What are you currently reading?

[Bogey]

Luc-Olivier Merson (1846-1920)
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Victor_Hugo-Hunchback.jpg

Thanks!

[Bogey]

I guess the original is an ink wash.

[Jo498]

I was rather disappointed by "Red Country". Seems like a lot of missed chances (and some twists for twists sake). I think overall Abercrombie is a little overhyped in Fantasy circles. He is pretty good but very reliant on brutality and shock value and the books are about as realistic or plausible as modern action movies, in fact a lot of them seems to be modelled after modern action movies. (There is hilarious review/trashing of "Heroes" on Goodreads or somewhere else pointing out how completely clueless the author is on military history, of course a feature he shares with most other fantasy stuff out there.)
This may be nitpicking but for me it gives them a thoroughly modern feel and I miss the "otherworldly" fantastic mood.

[Mookalafalas]

I was rather disappointed by "Red Country". Seems like a lot of missed chances (and some twists for twists sake). I think overall Abercrombie is a little overhyped in Fantasy circles. He is pretty good but very reliant on brutality and shock value and the books are about as realistic or plausible as modern action movies, in fact a lot of them seems to be modelled after modern action movies. (There is hilarious review/trashing of "Heroes" on Goodreads or somewhere else pointing out how completely clueless the author is on military history, of course a feature he shares with most other fantasy stuff out there.)
This may be nitpicking but for me it gives them a thoroughly modern feel and I miss the "otherworldly" fantastic mood.

   Red Country has a formulaic story compared to the other books of his I've read. In fact, the overall feel is that of a western, and the trajectory reminds me of Larry McMurtry.  He is well aware of it, the book is dedicated to Clint Eastwood.  If you read history, there is nothing of "shock value" in the brutality.  Red Country is, if anything, sanitized.  I don't read much fantasy, but his is the only fantasy that I've encountered that has any actual grasp of how politics used to affect human lives.  He has a muscular prose style, IMO, and lots of sharp lines and even insights.  However, he mixes modern idiom into the dialogue in a rather random fashion, which sometimes strikes me as awkward. 

[Ken B]

Al, you'll be hip deep in Poul Anderson by Easter.

[Mookalafalas]

Al, you'll be hip deep in Poul Anderson by Easter.

  Uh...I doubt it. As I recall, that fits into the 99.3% of fantasy that I can't read. 

  TD:
   today I was working on Alfred Einstein's Mozart bio. I've been nibbling at it off and on for a couple of months. I'm about half way through.

[Bogey]

[NikF]

 'Balcony in the Forest' - Julien Gracq.

A dreamer floats through life, happily in denial (in part, firmly reinforced by encounters with a nymph) in the face of encroaching war.

[Artem]

I think Gracq is a very interesting writer. I've only ready his Château d'Argol, but I liked it a lot.

[NikF]

He's certainly an interesting writer, yes. And quite different from anyone else I've read. 'Château d'Argol' is on my (near infinite!) 'to read' list.

[Mookalafalas]

I just read Kristin Thompson's "The Frodo Franchise"--about how the LOTRs production/distribution affected both the movie industry and the lives of many peripheral figures, like bloggers and webmasters and tourguides, etc.  Thompson and her Husband David Bordwell are two of the best writers on film. I have pretty much all of their stuff.  They are academics, so break everything down into incredible detail and analyse what is going on (empirically, without all the Big Theory shenanigans), but also really love movies--which is surprisingly rare in academic film writing.  Perhaps it's because I am starting a new semester and am feeling a lot of stress (which makes me want to read, for some reason), but I couldn't put this book down. 
   I am now reading the new Anne Tyler.  To my amazement, it seems to be very good. I am a huge fan of her work, and feel that in spite of her Pulitzer she tends to be under-appreciated.  She is the ultimate chronicler of American domesticity. However, her last book was abysmal.  I thought she was finished (she is 70 now).  Her best work was from the mid 60s through the mid-80s (before her Pulitzer), but this is pretty darned good so far. 
[asin]1101874279[/asin]

[Ken B]

I just read Kristin Thompson's "The Frodo Franchise"--about how the LOTRs production/distribution affected both the movie industry and the lives of many peripheral figures, like bloggers and webmasters and tourguides, etc.  Thompson and her Husband David Bordwell are two of the best writers on film. I have pretty much all of their stuff.  They are academics, so break everything down into incredible detail and analyse what is going on (empirically, without all the Big Theory shenanigans), but also really love movies--which is surprisingly rare in academic film writing.  Perhaps it's because I am starting a new semester and am feeling a lot of stress (which makes me want to read, for some reason), but I couldn't put this book down. 
   I am now reading the new Anne Tyler.  To my amazement, it seems to be very good. I am a huge fan of her work, and feel that in spite of her Pulitzer she tends to be under-appreciated.  She is the ultimate chronicler of American domesticity. However, her last book was abysmal.  I thought she was finished (she is 70 now).  Her best work was from the mid 60s through the mid-80s (before her Pulitzer), but this is pretty darned good so far. 
[asin]1101874279[/asin]

No sword of power? No earth-force only female gorlons can feel?

😜

[Minor Key]

The Divine Comedy, the Musa translation.  About halfway through "The Inferno". 

[NikF]

The Brian Hooker translation of Cyrano. It's a reread. This copy has been with me for years.

[Mookalafalas]

I'm only about 100 pages in, but just what I was hoping for.  Wonderfully well researched and written.  Not too much time is given to any one person, but gives a very good general picture.  Also, there is a magic sword called Hurdsbeckerandum
[asin]B00JGAS65Q[/asin]

[Todd]

I've been hopscotching around The 40s: The Story of Decade, a collection of articles from The New Yorker from the 40s.  Some are light and fun; some are more pointed fun (like George Orwell's scathing review of Graham Greene's The Heart of the Mattter); some interesting for the personages being written about while alive (eg, Thomas Mann, Albert Einstein); and others are a bit heavier, as one would expect.  The centerpiece of the book, and by far the longest work, is John Hersey's 1946 piece simply titled Hiroshima.  Well worth reading.

[Drasko]

Joris-Karl Huysmans - À rebours

Halfway through, feels more like a catalogue than a narrative. I like catalogues.

[NikF]

Joris-Karl Huysmans - À rebours

Halfway through, feels more like a catalogue than a narrative. I like catalogues.

One of my favourites. I hope you continue to enjoy it.

[kishnevi]

Joris-Karl Huysmans - À rebours

Halfway through, feels more like a catalogue than a narrative. I like catalogues.

Huysmans is the sort of writer for whom narrative is a literary formality, an inconvenience to be supplied to the reader only when absolutely necessary.

[kitsune]

One of my favourites. I hope you continue to enjoy it.

Same here.

Now reading (first time):