What are you currently reading?

[Mookalafalas]

I'm a big fan of McCullough. 

[asin]1476728747[/asin]

[Ken B]

Taking a fiction break, starting with
The Judge and his Hangman
Friedrich Dürrenmatt

Been on my book shelf for a very long time, maybe 15 years.

[Ken B]

http://www.spiked-online.com/newsite/article/4715#.VXKvmnD3arU

[Jo498]

Taking a fiction break, starting with
The Judge and his Hangman
Friedrich Dürrenmatt

This is sometimes assigned in middle school in Germany (we did it in 8th grade or so, although the most popular Dürrenmatt for school reading are the plays "The visit" (of an elderly lady) and "The physicists"). To my recollection, this is quite good.

There are a few more crime novels by Dürrenmatt, some with the same protagonist but this is the first and probably the best (it's been a long time I read them).

I do not know if all of them have been translated but there are another handful of somewhat unconventional Swiss (and with more local feeling than Dürrenmatt) mysteries: Friedrich Glauser's "Sergeant Studer" and sequels (written and taking place in the 1930s). Glauser died 1938 in his early 40s after years of drug addiction.

[Ken B]

This is sometimes assigned in middle school in Germany (we did it in 8th grade or so, although the most popular Dürrenmatt for school reading are the plays "The visit" (of an elderly lady) and "The physicists"). To my recollection, this is quite good.

There are a few more crime novels by Dürrenmatt, some with the same protagonist but this is the first and probably the best (it's been a long time I read them).

I do not know if all of them have been translated but there are another handful of somewhat unconventional Swiss (and with more local feeling than Dürrenmatt) mysteries: Friedrich Glauser's "Sergeant Studer" and sequels (written and taking place in the 1930s). Glauser died 1938 in his early 40s after years of drug addiction.

I will look for Glauser. This is the third of Durrenmatt's I read. I will probably reread The Quarry soon. They are good.

[Jo498]

"The quarry" (Der Verdacht) is a loose sequel to The judge... with Baerlach in the hospital. There is another one "Das Versprechen" which is connected to a rather famous movie from the late 50s (with "Goldfinger" Gert Froebe) but Duerrenmatt changed it slightly for the novel. And then there is a latecomer, "Justiz" from the 1980s.

Glauser is different but also quite original (they are often said to be the first crime/mystery novels written in German)

In a poll among German crime fiction writers and critics about the all time best crime novels, the first Glauser novel "Wachtmeister Studer" came as #4 (behind "The postman always rings twice", "The long goodbye" and "The maltese falcon") as the best German language one. "The Judge and his hangman" was #8 (the next German language one in the list). (The list is a little strange, I think. Clearly biased towards the hardboiled, spies etc. stuff. According to the text, Simenon was mentioned a lot but always with different books, so none made the list. And "Gaudy Night" the best of Sayers'...?)

http://www.krimilexikon.de/dkp/die119.html

[Ken B]

Interesting danke. I have read almost all through 15th place.

[Ken B]

Coincidentally, I am reading about free tulips in Finland.
http://slatestarcodex.com/2015/06/06/against-tulip-subsidies/

[Moonfish]

Coincidentally, I am reading about free tulips in Finland.
http://slatestarcodex.com/2015/06/06/against-tulip-subsidies/

You must have so much free time, Ken....!   

[Mookalafalas]

I picked this up for my kindle and nibble at it now and then...

[asin]0743243129[/asin]

[Ken B]

This is sometimes assigned in middle school in Germany (we did it in 8th grade or so, although the most popular Dürrenmatt for school reading are the plays "The visit" (of an elderly lady) and "The physicists"). To my recollection, this is quite good.

There are a few more crime novels by Dürrenmatt, some with the same protagonist but this is the first and probably the best (it's been a long time I read them).

I do not know if all of them have been translated but there are another handful of somewhat unconventional Swiss (and with more local feeling than Dürrenmatt) mysteries: Friedrich Glauser's "Sergeant Studer" and sequels (written and taking place in the 1930s). Glauser died 1938 in his early 40s after years of drug addiction.

I ordered one of Glauser's novels in the Studer series off Amazon.

[Jo498]

I hope you like it. They are somewhat "slow" compared to contemporary (or 1930s hardboiled) crime fiction and some of the peculiarly Swiss moods and manners are probably lost in translation. (They are basically written in standard German but better German edition do have a glossary for Swiss regionalisms).

[Karl Henning]

Well, and are we surprised?

The US has embraced more-liberal ideas of policing in the wake of a number of fatal confrontations between police and black men. But a spike in crime is testing that shift.

RTHT here.

[Ken B]

Well, and are we surprised?

RTHT here.

Depends on whom you mean by 'we'. I am not. I was in Cincinnati during and after the anti-police riots after a white cop killed a fleeing black petty criminal. Afterwards the cops basically left parts of the city alone for a while. Crime exploded, and the murder rate (rather low so the effect might be just chance) doubled. The big losers were, of course, the mostly poor, mostly black, folks who lived in those areas. The Czech social justice warrior faction may get different mileage.

(BTW the way the Cinci cops handled the case of the officer involved was disgraceful. He was found in an internal investigation to have acted recklessly and violated all sorts of department policies. (He avoided conviction for manslaughter because it's hard to prove he didn't think he saw a gun.) They "fired" him with much fanfare. But the firing was a sham; a week later he was silently hired by the police force in one of the suburbs. In essence they moved him a few miles. The blue wall in action.)

[Karl Henning]

It wants fixing, not the show trials . . . .

[NikF]

Anais Nin



A selection from two of her short story collections - I think 'Delta of Venus' and 'Little Birds'.

[Karl Henning]

Last year, for the first time, the number of unmarried American adults outnumbered those who were married.

[Drasko]

[Mookalafalas]

Gary Giddins, the great Jazz critic and anthologist's bio of Bing.  I'm only up to 1929, but great so far.  Not exciting or novelistic, but very well researched with lots of socio-historical details that really add rich background to the events.

[asin]0316886459[/asin]

[Karl Henning]

Brilliant!