What are you currently reading?

[Brian]

Under the Glacier - Halldor Laxness

Pirate Libertalia - David Graeber

Four Lost Cities - Annalee Newitz

Finished all three of these in one productive afternoon.

Simon, that memoir looks really interesting (and has a striking cover design).

[SimonNZ]

Finished all three of these in one productive afternoon.

Simon, that memoir looks really interesting (and has a striking cover design).

Three books in one afternoon!!

I got through three excellent books last week, but that was only because each was only a little over 200 pages. My reading speed is only slightly faster than if I was reading aloud.

Turns out the cover image above relates to one of the anecdotes in the book.

[Brian]

Three books in one afternoon!!

I got through three excellent books last week, but that was only because each was only a little over 200 pages. My reading speed is only slightly faster than if I was reading aloud.

I was halfway through all of them. In total it did come to about 200 pages today but I was lucky to only need to make lunch and do dishes.

[ritter]

Starting Jean-Paul Sartre's La Nausée....

[Valentino]

Maus by Art Spiegelman

Found it accidentally in Norwegian on sale. Read it first in English some thirty years ago. It is as good as I remember it.
Btw: Did they ban it in Tennessee or did common sense prevail?

[SimonNZ]

Started both of these:

[Florestan]

Terrible title.

Terrible translation, actually. The original French title is Fort comme la mort and it quotes from the Song of Solomon (8:6)  L'amour est fort comme la mort, et la jalousie est dure comme le sépulcre (love is as strong as death, jealousy as cruel as the grave). Hope this helps.

[Dry Brett Kavanaugh]

Hesse: Strange News from Another Star





This is an interesting collection of short stories from Hesse. They are stories, in the form of modern Fairy Tales, that explore levels of the subconscious and deep emotional thought.

Didn't know about the book. Maybe the stories were influenced by Carl Jung, who gave therapies to HH. Hesse admired Freud first, but later converted to Jungian psychology, and re-converted to Freud later.

[LKB]

My First 79 Years, Isaac Stern's memoirs, written with Chaim Potok.

I'm about 20% of the way in and I've not yet been bored, a good sign.

[aligreto]

Hamsun: Mysteries





A very eccentric stranger decides to disembark from a boat at the last minute. He is attracted by the festivities in the town. The novel becomes the tale of his interactions with and his effect on the locals in the town. However, the novel focuses on the psychology of the main protagonist. The inhabitants are shocked and disturbed by his speech as he continually endeavours to convince them that he is a genuine person. I found it interesting but odd. It reminded me of how I felt when reading Kafka.

[aligreto]

Didn't know about the book. Maybe the stories were influenced by Carl Jung, who gave therapies to HH. Hesse admired Freud first, but later converted to Jungian psychology, and re-converted to Freud later.

Thank you for the background information. 

[SimonNZ]

Started:

[aligreto]

Salinger: Catcher In The Rye





This is my third time to read this novel over a span of a number of decades. I know that this is regarded as a cult American classic but I have to admit that I have never seen it thus, even as a young man reading it initially. I have never understood the appeal of the work. However, I decided, in my more mature years, to give it another read in order to see if my understanding and appreciation of the novel had changed.

My ultimate finding was that my opinion of the novel had deteriorated with the passage of time. I find both the writing and the pretext of the novel to be puerile. I fully understand that it is written from the point of view of a young man. However, I do not even see it as one of those "rite of passage" novels. For me, it does not have the depth or insight to be regarded thus. I honestly felt that the protagonist was very immature in his thinking, analysis and outlook. Perhaps the protagonist's cynical, sardonic and contemptuous view of the then current values is the appeal.

I, however, this time around in my latter years, found it to be so boring that I had to force myself to finish it.

No doubt, someone will enlighten me as to the error of my ways.

Perhaps it is just a cultural issue on my part.

[Dry Brett Kavanaugh]

[SimonNZ]

Still going with the postwar Germany book, but in the meantime knocked this off:



and have added this to the mix:

[Brian]

About to begin Concepción by Albert Samaha, a family memoir of Filipino immigrants to the USA.

[vers la flamme]

Yesterday I started reading The Makioka Sisters by Jun'ichiro Tanizaki. So far, not very far along (just shy of a quarter of the way into it; it's a pretty long book) I am stunned by the beauty of this book. I'm reminded somewhat of one of my favorite books of all time, Buddenbrooks by Thomas Mann, as this is similarly a story of a family and its decline against the backdrop of the decline of an entire way of life, albeit in a very different time and place. I've read three other books by Tanizaki and this must be the best of them by far, at least at this stage.

[San Antone]

Jim Thompson : The Killer Inside Me

[Dry Brett Kavanaugh]

Yesterday I started reading The Makioka Sisters by Jun'ichiro Tanizaki. So far, not very far along (just shy of a quarter of the way into it; it's a pretty long book) I am stunned by the beauty of this book. I'm reminded somewhat of one of my favorite books of all time, Buddenbrooks by Thomas Mann, as this is similarly a story of a family and its decline against the backdrop of the decline of an entire way of life, albeit in a very different time and place. I've read three other books by Tanizaki and this must be the best of them by far, at least at this stage.

There is a movie/dvd in the USA as well!

[vers la flamme]

There is a movie/dvd in the USA as well!

I didn't know that! I'll have to watch once I finish.

I remember you saying Tanizaki used to be a favorite of yours; how did you rate Makioka when you were reading his books?