of mix of Sherlock Holmes and James Bond, and rises in the peculiar ranks of imperial bureaucracy.

As mystery novels go I find them superbly entertaining. If you'd want to try them just start with the first one chronologically, I think it's titled The Winter Queen in English, Azazel in original. That one is also probably my favorite so far.

[Draško]

4/5  through and it's totally mediocre. Flat style of writing, conventional structure, peopled with caricatures who are there just for moving along a pretty episodic plot, no digging deep into any ideas at all,stuffed with mannerisms which get rapidly annoying (detailed descriptions of food and restaurants, pointless scientific details),  the only good bit is the description of a video where a beautiful Japanese lady gives a blow job to a couple of dogs.

His style was always flat, but if he's gone bereft of ideas that's not good. It's not yet translated in Serbian, next month probably. I haven't read his previous though. Did you like that one?

[André]

I've read four Akunin's Erast Fandorin novels before and I definitely like them. I'm not big reader of mystery/detective novels in general so can't quite compare them with anything else out there. They're well written, clever, with an occasional nod to some famous literature, like Master and Margarita in the first one. Cover period that hasn't been done to death (late 19th century imperial Russia) and Akunin definitely knows his way around that period. They don't repeat themselves neither in subject nor stylistically, some are first person view, some are narrated from point of view of some supporting character, sometimes Fandorin is a supporting character for most of the novel. The aspect I especially liked is that novels are chronological, in the first one Fandorin is this eager 20 year old civil servant of the lowest rung working in St.Petersburg police in 1876, and as years and novels go on he gets more capable, kind of mix of Sherlock Holmes and James Bond, and rises in the peculiar ranks of imperial bureaucracy.

As mystery novels go I find them superbly entertaining. If you'd want to try them just start with the first one chronologically, I think it's titled The Winter Queen in English, Azazel in original. That one is also probably my favorite so far.

I've read two of the Erast Fandorin novels. Great fun, very resourceful and inventive plots. Fandorin reminds me a bit of Rodolphe, the hero of Eugène Sue's Les Mystères de Paris.

[Mandryka]

His style was always flat, but if he's gone bereft of ideas that's not good. It's not yet translated in Serbian, next month probably. I haven't read his previous though. Did you like that one?

The one I liked most was the first, Extension du domaine de la lutte. His previous was Soumission I think, I thought it was OK for a plane or a train -- the main character is a sympathetic loser, and he had some ideas which weren't totally un-interesting about the way that the way we organise sexual relationships in the west does no good, makes no one happy.

[Brian]

the only good bit is the description of a video where a beautiful Japanese lady gives a blow job to a couple of dogs.

Think I'll skip this one.

[Draško]

The one I liked most was the first, Extension du domaine de la lutte. His previous was Soumission I think, I thought it was OK for a plane or a train -- the main character is a sympathetic loser, and he had some ideas which weren't totally un-interesting about the way that the way we organise sexual relationships in the west does no good, makes no one happy.

Interesting, I haven't read his first. I'll pick it up, thanks. Out of The Elementary Particles, Platform and The Map and the Territory, Platform was my favorite.

[bwv 1080]

I read God's Chinese Son. Might have been by him  interesting anyway.

Have not read that one - it is by Jonathan Spense, Platt's Taping book is Autumn in The Heavenly Kingdom

[Ken B]

I've read four Akunin's Erast Fandorin novels before and I definitely like them. I'm not big reader of mystery/detective novels in general so can't quite compare them with anything else out there. They're well written, clever, with an occasional nod to some famous literature, like Master and Margarita in the first one. Cover period that hasn't been done to death (late 19th century imperial Russia) and Akunin definitely knows his way around that period. They don't repeat themselves neither in subject nor stylistically, some are first person view, some are narrated from point of view of some supporting character, sometimes Fandorin is a supporting character for most of the novel. The aspect I especially liked is that novels are chronological, in the first one Fandorin is this eager 20 year old civil servant of the lowest rung working in St.Petersburg police in 1876, and as years and novels go on he gets more capable, kind of mix of Sherlock Holmes and James Bond, and rises in the peculiar ranks of imperial bureaucracy.

As mystery novels go I find them superbly entertaining. If you'd want to try them just start with the first one chronologically, I think it's titled The Winter Queen in English, Azazel in original. That one is also probably my favorite so far.

Thanks. Very helpful.

[Jaakko Keskinen]

Still as fresh and relevant as on previous readings.

[NikF]

I like to have something on the go for enjoying a quick dip in to and right now this fits the bill nicely.

[SimonNZ]

Finished:



Started:

[Ken B]

The Count Of Monte Cristo
The newish complete translation by Buss, in Penguin.

[Wendell_E]

The Count Of Monte Cristo
The newish complete translation by Buss, in Penguin.

Wow! You speak Penguin? 

[Jaakko Keskinen]

[Ken B]

Wow! You speak Penguin? 

Sqtwt. Fwwwsqt.