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*What book are you reading ?

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'Northern Lights' by Nora Roberts. An enjoyable, straightforward yarn, very like that tv show 'Northern Exposure' but in book form. Filled with well-worn incidence and such, but done solidly enough to be rather charming.
 
not really reading books at the moment. Instead, in true music geek style I'm going to my big pile of Wire magazines - about 12 years worth - and pulling random copies from the bottom. Interesting to see what I know about or like now that I didn't at the time, and it's always a learning thing.

Tonight in the bath a read a long article about New Orleans R&B / jazz through the eyes of Dr John. :cool:
 
"The Witching Hour" :)

lil brain candy. loving that Rowan Mayfair. brilliant parilment chain smoking neurosurgeon from san fran who lives on her boat.

I'd love to live on a boat, and just take it out and gaze at the stars and vastness of the swaying ocean. it'd save money...for when i want to live in a more permenant location.
 
Just finished Cryers Hill by Kitty Aldridge and really really recommend it. Tis a slow burner at first but has the best child's perspective of life I have ever ever read. Somewhat dark, it meanders between the first world war and the sixties in a small village and becomes utterly compelling. Superbly written and one of those books you really remember long after they have been finished.
 
about to start reading margaret atwood's "oryx and crake"

haven't read any atwood for yonks and am slightly apprehensive....
 
cyberfairy said:
Just finished Cryers Hill by Kitty Aldridge and really really recommend it. Tis a slow burner at first but has the best child's perspective of life I have ever ever read. Somewhat dark, it meanders between the first world war and the sixties in a small village and becomes utterly compelling. Superbly written and one of those books you really remember long after they have been finished.
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That looks interesting, never heard of her before.
 
Dirty Martini said:
That looks interesting, never heard of her before.
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Tis her first book *jealous* I have just discovered the joys of ordering books from library-go into Waterstones, see a book i want and order it if not at library for 60p:cool: Cryers Hill has some interesting stuff about kids learning phonetics in it as well-worked with kids all my life but never before encountered such a beautiful description of a kids mind in the first person. Had tears in eye when finished reading it. Go reserve it at library:)
eview



Walter Brown went alone to the woodland pond on a July afternoon in 1934. He saw his girl swimming there. She wasn't his girl then, but he knew she would be. He was sixteen when he knew. He watched her floating and saw how white her skin was in the green water, her belly, her breasts, her pond-tangled hair. A naked girl. Then she turned over like an otter and dived down. She did not come up again. Two boys... Sean Matthews stands at the bottom of George's Hill, more or less the very centre of the housing estate, with his hands on his hips. School is finished for the summer and last night, 20 July 1969, two men landed on the moon. There is a notice announcing it in the classroom. Jhe spaesmen hav landid in Jhe see ov trankwility. Funetic words, as if it were a huge laugh; but phonetics is not supposed to be funny. It is important and clever. It is a nationwide experiment, government-sanctioned. Sean and his friends are the guinea pigs. Wur...growing up in the same village thirty-five years apart. When Sean Matthews unknowingly witnesses an event he cannot bear to remember, his life is changed forever.Hailed by Salman Rushdie on the publication of her first novel as 'a real discovery, a writer of precision, delicacy and wit', Kitty Aldridge brings us "Cryers Hill", a novel that confirms her as a writer of immense talent, possessing the rare gift of enabling us to see the world anew, infusing the ordinary with a sense of wonder.
 
cyberfairy said:
Tis her first book *jealous* I have just discovered the joys of ordering books from library-go into Waterstones, see a book i want and order it if not at library for 60p:cool: Cryers Hill has some interesting stuff about kids learning phonetics in it as well-worked with kids all my life but never before encountered such a beautiful description of a kids mind in the first person. Had tears in eye when finished reading it. Go reserve it at library:)
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My library won't have it, I'll wait for paperback. Cheers for the recommendation :cool:
 
Rollem said:
about to start reading margaret atwood's "oryx and crake"

haven't read any atwood for yonks and am slightly apprehensive....
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I quite enjoyed it, although it was rather bleak.

Finished Ragtime - bloody brilliant, great book.

Started Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison. Only read The Bluest Eye by her before, so not sure what to expect. First chapter was strangely difficult to read - could have been my tiredness though.
 
Vintage Paw said:
Started Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison. First chapter was strangely difficult to read - could have been my tiredness though.
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Oooo!! I actually put this in me top 3 books tother day - it is absolutely WONDERFUL...can't tell you how much I love this book. Stick with it, it'll start to make sense soon :) :)
 
sojourner said:
Oooo!! I actually put this in me top 3 books tother day - it is absolutely WONDERFUL...can't tell you how much I love this book. Stick with it, it'll start to make sense soon :) :)
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Thank you, I will do :) Actually, I might toddle off to bed with a mug of hot chocolate to read it now!
 
Vintage Paw said:
Thank you, I will do :) Actually, I might toddle off to bed with a mug of hot chocolate to read it now!
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How are you finding it now VP?

I finally finished both Aimee and Jaguar and the re-read of Written on the Body today, and just wrung my heart and head out writing the review...Aimee and Jaguar is now on my must-read list - absolutely fascinating, erotic, despairing...
 
I finished Eight German Novellas and enjoyed about most of them. Standout stories were Clothes Make The Man by Gottfried Keller, The White Horse Rider by Theodor Storm and The Marchioness of O. by Heinrich von Kleist.

Now it's either 54 by Wu "Luther Blissett" Ming or three stories by Dostoyevsky (The Gambler, Bobok and A Nasty Story), in a nice old Penguin Classics edition.
 
Dirty Martini said:
The Marchioness of O. by Heinrich von Kleist
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Heinrich von Kleist wrote some great stories... His essay on puppet theatre is very good too (Über das Marionettentheater)
 
Dirty Martini said:
Can you recommend a good collection/anthology of his stuff in English?
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I don't know if there is an english edition of his eight novellas (Michael Kohlhaas, die heilige Caecilie, die Marquise von O, der Findling, der Zweikampf, die Verlobung in St Domingo, das Bettelweib von Locarno, das Erdbeben in Chile). I think a good anthology should include at least the first three.

I would also recommend the puppet essay. The Broken Jug is the most famous of his plays.
 
Leica said:
I don't know if there is an english edition of his eight novellas (Michael Kohlhaas, die heilige Caecilie, die Marquise von O, der Findling, der Zweikampf, die Verlobung in St Domingo, das Bettelweib von Locarno, das Erdbeben in Chile). I think a good anthology should include at least the first three.

I would also recommend the puppet essay. The Broken Jug is the most famous of his plays.
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Thanks, I'll have a dig around. There's a few writers in the anthology I've just read that I'd like to read more of. Thinking about it, I think I might have come across the essay on puppet theatre at some point, don't know how or where :)
 
Started 'To Kill A Mockingbird' last night - one of those books I never got around to reading, although I did see the Gregory Peck film years ago. Am really enjoying it so far.


Am sulking a bit though cos one of my fave books ever got a drubbing at bookclub last night, being described as 'too much, too clever' blah blah 'i just like a nice easy read' - fucking bollocks. Why go to a book club if all you wanna do is read shite? You can do that any old time can't you? I open my gob to talk about it, and get cries of 'well I just don't UNDERSTAND' - well shut the fuck up then and I'll explain :mad: :mad:


sorry. rant over. It's like being back at fucking school again though - I appear to be talking a different language than the rest of them :(
 
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