What are you currently reading?

[Ken B]

Lots of rereading novels going on with me. Now it's time for David Copperfield. Last time I read it I noticed that the second half of the book is far less enjoyable than the first half. Coincidentally it gets worse right after my favorite character, Steerforth, has exited the story. Even the drowning of Steerforth in one chapter of the second half, "Tempest" felt far less dramatic than I remembered (well, actually, the drowning itself is dramatic but everything else in the chapter is far less impressive than I remembered after I first read it). Steery just isn't as much interesting character as a dead man as he is as a live one (from obvious reasons). I also find Agnes, the second wife of David, as much less interesting character than his first wife, Dora.

The second half of the book has it's merits too. This book doesn't have a single one pure evil character: even the most villainous ones have some humanizing factor. I never really understood the accuzation that Dickens makes his heroes pure good and his villains pure evil. He has several not-so-likable "heros" such as Pip, Gradgrind and Eugene Wrayburn and while he has some pure evil villains, it's not any unusually large amount of them that are pure evil. However I agree that he makes many young female characters unrealistically good and pure. The book is also remarkably funny. I never fail to laugh at micawber's "Heep of infamy" or "You know what I want?" "A strait-waistcoat."

If I would now list my favorite Dickens novels, it would be somewhat different from previous one. For ex. the old curiosity shop has proven itself much more enjoyable than Nickleby and while I still love David Copperfield, I somewhat dislike most of the second half.

I am also reading Victor Hugo's The history of a crime. It is a very impressive (if prejudiced) account of Napoleon III:'s coup d'etat from author's point of view.

Mutual House are the top for me. Never read OCS.
Ever read Anthony Trollope?

[Jaakko Keskinen]

No, haven't really read Trollope. Don't even know much about him. Other victorian british author that I really love (and unlike with dickens it's not love-hate) is Robert Louis Stevenson. Also I should read some Thackeray. I recommend Old curiosity shop, it has really fun villain, Quilp, and he's source of much black humor. For ex. his emotional abuse of his wife can be very funny yet at the same time you almost think that you shouldn't laugh at things like these.

Here is a gem of a conversation with mr. Quilp and mrs. Quilp after latter has had tea with her mother without asking for Quilp's permission:

'Mrs Quilp.'

'Yes, Quilp.'

'If ever you listen to these beldames again, I'll bite you.'

Our Mutual friend also has awesome villain, tragic and sympathetic Bradley Headstone. I really feel sorry for him and his uncontrollable passion and love for Lizzie Hexam is superbly written. As for Bleak house, haven't read that yet although I know essentially what happens in it.

[Ken B]

No, haven't really read Trollope. Don't even know much about him. Other victorian british author that I really love (and unlike with dickens it's not love-hate) is Robert Louis Stevenson. Also I should read some Thackeray. I recommend Old curiosity shop, it has really fun villain, Quilp, and he's source of much black humor. For ex. his emotional abuse of his wife can be very funny yet at the same time you almost think that you shouldn't laugh at things like these.

Here is a gem of a conversation with mr. Quilp and mrs. Quilp after latter has had tea with her mother without asking for Quilp's permission:

'Mrs Quilp.'

'Yes, Quilp.'

'If ever you listen to these beldames again, I'll bite you.'

Our Mutual friend also has awesome villain, tragic and sympathetic Bradley Headstone. I really feel sorry for him and his uncontrollable passion and love for Lizzie Hexam is superbly written. As for Bleak house, haven't read that yet although I know essentially what happens in it.

Give Trollope a try sometime.
Bleak House has fewer of the things to hate about Dickens than most of them, for me at least.

[stingo]

Since I spent so long with A Song Of Ice And Fire, I decided to start over reading Hugh Howey's Shift.

[Artem]

Finished two W. G. Sebald's books recently.

[Brian]

My upcoming vacation to Denmark and Sweden is gonna have a crap-ton of book-readin' time: flights from Texas to Europe and back, three-hour ferry boats to and from the island of Gotland, possibly the train trips from Copenhagen to Stockholm if my traveling partner isn't a genius conversationalist.

So I have loaded a whole pile of diverse books onto my Kindle. Alphabetically now:
- Ball Four, Jim Bouton, the classic baseball memoir;
- Foreign Gods, Inc., Okey Ndibe, new thriller about a Nigerian immigrant finding lucrative ways to exploit his heritage;
- Mad Men on the Couch, Stephanie Newman, a psychotherapist diagnosing the TV show's characters;
- Making of a Chef, Michael Ruhlman, adventures in cooking school;
- Six Amendments, John Paul Stevens, short but brand-new book by the 94-year-old former justice, with his suggestions for constitutional amendments;
- Vampires in the Lemon Grove, Karen Russell, short stories.

Plus a clutch of Great Big Books I'm saving for a Summer of Russians: Crime and Punishment, Brothers Karamazov, collected Tolstoy short stories.

Yeah, that should be plenty.

Currently reading The Interestings by Meg Wolitzer, 2013 novel about a group of clever friends from teenage summer camp, and how they cope with each other's success, failure, envy, and pain. So far, better than I expected. Wolitzer's writing style and insightful reads on her characters suggest that I will enjoy her other novels, too.

[Brian]

Almost done with the kindle sample of Thomas Piketty. He writes well, or at least it reads well in translation, so I think I'll get the whole thing.

Let us know about this, because I am keenly interested.

[Wakefield]

That's the only LLosa's book that I've read. Do you recommend anything else by him?

Our dear Florestan has been a bit slow this time, so I will take the word. 

La ciudad y los perros, literally The City and the Dogs, translated as The Time of the Hero.

It was his first novel, also his first book publicly burnt in Lima. 

(Un)fortunately, I read it in Spanish, so I don't know anything about the quality of its English translation.

[asin]0571173209[/asin]

[bwv 1080]

Finished two W. G. Sebald's books recently.

thought After Nature was one of his best works, how was Campo Santo?

[Ken B]

Our dear Florestan has been a bit slow this time, so I will take the word. 

La ciudad y los perros, literally The City and the Dogs, translated as The Time of the Hero.

It was his first novel, also his first book publicly burnt in Lima. 

(Un)fortunately, I read it in Spanish, so I don't know anything about the quality of its English translation.

[asin]0571173209[/asin]

I liked Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter, and the movie adaptation, forget the name, with Barbara Hershey and Peter Falk. (Tune in tomorrow?)

[Wakefield]

I liked Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter, and the movie adaptation, forget the name, with Barbara Hershey and Peter Falk. (Tune in tomorrow?)

I haven't watched that movie and I have always loved Hershey (from The Entity), so it sounds like a very good idea. 

P.S.: Yes, I see the title is Tune in Tomorrow...

[Florestan]

Our dear Florestan has been a bit slow this time. 

Raising my son is a full-time job now. 

La ciudad y los perros, literally The City and the Dogs, translated as The Time of the Hero.

It was his first novel, also his first book publicly burnt in Lima. 

(Un)fortunately, I read it in Spanish, so I don't know anything about the quality of its English translation.

[asin]0571173209[/asin]

I haven't read that, but coming from you I certainly second it.

So far I've read these:

1.The Green House (La casa verde)
2.The War of the End of the World (La guerra del fin del mundo)
3.Who Killed Palomino Molero? (¿Quién mató a Palomino Molero?)
4. Death in the Andes (Lituma en los Andes)
5. The Way to Paradise (El paraiso en la otra esquina)

I've enjoyed them all. Now it depends what you like to read. For a complicated story of love and betrayal set in coastal and jungle-ish Peru, go for 1. For a massive historical novel set in the early years of the Republic of Brazil and based on a real popular religious uprising, go for 2. For something on the lighter side, some detective stories with political overtones, go for 3 and 4. For a fictional account of Gauguin's life in the Marquise Islands intertwined with the life of his grandmother, the socialist and feminist writer and activist Flora Tristan, go for 5. Better yet, go for all of them, they are all of high literary quality.

I am not that enthusiast in regards his (quite prolific) work as essayist.

I haven't read any of his essays, just some political articles that I enjoyed but i am biased because I am quite a liberal myself.  What topics does he cover?

Speaking of essays, I am very fond of Ernesto Sabato's.

One of his best is Man and Mechanism (original title Hombres y engranajes)

He is a great writer, but not a great thinker.

Oh, but that's a very rare combination. Who fits the bill for you?

[Brian]

Oh, but that's a very rare combination. Who fits the bill for you?

Ayn Rand is an awful thinker, but I was surprised at how suspenseful and page-turning her novels can be, even the parts that made me cringe because they were so poorly thought out.

[Ken B]

Oh, but that's a very rare combination. Who fits the bill for you?

Steven Pinker.
Cervantes.
Ayn Rand.
Homer.



okay, Ayn Rand is just there to make Brian's head explode. 
I haven't been able to read more than a page of her, and don't feel like I am missing much.

[Brian]

okay, Ayn Rand is just there to make Brian's head explode. 

?? My head would explode because you agreed?

[Ken B]

?? My head would explode because you agreed?

The combination is great writer AND thinker. So my list includes Rand as a great thinker.

[Artem]

thought After Nature was one of his best works, how was Campo Santo?

I didn't like Campo Santo as much as I though I would like it (except for the Corsica essays), considering that I've enjoyed On the natural history of destruction. For some reason, I didn't feel Sebald's voice in the selected essays for that book.

[Brian]

The combination is great writer AND thinker. So my list includes Rand as a great thinker.

Ohhhhh I thought you were listing more people you thought were great writers but poor thinkers. So I was more confused why you were so mean about Cervantes and Homer!

[Karl Henning]

"Initially, I thought he was sleeping," she told the paper. "Then I saw he was texting." What a relief.

[Karl Henning]

The 20 most fascinating accidental inventions