What Are We Reading? 8 March 2021

[AB76]

Tam wrote: "AB76 wrote: "Georg wrote: "AB76 wrote: "Georg wrote: "AB76 wrote: "Georg wrote: "Sorry for being off-topic, but I am quite happy tonight about the elections:

In Baden-Württemberg (where I live) th..."

Our clown of a PM is likely to be doing the same, i agree. I am still amazed at how the privatised racket called rising energy and water prices keeps soaring while the service delivery remains average to poor. "your bills will be rising because...blah blah"(in reality because our shareholders need more profits....)

[Shelflife_wasBooklooker]

Fuzzywuzz, you have made me interested in The Memory Police! Thanks for the review.

Andy, also great reviews, as ever. I will look at the list, too, in more detail again.

Storm, liked your freshly-impressed review, too.

Edit: And Anastasia's! I am sure I will have forgotten to mention someone else's - so many great ones this week.


bill wrote #265:
"The edition of Salammbô you link to uses Franz von Stuck’s Salome as a cover image – a painting I included in my rambling review of the Cambridge Opera Guide to the Strauss opera. In a further musical connection, I’ll note that, in Citizen Kane, Salammbô was the work in which Susan Kane made her disastrous operatic debut, for which Bernard Hermann composed the featured excerpts (sung by Kiri Te Kanawa on the Charles Gerhardt recording of selections from the score)."

Thanks for this, Bill, I just looked up the various Salammbô adaptations. That looks like a lot of exploration might be fascinating (once I have read the book).
I have yet to see you ramble, I think.
Really liked the animated cartoons with classical music link you posted here some time ago, by the way! Thanks.


Machenbach wrote #269:
"My copy of Salammbô is an 1886 edition "Englished" by Mary French Sheldon - an exceptional woman, but not much of a translator to be honest. I really should get a slightly more up to date translation."

Her biography sounds very interesting indeed! I have a couple of "travelling women" anthologies somewhere (?), might rummage for them to check whether I can find her in them.
1886? Another lovely old volume? Should we call you The Book Prince of Wales? Anyway, your treasures sound great.
Regarding the translation, it can indeed make a huge difference. Partly, I was seduced by The Gambler because the translation is so fresh and immediate without, I think, losing the character of the original.

Your review on Volckmer is brilliant and made me curious. I would like to read this book, even though I might not like it or not be sure about liking it, either. Also wondered why I had not heard her mentioned in the German press, literature reviews etc.: Easily solved, as the book was written in English, but will be translated into German this year...


reen wrote #264: "he's taking the chance while he has no ties."
That is the best way to do it. "Working up to the tearful farewell" made me grin. Your wry, comical yet serious sense of humour seems very similar to your father's, too! Also love the remark so fitting to the Manet portrait.

"You are commendably abstemious."
Just waiting for a proper party, I suppose, subconsciously... That might be a long wait! Not sure abstemiousness is commendable, after all. But then I am Ex-Catholic.
Mr B's mum, when talking of his wild young years, said that she was worried for quite some time he might become an alcoholic. The boy liked testing his limits, a lot!

The rituals sound great and the DJ, too.
Our weekend prgramme varies, depending on how much quietude I need (a lot, recently) and whether Mr B is working (he often has erratic hours). But we always get in a 'nice', sometimes late, second breakfast, combined with bookish chat, and cook 'nice dinners', too.
Some time each weekend, we will watch an episode of a long-running TV series in which people bring objects, showing them to experts who will tell them whether they are art or just of personal value. It is very old-fashioned, and to many a bit stuffy. Love it, though.
Yesterday's "Both of us are DJs" session included such mixed curiosities as Philip Boa's "Morlocks from England" (happy to mention this, as in a literature discussion form, after all!), Camper van Beethoven's "Take the Skinheads bowling", "Gimme Shelter" by Merry Clayton and two cover versions (Lisa Fischer has an amazing voice), Lindsey Buckingham, solo, on an acoustic guitar, doing an excellent bass line in "Big Love", Grace Jones, too (!), and not least a dancing Christopher Walken in Fatboy Slim's music video "Weapon of choice". I miss dancing so very much. A while ago, I took up dancing along to Soul train line dances from the 1970s and 1980s. It helps. (Was happy to see an article on this in yesterday's Guardian book section, https://www.theguardian.com/books/202....)

The rhyming authors are not bad at all!
Have a great evening and a good start to the new week.


AB76 wrote #264: "i've had a few 5am wake-ups in last 10 days too.... "
Poor you! This, too, shall pass (I hope). Scarlet had it even worse with 3:30... hope we all get a good night's sleep!

LL: Congrats on the vaccination!

I hope it is o.k. to bring this up: I am still in denial regarding inter/ Justine. I just don't want to believe that she won't be here again.

But as long as we remember her, I suppose she will, if differently.

[Lljones]

Shelflife_wasBooklooker wrote: "I hope it is o.k. to bring this up: I am still in denial regarding inter/ Justine. I just don't want to believe that she won't be here again.

But as long as we remember her, I suppose she will, if differently.
..."

I agree, Shelflife. Let's not hesitate to think about her and talk about her and keep her alive in our hearts.

[Gpfr]

Georg wrote: "Over 30 years after reunification there is still an awful lot of animosity between the former East and the former West...."

On this topic, people might be interested in Juli Zeh's Unterleuten, which I read in the French translation Brandebourg and mentioned here last month. It's set in a small East German village with the changes that have taken place since reunification and incomers who have moved there from Berlin. Matters are brought to a head by a project to build wind turbines. It seems to have been translated into Italian,too, but not sure about English.

[AB76]

Shelflife_wasBooklooker wrote: "Fuzzywuzz, you have made me interested in The Memory Police! Thanks for the review.

Andy, also great reviews, as ever. I will look at the list, too, in more detail again.

Storm, liked your fresh..."

5am was thankfully a one off,i'm quite good at just lying there and calmly enjoying the cosy warmth but i do wonder why it happens, i'm a good sleeper. a neighbour is an air traffic controller and maybe his early shift and door slams caused it

[AB76]

Gpfr wrote: "Georg wrote: "Over 30 years after reunification there is still an awful lot of animosity between the former East and the former West...."

On this topic, people might be interested in Juli Zeh's [b..."

thanks for that tip GPFR, i can see one Juli Zeh novel in translation "The Method" which i am ordering now

by the way was your nickname the same on Guardian TLS?

[AB76]

Lljones wrote: "Shelflife_wasBooklooker wrote: "I hope it is o.k. to bring this up: I am still in denial regarding inter/ Justine. I just don't want to believe that she won't be here again.

But as long as we reme..."

i agree and i was thinking about her yesterday

[Gpfr]

AB76 wrote: "by the way was your nickname the same on Guardian TLS? ..."

Nearly - with 48 on the end. But I didn't post often until covid lockdowns began this time last year. That brought complete retirement (I'd been working part-time on a self-employed basis), so a lot more time on my hands and restricted activities with which to fill it.

[AB76]

Gpfr wrote: "AB76 wrote: "by the way was your nickname the same on Guardian TLS? ..."

Nearly - with 48 on the end. But I didn't post often until covid lockdowns began this time last year. That brought complete..."

i hope books are filling your time ok GPFR?

[Gpfr]

AB76

Books are of course a wonderful way of filling time!
I saw in our 'Best of 2020' lists that Andy beat me in number of books read, which I had thought would be hard to do! 🤔

[Georg]

Tam wrote(339): "AB76 wrote: "Georg wrote: "AB76 wrote: "Georg wrote: "AB76 wrote: "Georg wrote: "Sorry for being off-topic, but I am quite happy tonight about the elections:

In Baden-Württemberg (where I live) th..."

The tax you mention is called the "Solidaritätszuschlag". Every taxpayer in the former West Germany paid 5.5% of his income tax for reunification. For 30 years now. From 2021 this has been abolished for about 90% of taxpayers.

@AB76(338): I live in the Württemberg part of the state Baden-Württemberg.

[Georg]

Gpfr wrote(243): "Georg wrote: "Over 30 years after reunification there is still an awful lot of animosity between the former East and the former West...."

On this topic, people might be interested in Juli Zeh's [b..."

Very strange that Unterleuten has not been translated into English.
It went straight to the bestseller list in Germany after publication and stayed there for months.

How do you like it?

[AB76]

Gpfr wrote: "AB76

Books are of course a wonderful way of filling time!
I saw in our 'Best of 2020' lists that Andy beat me in number of books read, which I had thought would be hard to do! 🤔"

Great to hear, books are the finest of hobbies...
Andy is prolific, i wonder if he is a kindle person or not, otherwise he must have floor to ceiling bookcases throughout his abode, or just piles of books!

[AB76]

Georg wrote: "Tam wrote(339): "AB76 wrote: "Georg wrote: "AB76 wrote: "Georg wrote: "AB76 wrote: "Georg wrote: "Sorry for being off-topic, but I am quite happy tonight about the elections:

In Baden-Württemberg ..."

i knew i had remembered correct!

[Gpfr]

Georg wrote: " Unterleuten: How do you like it? ..."

I really liked it. When I wrote about it before, I think you told me you hadn't read it, but that there was a good TV series.
Neujahr /Nouvel An was one of the books which impressed me in 2020. I've also read Décompression - I found the characters rather irritating - and one other which I borrowed from the library some time ago, and although I know it made me remember her name and want to read more by her, I don't remember the title.