What are we reading? 3rd August 2021

[Bill]

Lljones wrote: "Bill wrote: ""

Where did you find this map, Swelter?"

One of the Anthony Burgess feeds on Twitter: @IrwellEdition (because it includes A Clockwork Orange).

[MK]

Bill wrote: "MK wrote: "I am not a movie person"

If it wasn't an interest in movies, I'm curious what made you pick up the Tarantino book."

The blurb - Quentin Tarantino’s long-awaited first work of fiction — at once hilarious, delicious, and brutal — is the always surprising, sometimes shocking new novel based on his Academy Award- winning film.

I never got as far as the hilarious, delicious, and brutal parts. At about page 35, I thought about skipping ahead, but then I thought I miss something, so it was easier to return it to the library. It's not as if I don't have plenty to read or to listen to.

[MK]

Any Americans in WW2 devotees here? There are a couple of online events in September (Heritage Open Days) that might be of interest - https://norfolkheritageopendays.co.uk...

[MK]

Lljones wrote: "Another hot spell looms...some say we're looking at 105 F, others say 108 F. Here we go again."

This has certainly been a summer of discontent. With the pandemic (Delta and Deniers) and weather anomalies I heard some pundit wax poetic about the 'good old days of the Cold War' as at least we knew where we stood then - MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction).

I wish PDX would cool down, I'd like to visit.

[AB76]

MK wrote: "Lljones wrote: "Another hot spell looms...some say we're looking at 105 F, others say 108 F. Here we go again."

This has certainly been a summer of discontent. With the pandemic (Delta and Deniers..."

In SE England its been cool and showery ever since our intense week of heat in mid July. Admittedly, our heatwave was nothing like Canada or Oregon but it was unpleasent and sticky

I forecast another spell of nasty heat before summer ends....hard to predict on a small island with many systems constantly moving through, the continental climate is more reliable but also punishing if heat sets in.

The met office over here did a report that said all the warmest summers in the UK occured in the last 30 years. Thats more than half my life and might explain why i didnt find the summers of the 1980s as warm! This doesnt mean all 30 were basking in heat, its that small 1 or 2c warmth increase over the whole summer...

I grew up with my the summer of my birth year as the warmest ever (1976), stories abounded of the parched heaths, fields and the hosepipe bans. In 2018, it was nearly surpassed and that was a worrying sign...

[Berkley]

CCCubbon wrote: "Morning everyone.
My youngest grandchild visited yesterday, another bookworm, and she told me that she likes horror stories. This is a genre I know little about and I want to send a couple of books as she returns to Uni, please can anyone recommend any authors. She told me not Stephen King."

I hven't read much modern horror either - would she be interested in old classics such as MR James's ghost stories?

I can tell you a few more contemporary names that I intend to try but haven't actually read anything of yet: Ramsey Campbell, Clive Barker, James Herbert, ... actually, perhaps they aren't all that recent, come to think of it, having been around since the 70s, but I think they're still writing. Can't vouch for them myself yet but those are some of the horror writers I've had on my list for a while.

[Bill]

MK wrote: "The blurb - Quentin Tarantino’s long-awaited first work of fiction — at once hilarious, delicious, and brutal — is the always surprising, sometimes shocking new novel based on his Academy Award- winning film.."

Wow – now I want to read the book.


Not really – but it did send me back to read some reviews I’d initially skipped over. Both critics saw the movie (hypothesis: book critics see far more movies than film critics read books) and compare it to the book. Charles Arrowsmith in the Washington Post echoes your findings:

Cinephilia is integral to Tarantino’s work, and “Once Upon a Time” is a fanboy’s scrapbook of period detail. A footnoted edition would run twice the length parsing references to forgotten actors, separating real from invented movies and glossing the insider talk about old action movies. How much readers will enjoy all this may depend on their familiarity with Golden Age Hollywood.

While the NY Times Dwight Garner looks at the book’s literary antecedents:

Tarantino isn’t trying to play here what another novelist/screenwriter, Terry Southern, liked to call the Quality Lit Game. He’s not out to impress us with the intricacy of his sentences or the nuance of his psychological insights.

He’s here to tell a story, in take-it-or-leave-it Elmore Leonard fashion, and to make room along the way to talk about some of the things he cares about — old movies, male camaraderie, revenge and redemption, music and style. He gets it: Pop culture is what America has instead of mythology. He got bitten early by this notion, and he’s stayed bitten.

The novel is loose-jointed. If it were written better, it’d be written worse. It’s a mass-market paperback that reeks of mass-market paperbacks. In my memory, it’s the smell of warm coconut oil and dust mites and puddling Mercurochrome.

That last kind of piques my interest, but jeez, I’ve got at least a shelf’s worth of the real thing in the form of Jim Thompson and other Black Lizard paperbacks. So why bother?

[MK]

Bill wrote: "MK wrote: "The blurb - Quentin Tarantino’s long-awaited first work of fiction — at once hilarious, delicious, and brutal — is the always surprising, sometimes shocking new novel based on his Academ..."

Elmore Leonard fashion? I beg to differ. Gimme a paperback of Get Shorty any day.

[Robert]

CCCubbon wrote: "Morning everyone.
My youngest grandchild visited yesterday, another bookworm, and she told me that she likes horror stories. This is a genre I know little about and I want to send a couple of books..."

There is an anthology of modern horror authors called Lovecraft Unbound that I quite enjoyed. (The challenge for the writers was to touch on Lovecraft's tropes without imitating him. There are an unusual number of interesting stories in this book.)

[Bill]

MK wrote: "Gimme a paperback of Get Shorty any day"

Ha! When I clicked on Get Shorty, the first book that came up under "Readers Also Enjoyed" was Once Upon a Time in Hollywood!

[CCCubbon]

Thank you, Robert, Berkley and AB.
I looked up the Lovecraft book and it does look interesting but at over £21 it is a little too expensive. I did find ‘ Classic tales of horror’, leather bound, which has Lovecraft, James and others. I have a couple of days to look further. Grateful for your suggestions.

[AB76]

Next up is , an oral history of the last decade of the Eastern Bloc...from BBC books

Some of the content comes from the 3 part 2009 BBC series "The Lost World of Communism"

[Robert]

Best of luck. Auburn had an overcast day yesterday, but no appreciable rain. Odd for anyone from this region to long for rain this much.

[AB76]

Robert wrote: "Best of luck. Auburn had an overcast day yesterday, but no appreciable rain. Odd for anyone from this region to long for rain this much."

shows how bizarre the climate is becoming. The UK is getting wetter and much, much milder in last 5 years. Autumn lasts at late september temps till Xmas, Jan-March can still be very chilly but by April that blazing warm sun is back

[Fuzzywuzz]

CCCubbon wrote: "Morning everyone.
My youngest grandchild visited yesterday, another bookworm, and she told me that she likes horror stories. This is a genre I know little about and I want to send a couple of books..."

Some of James Herbert stuff I loved when I was at Uni included The Magic Cottage and The Others. Others here may have already mentioned HP Lovecraft, Henry James etc.

Horror stories can be gruesome and/or psychologically terrifying - the latter including Michelle Paver - Thin Air was very disturbing, but an excellent read. Coraline by Neil Gaimen was very good too.

John Ajvide Lindqvist wrote the excellent Let The Right One In.

I love a good scary story, I hope our grandchild fins something good :)

[Fuzzywuzz]

Fuzzywuzz wrote: "CCCubbon wrote: "Morning everyone.
My youngest grandchild visited yesterday, another bookworm, and she told me that she likes horror stories. This is a genre I know little about and I want to send ..."

'I hope our grandchild fins something good'

Apologies for my dreadful typo. I'm just home from work and I really shouldn't be let anywhere near a keyboard....

[Hushpuppy]

Fuzzywuzz wrote: "John Ajvide Lindqvist wrote the excellent Let The Right One In."

Glad to see another recommendation for it! I'm not one for horror stories (although I had a delightful Poe/Lovecraft period), but I have this one on my TBR Goodreads list, perhaps for Halloween.

Another one I have on my list, @CCC, is The Virago Book of Ghost Stories. I don't know what it's worth (don't know if Alwynne has read it, I don't think so), but it does look enticing from the blurb:

Gathering together deliciously chilling tales from the three highly-acclaimed volumes of Virago ghost stories, this collection features stories by A.S. Byatt, Angela Carter, Charlotte Brontë, Antonia Fraser, Penelope Lively, Ruth Rendell, Edith Wharton, and many more. (...) All of the writers demonstrate a subtle power to delight and chill at the same time as they explore the ghostly margins of the supernatural.

I haven't had time to get back to you @scarlet, @Swelter, @bl and @Georg on Wide Sargasso Sea, will try to do so later this week!

[Hushpuppy]

Fuzzywuzz wrote: "Apologies for my dreadful typo."

One of the (too) few benefits of Goodreads is that you can edit your comments @Fuzz 😊!

[AB76]

The Ship is a delicious mix of philosophical discourse on exile, modern 1970s arab politics and a novel suffused with barely suppressed lust.

Like an Arabic Illiad,the med and its endlessly travelling cruise ship passengers slowly drift along, all with stories to tell of lost land and love

a lovely scene is when the curvaceous lebanese girl Hama performs a bellydance for the men on deck, as the sun sets,to the music of Umm Kultumm. It is a dance of innocent fun, she is unaware of the desire of two of the men for her

Jabra is criminally overlooked, he is possibly the best arab writer for style, better than Mahfouz possibly but i wouldnt know how either sound or read in their native arabic, so its in translation where i see the quality

[giveusaclue]

I went to the cinema today!!! Lunch at a small Italian restaurant across the road from the cinema before then:

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11394318/

different but we enjoyed it and it made such a nice chane.

On the literary side I am now reading:



So far so good, and coincidentally starts at Chepstow Castle, the home of my hero William Marshal, as mentioned upthread.

[MK]

Bill wrote: "MK wrote: "Gimme a paperback of Get Shorty any day"

Ha! When I clicked on Get Shorty, the first book that came up under "Readers Also Enjoyed" was Once Upon a Time in Hollywood..."</i>

Elmore Leonard wrote dialog like no other! Quentin should have read [book:Get Shorty before he put pen to paper or fingers to keyboard. (And USA Today wrote today that he is not nice to his Mom!)

[Berkley]

Tarantino probably has read Get Shorty since I believe he is a fan of Elmore Leonard and advised John Travolta to accept a rôle in the movie version of that particular book - and of coursed adapted Leonard to the screen himself with Jackie Brown.

[scarletnoir]

Bill wrote: How much readers will enjoy all this may depend on their familiarity with Golden Age Hollywood."

H'm. Well, I am very much a cinephile - though not an admirer of Tarantino's output - and also interested in cinema history - though I'd have placed any 'golden age' earlier than the late 60s...

So, would I enjoy this book? Probably not, but I may take a quick look, in case...

[scarletnoir]

giveusaclue wrote: "I went to the cinema today!!! Lunch at a small Italian restaurant across the road from the cinema before then:

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11394318/

different but we enjoyed it and it made such ..."

Truffle hunters, eh? An unusual topic - I can recall only one book dealing with it - and a nasty murder: Michael Dibdin's sixth Aurelio Zen mystery, A Long Finish.

[Veufveuve]

I made an extremely brief trip to the UK - inevitably this meant at least one bookshop and I returned with "Cafe Europa Revisited: How to Survive Post-Communism" by Slavenka Drakulić (in a connection I've never quite understood, my wife is friends with the author), "Republic of Detours: How the New Deal Paid Broke Writers to Rediscover America" by Scott Borchert, "Franchise: The Golden Arches in Black America" by Marcia Chatelain, and "The Merchant of Prato: Daily Life in a Medieval City" by Iris Origo. I am particularly looking forward to the latter two and am torn as to which I will read first. How I have previously not read the Origo I do not know.

Now that I'm home I'm regretting putting down the Arthur Machen that I picked off a shelf.

Travel, however brief, also meant a chance to break out of my months long reading slump and I got about half way through Flanagan's "The Narrow Road to the Deep North" (perhaps only the third Australian novel I've ever read). I am enjoying it, but will reserve judgment for now. However, there's one sex scene which was either incredibly over-written or has me thinking that I've been doing sex wrong all these years.

Other than that England made me feel like I was in an animated Hogarth print and I was glad to get home.

[Veufveuve]

Re: women and sex in the past, these words are from a letter written by a young wife, an extremely pious Methodist, in northern England in 1816:

"Oh my dear John, I lay in bed thinking how I shall enjoy clasping you to my bosom, calling you by all those names my affection can invent. I think of it until I almost imagine it a reality … I feel as if I never should be satisfied with kissing you and embracing you so you must prepare yourself for it. Nay I even talk of eating you – but at this rate I shall frighten you so I had better hold my tongue till I have you safe here."

This is not the only time she wrote with such passion. She clearly desires John very strongly. The aside that she might frighten him is clearly a joke between them.

[Robert]

Then there was Carlyle's fiancé Jane Welsh writing to him:

"Devil! I wish that you were here that I might beat you with a stick!"

[Paul]

Ciao folks!

I read these past few days Sylvia townsend Warner's Lolly Willowes and thought it fantastic.

It's a very simple book on the surface, but there is a soundtrack behind it of rising rage and increasing indignation. There is a sense of Nine Inch Nails playing far away in the background, with hidden cricket bats ready to appear in-hand at a moment's notice. Peppered with subversive, knives-out humor, you spend most of the book waiting to see what happens when Laura breaks free and tosses aside societies standards and strictures. There is no doubt that she is going to buck convention, one way or another. It's almost an authorial indignity calling the book Lolly Willowes, as that is the nickname thrust upon her by her spoiled nieces.
There is a quiet sense of injustice and an aftertaste of bilious discouragement, but the book reads as funny and light.

The ending...that might have lost a few readers, when it goes full Ozzy Osborne. I thought it was great, it was a complete rejection of all things expected, both by society and the reader. It was a fantastic book and one that, despite being only 1509-some pages, was the perfect length for the story.

Now, I'm onto some Neil Gaiman: Anansi Boys

[Lljones]

Those fifteen hundred pages just fly by, don't they? ;)

[Paul]

To catch up on some of my earlier, undiscussed reading, I also recently read Shokoofeh Azar's The Enlightment of the Greengage Tree .

A pretty decent story of one families undoing during the Iranian Revolution, it wore its influences a little too close to the surface. It turned the Magical Realism dial to 11, and out-Gabboed Garcia Marquez while often name-dropping his books.
Some of the magic works in service to the story, the ghost daughter who still interacts with her family, the ancient family holding their estate walls up from the encroaching integralism, the mirror labyrinth in which the Ayatollah wanders feebly. Others not so much.

It follows a family of musicians and artisans away from Teheran as the hardliners take hold of the country after the Shah's deposal and ban all art and non-religious festivities, They flee into a trackless, primeval forest and set up a house and a school in an unmapped village at the foot of Zoroastrian ruins with a temple full of ghosts. They try to lie low, ignoring the oppression occurring "out there" but the Ayatollah's message would penetrate the mountains eventually.

It was a decent book, one of the few Iranian works daring to challenge the narrative of the Iranian Islamic Revolution. So, it's no surprise that the author is a political refugee in Australia and the translator wished to be anonymous.

[Paul]

Lljones wrote: "Those fifteen hundred pages just fly by, don't they? ;)"

Whoops. Yeah, I read it all in one sitting but it took me 2 days to recover use of my legs afterwards

[Robert]

Hushpuppy wrote: "Fuzzywuzz wrote: "John Ajvide Lindqvist wrote the excellent Let The Right One In."

Glad to see another recommendation for it! I'm not one for horror stories (although I had a delightful Poe/Lovecr..."

Let the Right One In is a solid choice for a modern horror story.

[scarletnoir]

Robert wrote: "Then there was Carlyle's fiancé Jane Welsh writing to him:

"Devil! I wish that you were here that I might beat you with a stick!""

Of course, she may have meant it literally - Carlyle was not an easy man to get on with!

"Carlyle developed a painful stomach ailment, possibly gastric ulcers,[10] that remained throughout his life and likely contributed to his reputation as a crotchety, argumentative, somewhat disagreeable personality. His prose style, famously cranky and occasionally savage, helped cement an air of irascibility.[11]" (Wikipedia)

[scarletnoir]

Paul wrote: "Lljones wrote: "Those fifteen hundred pages just fly by, don't they? ;)"

Whoops. Yeah, I read it all in one sitting but it took me 2 days to recover use of my legs afterwards".

Yes, I get stiff if I sit too much, too.

[Tam]

Some on here might be interested in a programme on Leonora Carrington, on Radio 4, this afternoon, 'Short Cuts' at 15.00 (GMT)

[AB76]

Veufveuve wrote: "I made an extremely brief trip to the UK - inevitably this meant at least one bookshop and I returned with "Cafe Europa Revisited: How to Survive Post-Communism" by Slavenka Drakulić (in a connecti..."

England is a rotten walking Brexit advert Veuf.....a septic mess.You did well to not feel ill on these shores

[giveusaclue]

AB76 wrote: "Veufveuve wrote: "I made an extremely brief trip to the UK - inevitably this meant at least one bookshop and I returned with "Cafe Europa Revisited: How to Survive Post-Communism" by Slavenka Draku..."

Hyperbole AB.

I come here to engage with people about books but I hate to read people running down our /their country (there is enough of that over at The Guardian) . Yes there is a lot wrong but there is also a lot right. And it is odd if it is so bad that so many people risk their lives to get here, despite passing through other safe countries in the process.

My last comment on the subject.

[AB76]

One of my aims has been to read more autobiographies by women in last 3 years, no special time zone, modern or historical. Sometimes in short recollections of childhood or whatever.

Reading Ditlevsen was part of this aim, i also read Ruth First's memoir of incarceration during apartheid in South Africa and Joan Didions first book of essays, many focused on her youth.

Has anyone read "Motherwell" by Deborah Orr, i aim to read it and wondered if anyone has a view on it?

[Bill]

In the course of my daily walk, I pass several houses displaying flags of various design with the message "Welcome Friends". This always makes me think about how Gandalf opened the Doors of Durin.

[Lass]

@AB37. I haven’t read Deborah Orr’s Motherwell, but will at some point. I spoke to her a few years ago on the Guardian Christmas Appeal line. A lively, engaging person. So sad she is no longer here to give her pithy comments about these times.

Though I haven’t read Ruth First’s memoir, I did meet her daughter, Gillian Slovo, twenty odd years ago, and still have her book about her mum, Every Secret Thing. I think you would enjoy it.

[[deleted user]]

Bill wrote: "
In the course of my daily walk, I pass several houses displaying flags of various design with the message "Welcome Friends". This always makes me think about how Gandalf opened the Doors of Durin."

"Speak friend and enter."

How do you manage to replicate a picture so beautifully in a post, Bill? I'm still pretty clueless about how to do things around here.

[[deleted user]]

Anyone want to volunteer to read and report back here?

[Andy]

By coincidence rather than intention, two books set in Wales as my last two reads. Though separated in date published by 94 years..

Benighted by J.B. Priestley
This was Priestley’s second of his almost thirty novels, published in 1927, and arguably, the most famous of them - because we all know the scenario, it’s been used in short stories, novels, and so many movies since…
A torrential rainstorm, roads impassable due to flooding and landslides, a car breakdown, three terrified travellers trapped by the storm, and an old gated house in the middle of nowhere to ask for shelter in. And what’s more, it’s set in the Snowdonia mountains of Wales.
Despite the fact that for much of the middle of the novel nothing much happens other than talk about the weather, this is a whole pile of fun.
The beginning is the novel’s strength. That large middle section could be shorter, but there is some good humour dotted about. Though the ending is predictable, it is nonetheless exciting to read.

It’s been made into a movie twice, in 1932 and 1963, as The Old Dark House. The first features the great Boris Karloff, the second the also great Robert Morley, as well as Fenella Fielding and Joyce Grenfell. By the sounds of it, the second was played more for laughs, but I will try and catch both.

And, The Fortune Men by Nadifa Mohamed
Whilst I admire the meticulous research and the bringing to light of a tragic injustice in our country’s recent past, I must say that I struggled with this. There is pretty much nothing in the 370+ pages to raise a smile at, it’s a very sad story, not only of the life of Mattan, but also of immigrants in general in the 1950s.
It’s strength is in its descriptions of poverty, squalor and violence in Tiger Bay, and the determination of the people concerned to live their lives as well as possible.
I’m really surprised it was long listed for this year’s Booker.

[Tam]

Anne wrote: "Anyone want to volunteer to read and report back here?"

No I cant be roused to comment myself, but there is a review in this fortnights LRB newsletter, 12th Aug, p 11), by Andrew O'Hagan, which also covers Megans (The Bench) book ambitions as well. I haven't read it, but I saw my husband sniggering over it at least a few times in the process of reading it... if that helps...

[Sandya]

Bill wrote: "
In the course of my daily walk, I pass several houses displaying flags of various design with the message "Welcome Friends". This always makes me think about how Gandalf opened the Doors of Durin."

I use one particular quote of Gandalf as a guide to living.

"Cast aside fear and regret. Do the task at hand".

Fear is our reaction to an unknown future, regret our reaction to actions taken in the past. But all we have is the present, so this helps me focus on the here and now and live as well as I can.

[AB76]

Lass wrote: "@AB37. I haven’t read Deborah Orr’s Motherwell, but will at some point. I spoke to her a few years ago on the Guardian Christmas Appeal line. A lively, engaging person. So sad she is no longer here..."

thanks for that Lass, very interesting and i will check out that book you mentioned.
You are well connected, meeting these folk..

[AB76]

giveusaclue wrote: "AB76 wrote: "Veufveuve wrote: "I made an extremely brief trip to the UK - inevitably this meant at least one bookshop and I returned with "Cafe Europa Revisited: How to Survive Post-Communism" by S..."

nothing but the truth, a rotten mess, makes me sad for what this country was becoming only a decade ago. it has regressed on so many levels and is possibly the most rancid times i can remember in my life...
i am not into the "my country right or wrong" nonsense and the Guardian is excellent at criticising England, thank goodness

[Sandya]

Paul wrote: "Ciao folks!

I read these past few days Sylvia townsend Warner's Lolly Willowes and thought it fantastic.

It's a very simple book on the surface, but there is a soundtrack behi..."

Lolly Willowes has always bee a favorite of mine! I posted a review here a year or so ago.

[AB76]

Andy wrote: "By coincidence rather than intention, two books set in Wales as my last two reads. Though separated in date published by 94 years..

Benighted by J.B. Priestley [..."

interesting as always Andy
Are you on some distant island or among the lakes with your trusty canine companion, chillaxing? I'm sure you have a trip planned, if you can get it on kindle, i think you will enjoy William Morris's journals travelling in Iceland, i'm loving it.

[Andy]

AB76 wrote: "Journals of Travel in Iceland 1871-73 by WIlliam Morris has re-ignited my late evening journal/diary reading after the slightly bizarre Grass 1990 diary.

Morris manages to keep the prose moving fa..."

Sounds fantastic AB.
Thanks for this.