What are we reading? 26th July 2021

[Greenfairy]

AB76 wrote: "Machenbach wrote: "Anne wrote: "The only one I could think of was The Summer Book by Tove Jansson, which I haven't read."

That's the only thing of hers I have read and was probably selected for a ..."
It's a great read I promise you:-)

[Greenfairy]

L.P Hartley's The Go Between is set in an English summer
but really, any book can be read at any time can't it?

[AB76]

Greenfairy wrote: "L.P Hartley's The Go Between is set in an English summer
but really, any book can be read at any time can't it?"

of course but i think some deserve to be read in the season they are set in...

[Oggie]

Anne wrote: "AlbyBeliever wrote: " The only one I've read is 'China Room', which I really enjoyed without thinking it'd be my Book of the Year. It's very good, though ..."

I loved [book:The Year of the Runaway..."

I also really enjoyed The Year of the Runaways. It conveyed a real understanding of why young men struggle to get to the UK only to be horribly exploited. Sahota's Ours are the Streets gave a truly empathetic account of how relentless racism and humiliation can lead to extreme acts.

I am presently reading The China Room. It is good and well written but does not have the same reach as the other two books.

I will also read Anuk Arudpragasan A Passage North. His first book A Story of a Brief Marriage set in a refugee camp during the civil war is so poignant and beautifully written I cannot imagine his next book will not be the same.

The Promise by Damon Galgut arrived today. It had rave reviews and was sold out all three Waterstones nearest to me . According to one of the managers it is already a shoo in to win the Booker.

Other books which arrived today are The Orphanage by Ukrainian author Serhiy Zhadan set in the conflict zone in Eastern Ukraine . Looks a predictably bleak read but grateful for the suggestion AB76; and two quite different holiday crime reads - Peace by Garry Fisher , a new writer for me - sorry I can't remember who recently recommended him but the procedural aspect appealed to me; and Venus in Copper by Lindsey Davis - good fun Roman crime.

[Oggie]

AB76 wrote: "Anne wrote: "Hushpuppy wrote: "Ugh, 15/100. But 5 from the top 10 (it would have been 3 out of 10 only a year ago). Maybe if the list was a bit less anglo-centric I'd have a few more ..."

I tried ..."

I got through Naked last year. The sometimes bizarre,/quirky/poor /translation from Latvian made it a rather surreal and confusing read at times but an early scene of young people swimming in the river captured a nice summer atmosphere.

Still waiting on the Sea which I ordered a wee while ago.

[Paul]

Hello people, I haven't found the energy to post about my reading much lately, but I have been reading a good amount.
My last read was Osamu Dazai's (translated by Donald Keene)No Longer Human.

It was a really interesting book, which reminded me of so many seminal novels in the English language, but surpasses them in my opinion. It consists of the diaries of an alienated narrator, who cannot place himself in a family or society due to his inability to understand and empathize with others. He never feels comfortable in his skin or with his parents, and can only create relationships by clowning around, projecting a mask-like representation of the person he thinks he ought to be.
As he gets older his sociopathy ebbs, but his inability to form connections continues. It seems to be a reflection on the conformist nature of Japanese society, which the narrator rejects utterly, choosing to call himself an artist (without producing much art) while sinking into alcoholism. He has brief little glimpses of humanity which suggest that the diary might be a skewed representation of the narrator, darkening his visage in order to justify the degradation into which he casts himself.

Despite being unreliable, the papier mache sense of the narrator seems more real and three dimensional than most better-known alienated narrators. The schizoid brutality in Steppenwolf, the jaded depression of Holden Caulfield, the liquid dissolution of Bukowski, the hoped for brutality of Patrick Bateman... All suffer from monochromatism, a philosophical focus that often felt structured rather than breathing. Dazai's narrator is so multi-faceted, so jumbled and confused and directionless, that he feels more actual.

So, I enjoyed it quite a bit.

The day after finishing, my 10 month old, Luca, discovered how to take his diaper off. He got a hold of Dazai, opened it up, sat down and soiled it, which seems like the most succinct form of criticism possible. My opinion was much higher than his, apparently

Now, I'm on to Jonathon Lethem's Dissident Gardens, and not really enjoying it nearly as much.

[AB76]

Oggie wrote: "Anne wrote: "AlbyBeliever wrote: " The only one I've read is 'China Room', which I really enjoyed without thinking it'd be my Book of the Year. It's very good, though ..."

I loved [book:The Year o..."

i wonder if Anastasia has read the Ukrainian novel?

[AB76]

Paul wrote: "Hello people, I haven't found the energy to post about my reading much lately, but I have been reading a good amount.
My last read was Osamu Dazai's (translated by Donald Keene)[book:No Longer Hum..."

Luca!!!!!!!! Thats brilliant!

[Veufveuve]

For everyone mentioning The Summer Book, it's a marvel ... but I was raised on the Moomins.

Thank you all for the hellos and best wishes, will try and reply variously tomorrow, or soon.

Speaking of summer, we spent the week before last "down the shore" (Bill will get this), where I read Fernand Braudel's "Out of Italy" lounging on the beaches of the Kattegat Sea.

[AB76]

Veufveuve wrote: "For everyone mentioning The Summer Book, it's a marvel ... but I was raised on the Moomins.

Thank you all for the hellos and best wishes, will try and reply variously tomorrow, or soon.

Speaking..."

Big Moomin fan here too veuf...good to hear from you!

[Paul]

Another recent read, through which I slowly and joyfully wandered, was Isaac Bashevis Singer's Collected Stories Collected Stories, which was a favorite of Justine's.

As expected, I loved it as much as she did. Singer conjured post-war Brooklyn and pre-war Polish shtetls with equal vividness. The stories generally proceed chronologically with the gaping empty space of The Shoah which is only referenced but never confronted.

It begins in the bogs and mires and boonies into which Polish Jewery had been relegated and fortified awaiting the inevitable next exodus. The protagonists are often Talmudic scholars, disgraced rabbis, heretics and converts living in broken-backed boarding houses, sod-roofed hovels, and mystical, crumbling yeshivas.
The stories seem to follow people with a view of life beyond the rabbinical restrictions, and the subsequent stories follow those that flee to Warsaw in order to see life, with less than stellar success.
The fleeing continues to New York, as devastated survivors try to hold together, while staying apart in Brooklyn . Yiddish is both conserved and cast aside, scrolls are defiled and mezuzahs mounted.

I found Singer's stories post-war to be more vital and more near. Perhaps, the earlier mysticism of yeshiva education became a bit too much of a focus, Think Yentl without Barbara Streisand (it's in the collection). Singer's take on the Israeli state seemed to embody a prevalent viewpoint amongst the Jews who settled on the East Coast of the USA: fairly untrusting of its genesis and direction. He pushes his stories into the 8 Day War with Egypt and seems to tacitly broach the topic of statehood and expansionism that is still, obviously, being debated today.

[giveusaclue]

CCCubbon wrote: "giveusaclue wrote: "CCCubbon wrote: "giveusaclue wrote: "scarletnoir wrote: "CCCubbon wrote: "Hey, scarletnoir, did you read

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandst......"

Got it this time thanks. Some weird ones there. I guess I have got used to taking a while to go to sleep and waking up often. I don't tend to worry about it much.

[AB76]

Machenbach wrote: "Greenfairy wrote: "L.P Hartley's The Go Between is set in an English summer
but really, any book can be read at any time can't it?"

Ah yes, that brings back memories of reading it for 'O' Level in..."

i read it for GCSE too i think, or maybe just before....i remember the cricket match and clouds scudding acrross skies

[AB76]

Machenbach wrote: "Greenfairy wrote: "L.P Hartley's The Go Between is set in an English summer
but really, any book can be read at any time can't it?"

Ah yes, that brings back memories of reading it for 'O' Level in..."

Machenbach wrote: "scarletnoir wrote: "It also strikes me that if your author had been French, he would have been able to fill multiple bookcases with the cream-coloured and picture-free editions published by Gallima..."

i love the french classic covers by Gallimard and others....editions de minuet and also the nouvelle revue francaise covers from the 1940s and 1950s. I love the Penguin blue spine classics and i also found a biography of De Valera by O'Faoalin(Penguin), in a dark blue special dust jacket which was a nice second hand find, from 1939

[scarletnoir]

Bill wrote: "scarletnoir wrote: "Hushpuppy wrote: "I was trying to think of other books with 'snow' in the title"...."

or, alternatively,
"

... or even The Snow Was Dirty, which was the title in the edition I reviewed a while back. Hardly a summer beach read, though... not that I ever read on beaches, or even stay there after swimming...

[scarletnoir]

Machenbach wrote: "Anne wrote: "The only one I could think of was The Summer Book by Tove Jansson, which I haven't read."

That's the only thing of hers I have read and was probably selected for a winter holiday some..."

Did you like it? I have it as a 'possible'.

[scarletnoir]

Hushpuppy wrote: "Anne wrote: "And I don't know any obviously summery European language books myself. "

Well, again, it depends what you mean by summery. Their own definition was very loose. But I've indeed read th..."

I'd have thought that Colette's Le Blé en herbe was definitely a summer book.

I'd hardly recommend 'Metamorphosis' as summer reading! But I don't really do 'summer reading' either.

[AB76]

Machenbach wrote: "AB76 wrote: " love the french classic covers by Gallimard and others....editions de minuet and also the nouvelle revue francaise covers from the 1940s and 1950s. "
It's striking that the French 'Ho..."

Yes, Fitzcarraldo is a bold almost dead lift from the french style and i love their covers. I would imagine the french publishing world has a strong pull to many british publishers.
The superb french spy drama "The Bureau" had a nice little homage to french "house style" when the main character was posing as a budding writer and the DGSE set up a series of "novels" by this fake writer in the Gallimard style, which totally duped a FSB duo tailing the agent

[scarletnoir]

Machenbach wrote: "Ah, now this serves to remind me that another one of his collecting niches is for Les Éditions de Minuit, 'though I don't suppose he comes across an enormous amount of them in Oxfam. I only have one - La Jalousie."

Ah - Robbe-Grillet, eh? I wonder if anyone still reads him? That reminds me of the best joke in by Laurent Binet...

The protagonist is visiting a uni in the USA for a conference, but is being pursued in the library by a psycopathic killer - he turns into the aisle marked the "Nouvelle Roman" - only to find, to his horror, that it is a dead end!

[AB76]

scarletnoir wrote: "Machenbach wrote: "Ah, now this serves to remind me that another one of his collecting niches is for Les Éditions de Minuit, 'though I don't suppose he comes across an enormous amount of them in Ox..."

i loved Robbe-Grillets non fiction work "To a New Novel" and have a DVD collection of his striking and interesting film work as an autueur but havent read any fiction of his yet

[Bill]

scarletnoir wrote: "I'd hardly recommend 'Metamorphosis' as summer reading! But I don't really do 'summer reading' either."

I assumed @Hushpuppy meant Metamorphoses.

[MK]

Lljones wrote: "I thought I was braced for watching the Jan 6th Committee hearings, but I was wrong. Three hours in, everyone is crying - witnesses, Congress members, me."

I just stumbled on a weekly FB/You Tube video by Heather Cox Richardson. She lives (mostly) in Maine (my home state!) and when not there she teaches history at Boston College. It appears she does a weekly video which was what I caught.

Her topics today were - January 6th Committee, Weisselberg and the Trump Organization, and Tom Barrack. Excellent insight - now I don't need to watch the snippets that are the news (even PBS).

https://www.facebook.com/watch/heathe...

She also does a M-F newsletter which you can get in your inbox.

[Shelflife_wasBooklooker]

Quite sure I am not the only one who chuckled (or rather, snorted) this week on reading up!

Picadors:
I enjoyed looking for white Picadors just now. At the outset, I was pretty sure about some Bruce Chatwins only. But I discovered many more of these white Pics on the shelves – most of which I read ages ago and some I haven’t, yet. Here's a selection:
Faulkner, The Sound and the Fury
Lots of Julian Barnes
Harold Brodkey, Stories in an almost Classical Mode (quite the doorstopper)
De Lillo, Underworld
Bret Easton Ellis, American Psycho
Mick Jackson, The Underground Man
John Lanchester, The Debt to Pleasure

Jackie Kay’s The Trumpet and Ruth Ozeki’s All over Creation are both written by women and turn colourful backs. Rushdie’s The Ground Beneath her Feet is a colourful one, too –I may have overlooked many more… fixating on the white ones.

Puking:
When I lived in Berlin, I would often show people round some favourite places, as with the visiting colleague of my friend. When this colleague was back in London and I came to stay in his city (not with him!) for a while, he showed me round, too. It was one of the more be- and amusing guided tours I ever participated in, as he would point to almost every street corner (or lantern) in Islington and Camden, reminiscing “And this is where I puked after an evening in that pub,” or “Ah! This is where I had to puke after going for an Indian. Great night.”
He was certainly much more serious in his “Ahhhh… those were the days… Can’t drink that much any longer” nostalgia about this than I could take it! To be fair, he showed me some other sights, too… But to this day, I can’t shake the feeling that I did it all wrong and should have shown him at least one, erm, memorable Berlin street corner!

[Bill]

Since I first posted about it, I’ve become addicted to the Marlon and Jake Read Dead People podcast. I’ve now listed to all but one episode (the first, since I’ve been going newest to oldest).

After getting to know something of the participants’ tastes, it’s interesting to contrast how an editor reads vs. how a writer reads. Editor Jake Morrissey often seems to apply modern editorial standards to his criticisms: thus, Wilkie Collins is too digressive and didn’t manage to milk the mystery genre for book after book, and Alice's Adventures in Wonderland is too unfocused – fantastic characters keep showing up and disappearing without moving the story along. He claims that, with a good editor, it could have been the Victorian equivalent to A Wrinkle in Time (he honestly believes that would be an improvement).

On the other hand, I find Marlon James’ writerly approach to reading more sympathetic. He wants to learn from the teachers of writers he admires. For example, he adores Toni Morrison, and his takeaway from this admiration is, “I want to read everything that Toni Morrison read.”

[Shelflife_wasBooklooker]

Hushpuppy wrote: "For me Zweig managed to pull the same trick there as Ishiguro in The Remains of the Day. You find yourself a bit exasperated most of the way through, until it hits you hard, late in the story, how desperately lonely it must be to be the Professor or Stevens. Heart-breaking, but not in a overtly sentimental way. "

Excellent comparison, that's it exactly. Hits you all the harder. Yes, the heartbreak lies in the understatedness and the sudden reveal, which makes you re-view it all.


Georg wrote: "Shelflife_wasBooklooker wrote: I will savour (I hope) a collection of Stefan Zweig's novellas. This will make a change, as I remember his biographical studies of historical figures best. These studies are brilliant writing, if with niggles for historians."

Hm, I am no historian, but I was gobsmacked when I read the Dostojevski part of Three Masters: Balzac, Dickens, Dostoeffsky "Niggles"? His rendering of D's childhood was a complete fabrication (abandoned by his family, lived in the workhouse with his brother...)
Crikey! (thats one of the words on my bucket list to use once before I die taken care off) "

Ha, you are right, that was much too mealy-mouthed of me. Have been away from academia for too long. Time to read a few sniping academic reviews again!


@ Veufveuve, great to see you here! I still owe you that Warburg exhibition review... Hope you will be here again much more often. Can I just say, for now, that I enjoyed it greatly and that the experience was enhanced by a successive read of Walter Benjamin's The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction?

Glad to read that you are well.

I have a catalogue from a Rijksmuseum exhibition on slavery which might interest you in my TBR sprawl: https://www.rijksmuseumshop.nl/en/sla...

And on this museum page, you can read some stories and take a virtual tour: https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/en/whats-o...
Just remembering a long-ago conversation on museums with you, partly on this subject... Still pining for TL&S, though this week is lovely to read just now.

[Lljones]

Wish me luck for tomorrow, everyone. I have to report for jury duty at 7:00 am. Somehow I've managed to avoid this before: I've only received the summons twice, and both times I was involved in some big project or another and my employer submitted an exception request.

Hate to say it, but I'm dreading this experience. Will be a two-day stint at minimum, longer if I'm assigned to a lengthy trial, and could be up to 30 days if I get assigned to a grand jury, god forbid! Not a word in the information packet about Covid precautions, so there's that. It's supposed to be in upper 90s tomorrow, no idea about the a/c at the courthouse. Mostly I'm worried about exposure to too much humanity, after an isolated existence over the past year. One small consolation: I'm not allowed to bring knitting needles but I can bring a crochet hook.

I've spent the last few days practicing how to feign fainting spells or disruptive tics of some sort or another. Wish me luck, folks.

[Lljones]

Machenbach wrote: "Lljones wrote: "Unless American TV shows have been lying to me, my understanding is that you should be safe from selection if you take a book.
..."

I imagine if we tried hard enough, we'd find a slew of websites entitled "Carry these books to avoid jury selection...".

Too late for finding the right book tonight; will have to rely on my Tourette Syndrome impersonation.

[Bill]

Machenbach wrote: "Oh, and Josef Skvorecky was a Picador writer. I was very fond of him back then.
Eric Newby has also popped into my head. I’ll stop now."

I probably have a few Picadors on my shelves, though I can't think of any at the moment - not many make it to these shores since most of their authors seem to have US publishers. I used to stop in a NYC SF bookstore called Forbidden Planet, which carried a lot of UK editions. That's where I picked up this:

The cover attracted me, but the sale was made because it contained the 21st chapter, not included in US editions at the time. I also remember seeing this Picador cover of Gravity's Rainbow in the store

Though for me the cover alone wouldn't justify owning a second copy.

[Hushpuppy]

Misc (it's too late, sorry!)

In the UK, I've got 3 Picadors: McCarthy (mustard spine), St Aubyn (dusty pink), Ondaatje (white!!); 2 Gallimards: Barberry, Pennac; 3 Editions de Minuit (my favourites): Beckett, Toussaint, Duras.

@Mach: oh do try Daniel Pennac. The Malaussène series in particular is darkly comic, absurd and brilliant. Perfect summer read. I do like his non-fiction too!

@scarlet: ah, and I thought I had never read Colette, but I have read Le ble en herbe, thanks for reminding me! Yes, very summery, and coming of age. Also, there is a Guardian follow-up on tips to sleep better (longer), this time by the readers: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandst.... Edit: oh, and I've just remembered another of your posts, really sorry to hear about your nose! Same for my aunt, but these days they can do such a great job considering the big chunk they have to take out, you'd hardly notice.

@Swelter: no, I did mean Kafka's Metamorphosis, which I thought wrongly (!!) was in that list MsC posted. Talking of comics for summer reads (from my previous post), I still haven't bought it, but if the film is faithful in its adaptation (I know one character got created but I think the rest is quite close to the source material), then another coming of age novel that is over the summer is Ghost World.

@bl: glad you liked my analogy!

[Bill]

Hushpuppy wrote: "then another coming of age novel that is over the summer is Ghost World."

I read the comic some time ago, I remember it as a series of vignettes, some of which made it into the movie, unconnected by an overarching plot. I remember the film a lot better: the Bollywood dance number Enid watches! Steve Buscemi! The nunchuks guy at the convenience store! Artist / writer Daniel Clowes later collaborated with director Terry Zwigoff on Art School Confidential, a film I liked a lot more than most people seemed to.

[SydneyH]

Lljones wrote: "Wish me luck for tomorrow, everyone. I have to report for jury duty at 7:00 am"

Good luck. I did it last year - 2020 had the lot.

[Berkley]

Machenbach wrote: "Bill wrote: "Just in time for @Anne's reading of The Iliad, Oxford World's Classics features a reading list of Ancient Greek classics."
Quite a brief list it has to be said. I suppose t..."

So the list includes the Iliad - but not the Odyssey? Euripides and Sophocles - but not Aeschylus? Herodotus - but not Thucydides?

I'm wondering if there's some rationale behind it that I'm missing.

[Berkley]

Georg wrote: "His rendering of D's childhood was a complete fabrication (abandoned by his family, lived in the workhouse with his brother...)"

This almost makes me more interested in reading Zweig's book - I think some of the most powerful "fictional" characters ever created have been literary figures as imagined or mythologised by other writers who fell under the fascination of tbeir spell: the two examples that immediately spring to mind are the Brontës, as written by Elizabeth Gaskell in her biography of Charlotte, and Edgar Allen Poe, as written by Baudelaire in the intro to his own translation of Poe's stories.

If Zweig's Dickens is anything like as spellbinding as those, I look forward to reading it, inaccurate though it may be!

[Berkley]

Bill wrote: "Hushpuppy wrote: "then another coming of age novel that is over the summer is Ghost World."

I read the comic some time ago, I remember it as a series of vignettes, some of which made it into the m..."

I haven't seen the movie and don't feel much interest in doing so, though I like the comics story and Clowes's stuff in general (just read a more recent book of his, Patience, earlier this month).

I thought the comic read really well as a serial, coming out in instalments in the issues of Clowes's Eightball series. I found it read less well in its collected edition - perhaps in part because it did seem, as you described it, a series of vignettes, not the chapters of a novel.

I've also developed a slight antipathy towards Scarlett Johanson - though I freely admit that that didn't stop me from watching the Black Widow movie last week!

[Robert]

Bill wrote: "Since I first posted about it, I’ve become addicted to the Marlon and Jake Read Dead People podcast. I’ve now listed to all but one episode (the first, since I’ve been going newest to oldest).

Af..."

I suppose that Morrissey would have hated Sheridan Le Fanu: the man wrote Gothic mystery novels that border on the supernatural, and short stories and novellas that were straight supernatural. Why couldn't the man make up his mind?

[giveusaclue]

Lljones wrote: "Wish me luck for tomorrow, everyone. I have to report for jury duty at 7:00 am. Somehow I've managed to avoid this before: I've only received the summons twice, and both times I was involved in som..."

Good luck Lisa, if you get called perhaps you will be lucky and the defendant will plead guilty!

[Greenfairy]

Machenbach wrote: "Greenfairy wrote: "L.P Hartley's The Go Between is set in an English summer
but really, any book can be read at any time can't it?"

Ah yes, that brings back memories of reading it for 'O' Level in..."
Ah yes, you evoke those sweltering classrooms marvellously.
I recall trying to study Julius Caesar whilst suffering incipient heat exhaustion - I still dislike that play..

[AB76]

Lljones wrote: "Wish me luck for tomorrow, everyone. I have to report for jury duty at 7:00 am. Somehow I've managed to avoid this before: I've only received the summons twice, and both times I was involved in som..."

praying for air-con for you LL OR you know the accused in some way and can excuse yourself from service (if US law is the same on that topic)

[AB76]

Machenbach wrote: "Machenbach wrote: "Shelflife_wasBooklooker wrote: "Quite sure I am not the only one who chuckled (or rather, snorted) this week on reading up!

Picadors:
I enjoyed looking for white Picadors just n..."

I have a few of the Newbys, oddly my only Skovrecky is a penguin, that short lived series of east european texts they released about 10 years ago

[AB76]

Bill wrote: "Machenbach wrote: "Oh, and Josef Skvorecky was a Picador writer. I was very fond of him back then.
Eric Newby has also popped into my head. I’ll stop now."

I probably have a few Picadors on my she..."

i think thats the same cover as the version of Clockwork Orange i read about 28 years ago, in my rebellious teenage phase. I wouldnt touch Burgess now, i wanted to explore his back catalogue but every novel seems a project in using different techniques and i loathe that. was enticed by his 16th century novels about Marlowe and Shaky but then put off by the style. His Malayan novels have always interested me but i dont want them in triology format as they were released about 20 years ago. (So to be correct, its not his fault about the Malayan novels!)

[Robert]

AB76 wrote: "Lljones wrote: "Wish me luck for tomorrow, everyone. I have to report for jury duty at 7:00 am. Somehow I've managed to avoid this before: I've only received the summons twice, and both times I was..."

I've just finished an online jury duty call. Never asked me in; which is strange because King County's courts are badly backlogged. The last time I was called for jury selection was in an asbestos case; a roomful of defense lawyers, and every one of them wanted to speak for history.

[Greenfairy]

giveusaclue wrote: "Lljones wrote: "Wish me luck for tomorrow, everyone. I have to report for jury duty at 7:00 am. Somehow I've managed to avoid this before: I've only received the summons twice, and both times I was..."
I hope you manage to get out of it as well Lisa,
The worst part is being unable to say anything about the case you end up with.

[Robert]

Greenfairy wrote: "giveusaclue wrote: "Lljones wrote: "Wish me luck for tomorrow, everyone. I have to report for jury duty at 7:00 am. Somehow I've managed to avoid this before: I've only received the summons twice, ..."

Oh, you can say something about the case... after it's all over. The odd part is an assembly of twelve strangers who aren't to speak to each other about the one thing that brings them together until they begin to deliberate....

[AB76]

Finished le Corbusiers witty short prose poem Poesie Sur Alger a rather cryptic 40 page commentary on his plans to reform Algiers, into a modern city in the 1940s. While i am not a fan of his plans, i do like his idea to plant date palms everywhere accross the city and it would have been an early "green" plan

Hatje Cantz have done a superb packaging job with orginal art, sketches and plans amid the text, a very interesting postscript and followed by a german version of the same text.

Algiers has been a city in my mind since May and my reading of Larteguys Algerian war novel Les Praetorians. The postscript remarks on how the great Swiss had no plans to lessen the segregation of the city, despite looking to preserve the arab architecture of the Casbah. There are also some great quotes from Carl Jung on his travels to Algiers and Tunis, like the other great Swiss, he admired arabic culture and architecture

Next up is another work by an architect and thinker August Endell(1871-1925), Rixforf Editions have published The Beauty of the Metropolis a collection of his essays in the 1900-1910 era,primarily focused in the great Imperial German capital of Berlin

[Hushpuppy]

Machenbach wrote: "Pennac looks like good fun so I might take you up on that.

Oh, if you do I'd love to hear your thoughts on them. To my teen and early 20s self, they were a romp - I hope they hold well!

LibraryThing tells me that I have 114 Picadors (...) still only 2 women - 3 if I include Slaves Of New York (...)"

Ugh. Looking at what Picadors people here have reported, I wonder if this is not so much your own bias than the publisher's one.

If only these shrill female writers could calm down a bit and smile more, teehee. (I mean, as judyxan said: "jesus").

[giveusaclue]

Greenfairy wrote: "Machenbach wrote: "Greenfairy wrote: "L.P Hartley's The Go Between is set in an English summer
but really, any book can be read at any time can't it?"

Ah yes, that brings back memories of reading ..."

"Yon Cassius has a lean and hungry look! " English Lit "O" level 1964!

[Hushpuppy]

Bill wrote: "I remember the film a lot better: the Bollywood dance number Enid watches! Steve Buscemi! The nunchuks guy at the convenience store! "

Indeed. Somehow though, in the ~20 years that have elapsed between my first and second watch (last weekend), I had forgotten about the nunchakus! I remembered that it was perfectly pitched, and so it proved again. Clowes' fans seem to really rate the 2 adaptations Zwigoff made (there was some disagreement btl recently in the G as to whether Art School Confidential was the superior one or not iirc).

[AB76]

Machenbach wrote: "AB76 wrote: "oddly my only Skovrecky is a penguin, that short lived series of east european texts they released about 10 years ago."

Oh, I'm not sure I ever noticed that series. Perhaps I'll inves..."


this is one of the editions

[AB76]

Good essay on Barbara Pym in the LRB, reviewing a book about her life, i must get round to reading some Pym!

[giveusaclue]

Anyone who has read The Mirror and the Light may find this interesting:

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencete...