What Are We Reading? 30 Nov 2020

[giveusaclue]

Gladarvor wrote (75): "Sandya wrote: "Returning to the subject of Judge Dee, there are many lessons in these books."

Sandya, I'm getting seriously lost in the order of the Judge Dee I'd like to buy for my dad. The first..."

Glad I think this may solve your problem:

https://www.fantasticfiction.com/v/ro...

[giveusaclue]

Andy wrote 37: "Possibly of interest to Scandinavian Crime TV fans is The Nordic Murders, soon to be on Walter Presents, which is usually pretty good. It’s set on the island of Usedom, which despite being German, ..."

Thanks for the heads up Andy, I have set it to series record.

For those interested, it may be easier to find the programme on:

Freeview Channel 18 More 4
Virgin Channel 195 More4 HD

[Tam]

Alwynne wrote: "Justine wrote: "Alwynne (3) wrote: "Justine Thanks for the great summary!

REVIEW The Dance of the Demons

“…Father what am I going to be ..."

There is an interesting film made back in 1937 about the Polish 'Yiddish' community, The Dybbukhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dyb.... It is a sort of Romeo and Juliet in reverse, with less herbal potions, more spectres from other worlds, and just a touch of 'Wuthering Heights' about it... still its an illuminating picture of 'Yiddish' folk culture tales, from those particular times...

[Sandya]

Gladarvor wrote: "Sandya wrote: "Returning to the subject of Judge Dee, there are many lessons in these books."

Sandya, I'm getting seriously lost in the order of the Judge Dee I'd like to buy for my dad. The first..."

I read them in random order as I encountered them and I don't think it matters, since each is self contained. There are mentions of previous assignments in the books, and each place Dee serves has 3-4 books. It is worth starting with the first in his career, The Chinese Gold Murders, where Dee departs from the capital for his first assignment, because it sets a scene for the others. I don't think this was the first written but I am not 100% sure.

[Hushpuppy]

Sandya wrote: "There are mentions of previous assignments in the books, and each place Dee serves has 3-4 books. It is worth starting with the first in his career, The Chinese Gold Murders"

Thanks a lot, and to @giveusaclue too! I've found a list that supposedly follows the chronological order here: https://www.goodreads.com/series/5066... Final question I have then: should I also order as a preamble or companion piece his translation of the real cases: Dee Goong An/Celebrated Cases Of Judge Dee?

[Sandya]

Gladarvor wrote: "Sandya wrote: "There are mentions of previous assignments in the books, and each place Dee serves has 3-4 books. It is worth starting with the first in his career, The Chinese Gold Murders"

Thanks..."

I would maybe save Dee Goong An for later. The van Gulik books are in a modern style and thus easier for a Western reader to enjoy. Dee Goong An has a slightly more archaic style and the supernatural features a little more prominently, though it doesn't interfere with Dee's deductive process. However, it is well worth reading. If you think the recipient would enjoy something with a more traditional feel then by all means add Dee Goong An to the gift! It has a very interesting historical preface and 2 portraits of Judge Dee (I just checked) and will give you a sense of how these novels read in their own time, their history, and their similarities to and differences from Western crime literature.

[Andy]

Gladarvor wrote: "Slawkenbergius wrote (#33): "there's a relatively recent film from ARTE comparing the two novels [Brave New World and 1984] and their authors. I haven't watched it yet, so don't know whether it's w..."

Looking forward to hearing the thoughts of both..

[Andy]

Gpfr wrote: "I've just finished Human Voices
This novel is set in the BBC in 1940 - Penelope Fitzgerald worked there during the second world war.

Broadcasting Hous..."

Great review. I read this recently and enjoyed it also.
That’s two Fitzgerald’s I’ve read now with Offshore. Looking forward to more..

[Shelflife_wasBooklooker]

Machenbach wrote: [#79]:"Yes, Tucholsky has quite a bit to say about Plattdeutsch in Castle Gripsholm."

So glad to see Tucholsky mentioned here! I recommended his writings a couple of times in the non-ersatzable TL&S (sniff).
His shorter, journalistic texts often are little gems, in my view. You can find some of them here: https://weltbuehneenglishtranslation.... (see right side panel on this page for more)

@ Georg [#76]: Being exposed to Platt makes you understand it after a while (you would be fine, with your knack for learning languages!). But I do not speak it, myself.

Hello everybody, I am sorry I did not get back to quite a few posts/ people on time. As I wrote some weeks ago, it is all a bit much at the moment... I am looking forward to the christmas break, hoping to refuel some energy then.

Anyway, I am really happy to read all the posts here, inter doing brilliant work with starting the week off for us, and I like the new attempts at coping with the unfortunately-given threadless structure.

I have been reading less than I would have liked, mostly poetry. I have also finished reading Salman Rushdie's The Enchantress of Florence, which I liked, have been skimming an anthology of love letters edited by Antonia Fraser, Love Letters: An Illustrated Anthology (inspired by last week's Guardian poem of the week) - shame Goodreads does not feature the cover. The book is from 1976 and the cover design is... er... soppily, quite something and definitely good for a chuckle.
Not least, I have been reading The Authoritative Calvin and Hobbes: A Calvin and Hobbes Treasury.

On other acrtivities, I had fun creating advent calendars for friends and family. To cope with November, the ubiquitous crisis and some frustrations at work, I have been taking out the very heavy artillery, jumping around to Bomb the Bass, The Clash, Sisters of Mercy, The Human League as well as Boney M and Abba. (These choices raised some eyebrows with Mr B, who identified them as heavy artillery at once.)

I am also delighted to report that Goodreads threads look much better (regarding typography) when viewed in Firefox private mode on my mobile phone. (Maybe of interest to some?) Just for reading, I think that is a great solution.

Have a good evening and hope I will soon have more energy and time to write proper reviews again! Enjoying reading yours and the discussions in the meantime.

Here is a Calvin and Hobbes goodnight reading cartoon:
https://epibee.files.wordpress.com/20...

It reminds me, just a bit, of Angela Carter's The Company of Wolves.

[Justine]

Machenbach (87) wrote: "Machenbach wrote: "I'm due to join AB76 in reading M.R. James tonight, and duly dug out my copy of A Thin Ghost and Others. "
The previous owner turns out to have been the co-author ..."

That would be Henry Graham Pollard then, I suppose, because it doesn't sound like John Carter, who wasn't at all the medievalist/ghosty sort. Carter, known for some reason as 'Jake' in the US, was an especial friend of the one African-American cataloguer at Sotheby's NY (zeesh! I can remember his first name, which was Tom, but not the last at the moment). Tom, the Americana expert, and therefore quite important, was only promoted from the job description (and pay-grade) of 'porter' around 1972, when he was in his fifties - and was then quickly elevated to the rank of vice-president. But he and 'Jake' were great drinking pals always. Completely OT, I know,

[Sandya]

Machenbach wrote: "Machenbach wrote: "I'm due to join AB76 in reading M.R. James tonight, and duly dug out my copy of A Thin Ghost and Others. "
The previous owner turns out to have been the co-author ..."

My first thought on seeing the book was that it might be cursed!! I fear for you......

[scarletnoir]

Nothing too demanding this week - unless that I read Simenon's Signe Picpus in French... Signed, Picpus in English, so that bit isn't too hard!

It's a mid-period Maigret, where the greatest pleasure is to be had in Simenon's ability to sum up atmosphere in a way that makes it easy to imagine that we are there ourselves, observing Paris sweltering in August heat (Maigret drinks a lot of beer), taking a lazy weekend off in a small riverside hotel, or back in Paris when the thunderstorm breaks. (Of course, although Mme Maigret is grateful for the brief 'holiday', all the time the commissaire, though frequently dozing in the heat, is there to follow up a lead...)

The plot - as often the case in murder stories - has its share of improbabilities - but that did not detract from the interest aroused by the strange and mysterious behaviour of several characters. Dialogue is for the most part reported expertly - we can, again, imagine the personalities talking and behaving as described (apart from one ill-judged scene... IMO, of course). I think it's fair to say that Simenon, then Maigret, and finally ourselves are more interested in uncovering the reasons for the characters' behaviours than in solving the murder, which is dealt with in a fairly perfunctory manner towards the end.

Very enjoyable, then, if not absolutely perfect. (I read it in English a long time ago - long enough to have forgotten the 'solutions'.)Signed, Picpus

[AB76]

Machenbach wrote: "I'm due to join AB76 in reading M.R. James tonight, and duly dug out my copy of A Thin Ghost and Others. But I have to say that there's something about the cover that's bothering me...."

welcome to MR James Mach, i finished "Number 13" last night and ingenious little tale set in Jutland
that is a really spooky cover, interesting we both have secondhand volumes. My OUP edition is in good nick, its not a very old edition(2009) but there was no readily available new edition out there, which is odd, by OUP

[AB76]

Machenbach wrote: "I'm due to join AB76 in reading M.R. James tonight, and duly dug out my copy of A Thin Ghost and Others. But I have to say that there's something about the cover that's bothering me...."

i hope sleepless nights dont result from reading that edition....reflections in mirrors...medieval devils (hang on, wasnt that Jim Rosenthal???)

[Georg]

Shelflife_wasBooklooker wrote(#88): "Machenbach wrote: [#79]:"Yes,So glad to see Tucholsky mentioned here! I recommended his writings a couple of times ..."

I was quite surprised that Machenbach has read Schloss Gripsholm. I guess there aren't many non-German-speaking readers who know Tucholsky. Most of his writings are difficult, if not impossible, to translate I think.

I love him. He has been with me for decades, I never get tired of him, he will be with me until I shuffle off this mortal coil.

Good to see you back. I've missed you.

[Georg]

@ everybody:

Even if you are not interested in Tucholsky: this is a short piece that will make you smile; or chuckle; or both:

"Where do we read our books?"

You'll find it in booklookers link:

https://weltbuehneenglishtranslation....

@Machenbach: did you like Castle Gripsholm? KT is a many-faceted (?) writer, CG mainly shows his playful lighthearted side.

[Justine]

While continuing to plod my way through Huxley's dystopia, I turn now and then to other parts of the real world with short stories from The Book of Tbilisi: A City in Short Fiction and Tel Aviv Noir. I've visited neither city, but truly know nothing about Tbilisi and Georgia, as the Introduction brought home to me. So far the stories paint a rather gloomy picture of poverty, homelessness, cancer, violence and desperation, including two especially poignant tales, 'Balba-Tso', by Ina Archuashvili and 'Precision', by Erekle Deisadze, both translated by our own Philip Price.

The Tel Aviv stories are very much in the ironic noir tradition. In one of them, 'Women', by Matan Hermoni, I can feel the influence of Yiddish writers like Isaac Bashevis Singer, but with a noir twist.

[AB76]

Georg wrote: "Shelflife_wasBooklooker wrote(#88): "Machenbach wrote: [#79]:"Yes,So glad to see Tucholsky mentioned here! I recommended his writings a couple of times ..."

I was quite surprised that Machenbach h..."

i am not sure if much of his work is in translation Georg, minus the NYRB edition of Castle Gripsholm, what other works of his would you recommend>?

[Georg]

AB76 wrote(#104): "Georg wrote: "Shelflife_wasBooklooker wrote(#88): "Machenbach wrote: [#79]:"Yes,So glad to see Tucholsky mentioned here! I recommended his writings a couple of times ..."

As you say: not much choice if you cannot read him in German. Some of his best-loved pieces, like "On the sociological psychology of holes", simply cannot be translated.

What I found, so far, in translation:

http://www.berlinica.com/harold-poor-...

http://www.berlinica.com/germany--ger...

http://www.berlinica.com/berlin--berl...

[AB76]

Georg wrote: "AB76 wrote(#104): "Georg wrote: "Shelflife_wasBooklooker wrote(#88): "Machenbach wrote: [#79]:"Yes,So glad to see Tucholsky mentioned here! I recommended his writings a couple of times ..."

As you..."

thanks georg

[CCCubbon]

Only a very short comment about The Thursday Murder Club
This is not a very long book but it has 115 Chapters .
I kid you not 115chapters, skipped to the end, implausible, lightweight, muddle. I won’t be reading another.

[Justine]

CCCubbon (107) wrote: "Only a very short comment about The Thursday Murder Club
This is not a very long book but it has 115 Chapters .
I kid you not 115chapters, skipped to the end, implausible, lightwei..."

Curious that it's received such high ratings on GR. I guess a lot of people like 'Implausible, lightweight muddles.' As they say, no accounting for taste.

[CCCubbon]

I haven’t read any other reports, this is just how I found it. It is very easy reading with corkscrew twists and turns until I gave up caring and can see that it would appeal to many. Osman mentions current television programmes, popular shops and so on, familiar landmarks to anchor the reader.
It’s a personal thing, I always think of theses very short chapter books as lazy writing for I find them too brief to develop the story before haring off in another direction; for me it breaks the flow.

[Andy]

One Man's Wilderness: An Alaskan Odyssey by Sam Keith.
(Did this come from a recommendation at TLS? Maybe LLJ when you gave me a list of survival type stuff ahead of a bike trip? It included Guterson’s The Other I recall.. )

First published in 1973, biographer Sam Keith documents Dick Proenneke’s experiences during the first sixteen months (May, 1968 to September, 1969) of his quest for a solitary and simple life in the Central Alaskan wilderness.
Alone, and with only hand tools, Proenneke builds his cabin, with a spectacular outlook to Twin Lakes, in four months. Obviously much of these journal entries are about the construction itself, only mildly interesting to me, (I’m clueless at DIY); a sort of Grand Designs for 1968.
of much greater interest is the writing about the environment, the weather, and his developing relationship with the wildlife.
I did at one time wonder if many of my most basic questions about Proenneke's odyssey would not be answered; why did he seek such a reclusive life, how did he cope without the luxuries that others would take for granted (even in 1968), and long did he stick with it for, but in the last two compelling chapters they are.
I had thought I had quite a reclusive life in a back country place, but that pales into insignificance having read this.
I like the title also, which can be interpreted in two ways; the solitary nature of his existence, and his uniqueness, that no one else could manage to do what he did. I’m envious certainly, but I wonder if in today’s world I could manage without things like the internet for anything like that long as his first stint at the cabin, a 16 months one..
My second book in a week about an incredible man, with an astonishing story to tell. (The other being Maurice Wilson from The Moth and The Mountain. )

There’s a film documentary also I read, Alone In The Wilderness. Has anyone seen it?

[Justine]

Machenbach (110) wrote: "F.M. Mayor’s The Rector's Daughter was first published by the Woolfs’ Hogarth Press in 1924 and was one of their bigger successes, before subsequently drifting into an obscurity fro..."

Thanks for the thorough and thoughtful review. I may still investigate this novel, though I feel less keen on ordering it from the library just yet.

[Justine]

I've survived Brave New World and will try to write something up in the next day or two. The last, frenzied chapter left me exhausted, so I'll eat dinner before reading the (far more agreeable) reviews here.

[Max (Outrage)]

Sandya wrote [74]: "Returning to the subject of Judge Dee, there are many lessons in these books.

First, I'm currently reading The Willow Pattern, which is set in the T'ang capital during a plague epidemic. Judge De..."

Excellent! Thanks.

[Justine]

Andy (121) wrote: "One Man's Wilderness: An Alaskan Odyssey by Sam Keith.
(Did this come from a recommendation at TLS? Maybe LLJ when you gave..."

Both this and the Maurice Wilson book sound fascinating. Your comment about luxuries 'even in 1968' made me chuckle. Yes we did have running water, electricity, heating systems, cars - even television! ;-)

[AB76]

Machenbach wrote: "Kurt Tucholsky, Castle Gripsholm (tr. Michael Hoffmann). I enjoyed this slim 1931 novel a lot. It’s about a Berlin couple who take a summer holiday in Sweden, and much of the novel ..."

wasnt my recommedation Mach but its looking like this could be a summer read, will add it to my list

[Tam]

Machenbach wrote: "PaleFires wrote [#95]: "Your scabby copy of 'The Thin Ghost' underscores your need for Mylar."

Finally someone is treating the issue with the seriousness it merits! In fact, were it not for the ec..."

I was watching, I think, some of Glastonbury festival many years ago, I think it was Groove Armada, and I said to him-in-doors "why does she, the lead singer, have what looks like ectoplasm coming out of her chest? How does she do that, as a piece of festival drama?" He sighed and said you don't have your glasses on! I put them on and found out it was a scarf!....

[Lljones]

Andy wrote (121): "(Did this come from a recommendation at TLS? Maybe LLJ when you gave..."

I do remember pushing Guterson's The Other on you, but not the Keith. Sounds intriguing, thanks for the review.

[AB76]

The Trader The Owner The Slave is a very damning tale of the slave trade profiteers.

John Newton, the author of "Amazing Grace", spends time with 100 poor slaves crammed under the decks of his ships and has no record of their names, just "a small girl 3'4inches....a woman...a man", sickeningly one of his logbooks describes a woman who " came aboard and seemed to be dead", like so many tossed overboard as they sailed west to Antigua

Newton did become an abolitionist late in life but seems to have the attitude towards slaves that nazi camp guards had towards the jews, almost living in an atmosphere where the slaves/jews are so "othered", they scarcely represent a worthy life, maybe this is now these men switched off from their emotions about the hell they were inflicting on people

Walvin describes how dangerous slaving ships were, with slave rebellions greatly feared, the sailors were terrified of the slaves, the slaves despised the sailors, disease was rife on all decks but of course even worse down below

[AB76]

Slightly related to my concentration camp guards/slavers comparison, i found "The Sobibor Album" online, where camp officer Johann Niemann took photos of the camp and after he was murdered in the uprising within the camp, all his photo albums were found in his belongings

Its a queasy thing to scroll through, no inmates feature, its mainly the SS enjoying life, relaxing (like the Auchwitz album) but the album of a camp visit to Potsdam is very unsettling. SS thugs and the Ukrainian guards enjoying high culture, with their wives, did any of these women know what their men were up to?

Niemann's career started feeding euthanised corpses of disabled children into ovens before becoming part of the death camps, a vain man, who met his maker at the hands of an inmates aze, as the inmates revolted..

[Justine]

Although most people know or remember Aldous Huxley's Brave New World (1932) as a novel about ‘Fordism’ and the assembly-line creation of different grades of human beings, many of them clones, other scientific, psychological, sociological and moral issues are also explored here: in vitro fertilization with the separation of sex from procreation, and women from childbirth; sleep-learning and Pavlovian classical conditioning; free sex without marriage; use of drugs to control mood; rejection of hardship, individualism, religion, and any sort of intellectual and literary pursuits outside work; the absolute importance of contentment and the stability it generates in society, and more.

Whether you find the book satisfactory or not probably depends on what you value in fiction. Having read the author's Crome Yellow within the last year, I was prepared for some aspects of this novel. As in that earlier work, the characters mainly exist to represent and express certain attitudes and positions, only more so here. We have Bernard Marx, the weak would-be rebel, Helmholtz Watson, his wiser friend, John Savage, the naturally born and raised man who reads Shakespeare, Mustapha Mond, the powerful Controller, and Lenina Crowne, The Girl. The characters are more told than shown: because they ‘stand for’ opinions they tend not to seem truly of flesh and blood; their emotional responses are often explained or shown only in some simple or exaggerated form. John has been influenced by Shakespeare, so he speaks largely in quotations. He falls in love with Lenina (quotes from Romeo and Juliet) but what beyond her ‘pneumatic’ sexiness (‘those milk paps that through the window bars bore at men’s souls’) attracts this man who is so obsessed by moralistic and ascetic values? She has no personality whatsoever.

There are extensive scenes set in the factory where human beings are made as well as on a Zuñi reservation in New Mexico (and I wonder what the real inhabitants there make of Huxley’s descriptions of their society) from which John and his mother, both white, are rescued. The story lines follow Bernard’s often faltering attempts – first, to experience a life better than that based on sex, sports and soma (the powerful drug that keeps everyone happy), and then the struggle to maintain his improved status after the discovery of John; and John’s tormented yearning to achieve some higher, basically Christian-based way of life.

But the debate about happiness near the end between John and Mustapha Mond (apparently based on Sir Alfred Mond, an industrialist, politician and Zionist) struck me as more interesting and livelier than the plot. John can’t bear the ‘false, lying happiness’ he has found in Britain. Mond admits that ‘being contented has none of the glamour of a good fight against misfortune’ but that it creates social stability, adding that ‘God isn’t compatible with machinery and scientific medicine and universal happiness. You must make your choice.’

John responds: ‘But I don’t want comfort. I want God, I want poetry, I want real danger, I want freedom, I want goodness. I want sin’, and even declares that over what Mond thinks of as happiness he would prefer ‘the right to grow old and ugly and impotent; the right to have syphilis and cancer; the right to have too little to eat…’ In the end, in a frenzied last chapter, Huxley appears to be challenging the reader to look at what happens there and to ‘make your choice’.

My verdict: certainly bubbling over with ideas, but as a novel something of a mess.

[Andy]

Justine wrote: "While continuing to plod my way through Huxley's dystopia, I turn now and then to other parts of the real world with short stories from The Book of Tbilisi: A City in Short Fiction ..."

Thanks for the Tbilisi book. I should have been cycling there in September, flight postponed, hope to be there in a few months. Sounds like a good accompaniment..

[Andy]

Lljones wrote: "Andy wrote (121): "(Did this come from a recommendation at TLS? Maybe LLJ when you gave..."

I do remember pushing Guterson's The Other on you, but not the Keith. Sounds intriguing, ..."

Pardon me. I can’t recall where I was recommended it. Need to make a note in future..

[MK]

I never thought about the pages of paper that make up a book. Now, after listening to (thanks library) Mill Town: Reckoning with What Remains by Kerry Arsenault, perhaps I will move more to audio than I have previously.

As a former Downeaster (did you know that this nickname began in the days of sail when, in order to get to Maine, one had to sail down east with the wind?), I knew some of the history of Mexico and Rumford Maine, especially that the towns were known for their smell. The smell came from the paper mill and the fact that the towns were/are in a valley which allows smells to stick around.

But to the book--it's complicated as it is a memoir of growing up, a family history (of Acadians that left Prince Edward Island for a better life), and a jeremiad of sorts taking the powers that be to task. Those powers included not only the mill owners, but government from local, to state, and finally federal -- all of which turned their eyes from the pollution of the land and the residents as well.

Making paper means (in most cases) using chemicals with the shiny paper of magazines requiring more potent mixtures than that of your very day, run of the mill, paper. Just google dioxin.

The book reminds me of Hillbilly Elegy as Mill Town and its residents are 'average Joes' who work and live in 'not so hot' circumstances.

Note from the author's website - Mill Town is printed on paper bleached without chlorine gas, chlorine dioxide, or any other chlorine-based bleaching agent; ask your workplace, your school, your publisher to find and use the same.

[Veufveuve]

Inspired by the conversation here, I read James' "Number 13" last night. I thought it was rather slight compared to his best, but I enjoyed his sympathetic portrait of Viborg and of Danes. I assume it was a part of the world James knew quite well, perhaps through his own research.

[AB76]

Veufveuve wrote: "Inspired by the conversation here, I read James' "Number 13" last night. I thought it was rather slight compared to his best, but I enjoyed his sympathetic portrait of Viborg and of Danes. I assume..."

MR James is a december collective experience for you, Mach and I Veuf. I just read "Oh Whistle and I'll Come to you" set in Suffolk, a most interesting tale

James uses a similar formula for every tale but his style and the edwardian customs are a delight, these really are top notch tales and i feel James should be get more "literary" credit than he does

As for the danes, the notes in my OUP copy say that James became conversant in danish in later life and indeed had a soft spot for Denmark and danish culture

[AB76]

Machenbach wrote: "Alwynne wrote [136]: "REVIEW A Touch of Mistletoe by Barbara Comyns."

Thanks for this. Comyns has been recommended by a few people on TLS, b..."

i am astonished at the speed of which people read in here, kudos to them, i'm on my 67th book of the year (fiction-non-fiction etc) and thats pedestrian!

[Justine]

Alwynne (136) wrote: "REVIEW A Touch of Mistletoe by Barbara Comyns

'A Touch of Mistletoe' centres on Vicky, and in the background her sister Blanche, and their e..."

I've been back and forth about reading Barbara Comyns - so many books, so little time! And you obviously read much faster than I do. But this review, even of one of her lesser novels, sparks my interest anew. And I'm more and more enthusiastic about that modest category of literature, the woman's middlebrow novel of the mid-twentieth century, It leads me to contemplate that middle-middle-class world in which I spent my early childhood, and of the automation of the home: vacuum cleaners, washing machines and central heating replacing servants. 'Housewives' read women's magazines and these novels that were looked down on by literary folk. (I certainly wouldn't have been caught dead reading a Dorothy Whipple when I was in my 20s, which means I found a rare treat fifty years later!) Must think more about this!

[Justine]

MK (137) wrote: "I never thought about the pages of paper that make up a book. Now, after listening to (thanks library) Mill Town: Reckoning with What Remains by Kerry Arsenault, perhaps I will move..."

It's sobering to think that the books we so love are not environmentally safe! Thanks for that review: Mill Town: Reckoning with What Remains should be of interest to a number of us.

[Justine]

Veufveuve (138) wrote: "Inspired by the conversation here, I read James' "Number 13" last night. I thought it was rather slight compared to his best, but I enjoyed his sympathetic portrait of Viborg and of Danes. I assume..."

Your brief comments are tantalizing. I'm curious about ' the world James knew quite well, perhaps through his own research'.

[AB76]

Justine wrote: "Veufveuve (138) wrote: "Inspired by the conversation here, I read James' "Number 13" last night. I thought it was rather slight compared to his best, but I enjoyed his sympathetic portrait of Vibor..."

James was an avid researcher throughout his life, he spent almost all of his adult career at either Kings College, Cambridge or Eton, in research posts and a lot of his ghost stories feature academics on trips to places of interest

[Justine]

Alwynne (140) wrote: "Justine (133) wrote: "Although most people know or remember Aldous Huxley's Brave New World (1932) as a novel about ‘Fordism’ and the assembly-line creation of different grades of human..."

I woke up this morning thinking how Huxley never offers an alternative between totalitarian control of society and John's shockingly masochistic withdrawal. Unless it's to be found, as the Controller hints, on the island to which Bernard and Helmholtz are to be sent. But we are never shown what goes on there!

[Justine]

And now, having happily cluttered up this thread, I'm off to read the book I began last night and am already enthralled by: Apeirogon!

[CCCubbon]

Reading Entangled life in bed last night, I was intrigued by the following at the beginning of Chapter 2
Imagine that you could pass through two doors at once. It’s inconceivable, yet fungi do it all the time. When faced with a forked path, fungal hyphae don’t have to choose one or the other. They can branch and take both routes.

It appears that the whole of the fungi is one body that may divide itself, regroup, search and forage for food, thicken parts to strengthen while leaving other strands thin, they can ‘see’ colour, detect the composition of different surfaces, work out the most efficient routes and appear to have some kind of memory.
I was most fascinated by the notion that fungi could be in two places at once for my mind pinged immediately to quantum superposition, that phenomenon that

Every particle or group of particles in the universe is also a wave — even large particles, even bacteria, even human beings, even planets and stars. And waves occupy multiple places in space at once. So any chunk of matter can also occupy two places at once. Physicists call this phenomenon "quantum superposition, for here we have fungi behaving in a similar way.

Perhaps quantum physicists should study fungi more closely for there may be some answers to unknowns in these intriguing organisms, perhaps they do already.

[Lljones]

Justine wrote: "And now, having happily cluttered up this thread, I'm off to read the book I began last night and am already enthralled by: Apeirogon!"

Yay!!!

[Andy]

Machenbach wrote: "Alwynne wrote [136]: "REVIEW A Touch of Mistletoe by Barbara Comyns."

Thanks for this. Comyns has been recommended by a few people on TLS, b..."
Beware, or be aware, MB, that Comyns has a dark side. It’s not evident in all her work, but when she’s in the mood it really is, in my opinion, her best work..
The Vet's Daughter or The Juniper Tree are good examples.
As you may guess, they’re my favourites of hers.

[Gpfr]

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/202...

The best books we read in 2020
You may enjoy checking this out. The books cited are not necessarily new books - more like our lists of our best books of the year.