What I Just Put Down, and what I just began

[Melissa]

Just finished Edna O'Brien's The Country Girls, which was rather different from what I had expected. For one thing it's true that it's a quick read, as people said, but not necessarily an easy read. Amidst the narration of some devastating experiences there are passages of wonderful description and haunting atmosphere. The Classics Corner conversation has already begun 'under the book icon' near the bottom of the CR home page.

[Barbara]

Oh, Jim, now you have me more interested. I'm impressed with the ex-mistress in The Last Tycoons, but I'm sure I'd fall asleep on the IPOs, balance sheets and M&A activity (btw, what is M&A activity?). Maybe you could just continue to give us the juicy parts?

[Al]

M&A stands for mergers and acquisitions. I think a great example of the combination of business and gossip is Bryan Burroughs' Barbarians at the Gates - all about RJR Nabisco and the bankers and lawyers involved with that - that is the standard by which I judge most business related books. Roger Lowenstein's book about the collapse of LTCM (Long Term Capital Management) is also a winner in that genre for me.

I just finished The Trillion Dollar Meltdown by charles Morris. He definitely does not include the gossipy, juicy details of the current credit crisis, but he does give a wonderful overview and lay of the land. Even though I worked in finance, it makes me feel smarter about what is happenning now. And I don't think you need a finance background to understand it at all.

I've just started On the Jellicoe Road by Melina Marchetta - she is a wonderful Australian YA author and teacher who I met this past fall traveling in Italy.

[Jessika]

Yesterday morning, I finished re-reading Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. Loved it...again :D

Then yesterday afternoon, I started re-reading Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets . I'm loving it so far, and I'm well on my way to my summer goal of reading the entire series!

[Barbara]

Jess, I listened to all of the Harry Potter books in audiobook productions read by Jim Dale. He does an astonishing job with the characters. You should try one of them at some point.

[Jessika]

Thanks, for the suggestion, Barbara. That actually sounds like a great idea! I'm pretty sure my library has them, so I'll have to check them out!

[Renee]

Barbara and Jess

I did not read a Harry Potter book until the Order of the Phoenix! We are big fans of audio books - we traveled a lot when the kids were younger. We have listened to all the HP books and I prefer listening to them - Jim Dale is amazing! My favorite is The Goblet of Fire - the antics at the Dursley's house before Harry left with the Weasley's for the quidditch games are hilarious! Jim had me laughing so hard I had to stop the car - I couldn't see!

[Jessika]

I just finished the third Harry Potter book last night. It took me a few days to read it because I was trying to savor it (as it is my favorite book so far).

And now I'm starting to read Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire , which is another re-read that I'm more than looking forward to.

Barbara--I put all of the Harry Potter audiobooks onto my iPod...I love Jim Dale! My favorite character that he does is Dumbledore :)

[Barbara]

Oh, I'm really glad you like Jim Dale, Jess. I like that Dumbledore voice too. Hagrid is another favorite.

Jim Dale also does an outstanding recording of A Christmas Carol. I just remembered it the other day when I was trying to come up with great audiobooks for the Listopia game. The only problem with it is that you occasionally hear a voice that sounds like a bit like Hagrid, Dumbledore, etc. But, the whole production is so good that I'm willing to forgive that.

[Jim]

Just finished Severance Package which was 263 pages of senseless violence, sort of like Jack Reacher without the long descriptions and deep philosophical discussions. I was interested to see the other reviews here where those knowledgeable about these things seem to think the book wasn't violent enough and where one person claimed to detect social commentary.

Next up I am going to try G.K. Chesterton's The Man Who Was Thursday, being inspired by the recent New Yorker article.

[Candy]

OOOh, I LOVE The Man Who Was Thursday...I must try to find that New Yorke article. Thanks for heads up.

[Al]

Jim:

Thanks for your feedback on Severance Package - I will not be adding it to my list.

I also added The Man Who Was Thursday to my list after that New Yorker article as well.

If I didn't have such a huge stack from the library at the moment I would join you in reading it now.

I'm about 50 pages into In The Woods by Tana French and thoroughly enjoying it.

I have also just started The House on Fortune Street by Margo Livessy and am enjoying that as well.

Both of these books are due back at the library on Saturday and can't be renewed, so we'll see if I make it!

[Kara]

I just finished Lullaby, by Chuck Palahniuk.

Have started One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich (Solzhenitsyn) and Anna Karenina (Tolstoy).

[Barbara]

Oh, Kara, I love Anna Karenina. What translation are you reading?

[Candy]

I haven't been able to find the article nline...but rather I did find an abstract and it sounds as if it is anegative article and that Chesterton was a racist? I am very sorry to hear this as I am a fan of his.

I find The Man Who Was Thursday to be utterly mysterious, charming and mathematical. It makes me sad to hear of mystic being a hater...(I don't know anything about the writers life...just got turned on to him a long time ago...)

[Kara]

Barbara,

I am reading the Constance Garnett translation. It's a Barnes & Noble Classic, and I got it because it was cheap. :) Is this a good one? I have no clue.

I actually read the book back in high school and don't remember it at all. I do remember that I LOVED it though, so I'm excited to be reading it again.

[Barbara]

I think the Constance Garnett one is well recognized, Kara. I am just curious about a new translation done in 2004 by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky. I've thought about nominating it for the next Classics Corner list. Be sure and post your impressions when you finish. I first read this with the group here a long time ago and it was my first Tolstoy. I became obsessed afterward and read War and Peace, lots of his shorter writings and some biographies.

[Sherry, Doyenne]

Barb, I would love to read the new translation. I would vote for it.

[Pamela]

Barbara, I have heard that the Pevear/Volokohnsky translation is very very good. I'm going to order it as a mid-term reward for myself. (Too many books till then). If you want to nominate it for Classics Corner, I will give you strong support.

[Jim]

I probably didn't do Severance Package enough justice here. I did mention in my review page that it was fascinating just because it was well done violent story about a obscure office of a nameless ant-terror organization whose members obliterate themselves in gruesome fashion when the nameless organization decides to shut down the office. Even so, Al, you probably can skip this one and live a rich, full life.

As for the New Yorker article, it isn't entirely critical of GK. The point it makes is that GK shared, with T.S. Eliot among others, the curious and ultimately poisonous notion that Judaism somehow threatened "civilized" values. When Hitler took this notion to the extreme, Chesterton was as appalled as the rest of the world and said so. With others he is given blame for creating an atmosphere where Hitler was possible.

The part of the article that grabbed my attention was the talk about his style which is firmly rooted in the 19th century, clearly influenced by Shaw, Doyle, and W.S. Gilbert. The peculiar thing is that he is a contemporary with Virginia Woolf and E.M. Forster who were moving on in new directions.

All of which leads to the interesting question of whether an author is obligated to write in the style of his time, whether writing one more thing in the style of George Eliot, say, would show great imagination or a great lack of imagination. I suppose we will have to wait until someone tries to do it and figure it out then.

[Barbara]

I haven't read that article yet, Jim. Now, I'm sure to get to it.

Sherry and Pamela, help me remember to nominate the Pevear/Volokohnsky translation for the reading list. I would love to read it with everyone here.

[Silvana]

Been a long time since my last book (three weeks?), but finally got the chance to read To Kill A Mockingbird. 100 pages and rolling. Gosh, how excellent.

[Sherry, Doyenne]

I tried looking for the Pevear/Volokohnsky translation on Goodreads and they don't have a field for translator. I think they are working on that, but it's obviously not there yet. On Amazon they call it the Oprah version (which they wouldn't do that!). But, anyway, I have a bookshelf of to-nominate books, and I'll put it on there.

[Al]

I'm also up for reading the Pevear/Volokohnsky translation.

I just finished The House on Fortune Street - I thought it was very good, albeit kind of creepy, but hard to put down. I had never read Margot Livesey before. Llike so many books I have read recently, it had alternating narrators and was almost like 4 four-interconnected short stories. I am quickly becoming a big fan of that style.

[Candy]

Ah ha, okay, thanks Jim. I am still trying to track down the article.

Yes, Chesterton is I suppose an eccentric writer. I find that I return to his work over and over. Whereas his peers, no, I doubt I would read again. But it is the whimsical amd mathematical aspects of Chesteton that keep him classic and interesting.

I don't know your reading preferences, but I doubt anyone who is attached to literature being "hard realism" or "concrete" will like his work. I think perhaps he is more interesting to people who have a sense for the spirit and interior life of the human condition...but I don't know. He is not usually enjoyed by people focused on "reason" or athiesism" as a worldview.

I look forward to hearing what you think of Thursday and hope you will share it here.

[Jessika]

I've officially started the fifth Harry Potter book... Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix ...I'll let you all know what I think of it because this is the first Harry Potter book that I haven't read yet...so I'm really looking forward to it! :)

[Janet]

I just finished The New Woman: A Staggerford Novel by Jon Hassler and enjoyed it so much I had to post a brief review here. It is only 214 pages so it was a quick read.

When is the last time you read a novel whose main character is 87 years old? Opinionated retired schoolteacher, Agatha McGee, reluctantly becomes "the new woman" at a residential facility for senior citizens. Immediately the author draws you into caring for this diverse cast of characters. The plot is set in motion by a missing brooch which leads a few residents to stow some "valuables" in a community shoebox. Later their lives are complicated by a debate over whether to disinter a body; at another point, what to do about a kidnapped child. The story in turns is touching, but many times is so funny you have to bite your lip to keep from laughing out loud.

[Jim]

The Man Who was Thursday is very disconcerting. The book begins on a farcical note:

"The suburb of Saffron Park ... had been the outburst of a speculative builder, faintly tinged with art, who called its architecture sometimes Elizabethan and sometimes Queen Anne, apparently under the impression that the two sovereigns were identical."

For a long time the book seems to be part Pirates of Penzance and part Sherlock Holmes, then at the finish the story takes a left turn into the supernatural and you end up with a Christian fable:

"Only in the blackness before it entirely destroyed his brain he seemed to hear a distant voice saying a commonplace text he had hear somewhere,'Can ye drink the cup that I drink of?'"

Personally I felt as if I had been tricked into a particularly sentimental Sunday school class. I much preferred lines like:

"Thieves respect property. They merely wish the property to become their property that they may more perfectly respect it."

My advice would be to skip the last two chapters, much too uplifting.

Next book? Maybe finish E.M. Forster's Two Cheers for Democracy

[Ruth]

What Steve said.

[[deleted user]]

Currently reading two books:
Metamorfoze by Louis Couperus and Naked Lunch by William S. Burroughs. I liked the film and am now 24 pages in. All I can say so far is that it isn't an easy read for me, but that's what I expected, English being my second, or third, language depending on the definition of language. But so far on most occasions my Oxford dictionary has been a loyal companion.

[Mary Ellen]

I just finished "Brideshead Revisited." I'd seen the movie and couldn't remember the book well (read it for a class in college) and wanted to compare the two.

SPOILERS!!



Interesting differences between the book and movie (frex, Charles Ryder converts to Catholicism in the book. And Julia's husband is Canadian, not American, in the book. And the mother is not as much of a horror in the book. And the father's mistress does not give Charles the same "watch what you're doing" speech in the book).


Though I prefer the book to the movie, in that it is not as hostile to religion as the movie is, at the same time I felt the book did not age well. Too many topical references, and maybe too many in-joke Oxford references.


RE: Chesterton. I read the article in The New Yorker also. It seems that he did not write in the style of his day, but held the prejudices of his day, perhaps more strongly than many. (Remember the post-WWII movie "Gentleman's Agreement"?). I've never read anything by Chesterton, but from what I know of him - he was, after all, a famous Christian apologist - I would not be surprised to find his books written from a Christian world-view.

Mary Ellen

[Ruth]

Mary Ellen and Jim, your last reviews were excellent. So thoughtful they deserved a thread of their own, I think.

[Liz]

After finishing "Duma Key" by Stephen King, I had a hard time finding my next read - it was that good!

Just to see why it's so popular, I began "Twilight" by Stephanie Meyer, got about 1/3 of the way through and had to return it to the library because someone was waiting for it. Definitely a "teen" read, but I would like to finish it - sometime!

Picked up "The Shunning" by Beverly Lewis - enjoy reading about the Amish lifestyle and always wanted to read at least one of this series.

[Denise]

I just finished Amsterdam by Ian McCewan and hope to find a copy of the Marakumi book for Sept.

[Al]

I just finished "the reluctant fundamendalist" and really liked it. it is more like a novella in length and feel.

I am about to start "say you're one of them", a short story collection about africa.

Denise: What did you think of Amsterdam? I've only read "atonement" and I didn't love it.

[Candy]

Nice review of TMWWT, Jim. Don't say I didn't warn you about the touchy feely aspect of the novel heh heh. I am sorry it was so distracting that it was offputting of the conclusion for you...and it seems to have overshadowed for you, the intense structure of logic that the novel is concerned with.

I am surprised there has never been say, an animated film of the novel. I think that would be a great idea of a movie version.

I suppose it's for kids but I can't imagine very many young people reading it anymore like I did.

I always liked it's attempt to play out the allegories. Not an easy job for most novelists. And I always liked its exploration of logic. I think that is it's strongest feature...a novel acting out logic!

And finally, I liked how freewill and cruelty are so cleverly compared as coming from the same source of psychology.

I always thought this novel was a precursor to the contemporary novels (movies, tv shows) of "profiling" criminals. Chesterton seemed to fore cast the concept of getting into the "killers mind and psychology in order to trap them" that has become a staple of many crime stories.

[Jim]

Who says senseless violence doesn't pay. This from Variety:

"Lionsgate has acquired the Duane Swierczynski novel "Severance Package" and has hired helmer Brett Simon ("Assassination of a High School President") to write the script with the author and direct.

Marc Platt and Adam Siegel will produce the action comedy.

The protag is a media relations director of a financial company who learns that the firm was a front for a covert intelligence agency that is being shut down immediately, with every manager scheduled to be terminated--literally. The novel is a recipe for a Tarantino-esque, stylistically violent film, and it was discovered by Marc Platt Prods. prexy Siegel and Lionsgate veep Jim Miller. Novel was published May 27 by St. Martin's Minotaur."


An action comedy? I wonder what the funny part was? The self inflicted tracheotomy?

[Denise]

Al,
I liked Amsterdam, but didn't love it. There were some fine paragraphs, but I had trouble believing the characters' actions. This made it a clever story, but not one that felt real.

[Sherry, Doyenne]

I thoroughly disliked Amsterdam. I don't remember why. But I really have liked everything else I've read by him.

[Ruth]

I hated Amsterdam, too.

[Al]

Thanks for the opinions - I am going to continue to stay away from him - just wanted to make sure.

Since The Reluctant Fund., I'm having trouble getting into anything good - I've given a few books a try but nothing has stuck so far. I have a big, big stack for vacation next week, so hopefully I'll get carried away with something again soon.

[Liz]

Just finished "The Shunning" by Beverly Lewis and picked up "Under the Banner of Heaven" - both deal with religion and banning and religious "rules". Odd - wonder what this means?

[Renee]

Hello All!

I just finished reading "Summer Reading" by Hilma Wolitzer. I found it interesting yet it was not THE book of the summer for me. It did reinforce my feeling that no matter how "tepid/not so great" a book can be, I can take something positive away after I finish reading it.

There were three stories/characters that were focused on in Wolitzer's book. One woman, Angela, led a summer reading group that directly involved a major character (Lissy) and indirectly involved another (Michelle). My favorite lines from the story came from the reading group -

"Literature teaches one how to live."

"...the answers only to be found in the living itself."

"Reading can change your life"

Great words for the Constant Reader community!

[Dottie]

No, no, no -- don't avoid McEwan, Al. As for Amsterdam -- it is at the top of my list of McEwan books -- I loved it when most others were either naysaying it or lukewarm in their responses. Enduring Love is also equal to it but I recommend reading it after you have several others behind your knee (that's another way of saying under your belt). Read On Chesil Beach -- and check out the discussion which CR had on it. Then try Amsterdam. I'm not saying he's easy -- but he can definitely grow on you so don't give up entirely after only one book.

I just finished The Country Girls. I'm not reading anything else yet -- but that's okay, too.

[Ruth]

I just threw in the banana on the audiobook version of Special Topics in Calamity Physics. I cannot abide smartass kids, nor can I tolerate a whiny Valleygirl-voiced narrator. Pfah!

[Al]

Ruth:

The audiobook may have been particularly tough for this book.

Dottie:

On Chesil Beach was the next McEwan I was considering. Perhaps I will try that down the road and see how it goes. I like that expression "behind your knee"

[Dottie]

Don't blame you, Ruth, as that description sounds truly unbearable to me!

Al that expression is the Flemish (Dutch) version of our under your belt idiom. I'll try to remember how to write the Dutch and post it for you.

[[deleted user]]

@ Dottie & Al: I think 'onder de knie' is the original Dutch expression you were talking about (I'm Dutch)

[Dottie]

Thanks, Sibyl! Yes, that's one Dutch form but I'm pretty sure that there is another which we were taught which was from Flemish/Dutch. As you know, there are some differences between standard Dutch and Flemish/Dutch and our instructor knew we loved learning those little variations. My problem is that most of what I learned has gone to the far corners of my brain to hibernate!

[Mary Ellen]

I've only read 2 books by McEwan, Atonement, which I liked very much (though felt a little cheated at the end) and Saturday, which was OK but strained my credulity a bit too much.

Mary Ellen