What are you currently reading?

Started by facehugger, April 07, 2007, 12:36:10 AM

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Ken B

It's a surprising book too. Not at all All Quiet on The Western Front-ish. Junger rather liked the war.  It's a bit unsettling in places.

André

#9481
Quote from: Ken B on October 18, 2019, 08:03:37 PM
It's a surprising book too. Not at all All Quiet on The Western Front-ish. Junger rather liked the war.  It's a bit unsettling in places.

Yes it is.

Jünger didn't like war, but he saw combat as a calling, a uniquely prussian trait. That, too, may be unsettling and hard to understand. Jünger was a francophone and a francophile. He harbored no ill will toward 'the Enemy'. Along with Günter Grass and Heinrich Böll he is among the most read german writers in France, where his work is widely admired. He was one of Mitterrand's favourite authors.

Ken B

A bit of a flier, Twilight of Empire by Greg King and Penny Wilson. A recent book on Mayerling and the death of the Habsburg heir. Looks like a Florestan kind of a book.

j winter

After seeing Sarge's advocacy lo these many moons, giving this a try....



The man that hath no music in himself,
Nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds,
Is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils.
The motions of his spirit are dull as night,
And his affections dark as Erebus.
Let no such man be trusted.

-- William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice

aligreto

I have just finished reading Carlos Ruiz Zafón: The Shadow of the Wind





This is an interesting thriller set in Barcelona just after WWII. The writing is so powerfully descriptive that it is almost cinematic. It is the second book in a cycle of four by the author that I have read and it is a real page turner. I liik forward to reading the other two books in the series.

Florestan

Quote from: aligreto on October 28, 2019, 05:52:13 AM
I have just finished reading Carlos Ruiz Zafón: The Shadow of the Wind





This is an interesting thriller set in Barcelona just after WWII. The writing is so powerfully descriptive that it is almost cinematic. It is the second book in a cycle of four by the author that I have read and it is a real page turner. I liik forward to reading the other two books in the series.

Yes, this is good. Now you should read the sequel, The Angel's Play which is as good.
Every kind of music is good, except the boring kind. — Rossini

Ken B

Quote from: aligreto on October 28, 2019, 05:52:13 AM
I have just finished reading Carlos Ruiz Zafón: The Shadow of the Wind





This is an interesting thriller set in Barcelona just after WWII. The writing is so powerfully descriptive that it is almost cinematic. It is the second book in a cycle of four by the author that I have read and it is a real page turner. I liik forward to reading the other two books in the series.

That has been on my oh how tempting looking list for a very long time. 

TD
Murder in the Crooked House
Soji Shimada 1983

Elaborate fair play murder mysteries of the SS van Dine type have been popular in Japan for decades and Shimada is one of the big names. I read his earlier, excellent, Tokyo Zodiac Murders, which is quite brilliant. So far this is a bit dull, but then I have not reached the solution yet.

aligreto

Quote from: Florestan on October 28, 2019, 06:05:46 AM



Yes, this is good. Now you should read the sequel, The Angel's Play which is as good.

I presume that you mean The Angel's Game or am I missing one in the series?



Quote from: Ken B on October 28, 2019, 06:14:42 AM

That has been on my oh how tempting looking list for a very long time. 


Definitely recommended as a very good read.

Florestan

Quote from: aligreto on October 28, 2019, 07:22:24 AM
I presume that you mean The Angel's Game

Yes, that one. I confused play with game (in Romanian there is a single word for them).
Every kind of music is good, except the boring kind. — Rossini

aligreto

Quote from: Florestan on October 28, 2019, 07:25:44 AM
Yes, that one. I confused play with game (in Romanian there is a single word for them).

Cheers. No problem and thank you for the clarification. As I said I just did not want to miss out on one.  :)

SimonNZ



Ken B

Quote from: Florestan on October 28, 2019, 07:25:44 AM
(in Romanian there is a single word for them).

Like "Hello" and "I surrender" in French.

SimonNZ


AlberichUndHagen

Recently read the combray half of Swann's way from Proust's In search of lost time. Very impressive. Still a long way to go, though.

André


vandermolen


I took this to Italy with me. It's an enjoyable romp, like an early James Bond story. Despite the anti-semitism (and yet paradoxically Buchan was later considered as a friend of the Jews) I still enjoyed it.
"Courage is going from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm" (Churchill).

'The test of a work of art is, in the end, our affection for it, not our ability to explain why it is good' (Stanley Kubrick).

Jo498

It's supposedly one of the "founding" books both of the espionage genre and the trope of an "ordinary guy" getting involved in such stuff (although the latter is older if one casts a somewhat wider net, The prisoner of Zelda would already be an earlier example). As you are probably aware, it also served as an inspiration for quite a bit of the Tintin adventure "The black island".
Tout le malheur des hommes vient d'une seule chose, qui est de ne savoir pas demeurer en repos, dans une chambre.
- Blaise Pascal

aligreto

Quote from: vandermolen on October 31, 2019, 11:03:34 AM

I took this to Italy with me. It's an enjoyable romp, like an early James Bond story. Despite the anti-semitism (and yet paradoxically Buchan was later considered as a friend of the Jews) I still enjoyed it.

Nostalgia trip; I remember reading that one as a young man.

Ken B

Quote from: aligreto on November 01, 2019, 03:57:27 AM
Nostalgia trip; I remember reading that one as a young man.
I read it as a middle aged one. I liked it, it was hammy fun, and fast. Another one I liked was King Solomon's Mines by Haggard, but again you have to turn a blind eye to a few things. And not mind that the plot is ridiculous!