What are you currently reading?

[Drasko]

Too many things at the same time, as usual 







Gradac vol.160/61 - is local art magazine, in book format, with themed issues.
This volume is about Melancholy, the term which had much wider connotations throughout history than it has now. Incudes texts from Hippocrates, Aristotle, Hildegard of Bingen, analysis of Durer's Melencolia I, Robert Burton, Keats' Ode, Constant, Nerval ..... to Freud, Bela Hamvas and Julia Kristeva among others.

[stingo]

Reading a really good short story anthology - Warriors edited by George R. R. Martin and Gardner Dozois

[asin]B00AEBUPSM[/asin]

[Wakefield]

Too many things at the same time, as usual 

Same here: 


Pierre Rosanvalon: The Society of Equals
http://www.amazon.com/Society-Equals-Pierre-Rosanvallon-ebook/dp/B00FDYLVPQ/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1406481798&sr=8-1&keywords=rosanvallon


Arthur Schopenhauer: Senilia. An Old's Man Reflections


The Private Memoirs of Madame Roland
http://www.amazon.com/The-private-memoirs-Madame-Roland/dp/B003HGGJQ8/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1406481990&sr=8-2&keywords=private+roland+madame

[kishnevi]

Too many things at the same time, as usual 

Mmm.  A Hemingway book I did not know about.   Is it as good as Death in the Afternoon?

[Drasko]

Mmm.  A Hemingway book I did not know about.   Is it as good as Death in the Afternoon?

For me Death in the Afternoon is definitely better, but The Dangerous Summer is quite sufficiently different to be worth reading. While the first is more a general overview, The Dangerous Summer is, again non fictional, account of  the rivalry between two great bullfighters (Dominguin and Ordones) over single summer season of 1959.
If you liked  Death in the Afternoon you're most likely to enjoy The Dangerous Summer.

[stingo]

Not that anyone cares, but I got a copy of the (physical) book - The Day of the Triffids - from Amazon.co.uk and am pleased to report it's the original UK edition. (Not surprising, but you never know...) I'll be reading this one in preference to the Kindle edition that I already own. Just sucks that you can't get the UK version on Kindle here in the US.

[Karl Henning]

We rejoice with you!

[Artem]

I rather enjoyed this book, although most of the Zen discussions went over my head. But the interrelations of composers and artists during 50s-60s is really fascinating to me.

[Ken B]

Bill of the Century by Risen, about passing the voting rights act.

Speaking of legislative acts, and flagrant national one upmanship, do you know what very first act passed by the parliament of Upper Canada was, when the colony was founded in 1891? A ban on slavery.

[Karl Henning]

You mean 1791, surely?

[Ken B]

You mean 1791, surely?

Oops. Yes, 1791.
Be kinda late to the party in 1891 wouldn't it?

[Karl Henning]

They'd be embarrassed laggards, I should think

[ZauberdrachenNr.7]

In observance of WWI centenary.  Hope I don't regret it - though I know I will - I'm a veteran of Remarque's brilliant All Quiet on the Western Front, among other works, and I don't wanna study war no more.  [asin]0142437905[/asin]

[bwv 1080]

Elijah Woods (who played Huck in the early 90s film) has a great audiobook recording of Huckelberry Finn.  Not having read it since college, I am continually floored by how dark it really is (even beyond the now obvious and understood points about slavery).   I could easily imagine the events in the book, narrated in a somewhat different tone, comprising a Cormac McCarthy novel.

Elijah gets the dialects right as far as I can tell, and importantly in this book, uses the n-word with the right amount of casualness (much like I remember other Southern whites using it 20-30 years ago - fortunately have not heard anyone talk like that in quite some time)

[Ken B]

In observance of WWI centenary.  Hope I don't regret it - though I know I will - I'm a veteran of Remarque's brilliant All Quiet on the Western Front, among other works, and I don't wanna study war no more.  [asin]0142437905[/asin]

Quite a remarkable book. A different take on the war! I am curious about your reaction Z7.

[Wakefield]

In observance of WWI centenary.  Hope I don't regret it - though I know I will - I'm a veteran of Remarque's brilliant All Quiet on the Western Front, among other works, and I don't wanna study war no more.  [asin]0142437905[/asin]

Two days ago, a friend of mine gave me this as a gift:



Ernst Jünger: War Diary (1914-1918)

[bhodges]

Italo Calvino: Invisible Cities - Heavens, what a beautiful book. Not sure whether it's a novel, poetry, a group of stories, or something else, but the writing is incredibly imaginative. Wish I'd read this decades ago, but there you have it.

[asin]0156453800[/asin]

--Bruce

[stingo]

I really need to read some Calvino again - I listened to a stunning reading of one of his Cosmicomics stories and realized how much I missed his writing.

Finished The Secret Scripture by Sebastian Barry - very well written if a bit unrelentingly grim in parts.

[asin]B0018MS1YG[/asin]

[Karl Henning]

There's gold in college sports . . . and that's the problem.

[bwv 1080]

Finished Huck Finn, Hemingway was right-  you should just skip the last dozen or so chapters (from where Tom Sawyer shows up)


On to -


"a place where one desired nothing, by virtue either of eternally shining joy or of nothingness itself."
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/17/books/review/william-t-vollmanns-last-stories-and-other-stories.html?_r=0