What are you currently reading?

[Iota]

Sometimes Dickens' prose gives me pleasure like no other, ineffably warm and witty, it just dances off the page. A somewhat Victorian fairy tale ending, but nobody's perfect.

[JBS]

Sometimes Dickens' prose gives me pleasure like no other, ineffably warm and witty, it just dances off the page. A somewhat Victorian fairy tale ending, but nobody's perfect.

It's probably the most famous of the Christmas stories Dickens wrote as follow-ups to A Christmas Carol.

[Karl Henning]

Sometimes Dickens' prose gives me pleasure like no other, ineffably warm and witty, it just dances off the page. A somewhat Victorian fairy tale ending, but nobody's perfect.

Time I read that 'un!

[aligreto]

I checked the book on the Amazon site and it looks very interesting. I will get a copy!

Yes it is definitely a good read. It was refreshing to get back to the Hardy that I know after recently abandoning "The Woodlanders".

[SimonNZ]

Started:



from the back cover:

"The task of living in modern New Zealand – and especially in modern Auckland – is not just to understand how to live with different peoples, but how to adapt to the future that has already happened.

New Zealand is a nation that exists on Pacific Islands, but does not, will not, perhaps cannot, see itself as a Pacific Island nation. Yet turning to the Pacific, argues Damon Salesa, enables us to grasp a fuller understanding of what life is really like on these shores.

After all, Salesa argues, in many ways New Zealand's Pacific future has already happened. Setting a course through the 'islands' of Pacific life in New Zealand – Ōtara, Tokoroa, Porirua, Ōamaru and beyond – he charts a country becoming 'even more Pacific by the hour'. What would it mean, this far-sighted book asks, for New Zealand to recognise its Pacific talent and finally act like a Pacific nation?"

[Ganondorf]

Yesterday, finished reading Maupassant's best known short story:

[aligreto]

Yesterday, finished reading Maupassant's best known short story:

That one is a very cutting story that shines a light on human nature; something that Maupassant was very good at.

[Dry Brett Kavanaugh]

The Quantum and the Lotus: A Journey to the Frontiers Where Science and Buddhism Meet. Matthieu Ricard.

[SimonNZ]

Half way through:



Also have finally made a start on this:

[Spotted Horses]

Surfacing, by Margaret Atwood.



This is Atwood's second novel, published around 1970.

A woman returns to her childhood home on a remote island in a lake in Quebec after, having been notified that her father has gone missing there. She is accompanied by Joe, her lover, and a married couple. In the remote setting, without the distractions of modern life, things start coming to the surface, literally and figuratively. Her friends' marriage seems to unravel and her relationship with Joe, which she can't fully commit to, seems to come undone. And of course they are stranded there.

The story is secondary to themes of isolation, feminism, Canadian nationalism. The themes that Atwood would make more explicit in later dystopia fiction is expressed here in a more subtle context.

I found the book very interesting and worthwhile.

[Mandryka]

It's amazingly good, I'm not sure I'll stay for the course but it is clearly poetic and iconoclastic. These prisoners he falls in love with, for him they're angels, they're gods, I'm sure it's deep. But me, I just like the sex scenes, and all the thrilling accounts of robbery and violence.

[LKB]

Re-reading Citizens of London by Lynne Olson.

I suppose a sense of being enveloped by negativity has generated a need for it. In any event, those curious about the period and the personalities involved would be well served by the book.

[vers la flamme]

Jun'ichiro Tanizaki's In Praise of Shadows



Never have I heard Japanese aesthetics captured so succinctly and summarily. This man's a great writer. I need to read some of his fiction.

[aligreto]

Kipling: Limits and Renewals





This is a book of short stories. Kipling's take on Life and the language that he uses is rather on the quirky side. I found it to be a difficult read sometimes.

[Florestan]

Kipling's take on Life [...] is rather on the quirky side.

If is quite on the right side, though. 

[Dry Brett Kavanaugh]

Jun'ichiro Tanizaki's In Praise of Shadows

I need to read some of his fiction.

I think Makioka Sisters or 7 Japanese Tales (Portrait of Shunkin) would be a good start. Personally, I think his early short stories are the best, but they have not been translated into English. If you could find "A Boy" or "Secret", I would strongly recommend it.

http://rereadinglives.blogspot.com/2017/11/the-secret-short-story-by-junichiro.html



Post.ed. I think this book has "The Secret" by Tanizaki. Vg short story, imo. Also, "The Children" in the book is a translation of "A Boy."

https://www.amazon.com/Gourmet-Club-Michigan-Monograph-Japanese/dp/0472053353

[aligreto]

If is quite on the right side, though. 

That is very true, Andrei, but these stories were just too idiosyncratic for my taste.

[Ganondorf]

After Maupassant's best known work I turn to other famous naturalist masterpiece, Emile Zola's "Germinal". Devoured the first part and more in one sitting. Zola is one of my favorite writers and this is very impressive.

[vers la flamme]

I think Makioka Sisters or 7 Japanese Tales (Portrait of Shunkin) would be a good start. Personally, I think his early short stories are the best, but they have not been translated into English. If you could find "A Boy" or "Secret", I would strongly recommend it.

http://rereadinglives.blogspot.com/2017/11/the-secret-short-story-by-junichiro.html



Post.ed. I think this book has "The Secret" by Tanizaki. Vg short story, imo. Also, "The Children" in the book is a translation of "A Boy."

https://www.amazon.com/Gourmet-Club-Michigan-Monograph-Japanese/dp/0472053353

Thanks my friend. I ordered Makioka Sisters. Might also order this short story collection.

[aligreto]

My planned reading over the Christmas period is this collection of Charles Dickens' Christmas Stories: