What are you currently reading?

aligreto · March 25, 2020, 08:30:05 AM

Quote from: Kaga2 on March 25, 2020, 07:33:51 AM
But I just joined!

Seriously, I don't actually try to convince idiots, I just try to make sure other readers see a counter argument.

Fair enough.

BTW do post your history reading. There are a few here interested in that genre.

Kaga2 · March 25, 2020, 08:45:57 AM

Quote from: aligreto on March 25, 2020, 08:30:05 AM
Fair enough.

BTW do post your history reading. There are a few here interested in that genre.

Mr Selden's Map of China. 17th century history. Not read very far.
Feeding Nelson's Navy. Odd book, but fun.

aligreto · March 25, 2020, 10:00:11 AM

Quote from: Kaga2 on March 25, 2020, 08:45:57 AM
Mr Selden's Map of China. 17th century history. Not read very far.
Feeding Nelson's Navy. Odd book, but fun.

Cheers for that.

j winter · March 25, 2020, 10:44:26 AM

Been chipping away alternately at War and Peace and Adam Zamoyski's Napoleon bio for a while now, adding this for a bit more background...

Kaga2 · March 25, 2020, 11:02:45 AM

Quote from: j winter on March 25, 2020, 10:44:26 AM
Been chipping away alternately at War and Peace and Adam Zamoyski's Napoleon bio for a while now, adding this for a bit more background...

I devoured W&P twice. Zamoyski's 1812 book was great.

aligreto · March 28, 2020, 09:24:27 AM

Henry James: The Aspern Papers

I have just finished reading The Aspern Papers. It is curious that my previous read was Graham Greene's Dr. Fisher of Geneva as both it and James's The Aspern Papers deal with avarice. An unintentional coincidence on my part.

Mookalafalas · March 28, 2020, 02:57:07 PM

Quote from: j winter on March 25, 2020, 10:44:26 AM

I've got that...somewhere. Started it, liked it, got sidetracked--the story of my life. I think I'll track it down and give it another go. It would be the perfect complement to this, which I just started.

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However, I too am mostly diverted by virus news, and am having trouble sleeping and concentrating. As this book is narratively very challenging, I'm having a hard time really getting into it.

j winter · March 28, 2020, 05:31:53 PM

Actually you might want the previous volume in the series, to cover most of the Tudors.... I have this too, but haven't read it yet

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Kaga2 · March 28, 2020, 05:38:50 PM

Quote from: Mookalafalas on March 28, 2020, 02:57:07 PM
I've got that...somewhere. Started it, liked it, got sidetracked--the story of my life. I think I'll track it down and give it another go. It would be the perfect complement to this, which I just started.

[asin]0312429983[/asin]

However, I too am mostly diverted by virus news, and am having trouble sleeping and concentrating. As this book is narratively very challenging, I'm having a hard time really getting into it.

I found it a struggle at first, the odd style, but then something clicked and then it was great. Immersive is the high falutin word they use.

SimonNZ · March 28, 2020, 06:04:28 PM

Anyone impressed by the Wolf Hall series should be sure to get her brilliant big fat novel on the French Revolution, A Place Of Greater Safety.

Mookalafalas · March 28, 2020, 06:13:46 PM

Quote from: j winter on March 28, 2020, 05:31:53 PM
Actually you might want the previous volume in the series, to cover most of the Tudors.... I have this too, but haven't read it yet

Whoa. Didn't even know there was a series. I'll have to look into it...maybe.

Mookalafalas · March 28, 2020, 06:17:56 PM

Quote from: Kaga2 on March 28, 2020, 05:38:50 PM
I found it a struggle at first, the odd style, but then something clicked and then it was great. Immersive is the high falutin word they use.

Yeah, that's what I figured. It seems like that type. I had insomnia most of last night, and read a chunk in the quiet and sort of wondered why I'd been struggling before.

JBS · March 28, 2020, 06:18:53 PM

Quote from: Mookalafalas on March 28, 2020, 06:13:46 PM
Whoa. Didn't even know there was a series. I'll have to look into it...maybe.

Yes. The last (or at least latest) was just published here in the US.

Mookalafalas · March 28, 2020, 06:19:51 PM

Quote from: SimonNZ on March 28, 2020, 06:04:28 PM
Anyone impressed by the Wolf Hall series should be sure to get her brilliant big fat novel on the French Revolution, A Place Of Greater Safety.

I'll keep that in mind. I'll let you know in...1800 pages or so if I'm still not sated with her storytelling

Kaga2 · March 28, 2020, 08:27:31 PM

Quote from: SimonNZ on March 28, 2020, 06:04:28 PM
Anyone impressed by the Wolf Hall series should be sure to get her brilliant big fat novel on the French Revolution, A Place Of Greater Safety.

Seconded. Read it long ago.
Caveat. Be sure you are up on the basic narrative history of the FR.

Iota · March 30, 2020, 11:43:03 AM

This was rather better than I thought it was going to be - it was lent to me by somebody whose idea of what is good is often at great variance with mine. A touching and involving account of a young cellist growing up in a British seaside town. With lots of musical detail and characters that feel real, I found myself caring very much about the fate of the protagonist.

Kaga2 · March 30, 2020, 02:32:46 PM

Today, a crime novel by Newton Thornburg, A Man's Game. Vividly told unpleasantness.

SimonNZ · March 30, 2020, 02:47:14 PM

Finished:

Started on Reacher Said Nothing by Andy Martin, which follows Lee Child in the writing process of Make Me. But I don't know if I'll continue as Martin has adopted a prose style mannered and over-literary and at times downright purple - in exactly the way his subject doesn't. Unnecessay and distracting, but I may whip myself forward, even through the second book he wrote With Child, following the publishing reception and author tour for Make Me and the early thoughts on the next novel Night School.

aligreto · April 02, 2020, 02:25:18 AM

Henry James: The Turn of the Screw

aligreto · April 05, 2020, 03:54:04 AM

Hemingway: Men Without Women