What are you currently reading?

[Christo]

During a four weeks stay - again, for the third year in a row - in the Galilee, preparing again for a visit to Jerusalem: these superb memoirs of a youth spent in Jerusalem in the 1940s

[André]

2/3 of the way through. Scary.

[Brian]

"Eichmann in Jerusalem" by Hannah Arendt.

[Ken B]

"Eichmann in Jerusalem" by Hannah Arendt.

Worthwhile follow up
[asin]B0000541UX[/asin]

[Christo]

[Walt Whitman]

sublime

[Bogey]

A great read so far.  If you enjoyed the movie, give it a go.  Staggs can write!

[Drasko]

So far (2/3 in), this is the one I like the most out of 3 or 4 Bond novels I've read.

[kishnevi]

Shmuel [Samuel] ha Nagid was a court official and governor of the Jewish community in Granada c. 1035 CE, and the first major Jewish poet of the medieval era, writing on both religious and secular subjects, merging Arabic technique in poetry with the Hebrew language.

This translation was done in the early 1990s and perhaps makes the piems sound too modern. But overall worthwhile.

[Ken B]

A great read so far.  If you enjoyed the movie, give it a go.  Staggs can write!

His book on All About Eve is beyond dreadful. It's beyond even beyond dreadful. It's Trump and Hillary screwing dreadful.

[Ken B]

So far (2/3 in), this is the one I like the most out of 3 or 4 Bond novels I've read.

I liked From Russia best.

[Florestan]

Shmuel [Samuel] ha Nagid was a court official and governor of the Jewish community in Granada c. 1035 CE, and the first major Jewish poet of the medieval era, writing on both religious and secular subjects, merging Arabic technique in poetry with the Hebrew language.

This translation was done in the early 1990s and perhaps makes the piems sound too modern. But overall worthwhile.

Very, very interesting.

My literary acquaintance with the fascinating interplay between Christian, Jewish and Arabic culture on Spanish soil stems form this book:



Have you read it?

Lion Feuchtwanger is not at all a bad writer, although he is largely forgotten or ignored today. Stefan Zweig is another Jewish writer of the same fate. I was fortunate enough to read some of their books in my youth. I praise both of them highly.

Actually, the latest book I´ve read --- finished it just yesterday --- was Zweig´s The World of Yesterday. Exceptional.

[zamyrabyrd]

"The First Four Years" by Laura Ingalls Wilder
I read and reread everything around here, so was fairly desperate. This book was hiding among some other stuff I found by the way, probably from the kids' school library. Actually, it is quite good and sobering at the same time. As my father used to say "When ships were made of wood, men were from iron. Now ships are made of iron and men are made from wood." Well, not literally of course and don't mean to bash men. Laura herself was an iron lady.
Her husband, Almanzo Wilder, cheerfully tackled the job of plowing 50 acres that failed everytime for 7 years in the Dakotas besides raising stock and caring for orchards that also dried up. Meanwhile, their baby son died, the house burned down, he got diphtheria that left him somewhat paralyzed. She initially lost all the money earned over a year to buy a new house in Missouri but found it after a few days. After that, I didn't feel like my problems were so big.

[Ken B]

Very, very interesting.

My literary acquaintance with the fascinating interplay between Christian, Jewish and Arabic culture on Spanish soil stems form this book:



Have you read it?

Lion Feuchtwanger is not at all a bad writer, although he is largely forgotten or ignored today. Stefan Zweig is another Jewish writer of the same fate. I was fortunate enough to read some of their books in my youth. I praise both of them highly.

Actually, the latest book I´ve read --- finished it just yesterday --- was Zweig´s The World of Yesterday. Exceptional.

Zweig  isn't that forgotten, at least in English. I read some of him long ago, stories.
But I want to recommend a book you have probably read, The Radetzky March by Roth. I think you would like it a lot.

[Jaakko Keskinen]

I liked From Russia best.

I liked Goldfinger best.

[Florestan]

Zweig  isn't that forgotten, at least in English. I read some of him long ago, stories.
But I want to recommend a book you have probably read, The Radetzky March by Roth. I think you would like it a lot.

Thank you, Ken, but as you said, I´ve already read it, together with its accompanying novel The Kapuziner Crypt. Youare absolutely right: I did enjoy them both a lot.

[Jaakko Keskinen]

Almost through the first of the three books of Wilhelm Meister's Wanderjahre and I have to say that so far, mostly, I like this better than Lehrjahre.

[Bogey]

His book on All About Eve is beyond dreadful. It's beyond even beyond dreadful. It's Trump and Hillary screwing dreadful.

I've seen poor reviews about it as well.  Was hopeful based on what I have read here, but will pass on the Eve book.  Too bad.

[Jo498]

Thank you, Ken, but as you said, I´ve already read it, together with its accompanying novel The Kapuziner Crypt. Youare absolutely right: I did enjoy them both a lot.

Have you read anything by Heimito von Doderer? The most famous one is "Die Strudlhofstiege" (a fairly impressive public stairs in Vienna that is still in existence). I admittedly got stuck in the middle but, similarly to Roth he is also considered as one of the most important describers of the late and post-k.-k. world. I read Die Kapuzinergruft and probably another one by Roth and while I realize that they are good books this one not quite my cup of tea. I am probably to far away geographically and culturally from old Austria to really appreciate it.

(I don't think I read anything by Feuchtwanger yet but I have a couple on my shelves... the name is known in Germany/Austria but I don't know how frequently read)

A lighter but often highly entertaining writer was Leo Perutz (a Prague Jew writing in German, originally an insurance mathematician). Most of his book are fairly short, historical, sometimes with fantastic elements. The most famous one, "The master of the day of judgement" (Der Meister des jüngsten Tages), is somewhat of an exception and takes place in Vienna shortly before the first World War. Not sure how much of him has been translated. He was very famous for a while between the wars but mostly forgotten afterwards although he lived until the 1950s and has one or two post-war books as well.

[Florestan]

Have you read anything by Heimito von Doderer?

No. But I have read Gregor von Rezzzori´s The Snows of Yesteryear, which is also very good and of special interest to me since he was born of German stock in Northern Bukovina (originally part of Moldavia, then annexed by the Austrian Empire, afterwards reunited with Romania, then taken by the USSR as part of the infamous Molotov-Ribentropp Pact (an ideological misnomer for Hitler-Stalin) and finally given to Ukraine, to which it belongs today). The book is a treasure trove as it describes, in a very pleasant and quite melancholy literary style, the truly multicultural European atmosphere and experience of that region, AD 1918 - 1940.

Next on my reading list is Memoirs of an Anti-Semite, by the same guy. I can hardly wait for it.

I read Die Kapuzinergruft and probably another one by Roth and while I realize that they are good books this one not quite my cup of tea. I am probably to far away geographically and culturally from old Austria to really appreciate it.

Well, a very important part of nowadays Romania has been for centuries part of the old Austria and later Austria-Hungary, therefore I feel much closer in terms of mentality to the old Austria than to the old Prussia / Germany, although I have no personal ties with Transylvania.

A lighter but often highly entertaining writer was Leo Perutz (a Prague Jew writing in German, originally an insurance mathematician). Most of his book are fairly short, historical, sometimes with fantastic elements. The most famous one, "The master of the day of judgement" (Der Meister des jüngsten Tages), is somewhat of an exception and takes place in Vienna shortly before the first World War. Not sure how much of him has been translated. He was very famous for a while between the wars but mostly forgotten afterwards although he lived until the 1950s and has one or two post-war books as well.

I have read, and enjoyed, The Swedish Cavalier..