What are you currently reading?

[DavidW]

And Bill?  What did you think?

[karlhenning]

Intellectually, I know that my name is a first name in Norway and (I think) Denmark . . . but it always takes me a bit aback actually to see such a name . . . .

Bill, I've a wee parcel I'll send in Tuesday's post (counting on Monday being a little messy with Irene's misbehaviors . . . .)

[DavidW]

Intellectually, I know that my name is a first name in Norway and (I think) Denmark . . . but it always takes me a bit aback actually to see such a name . . . .

Bill, I've a wee parcel I'll send in Tuesday's post (counting on Monday being a little messy with Irene's misbehaviors . . . .)

There was a Henning character in a novel I read, and another character was, I kid you not, Gustav Mahler!

It was this novel:

[asin]B0057DCMNI[/asin]

[Bogey]

And Bill?  What did you think?

Only a few pages in and it already grabbed me by the collar.  This one was written later, but is the first chronologically speaking.  The recent shows we watched help with visioning the mood of the characters.  You would enjoy it I believe, David.

Thanks, Karl....hope all is safe your way.

[DavidW]

Bill, I like the show and keep meaning to read the novels.  Lis is also a fan.  Anyway I should read one of those Wallander mysteries!

[Mn Dave]

Just bought Bendis's Daredevil run, which I've read is one of the best in the character's history next to Frank Miller's:

Let us know.

[Mirror Image]

Let us know.

Will do, Dave, will do.

[Grazioso]

A concise intro (116 pages with line drawings and B&W photos) that lucidly covers the basics: origins, texts, architecture, rituals, relations to the state, interactions with Buddhism, etc. Shinto is certainly an interesting and elegant expression of spirituality, sanctifying or commemorating the mundane and the material, focusing on the communal over the hierarchical, and on ritual over doctrine and conceptualization.

[Drasko]

Just about to start this. My first attempt to read Faulkner in English.

[Lethevich]

Does anyone know of any little measures you can take to make ex-library books less horrible? I am collecting a series that is expensive new, but almost all the second hand copies (certainly all the cheap ones) are ex-library, and a fair portion of them have that shelf-stench that 50 year old books with glossy pages tend to accumilate (much more offensive than the more musty/burning smell of cheap paper).

[Coco]

No. And half the time you end up destroying the covers if you try to take the annoying stickers and things off. -___-

[DavidW]

Does anyone know of any little measures you can take to make ex-library books less horrible? I am collecting a series that is expensive new, but almost all the second hand copies (certainly all the cheap ones) are ex-library, and a fair portion of them have that shelf-stench that 50 year old books with glossy pages tend to accumilate (much more offensive than the more musty/burning smell of cheap paper).

Yeah you can buy books online instead!  Same price but way less crappy.

[Coco]

A lot of the books I bought online ended up being ex-library.

[DavidW]

That's too bad.  I've had better luck.  But I spend alot of time looking at not just condition comments but on seller feedback.  I'm a fuss budget!   But now that I've finally gone electronic only, it doesn't matter.

[val]

ANDRÉ TUBEUF:          "LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN"

A poetic meditation on Beethoven's work, in special the piano Sonatas and string Quartets. The literary style of Mr. Tubeuf is superb.

[Lethevich]

A lot of the books I bought online ended up being ex-library.

Indeed - they usually admit or imply this in the condition, and I stupidly buy them thinking the best but getting the worst

[DavidW]

Indeed - they usually admit or imply this in the condition, and I stupidly buy them thinking the best but getting the worst

One penny plus shipping... how bad could it be?

[Lethevich]

I've gotten lots of good books for 1p!

Can anybody comment on Voinovich's Life and Extraordinary Adventures of Private Ivan Chonkin? From the descriptions I've read about it, it could either be neat or just be a rehash of Good Soldier Švejk.

[Daverz]

You've got the wrong Wallender as your avatar.   Here's the right one:



(I do like Branagh, I just prefer the Swedish show.)

[Fëanor]

The best non-fiction I've read in a long time.  This a really hard-hitting book wherein Prof. Sitlitz addresses the causes of, and responses to, the still-current Great Recession, and also the lessons the ought to have been learned (but mostly have not).

Stiglitz' main focus is the US financial sector whom he severely criticizes and blames for precipitating the Recession.  He severely criticizes US Government and Federal Reserve, (i.e. Greenspan, especially, and Bernanke), for permitting the private sector to assume reckless and ultimately self-injurious risk.  Whence he goes on to point out emphasis the result has been in effect to "socialized" bank losses while leaving profits in the private hands.

Partisan Republicans can take some heart in that much criticism is reserved for Obama and his financial team, drawn as it was from the old guard of private sector-biases insiders.

Freefall: America, Free Markets, and the Sinking of the World Economy ~ Joseph E. Stiglitz