What are you currently reading?

[val]

Stefan ZWEIG:        Briefe  (1932/1942)

The last ten years of Zweig's life, in his letters to Thomas Mann, Romain Rolland, Richard Strauss (about the libretto for Die schweigsame Frau and Friedenstag) and many others.
The last letters show how tired and depressed he was, in his exile in Brasil. He committed suicide with his wife in 1942.

[Christo]

The History of Groningen, from the early beginnings to the present day!

Is there a difference? 

[J.Z. Herrenberg]

Is there a difference? 

[mozartsneighbor]

Stefan ZWEIG:        Briefe  (1932/1942)

The last ten years of Zweig's life, in his letters to Thomas Mann, Romain Rolland, Richard Strauss (about the libretto for Die schweigsame Frau and Friedenstag) and many others.
The last letters show how tired and depressed he was, in his exile in Brasil. He committed suicide with his wife in 1942.

Very interesting -- I am coincidentally starting on Zweig's "The World of Yesterday", an autobiography that is also an examination of European culture in the late 19th century and early 20th centuries. He wrote it in exile in Brasil, and it is a homage to an European culture he thought might be lost in the face of Nazism and fascism.
I have read through his childhood and adolescence and there are interesting musical bits as well: he and his schoolmates excited at sighting Mahler in the street; his wonder when he met Brahms as a boy, and the great composer patted him on the head.
Zweig was quite rich and also liked collecting musical manuscripts -- his collection was donated by his descendants to the British Library and includes manuscripts by Mozart's, Mahler's, Haydn's, and Wagner's hands. It is considered one of the best such collections in the world.

[orbital]

Nice one. (I think you are referring to the combination of music and the law...)

Sosumi is the brand of the Japanese car which is the subject of a hit-and-run litigation in which the plaintiff and the defendant are the same person 

---
I enjoyed The Confederacy of The Dunces immensely. Next up on my list was either The Wind Up Bird Chronicle or Oryx and Crake, but I decided I was in the mood for some more laughs so I opted for a revisit to JR instead.

[J.Z. Herrenberg]

I enjoyed The Confederacy of The Dunces immensely. Next up on my list was either The Wind Up Bird Chronicle or Oryx and Crake, but I decided I was in the mood for some more laughs so I opted for a revisit to JR instead.

JR? Excellent! I am reading another American novelist, probably the greatest of them all, one of his (in)famous late novels - Henry James, The Golden Bowl. Slow, precise, full of imagery, great in its analysis of human feeling and behaviour, and fascinating as a description of late Victorian Britain, where America, as the power of the 20th century, is already making itself felt...

[Novi]

JR? Excellent! I am reading another American novelist, probably the greatest of them all, one of his (in)famous late novels - Henry James, The Golden Bowl.

Yes, yes, yes!

Slow, precise, full of imagery, great in its analysis of human feeling and behaviour, and fascinating as a description of late Victorian Britain, where America, as the power of the 20th century, is already making itself felt...

I've come to realise that that's what I like about James - and what others dislike, I suppose ('unnecessary circumlocutions and the gratuitous meaningless verbiage' if you're of Edmund Wilson's mind, haha). James's prose slows you right down so that you become very aware of each word and each word in its sequence. At least for me it does .

[Kullervo]

JR? Excellent! I am reading another American novelist, probably the greatest of them all, one of his (in)famous late novels - Henry James, The Golden Bowl. Slow, precise, full of imagery, great in its analysis of human feeling and behaviour, and fascinating as a description of late Victorian Britain, where America, as the power of the 20th century, is already making itself felt...

I think I'll read Washington Square after I finish Nabokov's Ada.

[orbital]

I think I'll read Washington Square after I finish Nabokov's Ada.

Please do comment after you're finished with Ada. I've recently got Nabokov's [almost] complete works, and I want to squeeze in another of his novels in my reading schedule soon.

[Lilas Pastia]

Comics. After the whole Tintin series, I've embarked into the fascinating world of Ancient Rome according to Jacques Martin: the Alix series series. This lengthy trek through the Roman world in Julius Caesar's times covers just about every topic, event and great men/women.

[Lethevich]

Not reading, really, as it has no text. Dore's Illustrations for Don Quixote (Dover)



At 160 pages, and so much detail in many of the images, it makes me wonder what this guy must've looked like when he worked. It must've been a very fast turnover.

[drogulus]

     I Am a Strange Loop by Douglas Hofstadter. It's about how the author is a strange loop and so are you, the reader.

     A strange loop in sound:

     [mp3=200,20,0,center]http://www.fileden.com/files/2007/11/2/1559968/DescenteInfinie.mp3
[/mp3]
     Another one:

     [mp3=200,20,0,center]http://www.fileden.com/files/2007/11/2/1559968/demo27b.mp3
[/mp3]
     So, you're one of those. 

[mozartsneighbor]

Interesting historical murder mystery novel, set in early 16th Lisbon. It takes place among Lisbon's Jewish community, who were in a very precarious situation at that time, amid religious persecution and killings.
The writer is an American university professor who has lived and taught in Portugal for almost 20 years. It is obvious that he went to the trouble to research the historical background very well, and the writing vividly transports the reader to that time and place. He mostly writes very well, only very occasionally crossing the border into purple prose territory. The mystery part is also well accomplished and really grabs the reader.
So, all in all, a very good book in this genre. It was also interesting to learn a bit about Jewish history in Renaissance Europe.

[Kullervo]

Please do comment after you're finished with Ada. I've recently got Nabokov's [almost] complete works, and I want to squeeze in another of his novels in my reading schedule soon.

I had to stop halfway through. Bored me to death. 

Now reading:

[Florestan]

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn - The Gulag Archipelago

During the communist regime, a large avenue in Bucharest was officially named The Victory of Socialism, but everyone called it The Victory of Socialism over the People. I know of no more fit commentary for this book.

[mn dave]

I like a little sf every so often.



And yes, this is his first novel and it's very good.

[mozartsneighbor]

Edited by Carolyn Choa and David Su Li-Qun
The editors did a pretty good job of selecting a broad and worthy representation of Chinese fiction from the 1960s up till the early 2000s. After reading the Oxford Book of Japanese Short Stories the wide differences between the fiction written in Japan and China are very evident.

[Kullervo]

This finally arrived at the library:

The Art of Adolf Wölfli: St. Adolf-Giant-Creation

[J.Z. Herrenberg]

Edited by Carolyn Choa and David Su Li-Qun
The editors did a pretty good job of selecting a broad and worthy representation of Chinese fiction from the 1960s up till the early 2000s. After reading the Oxford Book of Japanese Short Stories the wide differences between the fiction written in Japan and China are very evident.

Care to be more specific about those differences? A very good friend of mine is writing a PhD thesis about contemporary Chinese fiction centred in Shanghai... (By the way - is there a story by Jin Haishu (*1961) included?)

[Christo]

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn - The Gulag Archipelago

During the communist regime, a large avenue in Bucharest was officially named The Victory of Socialism, but everyone called it The Victory of Socialism over the People. I know of no more fit commentary for this book.

Great story, many thanks! At the same time: I never met a living person, still alive or living, who actually read the complete Gulag Archipelago. Everybody, including myself, gave up their (multiple) attempts halfway part one. 

The Gulag Archipelago seems to remain one of those essential, but at the same time unreadable, neccessary classics. The reality behind is impressive enough. But how did you manage to read through this complete series by Solzhenytsin??