What are you currently reading?

[Bogey]

Bogey, thank you for the explanation regarding the book you're reading in the listening thread.

I've only read one Philip K Dick book that was Ubik. I rather liked it. I rarely read science fiction novels though, I try to read one book in that genre a year.

About the same.  PDK is the exception.  I usually read one in the summer.

[Jo498]

PK Dick has several books with classical music references. It's been a while, so I am hazy on the details but I think in "Martian timeslip" Mozart's great g minor symphony is somehow relevant and "Flow my tears, the policeman said" refers to the Dowland song.

[André]

If you ever come across the name of author Boileau-Narcejac, you might want to know that they are actually a pair. Writer Boileau plots the outlines of the novel (most often a mystery) and writer Narcejac fleshes it in fluent, superbly french prose. Hugely successful, many of their novels have been adapted to the screen, most notably Clouzot's Diabolique and Hitchcock's Vertigo. They are also responsible for the scenario of Franju's Eyes Without a Face.

Highly recommended if available in translation at your library.

[Karl Henning]

Just an amusing snippet from a listener's review on Amazon:

FYI - I think his own music [Boulez's] is terrible and an evil influence on modern music. But I am very glad he gets to direct orchestras.

[Jaakko Keskinen]

Curt von Westernhagen's Wagner biography. While it contains some interesting information, I am seriously annoyed by the author's constant attempts to whitewash Wagner's behaviour. He does say at the very beginning of the book that he intends to be the one Wagner biographer who does not complain about his bad character and I'm fine with that, it's just that he constantly twists around the truth in order to make everyone else but Wagner seem like the bad guy. I'm not saying Wagner didn't have some good in him, surely he did but come on, Westernhagen even goes so far as to disgracefully blame Minna for not having a saint's patience with Wagner's constant skirt-chasing, narcissistic manipulations, streaks of sadism etc. WTF?

[NikF]

Hell: Barbusse.

[asin]1885983018[/asin]

[Drasko]

Finishing the zenith storyline, before moving onto early years. Not a greatest fan of Boulet's drawing, looking forward to Christophe Blain.

[asin]1561635502[/asin]

[André]

Just received - and I got flak from my better half for clotting the postal bx with my stuff  ... Mesa Selimovic' Le Derviche et la Mort (Death and the Dervish). After I'm finished with Michael Connelly's The Last Coyote, that is. 

[aligreto]

Garrison Keillor: We Are Still Married....

[Drasko]

Mesa Selimovic' Le Derviche et la Mort (Death and the Dervish)

That's a wonderful novel. But why I keep thinking that you've read it already, ages ago when we were talking about Serbian/Yugoslavian literature (Selimovic, Andric, Pekic, Kis ...)

On topic: Chekhov's Platonov (re-reading).

[SimonNZ]

[NikF]

Garrison Keillor: We Are Still Married....

How did you get on with the John Fowles?


In other news -

The second part of the trilogy.

[aligreto]

How did you get on with the John Fowles?

I really enjoyed it I must say. I really liked the way that the narrative switched in the middle section to give "the other side of the story"; a clever technique.

[NikF]

I really enjoyed it I must say. I really liked the way that the narrative switched in the middle section to give "the other side of the story"; a clever technique.

Yeah, it's clever indeed and quite the contrast.

[aligreto]

Yeah, it's clever indeed and quite the contrast.

Have you read his "The Magus"?

[NikF]

Have you read his "The Magus"?

No, I haven't. Have you?
I've only read The Collector and The French Lieutenant's Woman.

[aligreto]

Yes I did, some years ago now but I am still left with a disturbing impression from it. It is like The Collector in that it has a strong psychologically disquieting element to it but in a different way.

[André]

That's a wonderful novel. But why I keep thinking that you've read it already, ages ago when we were talking about Serbian/Yugoslavian literature (Selimovic, Andric, Pekic, Kis ...)

On topic: Chekhov's Platonov (re-reading).

I DID read it about 5 years ago, but in an English translation, and it was borrowed from the library. Now it'is in mine, and it's in French, which will lend it a different reading angle (perspective). 

PS: I always re-read really exceptional books.  0:)

[Bogey]

My fourth Reacher novel.  Already just as fun as the past three.

[Drasko]

I DID read it about 5 years ago, but in an English translation, and it was borrowed from the library. Now it'is in mine, and it's in French, which will lend it a different reading angle (perspective). 

PS: I always re-read really exceptional books.  0:)

Oh good, I was fearing I had first signs of early onset of senility. I've read Selimovic in highschool, maybe I could give it another read one of these days, but on the other hand I've never read Fortress, his other big novel, should definitely get that.