What are you currently reading?

[Jaakko Keskinen]

Awesome book, going to re-read it one of these days. And if you're into Stevenson and haven't checked it out yet, I strongly recommend Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

[Ken B]

I read that when I was about 35. I liked it a lot.

[Bogey]

Awesome book, going to re-read it one of these days. And if you're into Stevenson and haven't checked it out yet, I strongly recommend Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

We'll do.  I will let you and Ken know what I think.  I have two editions.  The paperback you see I have at home and the one I am mainly reading from.  I have an annotated copy at work.  In the morning when I have a cup of coffee,I look over the annotations that go with the reading from the night before.  Kind of cool.

[North Star]

When I taught a class on murder mysteries, that was one of the books I had my students read! The plot twist is still amazing today, but my students all objected over a giant plot hole which rendered it invalid. Unfortunately...I can't remember what the giant plot hole was. Maybe you will notice it and let me know?

I'm not sure, maybe it has to do with a postmortem.. I am very familiar with the Suchet adaptations, so the plot twist wasn't a surprise, although obviously it's more potent in the novel.

[Artem]

I finished Gert Hofmann's Lichtenberg and the Little Flower Girl and Patrick Modiano's Suspended Sentences and enjoyed both of them.

Hofmann's book is a very touching, sometimes funny love story between and old professor and a young girl. Modiano reminded me of Bolano. There's a feeling of dark mystery to his stories, but, unlike with Bolano, they end up more prosaic are true to real life. Having read these books I would definitely like to read some more of these authors' works.

[Fagotterdämmerung]

 
  Just finished Annie Ernaux's A Simple Passion. A light novella, but there is a certain earnestness given to a subject often addressed in a coy, cutesy way, or, on the other hand, given an overly graphic and exploitive treatment. This one finds just the right way in between.

[North Star]

Dubliners.

[Ken B]

Dubliners.

Easily his best book.

[Todd]

Climate of Uncertainty, by William Stewart.  Mr Stewart is an environmental lawyer, and his short tome – just 159 text pages – is written in a lawyerly way, with precise use of language, especially adjectives, and a tidal wave of evidence, most effectively in the first part of the book, which deals with the evidence of global warming while handling arguments used by skeptics and deniers deftly.  He dismisses denier arguments, and concedes that some skeptical arguments have merit, but one of his main arguments is that environmental policy must be viewed as risk management*, so that absolute proof is not needed to act.  His book is also intellectually honest, and, with more lawyerly precision, he address the facts that both "sides" (his quotes) in the debate are engaged in what amounts to a propaganda war – and yes, he includes incriminating quotes from oil men and Al Gore, among others, and yes, he uses the word propaganda; that mitigation policies will require the largest transfer of wealth in history from wealthy countries to developing countries; and that implementation of coercive policies will be needed to make international agreements work, thereby weakening national sovereignty.  He also points out why the far superior carbon tax has and will continue to lose out to inferior cap and trade schemes when formulating emission control policies – people get too emotional about the word "tax".

The second half of the book, which deals with specific policies, is not as good.  While still fact-rich and grounded in practical political reality, it is no match for Daniel Yergin's masterly The Quest, and the fact that this was written in 2009 and published in 2010 means that some of the information is stale, such as the emphasis given to comparatively imminent "peak oil".  (Oops.)  There are also unfortunately some factual errors: the Byrd-Hagel Amendment is reported to have passed in 2007, though it was accurately covered earlier in the book, and Russia is said to have joined the World Trade Association, for instance.  Seeing such obvious errors always makes me wonder what lesser errors may have been made.  These caveats aside, this is an excellent book, with tons of citations, and it is a really fast read.





* Why more prominent environmental types haven't adopted this approach is something of a mystery.  When I see global warming presented as risk management, I can't help but think of the opportunities for new insurance products, bond issues, expanding secondary markets for these products, and other eye-wateringly profitable undertakings.  Greed is good, folks.

[Bogey]

O read this about every two years....sometimes push it to three.  However, Linda snagged this one for me and there seems to be more annotation than text along with a meaty introduction.  So far I am enjoying it, but just hard to decide when to stop and read the annotations.  Not recommended for first time readers of this story, but for those who have enjoyed "as is", grab this.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Annotated-Christmas-Carol-Prose/dp/0393051587

[Karl Henning]

O read this about every two years....sometimes push it to three.  However, Linda snagged this one for me and there seems to be more annotation than text along with a meaty introduction.  So far I am enjoying it, but just hard to decide when to stop and read the annotations.  Not recommended for first time readers of this story, but for those who have enjoyed "as is", grab this.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Annotated-Christmas-Carol-Prose/dp/0393051587

Yes, it's on our shelf!

[stingo]

Yes, it's on our shelf!

Mine also!

[Philo]

Currently reading:
James Baldwin's Go Tell it on the Mountain
Robert Bly's The Letters of Robert Bly and Tomas Transtromer
T.S. Eliot's Collected Poems 1909-1962
Richard Wright's Lawd Today!

[North Star]

Just got this early Christmas present for myself in the mail (from Book Depository's Amazon UK mp site), and spent an hour skimming Szarkowski's intro and glancing through each plate. Good stuff. 
[asin]0821221345[/asin]

Other titles recently-ish gotten from the actual Book Depository:
Yeats: Collected Poems (Vintage)
Auden: Selected Poems (Vintage)
Robert Frost's Poems (St. Martin's Paperbacks)
Orwell: Nineteen-Eightyfour (Penguin)

[Drasko]

I've had it on shelf for years but kept avoiding it, not knowing just how much of its immersion in specifics of Italian pop-culture would fly over my head, that and the fact that Baudolino bored me to tears. Finally decided to give it a go anyway.

[Ken B]

Baudolino bored me to tears.

I'm convinced "Umberto Eco" is actually an MBA marketing and brand management class experiment. Simplest explanation.

[kishnevi]

I remember Name of the Rose as both boring and enthralling all at once, a singular feat.  The next Eco I read--at this length of time I do not remember which one--struck me as boring and pompous....a sort of snobbish DaVinci Code.  Have not attempted him since.
Thread duty

Part of an effort to reconnect with Chinese poetry.

[Cosi bel do]

I quite liked The Name of the Rose. But I started and can't seem to finish (I will, but it will be painful) The Prague Cemetery, fitting exactly the "boring and pompous" description.

Currently reading The copper garden, after Marc's recommendation here (and also continuing to read Grossman's For a just cause at the same time). Maybe it is because of the translation, but I don't really find Vestdijk's prose an easy read. But it is certainly interesting, I'll comment it further in response to Marc.
I'm reading it in French but there is also an English translation.

[North Star]

Currently reading Auden's poetry.

Epitaph on a Tyrant

Perfection, of a kind, was what he was after,
And the poetry he invented was easy to understand;
He knew human folly like the back of his hand,
And was greatly interested in armies and fleets;
When he laughed, respectable senators burst with laughter,
And when he cried the little children died in the streets.

(Jan '39)

When he died the little children died in the sreets

[Florestan]

I remember Name of the Rose as both boring and enthralling all at once, a singular feat.  The next Eco I read--at this length of time I do not remember which one--struck me as boring and pompous....a sort of snobbish DaVinci Code. 

That must have been Foucault´s Pendulum and I must be the paradigmatic snob, having read it 3 times. 

Seriously now, comparing Eco to Dan Brown is like comparing Sting to Justin Bieber... 

All Eco novels I read I found to be page-turners from start till end. (Name of the Rose, Foucault´s Pendulum, Baudolino, The Island of Yesterday).