Reading the 20th Century discussion
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Welcome to The Midnight Bell (a virtual pub and general discussion thread) (2024)
I found The Universal Baseball Association, Inc., J. Henry Waugh, Prop. a might pricey - $43 for a paperback, so I opted for the audible of Huck Out West.
Wow, that is a little pricey! I had no idea. The cheapest used copy that I see on Bookfinder is about $24. I would have thought that this title would remain perennially in print at a reasonable price since it must get assigned in university courses. But maybe not.
The Open Library does have it available to borrow.
I didn't look to see if it was cheaper at Powell's or Abe's
Ben wrote: "GR "Help" re Notifications We’ve simplified the way we notify you about activity on Goodreads. Within Account Settings, we’ve moved the notification settings to a new Notifications page. This will likely mean less participation for me. It's too time consuming to look through all the threads in even one group, much less 3 or 4.
Some no..."
I suppose this is why the email summary of my groups' discussions has disappeared. I actually preferred getting my notifications in email rather than within GR, but my preferences are rarely the majority ones.
Australian literature might be big in the news this week. This morning, I am reading in the first volume of Henry Handel Richardson’s trilogy The Fortunes of Richard Mahony, Australia Felix. HHR is compared to George Eliot, and not just because she took a male pen name. TFORM truly has a Middlemarch-ian solidity, it is immensely THERE, like a mountain.Australian literature in general rings my bell. I greatly admire Xavier Herbert’s Capricornia (and I suspect the fact that Alexis Wright named a novel Carpentaria is not coincidental). I recently finished Henry Lawson’s classic short story / sketch collection While the Billy Boils. I need to read more Patrick White, I loved his collection of short novels The Cockatoos. Among Australian poets, I am a huge fan of Shaw Neilson, A.D. Hope, and Kenneth Slessor.
More bad news for the Internet Archive - apparently they have been hacked! https://www.standard.co.uk/news/tech/...
Ruth wrote: "More bad news for the Internet Archive - apparently they have been hacked! https://www.standard.co.uk/news/tech/..."I read the news item and it's by some group supporting Palestine. I don't think they are doing Palestine any favour by indulging in such acts.
Mod
"I know many of us are very busy at this time of the year but do you have any reading plans for either UK Black History Month or Halloween? "
Some ideas from Penguin....
https://classics.penguin.co.uk/q/17IV...
Nigeyb wrote: "Roman Clodia wrote: "I know many of us are very busy at this time of the year but do you have any reading plans for either UK Black History Month or Halloween? "
Some ideas from Penguin....
..."
Thanks for this. I listened to The Night Guest, and am reading The Empusium: A Health Resort Horror Story (which I am counting on the basis of its subtitle, which is certainly supported by the story's atmosphere). I just borrowed The Wharton Gothics: Stories of the Unnatural and the Supernatural to listen to in the car. I'm thinking of rereading The Master and Margarita, this time in the Ginsburg translation. The real Halloween horror may be what happens to the reader whose bedside TBR pile collapses in the night...
Here's a question (after quite a long introduction ).I have an on line reading buddy in Zurich (our friendship forged under lockdown and an interest in William Faulkner) , and she was recently getting that familiar reader weariness that envelopes us all at times . I began to wonder , with her , how I managed to avoid this.
I realized I always have a bigger project on the go, one that maintains the reading habit . Under lockdown I was in a group that read around the globe , randomly choosing three countries a month . Then another where we did a bookish version of the Afcon, Euros and World Cup . For three years recently I read The Bible every day , reading a different translation /version each year , and I've always had a Trollope on the go . This year I've been in a group reading short stories every week and discussing them on good reads and enjoying Anthony Powell on a monthly basis . I'm also in a group where we focus on a particular author , reading most of not all of their fiction and discussing this .
And then there's this wonderful group with its huge variety of choices and commentary.
As I write this I'm realizing I am sustained by quite a lot of structure and discussion which allows. me some wriggle room to venture into wherever the mood takes me . But by having these big projects I have some sense of foundation , familiarity that can be less challenging than the constant exposure to novelty . I think it's the discussion that sustains me most .
So back to my friend . I suggested we try a trilogy , so that she could really get into a particular world for a period of time . Familiar world and characters . After discussing a few options we settled for The Wolf Hall Trilogy , which she loves and I've never read. Win. Win .
So here's my question . What are you reading anchors , those habits or types of novel that
keep the reading engines turning over when life and all it's distractions demand your time ?
is it a genre , a daily ritual , a place , a long challenge with commitments , discussion with others ( clearly my bag) , a favourite author , another type of prose or art ( poetry , graphic novel, audiobooks ) .
How do you keep your reading mojo ?
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That's such an interesting question, Hester. I've been having an exceptionally difficult time in my personal life since June and trying to keep up with work and professional commitments alongside that has meant that my personal reading has dropped off considerably in the last months. Which, ironically, has then contributed to my stress as reading keeps me sane!
So I've been pondering this very issue. Comfort and familiar reads are not working at the moment for me (in my case Austen, Brontes, rather than Trollope) but non-fiction has proved successful as I have to concentrate in a different way. Short stories are also good for quick bursts of literariness.
Discussion definitely perks up my reading too.
But you've asked this question at the same time as I've been feeling 'undernourished' by my lack of meaningful reading recently. I think my solution is the project one you've floated: my vague plans are for female autobiography and auto fiction, and some completist reading i.e. definitely time to read all of Woolf. And very much looking forward to our Proust project next year.
I'm very interested in how others feel about this question.
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"How do you keep your reading mojo ?"
I adopt the RC approach
If it's not working then jettison it and move on
I also follow my instincts
I've never had reader's block
I increasingly prefer reading to TV, cinema, theatre so most of my spare time is taken up with reading (though it's nowhere near as prodigious as many on here)
Only dancing, music and football rank as high
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Like Nigeyb, I also like football and music. My other hobbies are going to the theatre, museums, galleries, etc. and I like going to book talks and have done lots this year, as well as the Harrogate Crime Festival and plan to do both Foyles and Waterstones Piccadilly Christmas Evenings. I work a lot but I also try to balance that with fun stuff. Now my children are older and my daughter, especially, is a voracious reader, it is good fun to introduce her to authors and bookshops.
I think my two Goodreads groups help to give me reading structure but I have personal challenges too. Next year I am going to try to read all the Robert Galbraith books, continue reading all of Martin Amis and also start re-reading the Jane Haddam Gregor Demarkian series. There are a few of the latter books in the series which I still haven't read, so I am looking forward to that. I have Kate Atkinson and John Connolly as authors whose series I also want to read in order.
I have been reading pretty much all my life and will continue to do so until I die probably - I feel blessed that there will be enough to read to see me through my life and that I have people to share my passion with.
This is a wonderful question to think about, so I can't help but chime in. I think I too practice what RC said and Nigeyb translated as "If it's not working then jettison it and move on." Like Susan, I've been reading all my life and I'm confident I always will.I think readers block is a bit like writers block. If you think of yourself as a reader, then you have and should foster a regular habit. When it's a habit, it should only be the really rough or unusual times that break it. And what fosters that is trust--trust that if this or that book isn't working, then eventually you'll find one that will, and you'll be back in the zone.
Funny you should mention Wolf Hall, because the only time in recent years I remember having this issue was at the beginning of Covid. Like everyone, I was in a bit of shock and disoriented. And like many people mentioned on this site, I couldn't seem to read. The book that broke that for me was Wolf Hall. Maybe because it was set in another time and it so fully captured my attention--I'm not sure. But it worked. I hope it does for your friend, too!
Hester wrote: "How do you keep your reading mojo ?Yes, a wonderful question.
I was a voracious reader until I left university for law school and a law career, and then for almost forty years I struggled to find time for book reading alongside news and all of the reading and writing necessary for work, not to mention work time and time for family life. Books were often confined to vacation time. Retirement has been such a welcome return to reading. I feel deprived now when I'm as busy as I have been this month (although it has been a great month).
As others have said, if a book isn't working for me I don't hesitate to quit, but there are some books that I want to finish but still feel like a bit of a slog. When I lose momentum I usually find reading something very different helps -- lighter, heavier, older, newer. The New Yorker always helps. So does reading a work by one of the absolute greats, which makes me appreciate just how amazing this art form is.
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Loving all these comments! So, what are everyone's slog books?
One of mine is Ulysses - I wanted to push through it and definitely enjoyed parts of it enormously but it tended to an intellectual interest rather than reading pleasure, other than Molly Bloom's great monologue.
My sloggier books of the last two years, all of which I enjoyed and am glad I read:Chronicle of the Murdered House
Memoirs of Hadrian
Thus Bad Begins
The Coming Bad Days
Ulysses and Montaigne's essays (two-thirds done and still determined to finish, someday) would have been slogs if I hadn't set a manageable reading pace.
The only way I got through Ulysses was by audiobook. Donal Donnelly as reader was the key for me. I could eyeball read the words while enjoying his lovely accent and intonation. It really helped me keep things straight. I agree that it was more of an intellectual interest than the pure enjoyment of the words (or story), but I’m glad I finally finished.
I haven't tackled any serious slogs this year, but there were these minor slogs:Swann's Way
The Cambridge Illustrated History of Germany
A Tale of Two Cities
The Case of Comrade Tulayev
The King Must Die
All very worthwhile, except the last one.
I have had periods where I have stopped reading. After my Mother's death I found reading difficult, as so many books reminded me of those we loved to share.What keeps my reading mojo going is not over committing. It is easy to want to join in so many reading challenges.
I have also separated my book buying from my reading. Mooching around a secondhand bookshop and finding a new-to-me book is a fun treat. I just try to ensure that I do not end up with more books on my TBR pile at the end of the year than I started with!
What a grand discussion . Nigel .I confess that I'm an advocate for ditching a book if it's a slog too , so I don't have many slogs on this year's list . The only one was The Mandarins / Simone De Beauvoir. Yes , I know , how could I say that etc etc but it was simply too long and the characters bored me . can recommend The Inseparables though ..
Like you, Ben, I had an engrossing working life , one where my brain was harnessed, and often exhausted, by its demands so retirement has been like Workers Playtime for my cerebral cortex .
Mod
I often find books by mid-century male authors a slog as they're just so confident and unquestioning about their world view. Also some Bookery books: there's something about that middle ground of books which are not quite 'literary' but think themselves above sheer entertainment that can fail with me.
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Whiff of the creative writing course .....love this quote . Not to say that some brilliant writers haven't emerged from the classroom , just that quite a lot more who would have been better off digging turnips . I always feel a little perplexed when I fall foul of a recent prize winning best seller . .... like finding myself in a restaurant serving poorly cooked food but with an enormous queue outside .
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Also publishing is now driven by marketing departments rather than editorial so they actively are looking for bandwagon books which are easier and less risky to sell.
I realize how curmudgeonly I am sounding! Which is unfair as there is some great work coming from small press and independent publishers as well as the huge growth of fiction in translation.
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Robert Harris said that so many new books sound as though they were written to be read aloud in creative writing class. The interview, if anyone is interested is: Simon Mayo's Books Of The Year. They always do a 2-parter with an author. The first is an interview, the second a Q&A and I think the part I mention was in the Q&A.
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But the upshot is that I don't read much contemporary crime anymore as so much of it just isn't very good (with a few honourable exceptions) - so please do pass on recommendations as I miss the genre in my reading.
How disheartening Roman C. Looks like we will need to keep digging in the deep mines of the past . Feels like a race to the bottom ..
Mod
Yes. Have a read of a newspaper book review section from 100 years ago and see how much mediocrity has always been published! 😉
Mod
Going back to sloggy reads, I have tried to re-read Trollope who I loved in my teens and twenties but find his verbosity just bogs me down now - sorry to all the Trollope fans here, wish I could join you!
Roman Clodia wrote: "And well before newspaper reviews were a thing!Going back to sloggy reads, I have tried to re-read Trollope who I loved in my teens and twenties but find his verbosity just bogs me down now - sor..."
I have trouble with Trollope too, although did quite like Can You Forgive Her?
I don't do slog, if something's not working for me I just ditch.
I often find that books lag for me somewhere in the middle. It seems like it typically takes half the book to set itself up, then a quarter to bring the plot to the crisis point, and another quarter to resolve the crisis and deal with the aftermath. The sloggiest part of a novel for me is often the latter half of the set up (i.e. the second quarter of the novel). I often get bored and this is where I often put a book down, wander off, and never manage to return, even for books that I think will be worth finishing. One of the things that helps for me is listening to audiobooks. I haven't figured out how to skim in audio, and I can also take my mind off my boredom by listening while doing something else: knitting, driving, and cooking are my usual accompaniments. (By cooking I mostly mean the preparation to cook, because the actual work at the stove tends to make a bit too much noise for me to catch all the words of the audiobook.)Another thing that puts me off books is characters I am invested in being in situations that are very bad for them, or clearly going only in a very bad direction. I struggle with this because most good books have at the very least periods where the characters we care about are experiencing bad things, but sometimes the circumstances are ones I just can't bear to read. I guess this most often happens when their experience resonates with some extremely difficult experience I've had. Sometimes I can put the book down and come back later. Sometimes I can't. I'm sure I miss some very good work when I have to leave the book, and I'd like to find a better way to deal with this, but so far, I haven't.
Reading mojo: I just assume I am in the wrong mood for a specific book. So I put it aside and pick up a different book. Why do you think I have soooo many unread/half-read books? Maybe I'm just not in the mood for that book. Pick up enough books and I can find one that interests me (given that I have a lot of books in this house).Audio books help too. Of course, that works better with a long-distance trip. I listed to 3-4 books on my recent trip to Chicago. Then, when I lost my cell service I listened to a book I hadn't finished from my trip. I also discovered that although I had a number of books in my audible library but hadn't actually downloaded. I had to go back to reading and watching DVDs.
Ulysses? I read that with a group from the local library. And I had a co-worker in the group and we bucked each other up when we flagged. That worked well since we weren't ready to bail at the same time. A friend on Facebook said he was finally able to make it through listening to a good reader on audio.
What will make me give up on a book? Bad writing and too many typos. Also, bad research on places I have been/lived, or topics I have read about. One of the worst was a writer who spelled one of the main streets of my town multiple ways. Who knew there that many ways to spell Sheridan? But books I give up on, I don't just give up on the book. I also give up on the author and they have lost a reader for life! I'm a very unforgiving reader.
I used to try Dan Brown. I read two, but I discovered that I had to read at least 150 pages to get into the story. Although sometimes it wasn't much of a story to get into. 50 pages is now my limit.
I think it was Jack London (among others) who said life is too short to read bad books, or books you don't enjoy.
Slogging? Is that struggling over a book? If so, it better be something like Moby-Dick or, The Whale or Ulysses. I bought Ulysses at least 5 years before I ever read it. I suppose I would Hugh Thomas' The Spanish Civil War. Or O'Neill by Arthur Gelb. I have been reading both of them on and off since college.
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I sometimes speed it up to 1.2, even 1.5 times the speed, depending on the narrator - nearest thing to skimming!
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I often find this with contemporary crime fiction or other genre reading - I tend (and I know some will shudder in horror at this!) to read the final chapter to see if the journey is worth continuing and then either skim till it picks up again or just call it a day there. I even have a shelf: skim read till end, distinct from my DNF.
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I was on a Halloween historic pub crawl on Thursday night and we started at the Tower (at the Hung, Drawn and Quartered, of course!) so I paid my usual tribute to Cromwell at the site where the executions took place... 😭
Roman Clodia wrote: "Has everyone seen that the final series of Wolf Hall is coming to the BBC next week? Tissues at the ready! The previous series is on iplayer so I'm planning to rewatch it in preparation. I was on..."
No thanks for the reminder, although am deeply into rewatching the Marvel shows at the moment. Agatha All Along was brilliant.
ooh . I've just started reading Wolf Hall for the first time . Late to the party but I can see why it's won all the prizes .
Mod
I'd just add that these books also work brilliantly as audios.
Mod
"ooh . I've just started reading Wolf Hall for the first time . Late to the party but I can see why it's won all the prizes ."
Is it too obvious to say you are in for a real treat?
No?
You're in for a real treat Hester 🤠
Roman Clodia wrote: "Has everyone seen that the final series of Wolf Hall is coming to the BBC next week? Tissues at the ready! The previous series is on iplayer so I'm planning to rewatch it in preparation. I was on..."
I'm currently re-reading the second book, and will be reading the third for the first time probably in December. I've put it off as long as possible (😭) but have to have it read before US public television shows the final series next year. Hope all of you enjoy it!
Mod
• Wednesday 27th November: Hatchards Christmas Evening
• Thursday 28th November: Foyles Christmas Evening
• Thursday 5th December: Christmas Customer Evening at Waterstones Piccadilly
No details on who will be at Foyles or Waterstones yet, but Hatchards have released a list of authors that will be present from 6-8pm:
This year, we are delighted to be welcoming all of the below authors to our annual Christmas Customer Evening:*
Eleanor Barraclough
William Boyd
Gyles Brandreth
Clare Chambers
Tracy Chevalier
Richard Coles
Annie Gray
Tessa Hadley
Robert Harris
Katy Hessel
India Hicks
Alan Hollinghurst
Cat Jarman
Dan Jones
Dan Keeling
Ben Macintyre
Sonia Purnell
Jay Rayner
Michael Rosen
Nigel Slater
Jon Sopel
Charles Spencer
Henrietta Spencer-Churchill
*This list is subject to change.
I see from twitter (X) that Arno Schmidt's Nobodaddy's Children (here in a different edition) will be reissued by Dalkey Archive as part of the Dalkey Essentials series.For anyone who hasn't checked out Dalkey Essentials, it's a great resource for 20th century lit aficionados.
https://dalkeyarchive.store/collectio...
Hester wrote: "ooh . I've just started reading Wolf Hall for the first time . Late to the party but I can see why it's won all the prizes ."I have been meaning to start Wolf Hall for many months now, but I want to understand whether I'll need some background knowledge on English history? Would love to know your take.
Reading the 20th Century
Books mentioned in this topic
Middlemarch (other topics)The Sea, the Sea (other topics)
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (other topics)
My Name Is Red (other topics)
The Accursed (other topics)
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Authors mentioned in this topic
Toni Morrison (other topics)Henry James (other topics)
Dorothy M. Richardson (other topics)
Warsan Shire (other topics)
Virginia Woolf (other topics)
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For Coover newbies, I have a suggestion. Two, actually. The Universal Baseball Association (1968) is a dazzling early novel (and perfectly accessible even if you don’t know a thing about baseball). Pricksongs & Descants (1969) is an excellent story collection from the same time.
The Public Burning (1977), Coover’s huge, phantasmagoric, and scabrous novel about Nixon, is unforgettable but best tackled after those shorter works, I think. A very timely book in this election season.
I feel guilty (as I so often do) about not having kept up with Coover’s later work. I think that he suffered a diminution of attention because, to put it mildly, he was not afraid of sexual themes, and would venture into near-pornography. If he were French, no one would care, but in the US, that is still kind of a no-no.
Perhaps I can make amends by now reading Coover’s first novel, The Origin of the Brunists (1966), which I never got to, and its juggernaut 1,005-page sequel, The Brunist Day of Wrath (2014). This set is ALSO timely, dealing as it does with a cult.