2005: so now what are you reading?

Message Bookmarked
Bookmark Removed
Well, what are you reading this year?

So far I've zoomed through 'Hawksmoor' by Peter Ackroyd and currently weighing myself down with Ian Macdonald's 'Revolution In The Head'...

Mog, Monday, 10 January 2005 15:34 (twenty years ago)

after a brief vacation under one of the couch cushions, fast food nation is back in my bag for daily perusal on the train. it's made me afraid to eat most things.
i'm taking a break from positively 4th street, because there's too much richard farina and not enough bob dylan.

lauren (laurenp), Monday, 10 January 2005 16:00 (twenty years ago)

Keep The Aspidistra Flying by George Orwell. And I am flying through it.

W i l l (common_person), Monday, 10 January 2005 16:26 (twenty years ago)

Anyone can eat, and most everyone should.

the bellefox, Monday, 10 January 2005 16:29 (twenty years ago)

This year: The Line of Beauty: finished its 501pp a few days ago; good going by my standards. Finely etched it is, yet I wondered enfin about a lack of 'substance' - matter or meat in the tale itself, I suppose I mean.

the bellefox, Monday, 10 January 2005 16:36 (twenty years ago)

My dad passed along a three-novels-in-one-volume Ian Rankin thing. THe size of it is intimidating, even though it's actually three books.

Huk-L, Monday, 10 January 2005 20:55 (twenty years ago)

So, I haven't actually started reading it yet.

Huk-L, Monday, 10 January 2005 20:55 (twenty years ago)

Hey, The Pinefox: my new boss at work (well, the director of our division) did his PhD on Finnegans Wake!

Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Monday, 10 January 2005 21:21 (twenty years ago)

xpost:
How the physical form of a book effects your reading of said book

Ken L (Ken L), Monday, 10 January 2005 21:45 (twenty years ago)

i'm taking a break from positively 4th street, because there's too much richard farina and not enough bob dylan

Sounds interesting. I wouldn't mind reading more about both of them actually - though I'm currently taking a Dylan break, since I just finished Chronicles. Farina makes a brief appearance in that one as well - mainly on account of his girlfriend at the time, whom Dylan admires (not Mimi Baez).

I'm currently reading Vertigo by W.G. Sebald, so far finding it not quite as good as Austerlitz.

o. nate (onate), Monday, 10 January 2005 21:54 (twenty years ago)

I was reading The Order Of Things by Foucault but I'm not sure why and I might stop soon.

Casuistry (Chris P), Monday, 10 January 2005 22:37 (twenty years ago)

the girlfriend was perhaps carolyn hester, a well-known folk singer at the time. she and farina were married for a few years, then he ditched her for the teenaged mimi baez. he comes across in p4s as a self-aggrandizing, arrogant, insecure fantasist, though the author seems to find it endearing rather than off-putting. i disagree.

lauren (laurenp), Tuesday, 11 January 2005 10:41 (twenty years ago)

I have a Carolyn Hester song somewhere. It is pleasant. I think it's called 'That's My Song'! The guitarist is out of The Champs or The Fireballs or something.

I am pondering a break from Don Quixote, as I am half way through it. Half way through Part 1, that is. I'm on Part 4 of Part 1.

I think I'll read The City: A Guide to London's Global Financial Centre by Richard Roberts. Either that or The Twits what I got out of a Cheerios packet.

Puddin'Head Miller (PJ Miller), Tuesday, 11 January 2005 12:05 (twenty years ago)

the girlfriend was perhaps carolyn hester

Yes, that's it. Dylan says that people considered Farina some mysterious adventurer who had supposedly hung out with Castro in Cuba and the IRA in Northern Ireland, but that he considered Farina the luckiest guy in the world because he was dating Hester.

o. nate (onate), Tuesday, 11 January 2005 16:34 (twenty years ago)

Martin S: I am impressed, by him. It is queer, how many people have done one of those.

I never finished either of the WGS books that O. Nate mentions: only the other two (major [?] ones).

Gosh, O. Nate: I did not notice Farina in Chronicles! Or have forgotten it. But I do remember the bit that you mention, just not RF's name being attached to it.

It is also striking, isn't it, how in that book he is so reverential re. Baez (Joan), as a distant, already successful figure.

Lauren's last two sentences, with their slicing dislike untroubled by doubt and their brisk list of savage epithets, remind me of someone. I think it must be - myself.

Casuistry: I bought The Order of Things in June 1993, and meant to read it in the summer of 1994. I failed. I never read it. I have still never read it. It lingers on a low shelf, shedding dark glamour. It is impressive, maybe, that you are reading it.

Awake in the wee hours' dark as usual I started on Sonata For Jukebox. I may be some time.

the dreamfox, Tuesday, 11 January 2005 17:07 (twenty years ago)

I purchased A la recherche du temps perdu from Amazon.fr for a pretty good price but when I got it last week it turned out to be a 2000 PAGE BRICK OF PROUST!!!! I cannot lug this to work and back without some additional muscle training regimen.

Michael White (Hereward), Tuesday, 11 January 2005 17:13 (twenty years ago)

Proust = The Book That My Book-Holder Won't Hold.

the bluefox, Tuesday, 11 January 2005 17:16 (twenty years ago)

Dylan says that people considered Farina some mysterious adventurer who had supposedly hung out with Castro in Cuba and the IRA in Northern Ireland

right. that's covered in p4s. contrary to the rumors farina started about himself, he grew up in a middle-class area of flatbush and studied at cornell before eventually dropping out. he spent a few weeks visiting family in ireland around that time, but the only thing anyone recalls about his stay is that he was very good about helping with the nightly washing up.

lauren (laurenp), Tuesday, 11 January 2005 17:26 (twenty years ago)

Well, that's something.

(Were the Vicar here, as perhaps he is, he would surely ask why it should be impressive to have hung out with Ireland with the IRA, though he would perhaps be as impressed as anyone by Castrovian rumours, and might even share again his theory about Che Guevara and Yasser Arafat.)

the finefox, Tuesday, 11 January 2005 17:30 (twenty years ago)

I don't think it's that impressive that I'm reading it, really. For a while there I was reading Foucault for the fun of it. (Who wouldn't enjoy that gruesome first chapter of "Discipline and Punish"?) But the problem is that he uses far too many words. When he doesn't have a hot example for his idea -- and even often when he does -- he rhapsodizes about the idea rather than explaining it further. The prose is, in this case, flabby.

Also this time around I'm noticing that the translator is lazy, and takes too much advantage of English's bounty of Latin-based words. Whereas of course French is mostly stuck with the Latin-based words. I assume it comes off as more natural and less forced-academic in French.

Casuistry (Chris P), Tuesday, 11 January 2005 18:56 (twenty years ago)

I didn't realise there was a single-volume Proust! The edition I read was in 12 volumes, running to over 5,000 pages in total - yours must be pretty small print.

Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Tuesday, 11 January 2005 19:23 (twenty years ago)

i would be reading swann's way but i left it in california so i'm not.

John (jdahlem), Tuesday, 11 January 2005 20:25 (twenty years ago)

Treasure Island.

Fred (Fred), Tuesday, 11 January 2005 20:35 (twenty years ago)

SPOILER: The pirate did it.

Huk-L, Tuesday, 11 January 2005 21:06 (twenty years ago)

Saul Bellow's "Herzog" - just finished Yates's "Revolutionary Road" and was considerably less impressed by that than i was by "The Easter Parade".

jed_ (jed), Wednesday, 12 January 2005 02:21 (twenty years ago)

i always seem to be reading books about people cracking up!

jed_ (jed), Wednesday, 12 January 2005 02:36 (twenty years ago)

Farina
ILBers should also now that he was Thomas Pynchon's college pal and that Gravity's Rainbow is dedicated to him!

the translator is lazy
Chris, I always found that this kind of stuff in particular has a lot of wordplay in the original that can often dictate the path of the argument, so take that away and what you're reading will only seem that much more confused.

Ken L (Ken L), Wednesday, 12 January 2005 05:00 (twenty years ago)

and I should know how to hit the "k" key a little harder.

Ken L (Ken L), Wednesday, 12 January 2005 05:01 (twenty years ago)

the encyclopedia of snow. it's very nice.

lauren (laurenp), Wednesday, 12 January 2005 10:46 (twenty years ago)

The Brother Karamazov by Dostoyevsky. Because it's cold outside.

Jessa (Jessa), Wednesday, 12 January 2005 16:11 (twenty years ago)

The collected Lee Harwood. It's good.

Matt (Matt), Wednesday, 12 January 2005 18:12 (twenty years ago)

Hip: The History, John Leland

jaymc (jaymc), Wednesday, 12 January 2005 20:01 (twenty years ago)

Currently - Solaris (Lem on the impossibility of contact with aliens)
So far - The Algebraist (Banks on autopilot), The Plague (exile, death and meaning), The Eyre Affair (really, really, really bad), Island (utopian novel, therefore odd).

Ray (Ray), Thursday, 13 January 2005 09:47 (twenty years ago)

Emma Tennant - The Bad Sister. Excellent, but quite hard on the BRANE. I will have to read it again, once I've finished. I am also reading When Saturday Comes magazine, which is also enjoyable so far. It is not hard on the BRANE.

Lucky Banks, I wish I had an autopilot.

Puddin'Head Miller (PJ Miller), Thursday, 13 January 2005 11:05 (twenty years ago)

I seem to be between books. One thing I would like to read is an LRB review of (In) The Line of Beauty. Does one exist?

the bellefox, Thursday, 13 January 2005 11:49 (twenty years ago)

Ooh - it does, too.

http://lrb.co.uk/v26/n09/jone01_.html

the bellefox, Thursday, 13 January 2005 11:54 (twenty years ago)

thanks for the link - i'm always puzzled by reviews that go into so much detail about plot somehow.

jed_ (jed), Thursday, 13 January 2005 21:10 (twenty years ago)

Currently - Solaris (Lem on the impossibility of contact with aliens)

Also don't miss the Tarkovsky film.

o. nate (onate), Thursday, 13 January 2005 21:41 (twenty years ago)

Now: If nobody speaks of remarkable things - Jon McGregor

something about it irritates me, but I can't put my finger on it.

Matt (Matt), Friday, 14 January 2005 08:28 (twenty years ago)

I am now one and a half LRBs behind schedule and I've only just started. I thought it was 'welly-wanging' without the 'h'.

Puddin'Head Miller (PJ Miller), Friday, 14 January 2005 10:36 (twenty years ago)

I'm reading the recent McSweeney's humour collection, and the Lord Of the Rings Commentary by Howard Zinn and Noam Chomsky is fucking hilarious. It's a hilarious one-note joke that goes on and on.

Huk-L, Friday, 14 January 2005 18:15 (twenty years ago)

I'm read (or, pretty much, just read last night) "Brother Juniper's Bread Book", which was pretty good. I'll have to try the recipes soon, although this book is more about the technique and about "bread as metaphor for life", which it does in a surprisingly non-cloying way.

Casuistry (Chris P), Friday, 14 January 2005 19:08 (twenty years ago)

Hi guys. After going through a 'lull' last year where I was mostly reading comics, making music, and playing video games, I've been reading a lot of books lately. I recently finished Samuel Delaney's Dhalgren, I'm almost done with his memoir The Motion of Light in Water, and on deck I have more Delaney (Nova) and John Harrison's Light.

Jordan (Jordan), Friday, 14 January 2005 19:45 (twenty years ago)

Apropos of Farina, I found Been Down So Long it Looks Like Up to ME more or less unreadable.

The Mad Puffin (The Mad Puffin), Friday, 14 January 2005 20:15 (twenty years ago)

Jed: you're right: isn't it bizarre, that Jones mostly just retells Hollinghurst's story?

the bellefox, Monday, 17 January 2005 13:53 (twenty years ago)

PJM: I have been writing about In The Line of Beauty. I did not mention Garth Crooks or Gordon Cowans, though.

the bellefox, Monday, 17 January 2005 14:33 (twenty years ago)

The Peacock Manifesto by Stuart David and How To Read A Book by Doren & Adler

Kevan (Kevan), Monday, 17 January 2005 15:10 (twenty years ago)

I am reading my article, and trying to lop 2000 words off it.

the bellefox, Monday, 17 January 2005 16:27 (twenty years ago)

I am reading The Music of the Spheres by Elizabeth Redfern. The Guardian review on the front of the book claims that it is 'unputdownable'. I have put it down for the time being, because I won't be told what to do.

accentmonkey (accentmonkey), Monday, 17 January 2005 16:44 (twenty years ago)

"What, No Baby?" by Leslie Cannold, which is very challenging because my prejudice against breeders keeps interfering. So I'm sort of alternating between that and The Sundial by Shirley Jackson.

Jessa (Jessa), Tuesday, 14 June 2005 13:59 (twenty years ago)

I'm reading The Master by Colm Toibin. 50-60 pages in. Not bad, so far, but a fairly attenuated kind of pleasure. Fun spotting the bits that turn up in James's own novels, though.

frankiemachine, Tuesday, 14 June 2005 17:53 (twenty years ago)

tom, I just to my girlfriend about it: "I'm reading a great book and it's making me want to write, it's about, variously: hitler after the war; black & white; the girl at the centre of the
protagonist's history, who as it turns out she is actually the secretly the room at the centre of the twentieth century which guards the century's conscience; hitler's pornographer; hitler's only love, geli; the contortion of memory by the black thoughts of evil & the white grain of love; &c. I would recommend it. it has had me frightened of its next set of consequences, for a good 200 pages, and it's wriggly, like an eel, you think you have a hold on it and it squirms just out of reach, flexes back on itself, inside, throughout, history dredged and rented, mmm."

I've never read "mason & dixon".

I am reading "tours of the black clock" (erickson), "leap year" (erickson), & "the alien quartet" (thomson).

cozen (Cozen), Tuesday, 14 June 2005 19:02 (twenty years ago)

I lied, but can you spot it?

cozen (Cozen), Tuesday, 14 June 2005 19:03 (twenty years ago)

Yes. I also have THE ALIEN QUARTET!

the bellefox, Wednesday, 15 June 2005 19:20 (twenty years ago)

The last thing was this terrific story by Alice Munro called "Turkey Season."

youn, Wednesday, 15 June 2005 20:48 (twenty years ago)

I finished the Bob Dylan memoir last night — first time I'd encountered whining lifted to the level of poetry. (Or at least the attempt.)

Rock Hardy (Rock Hardy), Thursday, 16 June 2005 00:19 (twenty years ago)

I'm reading 'Maisie Dobbs' by Jacqueline Winspear, about an improbably female private detective in the early twentieth century. It doesn't really deviate from your average historical novel formula tbh, but I LOVE the name Jacqueline Winspear so much.

Archel (Archel), Thursday, 16 June 2005 08:05 (twenty years ago)

a collection of plays by leroi jones and a collection of larkin's writing on jazz.

Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Thursday, 16 June 2005 09:01 (twenty years ago)

first time I'd encountered whining lifted to the level of poetry

You mean the section where he talks about the price of fame during the period when he made New Morning? That was a little bit whiny, I'll agree. Though my favorite sections of the book, when he talks about the period when he had just moved to NY, are remarkably devoid of anything remotely whiny or self-pitying.

o. nate (onate), Thursday, 16 June 2005 13:38 (twenty years ago)

Frrph, I read Naipaul's Mystic Masseur yesterday. OMG he was like totallee my age when he wrote it!!1
(it r0x'd mate)

Ah, and now I'm reading Philik Dik's VALIS!

I, Scamp (Øystein), Thursday, 16 June 2005 15:08 (twenty years ago)

barthelme - 60 stories

Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Monday, 20 June 2005 12:45 (twenty years ago)

Alan Hollinghurst - The Swimming Pool Library. Very good, very interesting.

Ray (Ray), Tuesday, 21 June 2005 12:06 (twenty years ago)

Lanark. It is not as I expected, somehow, and I like it. And just finished Young Men In Spats by Wodehouse.

For my birthday on Sunday I got a slightly odd selection: 'Sacrilege' by Brendan Cleary, 'According to Queeney' by Beryl Bainbridge, and 'Canal Dreams' by Iain Banks.

Archel (Archel), Tuesday, 21 June 2005 13:48 (twenty years ago)

Ian Rankin - Knots & Crosses

Navek Rednam (Navek Rednam), Tuesday, 21 June 2005 22:40 (twenty years ago)

"The Earth" by Richard Fortey. I'm really fed up of it now.

Peter Stringbender (PJ Miller), Thursday, 23 June 2005 06:20 (twenty years ago)

O.Nate is right about Dylan.

I am part way through The Mezzanine. I will finish it.

I am over halfway through The Whole Equation. I think that JtN said he had mixed feelings about it. And I want now to know more about those.

the pinefox, Thursday, 23 June 2005 09:32 (twenty years ago)

just finished: Mr. Bridge by Evan S. Connell

just started: Nixon At The Movies by Mark Feeney

m coleman (lovebug starski), Thursday, 23 June 2005 09:35 (twenty years ago)

More than halfway through Jonathan Coe's The Closed Circle. I picked it up meaning to read just the first few pages and got sucked right in. I forgot that Coe can do that to you.

zan, Thursday, 23 June 2005 13:57 (twenty years ago)

About halfway through I Am Legend, which is pretty good, but isn't scaring me as much as it did accentmonkey.

Ray (Ray), Thursday, 23 June 2005 14:02 (twenty years ago)

Michael Foot's biography of HG Wells.

Markelby (Mark C), Thursday, 23 June 2005 16:09 (twenty years ago)

'german for reading knowledge'
'black english'
somethin about adorno's aesthetics

Josh (Josh), Friday, 24 June 2005 07:35 (twenty years ago)

horkheimer/adorno's 'dialectic of enlightenment' xp

Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Friday, 24 June 2005 07:36 (twenty years ago)

Desperation by Stephen King

Fred (Fred), Friday, 24 June 2005 08:11 (twenty years ago)

I never got back to you, josh, about the new poetic. : /

c/n (Cozen), Friday, 24 June 2005 16:57 (twenty years ago)

did you ever actually end up finding out what it was? this of course does not always happen at the end of a book.

and of course one does not always reach the end of a book.

which is to say i do not always reach the end of a book.

Josh (Josh), Friday, 24 June 2005 18:50 (twenty years ago)

I have finished Thomson's book, and still want to know more about JtN's take. Has anyone read any reviews?

the pinefox, Friday, 24 June 2005 19:58 (twenty years ago)

Silverfin - Charlie Higson

About the adventures of the young James Bond. Started pretty well with an entertaining riff on the first line of Casino Royale.

Navek Rednam (Navek Rednam), Friday, 24 June 2005 23:19 (twenty years ago)

Well, aside from that book Dylan Thomas I have right now, I'm also in process of reading through a collection of Borges short stories (Labyrinths) and W.G. Sebald's Vertigo. Like someone mentioned upthread, a lot of similarities between the two -- enjoying both a great deal.

mj (robert blake), Sunday, 26 June 2005 03:13 (twenty years ago)

pinefox - i thought you read slow,ly? when you read fast, like that, i feel as if betrayed.

brothers, in, arms..........?, Sunday, 26 June 2005 05:15 (twenty years ago)

About halfway through I Am Legend, which is pretty good, but isn't scaring me as much as it did accentmonkey.

What are you, some kind of robot?

Now I'm reading Blood and Guts by Roy Porter. It's a short history of medicine and it's pretty interesting, even if it is just a skim. I'm finding it really hard to read at the moment. I have a house full of fantastic books that look really great and I have no desire to read any of them. Summertime slump.

accentmonkey (accentmonkey), Sunday, 26 June 2005 07:50 (twenty years ago)

The Master was much, much better than I thought it was going to be after a couple of chapters. Feared it might be a little dry but beautifully done and very moving. If you like James I'd warmly recommend it.

I've just started the Edith Grossman translation of Don Quixote which, given how little time I spend reading these days, will keep me occupied for a while.

frankiemachine, Monday, 27 June 2005 14:30 (twenty years ago)

Perhaps I should get back into this "reading" thing.

Casuistry (Chris P), Monday, 27 June 2005 19:19 (twenty years ago)

You and me both, Chris.

k/l (Ken L), Monday, 27 June 2005 20:43 (twenty years ago)

I finished DT cos I was ill and doing nowt else.

I still want to see more on JtN's view. I have read some reviews. And I have started thinking about the comparison with pop.

I am about 10pp from the end of The Mezzanine.

the bellefox, Tuesday, 28 June 2005 12:19 (twenty years ago)

'german for reading knowledge'
'letters to felician'
a little celan for taste
'black english'
paging through stacks of books on wittgenstein
'a history of reading'

i very ambitiously put 'genji' next to my bed for sleepless late-night reading but it's just so bulky and the chapters are too long for that. better for deliberate pre-bedtime reading, i think.

Josh (Josh), Thursday, 30 June 2005 09:08 (twenty years ago)

dipping into the 'arcades project'

Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Thursday, 30 June 2005 09:13 (twenty years ago)

I finished The Mezzanine; now I am reading How To Be Alone. Does anyone else like or dislike that book? I am uncertain of its claims, but that perhaps keeps it interesting.

the pinefox, Thursday, 30 June 2005 13:40 (twenty years ago)

Fire in The Lake by Frances Fitzgerald

M. White (Miguelito), Thursday, 30 June 2005 20:09 (twenty years ago)

Just finished '10 days wonder' by Ellery Queen.
Enjoyed it, probably partly for nostalgic reasons (there were loads of Ellery Queen books in the library when I was a teenager) but it's still surprising how hard his books are to find these days.
This was in the Large Print section of my library. I'd forgotten that the Large Print section stays true to authors that the proper library has dismissed. Also, Large Print books are fun to read. You feel like you're flying through the book, you're turning pages so often.

Joe Kay (feethurt), Thursday, 30 June 2005 21:19 (twenty years ago)

I just finished one of them there Psmith books which we were talking about last year. Psmith Journalist, it was. I was not much taken with it, I have to say. Having started out my Wodehouse reading with Jeeves and Wooster and a bit of Blandings thrown in, I fear I may be too old now to take on any of his other characters. Has anyone else ever experienced this?

I'm currently reading Michael Booth's It's Just as Well I'm Leaving, which is about appreciating and recreating the travel writings of Hans Christian Andersen. It's one of those new-fangled travel/biography books where there's too much of the author's life in it, and there are definitely too many very poor jokes. If he stuck to some straight-ahead storytelling it would be a great book, but as it is it's merely a good book.

accentmonkey (accentmonkey), Friday, 1 July 2005 13:39 (twenty years ago)

Rereading "The Old Patagonian Express" by Paul Theroux. I read a bunch of his travel books as a teen and was entertained by what a miserable bastard he is, but I guess I glossed over the borderline racism of some of his commentary. Still a pretty good idea though, a travel book not about exotic locales but about the actual process and emotions of travelling.

n/a (Nick A.), Friday, 1 July 2005 15:52 (twenty years ago)

Gravity's Rainbow by Pynchon.

Just see what all the fuss is about. Also, Selected Thomas Hardy Poems picked by Tom Paulin.

Navek Rednam (Navek Rednam), Friday, 1 July 2005 15:56 (twenty years ago)

the first steve erickson, with the next three waiting.

neal stephenson, as of tomorrow.

finally got: lawrence james on the british empire, & on british india

tom west (thomp), Friday, 1 July 2005 23:27 (twenty years ago)

a little kafka. a little little kafka, to be more exact.

Josh (Josh), Saturday, 2 July 2005 05:14 (twenty years ago)

The new Harry Mathews.
The new James Salter.

Based on the first story, Salter is still the champ.

k/l (Ken L), Friday, 8 July 2005 13:58 (twenty years ago)

Last book I read was Portnoy's Complaint.
Now reading The Plot Against America.

Why didn't I check out Roth earlier? Ach!

Øystein (Øystein), Friday, 8 July 2005 14:31 (twenty years ago)

i'd like a new thread now.

jed_ (jed), Friday, 8 July 2005 15:51 (twenty years ago)

sam delaney's ('motion of light in water') self-penned biog, how can a bk abt growing (and not just growing up) fail?

Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Sunday, 10 July 2005 20:56 (twenty years ago)

For you, jed: Late 2005: So now what are you reading?

Casuistry (Chris P), Sunday, 10 July 2005 21:04 (twenty years ago)


You must be logged in to post. Please either login here, or if you are not registered, you may register here.