What are you currently reading?

[Brian]

I loved The Remains of the Day; a really, really impressive achievement as he creates a very subtle narrator with a voice that successfully combines dry formality and suppressed agony. Or, to change in my fancy English major words for ordinary ones, it may seem dull but then it hits you like a punch in the gut.

I love the Sjöwall & Wahlöö novels [in English translation] and plan on rereading the whole series one day.

Another lover of the series here! I bought the Laughing Policeman for my mom for mother's day to expand her murder mystery horizons, and included Sjöwall & Wahlöö on the suggested reading list when I taught a class on "Reading and Writing Detective Fiction" this past semester. Terrific books. There's something about the Swedes, isn't there - Sjöwall & Wahlöö, Mankell, Larsson.

[Bogey]

My all time favorite novel turned 50 today:




The only book Harper Lee ever wrote.

[Scarpia]

I loved The Remains of the Day; a really, really impressive achievement as he creates a very subtle narrator with a voice that successfully combines dry formality and suppressed agony. Or, to change in my fancy English major words for ordinary ones, it may seem dull but then it hits you like a punch in the gut.

A great book!

[Drasko]

Very good light detective/spy fare. Story set in 1870s Russia, Akunin seems well versed in the era he is depicting and has very fine writing style.

[listener]

Virgil Thomson, Composer on the Aisle by Anthony Tommasini.
1st edition so that's maybe why we read  "Mary Gaines, born.. in 1865, had also made the westward trek... Her father, Benjamin Watts Gaines, born in 1932...''

[Brahmsian]

The Perfect Storm - by Sebastian Junger




Wonderful reading, riveting and informative.

[Brahmsian]

Night Shift - Stephen King




About half way through these Stephen King short stories.  So far, I've enjoyed 'Jerusalem's Lot' and 'The Mangler' the most.  Both chilling in their own unique way.

[MN Dave]

Almost finished. Most interesting.

[Brahmsian]

Moby Dick or The White Whale

Herman Melville

[karlhenning]

That's a fave, Ray;  though I first read it only at the time when I was pursuing my Master's.

[Brahmsian]

That's a fave, Ray;  though I first read it only at the time when I was pursuing my Master's.

I'm in a craze these days for sea adventure stories.  Just finished reading the wonderful The Perfect Storm, and have never actually read Moby Dick before.  I was fearing that it would be a difficult read due to the writing style, but it has proved to be a very easy read so far!

[not edward]

I'll add my voice to those in favour of Remains of the Day. While it may be less complex than some later Ishiguro, it hits some of the archetypal English existentialist fears with painful accuracy.

Just finished--at about the fourth attempt, Iain M Banks' Matter. I guess I'm thinking of it as a partial return to form after the dismal Steep Approach to Garbadale. I wasn't entirely convinced by the way the slow-moving quest theme suddenly transitioned into high-pace action for the last 10% of the book, though.

To my mind, it's not a patch on Inversions or Look to Windward, though. (And I think I'm going to stay well clear of Transitions, as the reviews and plot summary make it sound like yet another recycling of the tedious The Business.)

[karlhenning]

I'm in a craze these days for sea adventure stories.  Just finished reading the wonderful The Perfect Storm, and have never actually read Moby Dick before.  I was fearing that it would be a difficult read due to the writing style, but it has proved to be a very easy read so far!

Yes, I find the language colorful and varied, not at all a chore.

[Scarpia]

I'm in a craze these days for sea adventure stories.  Just finished reading the wonderful The Perfect Storm, and have never actually read Moby Dick before.  I was fearing that it would be a difficult read due to the writing style, but it has proved to be a very easy read so far!

A wonderful book, but at times the level of detail of whaling technology was beyond what I required.

[Franco]

A wonderful book, but at times the level of detail of whaling technology was beyond what I required.

Yes, I got bogged down in the Try Works and never recovered.

Thread duty: I just started this book Olivier Messiaen

[MN Dave]

Added Nabokov short stories and the current issue of Fantasy & Science Fiction magazine to the currently-reading pile.

[MN Dave]

Great Hardboiled and Western fiction writer.

[Elgarian]

Tried to read "The Ring Resounding," Culshaw's account of Decca's recording of the Solti Ring.  Couldn't get through 10 pages.  The biggest pile of shameless, self-important, self-congratulation I have ever seen.

I just spotted this by accident, a month late, but thought it worth offering a contrasting view. The list of books I've read more than half a dozen times in my life isn't particularly long, but Culshaw's book is among them. I love it; I wish it were 5 times as long as it is; and I don't find those negative qualities in it that you mention. True, he's aware of having participated in the achievement of something of great importance in the history of recording - but I don't find it self-inflating. His tendency isn't to draw attention to himself, but to point outwards, towards the music, and the recording, and the performers, and his colleagues, and he conveys a real sense of privilege at having worked with them. I enjoy his pleasure in all this.

[MN Dave]

Classic ghost stories on my iPhone.

[Bogey]

In 1933, after Denver boss Joe Roma was found "slumped in his favorite overstuffed chair in the front parlor,...riddled with seven bullets, six of them to the head," his up-and-coming bootlegging proteges Clyde and Eugene Smaldone took over his profitable operations. Over the years, the brothers and various other family members were frequently in the news, occasionally in jail, and generally in control of their realm. Theirs was an independent operation, but the Smaldones enjoyed the friendship of crime superstar Al Capone and were frequently in cahoots with New Orleans Mafia boss Carlos Marcello, to whom Clyde was particularly close. The Smaldones contributed to Denver's municipal ambience positively, too, as restauranteurs and generous contributors to charity. Kreck's detailing of the doings of a relative outpost of the racketeering industry is, besides a rich chapter in Colorado history, an excellent addition to the popular literature on organized crime.