What are you currently reading?

[vers la flamme]

I hope you picked up the Penguin edition, because that is the translation that is not bowdlerized.  I reread it a few years ago.

Sure did, for that reason. Translation very well done by Robin Buss.

Edit: I wonder if anyone has any input on English translations of other Dumas books, like The Three Musketeers. I haven't read any of his stuff and, liking this one so much, I'm curious to read more. But I want to make sure I'm not getting something censored.

[Brian]

Any Pepys diary fans have a preferred edition for notes, annotations, context, freedom from error, etc.?

[vandermolen]

A present from a psychotherapist friend of mine:

[SimonNZ]

Any Pepys diary fans have a preferred edition for notes, annotations, context, freedom from error, etc.?

The joint Harper UK / University of California edition from 1995. I'm pretty sure that's still the final word. And when I got it it was remarkably cheap as a boxed set of 12 large paperbacks.

Extensive same-page notes throughout.

[Bachtoven]

This is shaping up to be a pretty good horror novel.

[Dry Brett Kavanaugh]

How Sex Works: Why We Look, Smell, Taste, Feel, and Act the Way We Do. Sharon Moalem.

[SimonNZ]

Any Pepys diary fans have a preferred edition for notes, annotations, context, freedom from error, etc.?

The joint Harper UK / University of California edition from 1995. I'm pretty sure that's still the final word. And when I got it it was remarkably cheap as a boxed set of 12 large paperbacks.

...or were you thinking more of a single volume of selections? Then you might prefer the 1150-page Penguin Classic:

[Brian]

Thank you - I was just reading a review of a HarperCollins edition that was only 280 pages, and made no mention of being abridged. I thought surely Pepys didn't leave just 280 pages of material. Then you posted the 12-volume version and that definitely solved that mystery. The Penguin edition might be the best middle ground...provided it includes all the naughty bits.

[SimonNZ]

Thank you - I was just reading a review of a HarperCollins edition that was only 280 pages, and made no mention of being abridged. I thought surely Pepys didn't leave just 280 pages of material. Then you posted the 12-volume version and that definitely solved that mystery. The Penguin edition might be the best middle ground...provided it includes all the naughty bits.

I'm sure it would. And that it would have the Plague stuff and the Great Fire stuff complete.

It might not be what you're after but I'd give the highest praise to Kenneth Branagh's abridged audio. It's a clever selection,  again with the plague and fire complete, and he really *performs* the role - and delights in the naughty bits.

[Mandryka]

Any Pepys diary fans have a preferred edition for notes, annotations, context, freedom from error, etc.?

Have you seen this?

https://www.pepysdiary.com/

[vers la flamme]

Currently reading The Count of Monte Cristo, by Alexandre Dumas. Man, what a treat this book is. I guess I've been aware of it for a long time, but for some reason I've never had the slightest interest in reading it until recently. Now I'm kicking myself for that, because it's been such a pleasure to read. Very entertaining, very plot driven, with great characters and a very compelling premise. Certainly much better than I expected!

Well, I plowed through that one. A very addictive story that I could not have put down if I wanted to, and just an incredibly enjoyable read. Highly recommended to anyone, though I expect there may be those who do not take this book or its author seriously, as the stuff of mere entertainment and unworthy of the time needed to read it. (For shame!)

[Dry Brett Kavanaugh]

Well, I plowed through that one. A very addictive story that I could not have put down if I wanted to, and just an incredibly enjoyable read. Highly recommended to anyone, though I expect there may be those who do not take this book or its author seriously, as the stuff of mere entertainment and unworthy of the time needed to read it. (For shame!)

Great novel. I must re-read it.

[Christo]

Gregor von Rezzori, Denkwürdigkeiten eines Antisemiten (Memoirs of an Anti-Semite, 1979) a writer from Romanian Bucovina, depicting a long lost world:

[SimonNZ]

Starting: the winner of last year's Orwell prize:



I know it shouldn't matter, especially as the reporting is by all reviews excellent, but I'm amazed they couldn't do better with the cover, given how many striking images there are of the fire.


Also dipping into this when wanting something lighter:

[JBS]

Got these two today at Barnes and Noble



You might recall I asked about Kokoro here. At that time there was a second, alternative, edition on the shelves. It wasn't there today, so at least one other person in Broward County has been reading it.

[Dry Brett Kavanaugh]

Leopold Stokowski, Abram Chasins.

[ritter]

Starting Miguel de Unamuno's novella San Manuel Bueno, Mártir, which friends of mine recommended to me as its author's key fiction work.

In the Biblioteca Nueva edition of Unamuno's selected works:



Some information here.

[DavidW]

I'm halfway through Vanity Fair.  I was on the Penguin paperback, but over time the small font was fatiguing (despite wearing progressives).  I switched to Project Gutenberg on the Kindle.

[SimonNZ]

Starting: and another from the Baille Gifford prize longlist:



Time's Echo: The Second World War, the Holocaust, and the Music of Remembrance

"When it comes to how societies commemorate their own distant dreams and catastrophes, we often think of books, archives, or memorials carved from stone. But in Time's Echo, Jeremy Eichler makes a revelatory case for the power of music as culture's memory, an art form uniquely capable of carrying forward meaning from the past.

Eichler shows how four towering composers - Richard Strauss, Arnold Schoenberg, Benjamin Britten and Dmitri Shostakovich - lived through the era of the Second World War and the Holocaust and later transformed their experiences into deeply moving works of music, scores that carry forward the echoes of lost time. A lyrical narrative full of insight and compassion, this book deepens how we think about the legacies of war, the presence of the past, and the profound possibilities of art in our lives today."

[vers la flamme]

I'm halfway through Vanity Fair.  I was on the Penguin paperback, but over time the small font was fatiguing (despite wearing progressives).  I switched to Project Gutenberg on the Kindle.

Worth a read? Maybe it would be less fatiguing with reading-only glasses, trust me I'm an optometry student 

I just finished the famous novel The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain. There were moments I appreciated, but the last third or so of the novel dragged badly; not for me, I'm afraid.