since we don't have a recent "what are you reading thread?" let's have one now: WHAT ARE YOU READING THIS SUMMER, 2005 (and into the beyoooooond)?!?

I'm reading books on bread baking and books on chess. I have some books on bicycle repair in the stack waiting to be read, but we'll see if I can tear myself away from all I ever read these days, which are books on bread baking and books on chess.

See also I just moved, which threw my reaidng out of whack. I am also reading "Huge Haiku" by McAleavey, which seems pretty great, and which I think anyone here with any interest in poetry would enjoy. It hits a broad range of poetry pleasure receptors.

finished camera lucida this morning

Waiting for a li'l bunch of books about music to arraive in the mail sometime soonish.

Now reading: A Wordsworth Classics compilation of Kipling short stories. Mostly good stuff, tho I doze off whenever he gets to talking about life on the high seas (actually checked if there's a Kipling thread on ILE - there isn't, but there *are* some great mark s posts about the guy. Also, apparently one time mark s thought Ally was using Kipling-bred brit-slang because she said "wicked".) "Bone", which *really* lets itself down halfway through, don't think I'll even finish it. The first "Krazy Kat" Sunday strips anthology, which is an utter delight. Also, just loads of random poetry: Dickinson, Keats, Yeats, Wordsworth, Bukowski.

Will be reading soon: the first Moomins book. A friend wants me to read G.K. Chesterton's "The Man Who Was Thursday", should I? Also, more portuguese stuff that ain't translated to english. :(

So true, sadly. Though the last couple of collections make sort of an improvement, but not really.

The first "Krazy Kat" Sunday strips anthology, which is an utter delight.

Are there English collections of the Krazy Kat daily strips? I've read them in Finnish, and they're almost as good as the sunday strips, but I'd like to read the originals as well,

Will be reading soon: the first Moomins book.

I hope it doesn't let you down; not all of the Moomin books are classic. "Dangerous Midsummer" and "The Magic Winter" (or whatever they're called in English) are where it gets good.

There's a few companies in the U.S. trying their hands at this, but from what I've heard they're quite hard to get. Will ask my local comic dealer, tho (if he thinks he can get 'em, I'm sure comic stores in Finnland will, as well.) Meanwhile, there are 30 pages worth of daily strips in the latest "Krazy Kat" sundays anthology (to make up for lost sunday strips.)

I've a friend who's read - and enjoyed - some Krazy Kat in portuguese, but frankly I can't imagine doing so myself, it seems such an utterly untranslateable thing. "carrying bricks to the count of trois, as they say in France, or tres, as they holler in chiuhaha", laffo.

I hope it doesn't let you down; not all of the Moomin books are classic. "Dangerous Midsummer" and "The Magic Winter" (or whatever they're called in English) are where it gets good.

I got "Comet In Moominland", which has a promsiing title if nothing else. But I've a bit of Moomins experience, mainly from the animated series, which I watched as a kid (and yes, I went through the obligatory Moomin-Fan rite of passage of staying up nights scared of the MORRA!)

My swedish friend recommended me one about this lonely little creature that lives all by itself in a forest. He swears that its use as a "children's classic" perfectly explains scandinavian suicide rates.

in progress:
hartmann reproductive rights and wrongs
sheehan anarchism
rulfo pedro paramo

should i bother?

should i bother?

It's *good* in its genre. It's just a trashy thriller. You'll finish it in about two/three days.

Anthony, what did you think of Camera Lucida? I loved it. Should read it again, but alas my brain is melting into puss.

Am currently reading:
*Goethe - Faust

Am about to read:
*Cervantes - Don Quixote
*Umberto Eco - A Theory Of Semiotics
*Milorad Pavic - Dictionary Of The Khazars
*Plato - The Republic
*Julio Cortazar - Hopscotch

Arthur Ransome - Swallows and Amazons
M. John Harrison - Anima (The Course Of The Heart and Signs Of Life in one volume)
Homer - The Odyssey (Robert Fagles verse translation)

All very good indeed.

East of Eden (after renting the movie)
Holy Terror: Andy Warhol Close-Up by Bob C.
Baquiat: A Quick Killing in Art
The Art Dealers
The Adoring Audinece (collection of essays about fandom)
The French Quarter (H. Asbury's look at New Orleans' history)
Shop GIrl by Steve Martin
Waterfront (about Nyc's) by Philip Lopate
Rats (about Nyc's)
I'll be Your Mirror: The Andy Warhol Interviews
All Yesterdays' Parties: The Velvet Underground in Print
A Cook's Tour by Antony Bourdain
plus a lot of pretty artchitecture/design books that I browse through when 'working'

Good book.

I'm still reading a lot of magazines, mostly. Par for the course. Short attention span theater.

Atlantic Monthly
The New Yorker
Arthur
Entertainment Weekly (Don't laugh! It's really good!)
The Economist
Foreign Policy
Metropolis
etc.

xpost, sorry

For me, I started Oryx and Crake this morning. I might read Captain Alatriste next... not sure. (My wife bought it because of a certain ixationfay on Iggovay Ortensenmay.)

lucky!

need to finish Pamuk's Istanbul. Started Ismael Kadare's Pyramid when the power was out, but in the post-Katrina fallout, it's hard to concentrate.

I liked God of Small Things fwiw, I read it in college and maybe I was a little overly wowed since it was one of my earliest exposures to multiculti stuff, but "boilerplate" plot aside I do remember it being pretty beautifully written.

Currently reading "A Stranger Here Myself" by Iain Pattison, which is a fictionalised autobiography of the childhood of Rab C Nesbitt. And it's totally spot on as a view of growing up in a rapidly de-industrialising and subsequently poor neighbourhood.

(Taking politics courses for my year at Georgetown)

I'm just reading bitd from the Oxford Book of Japanese Short Stories really. I did start a Paul Auster book, a few weeks ago, but I can't get into it.

About to start "Ways of Seeing" by Berger

Good luck

Currently reading:

Nadja - Andre Breton
Antes Del Fin - Ernesto Sabato

It seemed quite *easy*. Not like Ruskin. :-( I felt dumb when I read his book.

Figured it was about time I read the other of that Foucault that never get as much attention. Also reading some stuff on Zen, kind of scattershot..

I almost checked out the Karl Lagerfeld diet book from the library because it's totally ridiculous, maybe next time.

I don't understand one word of what he's saying but I am determined to finish it. I'm at page 100 or something. Another 1000 pages to go.

I only read books set in California that also have "road" int the title.

The Madams of San Francisco - Curt Genrty
and William Claxton's biogrpahy of Steve McQueen

both set in California but without "road" in the title.

I am so ashamed of myself.

I always more than one book at a time.

kinda obsessed with the albany cycle right now.

also, the al franken is good. funny & dense with material.

I am reading/have just read:
Gotham Central
The Rabbi's Cat
Howl's Moving Castle
Dubliners

I just finished John Horgan's Rational Mysticism and it's a knockout read. I'm going to start on some Susan Blackmore stuff soon, I think.

Last week I bought Wislawa Szymborska's Poems New and Collected, which is really good in spite of a few clunky entries.

Before bed each night I tackle a few pages sections of Sam Delaney's Trouble on Triton: An Ambiguous Heterotopia without particularly enjoying it.

I'm also reading "In Wonderland" by Knut Hamsun, it's a travelogue of his trip to pre-Soviet Russia, he spends a lot of time slagging people off and talking about banal stuff.