Tips, links and suggestions: What are you reading this week?

Your space to discuss the books you are reading and what you think of them

Welcome to this week's blog. Here's a roundup of your comments and photos from last week.

MsCarey is reading a "hot weather read", The Persian Boy by Mary Renault, by day, and spy stories by night:

The Persian Boy is the second of Renaults Alexander the Great trilogy and it is a complete joy. It is a pleasure to be in the hands of a writer who is so sure of what she is doing. Espionage-wise I have just finished Istanbul Passage by Joseph Kanon, a writer who is new to me and I dont really know what I think. Great setting, some interesting history although I could have done with more, style both staccato and cryptic and annoying at times.

Narcissus and Goldmund (by Herman Hesse). Elegantly beautiful and painfully gentle. As much an adventure story as an homage to aesthetic sensibility. A delicacy in the telling and profundity in the characterisation. And what's not to love in the intellectual, spiritual and sexual awakening of an innocent. Obviously I've read it several times before as no doubt you have but this return visit is particularly enjoyable as I reacquaint myself with old friends. And even a few pages a day fills the soul with light. Exquisite.

After 'The Stranger', I thought it would be adventurous to explore existentialism. 'The Fall' seems like one step ahead.

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By Niraj Acharya

22 July 2014, 7:24

Rereading Middlemarch about 30 years after I first tackled it. This time round I'm struck by how tiresome Dorothea Brooke is (an irritating hero is always a brave thing for an author to try), more sympathetic towards poor old Casaubon, and surprised by how often the author's asides and sharp observations make me chuckle. Never really "got" Eliot before but it's never too late to reappraise!

@GuardianBooks Stoner was excellent. This is shaping up to be even better. pic.twitter.com/nqpIDz6Q7m

@guardian @GuardianBooks Tenth of December by George Saunders. Dark, disturbing, and making me laugh out loud on the train.

At the weekend I finished of a volume of David Mamet plays, the last of which was Speed the Plow. Interesting, and I'm wondering about checking out the production with Lindsay Lohan later this year, but I do see something of a formula to Mamet's plays now.

Combines a convincing and witty evocation of Moscow in 1913 with an understated love story, overlaid lightly by nature mysticism - excellent book.

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By antonantonich

28 July 2014, 9:41

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