Books - What are you reading?

Discovered Rivers of London and binged the first three books. Funny supernatural crime procedural love letters to London.

Taking a break from the binge to read The Master and the Margarita

I read The Master and Margarita last year and absolutely loved it! It took me a little while to get into but I'm so glad I stuck with it.

It’s pretty cerebral compared to adventures of the magic London copper for sure.

Finally finished Vasily Grossman 'Life and fate'. The best bits give you the crystal clear dialogue of someone like Turgenev, but other parts are just slog you just need to get through.

Because of that, I'm not sure I will wholeheartedly recommend it. But if you do give it a go it helps a lot to know that most of the characters are related somehow and that it helps to pay attention to how Russian names can exist in many different forms. I only figured this out at page 600 or so :-/

Another few from the charity shop. Oxfam this time so spendy.

All three should be good I expect

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Would be interested to know what you think of that Calvino book. I read Into The War by him earlier this year, a selection of his short stories about growing up in Mussolini's Italy, and enjoyed it. I haven't got round to picking up anything else by him though.

The Anarchy by William Dalrymple, the unpleasant history of the East India company. Gods, "Clive of India" was a nasty wee shit.

Arriving today

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Somewhat ironic that she has an alter ego that identifies as male

Hahaha maybe a trans author would have made more sense.

What did she say/do to offend trans people. I haven’t read into it.

POSSIBLE SPOILER ALERT

The villain is a male serial killer who dresses as a woman when committing his crimes. Hard to avoid suspicion that this narrative has been deliberately chosen to illustrate and justify her arguments with trans activists.

Ooohhhhhhhh

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I got about 60% of the way through that in January, put it down, never picked it up again. Must dig it out.

That one is worth a re-read later on too. I found a street copy of it years after first reading it, gave it another go and it was much more enjoyable second time around.

I found a small stack of Rosamond Lehmann in Balham Oxfam which was both happy (I have some copies of her novels/stories but mostly falling apart) and sad (someone’s house clearance?).

Is Calvino actually any good? The only one of his books I ever read Is If on a winter’s night on a traveller and all that did was make me violently angry. Never went back. Did I just hit a dud and should try something else?

Personally I love everything by him. Try Invisible Cities, it's one of my favourites.

I really liked If on a winter’s night on a traveller. Its why I bought Mr Palomar.

Early days so far. Might be great, might be anger making.

https://lfgss.microcosm.app/api/v1/files/acc1934e28a17b3e9714c4cb577f4df296557268.png

That was it back at the start of lockdown. I'm down to:-

the Sports Gene
James Joyce (I'm putting this off having read ~50 pages of it already)
Laid Back Around the World
Cheever

(The next stack of 8 or 9 books is elsewhere. I don't want to demoralise myself by increasing my existing pile again. My reward for finishing this lot is American Pastoral by Roth.)

For recently read books, The Sportswriter I really didn't get into: mysognistic, vaguely racist, not a fan. Won't be reading any more of his unless I'm desperate.

Loved the John Bartam book about Richmond Park, especially as I've cycled/run/walked through/around it so often.

Struggled with Wuthering Heights, really knocked me back, too over a month to read it.

Also read a Magnus Mills (Forensic Records Society) and another book I can't remember in between. Glad I'd read the Mills (and The Scheme for Full Employment) based off recommendations here but not sure I'll read much more of him. They remind me a bit of Robert Rankin and the Brentford Trilogy which I read at uni although I'll admit I was gripped by them a at the time, maybe not so much 25 years later.

I was given this in a Secret Santa thing once. I think I got about three pages in. I don't have any memory of it, but I do remember I didn't want to continue reading it.

Excited to have Piranesi coming to me in the post, the follow up to Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell, only been a 15 year wait...

Gave up on Mr Palomar. Started the Ian McEwen. Instantly rewarding and interesting. Mayble old Calvino is a busted flush after all.

If anyone wants to book swap for any of these then message me with what you have to exchange.

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Has anyone read any Stanisław Lem? I've just finished a small collection of his short stories and thought they were brilliant. They were all a bit mad so I'm wondering if his writing translates well to something longer or not.

Edit: I've just clocked that he wrote Solaris. I've got a book voucher burning a hole in my pocket so might take a punt!

I've been listening to the audiobook of Dune by Frank Herbert whilst driving for work over the last couple of days. I'm about halfway through and really enjoying it. It's making me want to rewatch the extremely ropey David Lynch film when I'm finished...