What are you currently reading?

[Opus106]

I just finished Geck's biography of Bach.  It is very informative but sometimes it feels like merely a collection of facts and quotes without any attempt at building a narrative.  I only read the biography part, I know the musical analysis would be over my head so I didn't read that part.  The strong point is that he thoroughly trashes the mythology created in previous biographies (excepting Wolff which only debunked one little bit about speculation concerning how much secular works written during the Cothen period might have been lost) and creates an account of Bach as a man, and a musician, and not as overwhelming god amidst pions nor as forgotten genius not appreciated in his time.

And increasing Sara's Thanks counter to +2 as well. I bought Wolff's book (The Learned Musician) a couple of months ago, but I'm yet to read it. (Receive it in truth.)


Thread duty

The Negotiator
Frederic Forsyth

I love Forsyth's works!

[DavidW]

And increasing Sara's Thanks counter to +2 as well. I bought Wolff's book (The Learned Musician) a couple of months ago, but I'm yet to read it. (Receive it in truth.)

Slow mail!  I checked it out of the public library.

[Opus106]

Slow mail!

Not quite. It's stuck at the house of a relative, along with quite a bit of Haydn and Mozart.

[CD]

Do I understand all of it? No. But the singing, manifold language makes it so enjoyable that understanding it all almost seems besides the point.

[Florestan]

A bildungsroman set up in the Argentinian pampa, narrated from the perspective of the hero. The direct and concise style, which nevertheless contains beautiful and suggestive nature descriptions, is well-suited to the task. I'm enjoying it a lot.

[ChamberNut]

Haydn - by Pierre Barbaud

A great read! 

[Lethevich]

A third of the way through Geck's Bach, and David is totally on the ball about its nature as a collection of facts rather than a psychological type of biography. I was surprised by the format, which has a layout resembling a pamphlet - lots of pictures and seperated boxes of capsule information, sometimes kind of unimportant. While these do distract from the main text a little, they also offer some relief, making it very "readable" in chapter-sized chunks.

[Ten thumbs]

I am now reading Anne Brontë's 'The Tenant of Wildfell Hall'. Some consider this to the best Brontë novel of all. Certainly it was at the time the most shocking. Even Charlotte Brontë suppressed further edition's after Anne's death because she though it a 'mistake'. I can think of some on this board who would not like it for its stance on women's rights.

[Dr. Dread]

Some cheese.

[CD]

This book is making me insane. I keep reading different meanings into customers' last names at work.

[Bu]

Heard some bad things about this one, but so far Bukowski's p.i. is hysterically funny and a lot of fun to read.

[Dr. Dread]

I need to read some of his shit.

[Bu]

You should, Dave.  The novels and the poetry are both good shit.

[Dr. Dread]

You should, Dave.  The novels and the poetry are both good shit.

That's what I keep hearing from my noir pals.

[Bu]

That's what I keep hearing from my noir pals.

He fits right in, really.................    

[J.Z. Herrenberg]

Alexander Theroux, An Adultery (1987)

This morning I had never even heard of Alexander Theroux (older brother of Paul). Then a Danish friend over at Thomas Ligotti Online posted a passage from this writer's magnum opus 'Darconville's Cat' which impressed me so much I went to the Royal Library in The Hague to borrow this and a later novel. Theroux is erudite and stylish. 'An Adultery' makes me want to read it in one go, but alas, it is already 1.30 AM and tomorrow I have other things to attend to. But I have 100 pages already under my belt.

[rockerreds]

C.P.Snow-Last Things

[Solitary Wanderer]

20 shorts from DH.

This looks good. I'll grab it from the library.

[Diletante]

I finished Harold Schonberg's The Lives of the Great Composers a few days ago.

I have started reading Truman Capote's Other Voices, Other Rooms. I've already enjoyed a couple of books by Capote, and this one seems pretty interesting so far.

[Philoctetes]

The Baroque by Bazin

It's very interesting so far. Very detailed.