Late 2005: So now what are you reading?

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I remember when I used to read things.

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

try it again and see how you get along...

Marilynne Robinson's "Gilead" which is beautiful and precise and wonderful and complex and still. I'm reading it very slowly and, for the first time in a long time, i'm in no particular rush to reach the end. i LOVE this book. please read it.

Thanks for the new thread!

― jed_ (jed), Sunday, 10 July 2005 22:59 (twenty years ago)

Nabokov - "Glory"

― Hurting (Hurting), Sunday, 10 July 2005 23:07 (twenty years ago)

i was just thinking about marilynne robinson, cuz i am watching a horrible movie starring christine lahti, and of course christine lahti was in the movie version of housekeeping, marilynne's one and only masterpiece before gilead. i also picked up a great book of interviews from the 80's with writers from the pacific northwest, and she was one of the interviews. she is really cool. the raymond carver interview was great in that book too. and sad, cuz he died a year or two after this book came out. (called *At The Field's End* if you dig writers talking about writing, you should check it out. gary snyder, barry lopez, tom robbins, ursula k. le guin, jean auel, etc.)

speaking of interviews, the 2nd interview ever with cormac mccarthy is in the new vanity fair. very interesting, and i'm not really a fan or anything. he's just interesting. he spends all his time writing at a scientific think-tank in santa fe! who knew? he is the only writer there.

― scott seward (scott seward), Monday, 11 July 2005 00:58 (twenty years ago)

Percy - "The Moviegoer"
Joyce - "Ulysses" (have spent about two weeks on this, gotten to the Aeolus chapter so far)

And I've got Whitman's "Leaves of Grass" I'm about to crack open. This Norton volume contain both the deathbed and 1855 editions. Any advice on which one to read first?

― mj (robert blake), Monday, 11 July 2005 01:41 (twenty years ago)

I really liked The Moviegoer. But I tend to like things with bitter lonely male protagonists a little too much.

― Hurting (Hurting), Monday, 11 July 2005 01:59 (twenty years ago)

The deathbed edition is waaaay longer.

― Casuistry (Chris P), Monday, 11 July 2005 02:03 (twenty years ago)

Yeah, I saw that. But is there anything special about all of those massive reduxes/annexes he added to the original that make them worth reading?

― mj (robert blake), Monday, 11 July 2005 02:42 (twenty years ago)

Well, to be honest, I've only read the deathbed edition. And it was a long time ago.

I recommend you start with one section -- the "Song of Myself", say -- and read both versions and decide which you prefer, and go from there.

― Casuistry (Chris P), Monday, 11 July 2005 02:55 (twenty years ago)

trying to finish steve fuller's social epistemology, which is not an easy read, and often more confusing than it needs to be. he thinks too fast for his writing to be clear.

― Sterling Clover (s_clover), Monday, 11 July 2005 03:08 (twenty years ago)

I've just started "Gulag: A history of the Soviet camps" by Anne Applebaum, and it's pretty interesting so far.

― Lady Lazarus, Monday, 11 July 2005 06:38 (twenty years ago)

you should read the original version of leaves of grass first, so that you can have finished it. if you start the deathbed edition first you might not finish it and then you won't have finished anything!

plus, the original is more punchy. but if i recall correctly there's no 'eidolons' in that one, which is slightly too bad just because i find it kind of endearing in its repetition of 'eidolons' despite otherwise not being all that.

eidolons!

― Josh (Josh), Monday, 11 July 2005 08:58 (twenty years ago)

'Fags and Lager' by Charlie Williams.

― snotty moore, Monday, 11 July 2005 13:16 (twenty years ago)

I just finished the Ray Bradbury collection *I Sing The Body Electric*. I picked up a bunch of Bradbury paperbacks at the thrift store. I thought they would make for good summer reading. And I have never read any of them before. I enjoyed this one a bunch. I have no idea why I didn't read his stuff when I was a kid. He would have been my hero.

But now I am going to start reading *Singing from the Well* by Reinaldo Arenas.

― scott seward (scott seward), Monday, 11 July 2005 15:08 (twenty years ago)

I finished Denis Johnson's 'The Name of the World' yesterday (all 129 pages of it) and started 'Utopia' by Lincoln Child. I've always loved the Preston/Child books but for some reason haven't read any of Child's "solo" novels, and after recently finishing Gravity's Rainbow I needed some less, ah, challenging material.

After I finish that I'm going to read Catch-22-- I think I'm the only person alive who has never read it.

― jedidiah (jedidiah), Monday, 11 July 2005 16:10 (twenty years ago)

(Also as I recall the hot gay action isn't in the first edition of LoG.)

― Casuistry (Chris P), Monday, 11 July 2005 16:20 (twenty years ago)

scott, we got to study bradbury short stories ar school!

After I finish that I'm going to read Catch-22-- I think I'm the only person alive who has never read it.

i've got a friend who has read Ulysses, War & Peace etc i.e. all those supposed inpenetrable books, but she just can't get past the first 10 pages of Catch 22. i think she's tried about 5 times now!

anyway, i've just finished "my fault" by billy childish. like a british "ham on rye" bukowski, he can write ok but it was relentlessly depressing. i want some literary chocolate now.

― zappi (joni), Monday, 11 July 2005 23:56 (twenty years ago)

I've just put down "Back" by Henry Green, which I enjoyed very much. I intend to reacquaint myself with Mr. Green soon.

Now I'm reading O Pioneers! by Willa Cather, which is suiting me very well in current circumstances.

― Tim (Tim), Tuesday, 12 July 2005 09:54 (twenty years ago)

Isn't that one biggied up in Something Beginning With O, Tim? Is it modtastic?

― Peter Stringbender (PJ Miller), Tuesday, 12 July 2005 12:50 (twenty years ago)

Put The Book "Back" On The Shelf.

― Peter Stringbender (PJ Miller), Tuesday, 12 July 2005 12:51 (twenty years ago)

Yes there is some biggifying on SBWO. No it's not modtastic. It's more like The Waltons than the Weller.

I used to enjoy watching The Waltons on Sunday mornings when I was wretched with hangover, it felt soothing to the soul. So does this. I haven't got to the bit where they do "Long Shot Kick De Bucket", yet.

The front of "Back" has a Victor Pasmore painting of a naked woman's back.

― Tim (Tim), Tuesday, 12 July 2005 13:08 (twenty years ago)

Just finished Platform by Houellebecq. I honestly don't know what to think. Especially strange to read after what happened last week. And all of that stuff about the hotel business? Are all of his books padded with this stuff? But I can say that he's good at writing sex.

Now reading Lanark by Alasdair Gray.

― zan, Tuesday, 12 July 2005 13:32 (twenty years ago)

I'm reading my first Wodehouse, Thank You, Jeeves, and liking it. For some reason it's hard to keep track of the plot, but the story really isn't the point is it? So I'm just letting the great exchanges of dialogue and the musical prose do their thing.

After this, I want to read Pale Horse, Pale Rider by Katherine Anne Porter, and then a couple more Wodehouses: The Luck of the Bodkins and The Code of the Woosters. And after that Emily of New Moon by L.M. Montgomery.

― Gail S, Tuesday, 12 July 2005 13:47 (twenty years ago)

Yeah, the plots are whimsical and fun enough, but really just an excuse for all the wonderful pipping old boys and mastodont aunts.

I'm reading "Ghost Story" by Peter Straub. It's too darn hot here so maybe this will give me some much-needed chills. Shame I'm a slow reader, or I could fan myself by wooshing through the pages.

― Øystein (Øystein), Tuesday, 12 July 2005 14:27 (twenty years ago)

Finally finishing up My Name Is Red, with Ghostwritten and Girl in Landscape on deck.

The book club at work is doing Time Traveler's Wife, but I'm not sure that I would enjoy reading it.

― Jordan (Jordan), Tuesday, 12 July 2005 20:30 (twenty years ago)

What's with you guys and My Name Is Red- is it required reading for drummers?

― k/l (Ken L), Tuesday, 12 July 2005 20:34 (twenty years ago)

Jordan: Give Time Traveler's Wife a try. I didn't think it sounded that great, but I really enjoyed reading it, to the point where I was sneaking away from my husband's family at Christmas to read just a few more pages. It's not Pamuk, but it's lovely in its own way.

And I'll always be a cheerleader for Ghostwritten...

― zan, Wednesday, 13 July 2005 14:24 (twenty years ago)

The Time Traveler's Wife was wonderful. Plus if you like the Violent Femmes, they have a cameo. Also, I loved the Emily books by Lucy Maude Montgomery when I was younger. They were darker than the Anne books, sort of Victorian Canadian teen goth. Without the make up. I just read After the Quake by Haruki Murakami which I liked a lot. It's the first of his books I've read. I'm normally not so enamoured of short story books, there's not enough to dig into but I did like that one. Reading a Great and Terrible Beauty now.

― Megan, Thursday, 14 July 2005 14:56 (twenty years ago)

HOLY BLOOD HOLY GRAIL
What a ridiculous book.

― n/a (Nick A.), Thursday, 14 July 2005 17:45 (twenty years ago)

Are there nazis in it?

― Jordan (Jordan), Thursday, 14 July 2005 17:55 (twenty years ago)

i'm finishing up "the museum of unconditional surrender" by dubravka ugresic, then i'm probably going to read "portnoy's complaint" or else this new czech novel i got as a promo from dalkey archive.

michel houllebecq's worldview is the most misanthropic and repellent thing i have ever read. i think his books are poorly written and his philosophy is too bleak and childish for me. yet, i've read them all and would leap to read the next one. i enjoy the sex, sure, but mostly i think his nasty, repugnant views are like a guilty pleasure for me - they are so genuine and biting, and i love black humour.

― j fail (cenotaph), Thursday, 14 July 2005 18:37 (twenty years ago)

No Nazis yet, but I'm not that far in.

― n/a (Nick A.), Thursday, 14 July 2005 19:57 (twenty years ago)

Nazis, I hate those guys.

― Navek Rednam (Navek Rednam), Thursday, 14 July 2005 20:15 (twenty years ago)

I've finally finished my tedious travel book and am now reading The Pickup by Nadine Gordimer. Pacy.

― accentmonkey (accentmonkey), Friday, 15 July 2005 11:44 (twenty years ago)

steve erickson, "leap year"

― cozen (Cozen), Friday, 15 July 2005 17:49 (twenty years ago)

"Year of the Comet" by Jan Deblieu, who also wrote a book called "Wind."
Using only a pair of binoculars, some star maps, and a few rudimentary books, Deblieu immerses herself in a study of the stars and the study of the human brain --how it works and what happens when it goes awry. "Some mysterious force gave birth to the stars: they in turn spawned the planet on which I stood. And on down the line, to the drops of blood that coursed through my body, the neurons that fired in my brain."

I just finished "Plan B," by Anne Lamott. A good book, a sequel to "Tender Mercies."

― pepektheassassin (pepektheassassin), Friday, 15 July 2005 18:14 (twenty years ago)

'cryptonomicon'. i was very disappointed when it turned out to be about nazi gold.

j lethem, 'the disappointment artist'. has its moments. will revive that old thread once i'm done with it, mebbe.

steve erickson.

'1968 in america' by iforgetwho, my sister bought it for me years ago, it annoys me.

next up: more steve erickson, delillo's 'end zone', if i don't have a summer job by the end of the month proust

― tom west (thomp), Friday, 15 July 2005 21:05 (twenty years ago)

I just finished Florence of Arabia, by Christopher Buckly--mostly quite funny.
I also went through The Italian Secretary, by Caleb Carr--good Sherlock Holmes pastiche, but the story promises a bit more than it delivers.
A couple of weeks ago, I read Cold Service, by Robert B. Parker--a middling Spenser mystery.

― Mr. Jaggers, Friday, 15 July 2005 21:43 (twenty years ago)

right now, Joseph Roth, 'The Emperor's Tomb'
next, Alice Munro, 'The Progress Of Love'

― derrick (derrick), Saturday, 16 July 2005 07:19 (twenty years ago)

Star Smashers of the Galaxy Rangers by Harry Harrison. Wonderfuly awful.

― Navek Rednam (Navek Rednam), Sunday, 17 July 2005 07:04 (twenty years ago)

Når jernteppet faller by Jonas Lie.

― SRH (Skrik), Sunday, 17 July 2005 15:49 (twenty years ago)

Sigmund Diamond's Compromised Campus is current bedtime reading.

― Sterling Clover (s_clover), Sunday, 17 July 2005 16:35 (twenty years ago)

I'm reading "Tomassi and the Blind Photographer" by Gesualdo Bufalino. It's good, but I'm not yet sure how good.

― Tim (Tim), Sunday, 17 July 2005 20:39 (twenty years ago)

i am reading second skin by john hawkes. it's very good.

― caitlin oh no (caitxa1), Sunday, 17 July 2005 20:57 (twenty years ago)

I have indeed found myself reading The Time Traveler's Wife.

― Jordan (Jordan), Sunday, 17 July 2005 23:38 (twenty years ago)

Philosophy in the Twentieth Century, by AJ Ayer, a book I should have read in college, but didn't.
Recently read - Watership Down, and The Men Who Stare at Goats.

― Ray (Ray), Monday, 18 July 2005 07:30 (twenty years ago)

Selected Stories by Alice Munro and How to Be Alone by Jonathan Franzen

― youn, Monday, 18 July 2005 10:00 (twenty years ago)

i keep cheating on the reinaldo arenas book i'm supposed to be reading by reading edward hoagland essays.

― scott seward (scott seward), Monday, 18 July 2005 12:19 (twenty years ago)

i am reading second skin by john hawkes. it's very good.
Man, I loved that book. I think I started a John Hawkes thread and it went unanswered.

― k/l (Ken L), Monday, 18 July 2005 12:34 (twenty years ago)

Recently read - Watership Down

Blub fest!

I am almost finished my Nadine Gordimer and will then read some Beryl Bainbridge book which has such a terrible seventies cover, complete with awful photo, that I am embarrassed to be seen with it and will not read it in public, but huddled in a corner somewhere. Luckily it is very short.

― accentmonkey (accentmonkey), Monday, 18 July 2005 13:04 (twenty years ago)

Skipping 877 messages at this point... Click here if you want to load them all.

from here to eternity

― rogermexico (rogermexico), Friday, 16 December 2005 01:58 (nineteen years ago)

cloud atlas

― NavekRednam, Friday, 16 December 2005 23:07 (nineteen years ago)

Jarhead, in whihc US Marine paints himself as victim. I think it's shit. Good job I only got it out of the library. Even gooder job that I got a load more at the same time.

― PJ Miller (PJ Miller 68), Monday, 19 December 2005 14:17 (nineteen years ago)

marguerite duras - the lover
i think it's a bit much at times, but maybe it's supposed to be

also i'm on pg 18 of s/z by roland barthes but i think i'm not in the mood for it now

― caitlin oh no (caitxa1), Monday, 19 December 2005 15:35 (nineteen years ago)

Rereading Voyage around my Room, because it was mentioned on the LibraryThing thread. It's such an excellent little book, especially the contrasts between the soul and the beast.

― Jaq (Jaq), Monday, 19 December 2005 15:40 (nineteen years ago)

"The Quest For Dr. U" turned out not to be as much fun as I'd hoped, a bit of a genre play but it was too experimental to have anything which I could cotton onto as a plot. Which made it interesting rather than good.

Yesterday I read "The Mistress of Silence" by Jaqueline Harpmann, French psychological sci-fi of a sort, entertaining enough without amazing me.

Now I'm reading "The Devil's Own Work" by Alan Judd. It seems qui8te good, so far. Nice and short.

Attentive readers may have noted that "The Quest For Dr. U" has five words in the title. I hadn't noticed that until just now. I've blown it and I'm gutted.

― Tim (Tim), Tuesday, 20 December 2005 10:31 (nineteen years ago)

I'm reading Susan Coopers 'The Dark is Rising' series again (I read them at least four times a year)They are not particularly difficult book being originally intended for children, but is you would like an entertaining and gripping fantasy you cant go past them.

I'm also reading 'Jazz' by Toni Morrison. For those of you who havent read it, do so immediately. It won the nobel prize and is almost like reading poetry.

― Shutruk Nahhunte (Shutruk Nahhunte), Tuesday, 20 December 2005 14:59 (nineteen years ago)

Tim must be punished for this lapse! Or not. (Just pretend it was called The Quest for Dru?)

― Archel (Archel), Tuesday, 20 December 2005 15:02 (nineteen years ago)

Still got my head down in the Inca conquest. By a strange twist of fate, Morales has been elected president of Bolivia today! They live on still if you accept Aymara Indians as part of the Incan empire (natch).

My girlfriend bought me a first edition Brautigan for my birthday. My cup overfloweth.

― Mikey G (Mikey G), Tuesday, 20 December 2005 15:16 (nineteen years ago)

You're finished, Hopkins. You're yesterday.

― the firefox, Tuesday, 20 December 2005 15:21 (nineteen years ago)

I know. I am trying to resist being genuinely angry with myself, and to remind myself that this was just a goofy game anyway. I got slack, I got weak.

Mike, I hope it didn't leave a stain.

― Tim (Tim), Tuesday, 20 December 2005 15:28 (nineteen years ago)

This is I Love Books, not I Love Bonks.

Nobel prize does not go to books. This is starting to bother me almost as much as people writing Meat Loaf's name as one word.

I am not reading anything. It's for squares. I'm wired for sound.

― PJ Miller (PJ Miller 68), Tuesday, 20 December 2005 16:20 (nineteen years ago)

I'm not sure waht I'm reading. I WAS reading Boris Vian's " L'Ecume des Jours" ("Froth on the daydream" is one of the English translations' title)
But I've LOST the cursed thing! I usually have books in my pocket, so I fear I've simply wobbled around somewhere and the cursed thing has seen its chance and taken the leap.

So, now I'm reading Paal Brekke's "Aldrende Orfeus" ("Aging Orpheus") which is one of the big classics of Norwegian post-war literature. I have't quite managed to commit myself to it though, as I keep trying to find the Vian.

― Øystein (Øystein), Tuesday, 20 December 2005 18:27 (nineteen years ago)

I am still reading The Fatal Shore. God, I might as well be writing it, it's taking so long. Bloody Australians.

PF, I have finally got around to bringing your book home from the shop and will make a little parcel of it tonight. It can be like a Christmas present!

― accentmonkey (accentmonkey), Tuesday, 20 December 2005 18:38 (nineteen years ago)

I found that The Fatal Shore started to repeat itself, laying the same groundwork and making the same points over and over. It could easily have been 2/3 the length it was and much better for it.

― Aimless (Aimless), Tuesday, 20 December 2005 18:53 (nineteen years ago)

Joseph Roth's 'Report from a Parisian Paradise'.

― M. White (Miguelito), Tuesday, 20 December 2005 20:10 (nineteen years ago)

Orwell's England

― PJ Miller (PJ Miller 68), Wednesday, 21 December 2005 12:02 (nineteen years ago)

Haha, Tim, I bought The Quest for Dr. U for the same reasons as you, I think (and the fact that it was on the bargain shelf for a dollar) and had pretty much the same reaction as you- the first few pages I was thinking "this is the greatest thing ever" but eventually I got bored with the whole exercise.

― Redd Harvest (Ken L), Wednesday, 21 December 2005 14:33 (nineteen years ago)

I'm reading Smashed by Koren Zailckas (? sp) and it's far better than I imagined it would be.

― Roxymuzak, Mrs. Carbohydrate (roxymuzak), Wednesday, 21 December 2005 14:51 (nineteen years ago)

I started Alasdair Gray's Lanark last night. And somehow (by talking too much about my anti-religiousness at work and loaning out The Book of J to a co-worker), I've been obligated to read a book of Xtian apologetics and report back whether I am "open-minded" enough to buy any of the arguments. Bah.

― Jaq (Jaq), Wednesday, 21 December 2005 17:14 (nineteen years ago)

In this busy season I've been re-reading one of Paul Thoreaux's best "travelling grump" books: The Old Patagonian Express.

― Aimless (Aimless), Wednesday, 21 December 2005 18:04 (nineteen years ago)

OK, I broke down and started "The Varieties Of Religious Experience".

― Casuistry (Chris P), Wednesday, 21 December 2005 20:03 (nineteen years ago)

'pattern recognition'

― tom west (thomp), Wednesday, 21 December 2005 22:14 (nineteen years ago)

'the reformation', and i'm quite interested.

― Josh (Josh), Thursday, 22 December 2005 05:20 (nineteen years ago)

I like the final chapter in the Old Patagonian Express, all the 'nowhere is a place' business. It's a book that combines his best and worst writing. The description of a football match in El Salvador (Guatemala? Can't remember) is fingers on chalkboard stuff.

The Old Patagonian Express itself is a lovely train ride. "the smell of yesterday's picnic' as Chatwin captured it.

― Mikey G (Mikey G), Thursday, 22 December 2005 10:15 (nineteen years ago)

"The Devil's Own Work" is fun for those with an interest in literature, it's an engaging little novella without being thematically or formally amazing. I'm glad I read it.

Now I'm reading "You're An Animal, Viskovitz!" by Alessandro Boffa. Although it's a title with a surfeit of punctuation, something I take to be a bad sign, it's enjoyable enough. A series of small tales, with something of the tone of Dan Rhodes about them, featuring the lives of various animals. It gets quite biological at times but gives - guess what?- an insight into the human condition, or at least that's what it says on the cover. I've laughed, at least three times, and I'm only on page 72. That's quite unusual.

― Tim (Tim), Thursday, 22 December 2005 10:19 (nineteen years ago)

I'm at the end of the Inca conquest. The last Inca, Tupac Amaru has just been executed (a Cuzco drive-by, natch) and the Spaniards are melting down the gold and building extravagent palaces in Extremadura.

Next, I'm going to read a book that doesn't contain 100 pages of footnotes.

― Mikey G (Mikey G), Thursday, 22 December 2005 10:22 (nineteen years ago)

Has reading that book made you want to go and conquer somewhere, Mikey? You could go and conquer Chingford, or something.

― Tim (Tim), Thursday, 22 December 2005 10:36 (nineteen years ago)

Chingford has already been conquered by a chav army. I have my arquebusiers trained on a mysterious land to the east. Dalston.

― Mikey G (Mikey G), Thursday, 22 December 2005 12:11 (nineteen years ago)

I am currently reading Jabez by David McKie. I want to hurry myself up and finish it, because it's nearly Christmas and I want to read the copy of The Children Of Green Knowe that I bought myself when Chrismas shopping last weekend. Although, to tell the truth, even if I read that slowly I could probably get through it in a couple of hours in any case.

― Forest Pines (ForestPines), Thursday, 22 December 2005 13:39 (nineteen years ago)

TH, you are droll.

I am reading The Complete Letters of Oscar Wilde!

Well, at the moment I am only rereading the Introduction.

It is by Merlin Holland.

― the snowfox, Thursday, 22 December 2005 21:08 (nineteen years ago)

Interesting letters to Whistler - brief and cutting. Also interesting to observe the gender politics, and indeed the class constrictions, when OW starts to get hold of the magazine The Lady's World - I had not known till now that it was he who insisted on changing it to The Woman's World.

Now - Henry James!

― the snowfox, Friday, 23 December 2005 11:17 (nineteen years ago)

Richard Brautigan - A Confederate General from Big Sur. Aside from the casual misogynst sentence, it is, of course, a corker.

He uses 'uglies' to denote ladies of less than beautiful perfection. The correct term is, of course, minger.

― Mikey G (Mikey G), Friday, 23 December 2005 11:19 (nineteen years ago)

Dog.

― PJ Miller (PJ Miller 68), Friday, 23 December 2005 12:06 (nineteen years ago)

A Christmas Treasury
Myth, Magic and Mystery: One Hundred Years of American Children's Book Illustration
Prep
The Original Illustrated Arthur Conan Doyle
The Haunted Looking Glass: Ghost Stories Chosen by Edward Gorey
Madeline in America
White Christmas

― Mary (Mary), Saturday, 24 December 2005 09:42 (nineteen years ago)

Henry never, William forever!

― Casuistry (Chris P), Saturday, 24 December 2005 11:20 (nineteen years ago)

Mary's book list is good.

I read 'Daisy Miller'. I don't think it delivered.

I have moved on to F. Scott Fitzgerald.

― the snowfox, Saturday, 24 December 2005 14:56 (nineteen years ago)

I'm reading my way through the Booker shortlist. So far I've read Zadie and Ali Smith and Julian Barnes. All have their good and bad points but if I had been judging Zadie would be winning so far. I had more or less intended to read the Bookers consecutively but yesterday I bought "20,000 Streets Under the Sky" by Richard Hamilton so I might not.

― frankiemachine, Saturday, 24 December 2005 15:46 (nineteen years ago)

Morrissey & Marr: The Severed Alliance (inspired by Matos's ref on "The Smiths are reuniting" thread)

― Chris F. (servoret), Sunday, 25 December 2005 09:36 (nineteen years ago)

John Peel - Margrave of the Marshes

― PJ Miller (PJ Miller 68), Monday, 26 December 2005 17:04 (nineteen years ago)

Finished Thoreaux (or refinished? but that sounds like he's furniture). Now reading Uncle Dynamite by P.G. Wodehouse. I'll get on to deeper things after my recovery has fully taken hold.

― Aimless (Aimless), Monday, 26 December 2005 17:38 (nineteen years ago)

I'm only reading "completely fluff" stuff right now - so last night I started Christopher Moore's Practical Demonkeeping.

― I'm Passing Open Windows (Ms Laura), Monday, 26 December 2005 19:15 (nineteen years ago)

The Last Tycoon: so much of Thomson seems to derive from, or to draw inspiration from, it - though in the Thalberg entry in the BDofFilm he seems more sceptical than in The Whole Equation.

― the pinefox, Tuesday, 27 December 2005 19:29 (nineteen years ago)

Yesterday, Ciaran Carson's translation of Merriman's The Midnight Court, a C18 Irish poetic fantasy. Another book I am glad to have read - and I am glad to find it not overlong. The rendering is lively, even self-consciously so; 'whatever you say, say nothing', one line advises! But I am not sure how much cohesion of meaning I find in the poem and its characters.

― the finefox, Tuesday, 27 December 2005 19:33 (nineteen years ago)

long, thread, too.

― tom west (thomp), Tuesday, 27 December 2005 21:58 (nineteen years ago)

2006: what are you reading now?

― tom west (thomp), Tuesday, 27 December 2005 21:59 (nineteen years ago)

It is late 2005.

I daresay I am stating the obvious again.

― the pinefox, Tuesday, 27 December 2005 22:42 (nineteen years ago)

I'm not ready for it to be 2006 just yet. 2005 was a weird year in many ways, but an excellent one so far on the reading front. Lanark proceeds darkly, so darkly.

― Jaq (Jaq), Tuesday, 27 December 2005 22:47 (nineteen years ago)

A book I have not yet dared to read, so long is it. Really, I almost intended to be reading it now.

― the snowfox, Tuesday, 27 December 2005 23:44 (nineteen years ago)

Q: What would F. Scott Fitzgerald make of Hollywood today, do you think?

A: He’d want to read The Whole Equation quickly. He’d be sad, very sad–but he was when he was alive. I hope he’d salute my book and we could share a drink, or seven. I would love to try to finish The Last Tycoon the way he laid it out.

― the pinefox, Tuesday, 27 December 2005 23:44 (nineteen years ago)

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