*What book are you reading? (part 2)

[sojourner]

2666 by Roberto Bolano.

Definitely one of the first 'classics' of the 21st century.

looks interesting

swapsies?

 

[Dillinger4]

looks interesting

swapsies?

I am nowhere near finished yet.

Although I did read the first 150 pages in one day. There are still about 800 more to go.

When I am done - definitely.

More people need to read this.

 

[Dillinger4]

Oh, and in between reading 2666, I have been reading Daughters of Juarez about all the murders there. Proper shocking.

 

[sojourner]

More people need to read this.

All I need to know

 

[sojourner]

Oh, and in between reading 2666, I have been reading Daughters of Juarez about all the murders there. Proper shocking.

quite fancy that as well

when I'm on holiday, we should sort some proper book swapsies out

 

[ViolentPanda]

Just finished "More Tales of the City" by Armistead Maupin, have almost finished "Eating for England" by Nigel Slater, and am halfway through "Hammer or Anvil: The Story of the German Working-Class Movement" by Evelyn Anderson.

 

[Paulie Tandoori]

Armistead Maupin is a very good writer imo.

 

[electrogirl]

I'm quite a bit through The Beauty Myth now. I have a feeling everyone should read it.

 

[El Jefe]

Lonesome Dove - Larry McMurtry

absurdly satisfying

i loved it but found the ending a bit meh

 

[madamv]

I read all the Armistead Maupins 'city' series and loved them. A really light read, easy to digest and just soak in...

I am still half way through Brideshead Revisited and Julie Walters autobiography. I havent picked either up in weeks, although I was really enjoying them. I have lost my reading mojo

 

[ViolentPanda]

Armistead Maupin is a very good writer imo.

Agreed. He's great at sketching his characters and getting you interested in them.

 

[ViolentPanda]

I read all the Armistead Maupins 'city' series and loved them. A really light read, easy to digest and just soak in...

He wrote "Tales...", "More Tales..." and "Further Tales" as serials for a San Francisco newspaper, apparently, which is why all the chapters are so short and punchy.
I'm looking forward to reading "Michael Tolliver Lives!" in the near future too.

 

[kittyP]

Currently re-reading 'Life the universe and everything' but kinda lost interest so tomorrow I shall be starting the second novel in The Flashman Papers, 'Royal Flash'.

Thanks to CR

 

[goldenecitrone]

The Barefoot Emperor by Phillip Marsden. Here's part of a review in the Spectator.

Ethiopia, an ancient Christian state, the emperors of which claimed descent from Solomon and Sheba, had passed into mediaeval myth as the kingdom of Prester John. But by the middle of the 19th century it had been stuck in the Wars of the Roses for hundreds of years, as dynastic clans fought for supremacy, and was thus too embattled, too remote, too poor, for any of the Great Powers to grab. Then, in the 1860s, one warlord clambered out of the scrum, proclaimed himself the Emperor Theodore of prophecy, a sort of King Arthur figure, and took over the whole country. Only his nemesis intervened: the Emperor Theodore, as such a man might, took it into his head to write a friendly letter to Queen Victoria.

The tragedy that followed echoes the Elvis Presley song, ‘Return to Sender’ (‘She wrote upon it, “Return to sender, Address unknown, No such number, No such zone”’). For the Queen did not reply, her Civil Service having filed it somewhere, as civil servants do (and will probably file, and lose, details of the Last Judgment if entrusted with these by the Almighty).

Things happened quickly after that. The Emperor got the hump, went barmy and locked up the handful of white diplomats and missionaries who were in his country. Actually it was even odder than that, for he first commanded the missionaries to make him a cannon. And these remarkable men, who had never cast so much as a thimble, cast cannon after cannon, each one bigger than the last, culminating in the monster he called Sebastapol. For somehow news of the Crimea was getting through, confusing even further the Emperor, who could not understand how Britain could be in alliance with the infidel Turks

 

[smmudge]

I'm quite a bit through The Beauty Myth now. I have a feeling everyone should read it.

I thought the Beauty Myth was very good. I tried to get my mother to read it but she didn't seem very interested. What's slightly worrying about it is you can tell it's not even that recent yet pretty much everything she says is still relevant.

I'm half way through The Second Sex and would recommed that too if you haven't already read it.

 

[electrogirl]

I thought the Beauty Myth was very good. I tried to get my mother to read it but she didn't seem very interested. What's slightly worrying about it is you can tell it's not even that recent yet pretty much everything she says is still relevant.

I'm half way through The Second Sex and would recommed that too if you haven't already read it.

Thank you, yes all of what she says still applies today, if not more so. I don't think I've ever been more aware of diets/body image/cosmetics being everywhere I look.

I'll have a look at The Second Sex thank you. I'm reading this for a feminist bookgroup so will see if they've read it already and maybe suggest it for a later meeting.

 

[_pH_]

.

 

[electrogirl]

.

 

[rollinder]

been dipping in and out of the Penguin Classics corrected to the original part 1&2 edition of Little Women.
bought it from a Clic shop books bargain bin with an eye for selling/swapping it online, but the intro notes re feminist subtext/(re)interpretation + the above make it a keeper (for now anyway)
plus John Peel/Sheila Ravenscroft - Margrave of the Marshes
sweet, funny, warm, loving and sad in places.
wish he'd written more but Sheila's lovely

 

[Dillinger4]

.

.

oooooooooooooooooooooooooo.

Mysterious.

 

[electrogirl]

Haha and quite unusual on a thread of this kind.

 

[Dillinger4]

I know what you did.

 

[electrogirl]

I thought you might.

 

[OneStrike]

A man called Dave. It was recommended by a near illiterate friend so i didn't hold much hope. It is actually quite a moving story about the life of an abused child. Not especially well written but therein lies the charm.

 

[El Jefe]

abuse-porn

 

[Dirty Martini]

Finished Netherland by Joseph O'Neill.

I really liked this, much more than I thought I would. It has some interesting and even original things to say about cricket and New York, and is pretty beautifully written. I particularly enjoyed the way it was structured, creating suspense for each of the strands of the story, juggling them brilliantly. The endings's a bit unsatisfying though...

And it is beautifully written, but there is something that disturbs me -- again, that surface brilliance that makes many voices in current fiction sound the same. Urbane, liberal, humble, ironic -- it's difficult to tell them apart.

 

[El Jefe]

i loved the writing, but couldn't find much beyond the writing - the only thing that kept me going through the "not very much" was how well it was written

 

[Dirty Martini]

i loved the writing, but couldn't find much beyond the writing - the only thing that kept me going through the "not very much" was how well it was written

Ah, that's cos you're not a cricketer

I know what you mean, but it did seem to say some uncanny things about my situation. Novels don't usually do that for me, so I liked it for that.

 

[El Jefe]

i get how it was about being shaped by your memories but there were pages and pages and pages of interior monologue, i thought it was just a bit overkill. But the guy can write

 

[Dillinger4]

Netherland keeps getting recommended to me, but it doesn't appeal to me at all.

I am half way through 2666 now. It is brilliant.