What are you currently reading?

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

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Dry Brett Kavanaugh

Quote from: Florestan on April 23, 2021, 09:53:18 AM

The Bible, Cervantes, Shakespeare, Dostoyevski, Tolstoy and Dickens cover those areas for me more than enough.  ;D

Strangely/Interestingly, not many people talk about Shakespeare on this thread. Personally I am not a big fan of his works. I maybe missing something since I read his works when I was pretty young.

SimonNZ

#10801
Quote from: Dry Brett Kavanaugh on April 25, 2021, 02:28:52 PM
Strangely/Interestingly, not many people talk about Shakespeare on this thread. Personally I am not a big fan of his works. I maybe missing something since I read his works when I was pretty young.

There's a seperate Shakespeare thread, which unfortunately has been largely inactive the last couple of years.

https://www.good-music-guide.com/community/index.php/topic,23394.280.html

But speaking of Shakespeare I've off and on been picking away one chapter at a time a John Middleton Murray (he of the Bloomsbury group, married to Katherine Mansfield) study of Shakespeare's works from the 1930's.

I'd had it unread for so long I was considering putting in the next box to go to the charity shop, but as soon as I chanced a few pages I immediately assessed the quality of the intellect and that it would produce distinct individual interpretations and ideas.

(can't find an image of the Jonathan Cape paperback edition from the 60s I've got)

vers la flamme

The obvious next step with Orwell: Animal Farm



No, I had not read this either. So far, so good.

SimonNZ

Quote from: vers la flamme on April 25, 2021, 03:37:12 PM
The obvious next step with Orwell: Animal Farm



No, I had not read this either. So far, so good.

I read practically every word of Orwell when I was in my 20s and have reread a number since, but I've never understood the bestseller status of Animal farm or how it has eclipsed so many better works by him.

Personally I'd recommend Down And Out In Paris And London as the next essential Orwell after 1984. Or a single volume selection of the essays.

vers la flamme

Quote from: SimonNZ on April 25, 2021, 03:45:03 PM
I read practically every word of Orwell when I was in my 20s and have reread a number since, but I've never understood the bestseller status of Animal farm or how it has eclipsed so many better works by him.

Personally I'd recommend Down And Out In Paris And London as the next essential Orwell after 1984. Or a single volume selection of the essays.

Maybe you'll be pleased to know that I was able to order a copy of Down and Out (which I've been curious to read since noting Anthony Bourdain's brief mention of it in his book Kitchen Confidential, which I read a few weeks ago) for fairly cheap and will be reading that next.

SimonNZ

Quote from: vers la flamme on April 25, 2021, 03:51:04 PM
Maybe you'll be pleased to know that I was able to order a copy of Down and Out (which I've been curious to read since noting Anthony Bourdain's brief mention of it in his book Kitchen Confidential, which I read a few weeks ago) for fairly cheap and will be reading that next.

Nice. I look forward to hearing what you think of it.

I think I've mentioned it on this thread before, but I also feel that Keep The Aspidistra Flying deserves to be much better known than it is, fwiw.

vers la flamme

Quote from: SimonNZ on April 25, 2021, 04:11:09 PM
Nice. I look forward to hearing what you think of it.

I think I've mentioned it on this thread before, but I also feel that Keep The Aspidistra Flying deserves to be much better known than it is, fwiw.

Can't say I know anything about that one. Care to sell a new but enthusiastic Orwell fan on it? What's it about? Fiction, nonfiction, or what?

SimonNZ

Quote from: vers la flamme on April 25, 2021, 04:19:31 PM
Can't say I know anything about that one. Care to sell a new but enthusiastic Orwell fan on it? What's it about? Fiction, nonfiction, or what?

A novel. A huge spleen-vent about worship and pursuit of the money-god as the only path in life and the quixotic pursuit of another.

vers la flamme

Quote from: SimonNZ on April 25, 2021, 04:31:02 PM
A novel. A huge spleen-vent about worship and pursuit of the money-god as the only path in life and the quixotic pursuit of another.

Thanks; that sounds very interesting. Going to be looking out for that and a collection of essays (there are many of these; not sure which would be the one to go for, but I expect one can't go wrong).

aligreto

Quote from: vers la flamme on April 23, 2021, 04:45:48 PM
George Orwell's 1984



Somehow, I've never read this, or any other Orwell, before. Most people I know had to read this in high school but for whatever reason it was never on the curriculum. Anyway I'm finding it quite shocking, not only for its crushing bleakness, but also for its powerfully vivid language of violence and sexuality. There is something very English about it in that sense. At the same time I'm very much enjoying it. I'm just shy of the halfway point of the book.

I did read Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 in school (and really enjoyed it at the time; I'd love to reread as an adult) and it seems there are numerous parallels between the two books, not only in the nature of the dystopian societies depicted, but also in the two protagonists and their stories of rebellion.

I also devoured quite a large amount of Orwell's novels when I was a young man and I loved them.
Given the two books that you have mentioned it is predictable that I should suggest Brave New World by Aldous Huxley. Have you read it? It is basically on the same theme. The writing style is different of course but I like it.

vers la flamme

Quote from: aligreto on April 26, 2021, 02:35:10 AM
I also devoured quite a large amount of Orwell's novels when I was a young man and I loved them.
Given the two books that you have mentioned it is predictable that I should suggest Brave New World by Aldous Huxley. Have you read it? It is basically on the same theme. The writing style is different of course but I like it.

I've read some of it years ago but never did finish; I'll have to check it out. I know many feel that it offers a more believable dystopian vision for the West. I've read a couple of Huxley's nonfiction books, The Doors of Perception and The Perennial Philosophy, and enjoyed both.

aligreto

Quote from: vers la flamme on April 26, 2021, 02:41:41 AM
I've read some of it years ago but never did finish; I'll have to check it out. I know many feel that it offers a more believable dystopian vision for the West. I've read a couple of Huxley's nonfiction books, The Doors of Perception and The Perennial Philosophy, and enjoyed both.

Yes, Huxley was another one that I became obsessive about.

Florestan

Speaking of dystopias, may I recommend you guys read We by Yevgeni Zamyatin, which preceded Huxley by a full decade and Orwell by no less than three, as it was written in 1921 and has the distinction of being the very first book banned the newly instated Soviet censorship.
Every kind of music is good, except the boring kind. — Rossini

aligreto

Quote from: Florestan on April 26, 2021, 05:02:50 AM
Speaking of dystopias, may I recommend you guys read We by Yevgeni Zamyatin, which preceded Huxley by a full decade and Orwell by no less than three, as it was written in 1921 and has the distinction of being the very first book banned the newly instated Soviet censorship.

Thank you. I have not come across that one before.

Dry Brett Kavanaugh

Quote from: vers la flamme on April 26, 2021, 02:41:41 AM
I've read a couple of Huxley's nonfiction books, The Doors of Perception and The Perennial Philosophy, and enjoyed both.

+1. As for a similar subject to The Doors, I like One River by Wade Davis. A story about Amazon, hallucinogenic plants, shamanism, a Harvard ethnobotanist Richard Schultes, and his student (Davis).

Florestan

#10815
Quote from: aligreto on April 26, 2021, 06:19:33 AM
Thank you. I have not come across that one before.

It's really the fountain from which all other dystopias have flown.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yevgeny_Zamyatin

That's the Romanian edition.



Every kind of music is good, except the boring kind. — Rossini

Florestan



Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt - Madame Pylinska and the Secret of Chopin

A magical little book about Chopin's music, life, love, nature, remembrance, disease, death, literature and... metempsychosis. Melancholy yet humorous. Very short (I read in an hour or so) but very well-written. If in a mood for such things, give it a try.
Every kind of music is good, except the boring kind. — Rossini

Artem

#10817
Quote from: vers la flamme on April 23, 2021, 04:45:48 PM
I did read Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 in school (and really enjoyed it at the time; I'd love to reread as an adult) and it seems there are numerous parallels between the two books, not only in the nature of the dystopian societies depicted, but also in the two protagonists and their stories of rebellion.
Have you read Zamyatin's We by chance? Second the earlier made recommendation for it.

Reading everything Orwell would be an interesting project. I only read Animal Farm long time ago, but it didn't connect with me to continue reading more Orwell after it. Maybe I will try 1984.

Artem

Quote from: Florestan on April 26, 2021, 06:26:36 AM
It's really the fountain from which all other dystopias have flown.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yevgeny_Zamyatin

That's the Romanian edition.


It is a really great book. I have very vivid images of the way Zamyatin described the room of the main character, the big gatherings. The structure of the books is very cool too. Russian literature in the early 20th century was really something.

Florestan

Quote from: Artem on April 26, 2021, 11:18:56 AM
Russian literature in the early 20th century all through the 19th and 20th centuries was really something.

Fixed.  8)

I've said it many times but it bears repeating: politically I am a staunch and unrepentant Russophobe, culturally I am a staunch and unrepentant Russophile.  :D
Every kind of music is good, except the boring kind. — Rossini