What are you currently reading?

[ZauberdrachenNr.7]

This has gotten to be a habit with me: every summer (well, this is summer #3) I re-read Edith Wharton's Summer.  Little appreciated when first published (1917) it has more recently come into its own as a worthy sibling to Ethan Frome.  At once a study of New England mores and Bildungsroman, it is masterfully writ, psychologically/sociologically penetrating and a quick and affecting read.  Recommended. 

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[mn dave]

This has gotten to be a habit with me: every summer (well, this is summer #3) I re-read Edith Wharton's Summer.  Little appreciated when first published (1917) it has more recently come into its own as a worthy sibling to Ethan Frome.  At once a study of New England mores and Bildungsroman, it is masterfully writ, psychologically/sociologically penetrating and a quick and affecting read.  Recommended. 

[asin]1453734805[/asin]

Thanks.  I love Wharton but have not read this.

[stingo]

Saw this on sale for Father's Day, so I picked it up for my Kindle. Pretty good so far.

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[Bogey]

About to start:



We are making a stop at The Herbert Hoover Presidential Library and Museum this summer (one of my bucket lists is to visit at least one site of every president), and this looked like an interesting read that features Mr. Hoover.

On a side note, Pietusza has a number of books that look interesting:
http://www.amazon.com/David-Pietrusza/e/B001HCYTWU/ref=dp_byline_cont_book_1

[milk]

[milk]

BTW, this was a fascinating read.

[Moonfish]

This has gotten to be a habit with me: every summer (well, this is summer #3) I re-read Edith Wharton's Summer.  Little appreciated when first published (1917) it has more recently come into its own as a worthy sibling to Ethan Frome.  At once a study of New England mores and Bildungsroman, it is masterfully writ, psychologically/sociologically penetrating and a quick and affecting read.  Recommended. 

[asin]1453734805[/asin]

Ahh, you talked me into reading it (summer and all.... ). Edith Wharton has always been in my TBR pile. but her works tend to succumb to other books piling up on top of hers.... (sounds familiar?)

[listener]

for the record:  ATTACK OF THE GIANT ROBOT CHCKENS
by Alex McCall
             

[Artem]

I'm beginning my absurdly ambitious summer project: a 3-4 month immersion in some pinnacles of Russian literature. The reading list, roughly in the order I plan to read them:

Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment
Chekhov, collected short stories
Sorokin, The Queue
Tolstoy, collected short stories
Dostoevsky, The Idiot
Pushkin, Eugene Onegin
Bely, Petersburg
Gogol, Dead Souls
Bulgakov, The Master and Margarita
Dostoevsky, Brothers Karamazov

I've read C&P, Brothers K, Eugene, and Petersburg before. The Idiot, and all the Chekhov, Sorokin, Tolstoy, Gogol, and Bulgakov, will be new to me.

I'm sorry that I've just saw this list, but I'm so happy that somebody is reading Andrey Bely's "Petersburg". It is really a beautiful book. It's companion "White dove" is also great. And you got the best Sorokin on your list too.

[milk]

I'm sorry that I've just saw this list, but I'm so happy that somebody is reading Andrey Bely's "Petersburg". It is really a beautiful book. It's companion "White dove" is also great. And you got the best Sorokin on your list too.

Turgenev is another author one could add.

[Brian]

I once read Turgenev's Fathers and Sons in the courthouse waiting room, while on jury duty.

Artem, good timing! I am halfway through Petersburg right now. Perhaps those GMGers who have unluckily not yet read it will enjoy this excerpt:

-

Petersburg Vanished into the Night

An enormous crimson sun raced above the Neva, and the buildings of Petersburg seemed to be melting away, turning into the lightest of smoky amethyst lace. The windowpanes sent off cutting flame-gold reflections, and from the tall spires flashed rubies. And indentations and projections stretched away into the burning conflagration: caryatids, cornices of brick balconies.

The row of lines and walls was slowly darkening against the waning lilac sky, and sparking torches flamed here and there, and here and there blazed the tiniest of flames.

And there the past was having its sunset.

[Geo Dude]

It delves fairly deeply into the political structure of Chile and offers up a rigorous explanation based upon the facts that exists and presents the case that the economy was the real mover of the plotters rather than the oft-touted conspiracy of a US led coup.

Unfortunately, this assures that a significant portion of the target audience will never read it.

[Ken B]

Eagle in the Snow a novel of the Roman Empire by Wallace Breem.

[mn dave]

Another book I'm in the middle of.

The Compleat Traveller in Black by John Brunner

[Brian]

I'm beginning my absurdly ambitious summer project: a 3-4 month immersion in some pinnacles of Russian literature. The reading list, roughly in the order I plan to read them:

Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment
Chekhov, collected short stories
Sorokin, The Queue
Tolstoy, collected short stories
Dostoevsky, The Idiot
Pushkin, Eugene Onegin
Bely, Petersburg
Gogol, Dead Souls
Bulgakov, The Master and Margarita
Dostoevsky, Brothers Karamazov

I've read C&P, Brothers K, Eugene, and Petersburg before. The Idiot, and all the Chekhov, Sorokin, Tolstoy, Gogol, and Bulgakov, will be new to me.

Updating above to show how many of the Russian books I've gotten through. Tolstoy, Gogol, and The Idiot will be my vacation reading while I'm in France July 4-20.

Right now I'm in the middle of being bowled over by the sheer musical beauty of Andrey Platonov's novella Soul, and the other short fictions in this volume:

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Truly extraordinary, a tender and wonderfully descriptive book filled with the kind of writing that makes me feel like writing is one of the noblest jobs anyone can have. I will be buying the NYRB's other Platonov collections as soon as possible.

[Karl Henning]

Brian, how did you like Crime & Punishment?

[bwv 1080]

Got the audiobook version of Ulysses and just finished the Telemachus episode

[Karl Henning]

Got the audiobook version of Ulysses and just finished the Telemachus episode

Who's reading?

[Brian]

Brian, how did you like Crime & Punishment?

Can be a little bit tough at times, but ultimately found it a rewarding and engrossing read. Pevear & Volokhonsky translation.

Here are my comments copied and pasted from another discussion forum:

• The vivid and realistic dreams and nightmares in the book. A lot of novels depict dreams terribly: either the dreams make too much sense, or they form too "perfect" a narrative, or they just happen to nail all the major plot themes right on the nose. There are a lot of really great dream sequences in this book, particularly the disturbing one near the very end when Svidrigailov gets a room in the super nasty hotel by the river.
• Raskolnikov, Marmeladov, Svidrigailov, Razumikhin, Zamyotov, Lebezyatnikov, the surname-less Porfiry Petrovich... there are some great names in this novel. (And with relevant meanings.)
• Man, I love Razumikhin. He disproves the trope that a stereotypical "good guy" can't also be fascinating. I love when he starts to crack under drink and says a bunch of stuff that mortifies his sober self, and love the gradations in his gradual realization that Raskolnikov is guilty. On top of everything else, isn't it interesting that a close study of violence and murder and self-destruction etc., also has a, like, top ten Character You'd Like to Hang Out With.
• Once I started fantasizing about a really good modern-day Paul Thomas Anderson movie adaptation, I couldn't stop fixating on the idea of Porfiry Petrovich being cast as a woman instead. Not sure who yet. Lauren Lapkus? But gosh, I love Porfiry Petrovich, and his spiritual grandson, Columbo.
• Svidrigailov's departure really, really stunned me. And I had read the book once already.
• It was awfully hard keeping track, at times, of who knew who back in the countryside, and which peripheral characters to trust and distrust, although the answer is really "distrust all males except PP and Razumikhin". I think.
• Speaking of which, is it at all a problem that the major women - Sonya, Dunya, Lizaveta, and maybe to a lesser degree Raskolnikov's mom (though apparently not the old lady who gets axed) - are all sweet, loving, redeeming, and heart-of-gold-ish?
  

[mn dave]

Right now I'm in the middle of being bowled over by the sheer musical beauty of Andrey Platonov's novella Soul, and the other short fictions ...

How does this work, I wonder, when it's translated? How much of this beauty is the author's, and how much is the translator's?