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Post by mickthecactus on Jul 23, 2018 15:48:04 GMT
I remember it being chosen in Desert Island Discs.
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Post by cheerypeabrain on Jul 23, 2018 15:51:19 GMT
Sailing By?
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Post by mickthecactus on Jul 23, 2018 16:10:15 GMT
No, definitely the Shipping Forecast.
Chisen by a comedienne who died early. Can’t think of her name.
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Post by mickthecactus on Jul 23, 2018 16:13:19 GMT
And Judi Dench picked it.
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Post by bjd on Jul 23, 2018 17:02:53 GMT
Some years ago I read a book called The Shipping News by Annie Proulx. I liked it a lot and it takes place mostly in Newfoundland. However, I tried other books by her and couldn't read any of them.
I could add that I am reading a biography of Eleanor of Aquitaine by some British writer. It's alright. Puts me to sleep at night. And I just finished a book by Donna Leon in her Brunetti series. Good as always.
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Post by mickthecactus on Jul 23, 2018 17:49:46 GMT
It was Marti Caine Cheery.
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Post by whatagain on Jul 25, 2018 19:42:52 GMT
Just relaxed I hope as without a book today. So she béent into a library and the guy having only french book I settled fir the last Gred Vargas. A rompol. Short for roman policier. Read the first pages between république and nation and will read another few in my hotel.
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Post by bixaorellana on Jul 25, 2018 19:56:44 GMT
Some years ago I read a book called The Shipping News by Annie Proulx. I liked it a lot and it takes place mostly in Newfoundland. However, I tried other books by her and couldn't read any of them. I think she wrote a book called "The Green Accordion". I remember liking it when I started it because the plot moved along. As I kept reading, though, I became unengaged, I think because there is something about her writing that I find cold and detached.
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Post by kerouac2 on Jul 25, 2018 20:26:56 GMT
I have a Fred Vargas book in my apartment somewhere that I started and then lost (too many books in my apartment!). It's been over a year. And yet I very much like Fred Vargas.
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Post by bjd on Jul 26, 2018 5:11:32 GMT
Some years ago I read a book called The Shipping News by Annie Proulx. I liked it a lot and it takes place mostly in Newfoundland. However, I tried other books by her and couldn't read any of them. I think she wrote a book called "The Green Accordion". I remember liking it when I started it because the plot moved along. As I kept reading, though, I became unengaged, I think because there is something about her writing that I find cold and detached. Wasn't it just called The Accordion? One of those I only read the beginning. I got rid of it. I don't bother with any of her books I see at the library, mostly because they seem to be westerns. Yes, I like Fred Vargas too.
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Post by bixaorellana on Jul 26, 2018 7:28:15 GMT
Wasn't it just called The Accordion? One of those I only read the beginning. I got rid of it. I don't bother with any of her books I see at the library, mostly because they seem to be westerns. You made me look it up. The title is Accordion Crimes: ... brings the immigrant experience in America to life through the eyes of the descendants of Mexicans, Poles, Africans, Irish-Scots, Franco-Canadians and many others, all linked by their successive ownership of a simple green accordion. sourceAlmost all of her books have jacket descriptions that sound appealing to me, but since I disliked her writing so much in Accordion Crimes that I've never been tempted to read another of her books.
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Post by mossie on Jul 26, 2018 7:39:42 GMT
I have two very contrasting books on the go at present. One is ‘Transforming Paris, the life and labors of Baron Haussmann’ . Which is very thorough, written by an American academic.
The other is ‘How to build a girl’, written by a lady journalist, Caitlin Moran, and filthy. Am engrossed in both.
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Post by bixaorellana on Jul 26, 2018 8:36:20 GMT
Ahhh, Mossie ~ anyport's Renaissance man!
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Post by bjd on Aug 29, 2018 5:26:25 GMT
I just finished a book by W.G. Sebald, Austerlitz. Not much seems to happen, and although it is fiction, the fact that he includes photographs in the text, gives the impression that it is non-fiction. I thought of you, Bixa, because at the beginning he talks about Antwerp's train station. It slowly develops into a man's search for his background, after he discovers he was part of the kindertransports to England at the beginning of WW2.
And in a book-box in Bayonne, I found a novel by Richard Ford, The Sportswriter, although in French it's called A Weekend in Michigan. Nothing much happening there either and although I have read over 100 pages, I'm not sure where it's going and whether I'll get to the end.
I much prefer the Sebald book.
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Post by bixaorellana on Aug 29, 2018 15:35:08 GMT
I'm very interested to hear about Austerlitz, Bjd. Back when the book was much newer, a friend of mine whom I greatly admired was reading it and was enthusiastic about it. I tried, but couldn't get into it, even though I realized it was a worthy book. I'm glad you reminded me of the book, which I'm going to try again.
Richard Ford, who seems to have taken a Hemingway-fueled writing course at some point, bores the piss out of me.
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Post by bjd on Aug 29, 2018 15:50:47 GMT
Bixa, I just gave Austerlitz to my daughter to read and she found the beginning slow-going, but once she got into she really likes it. Sebald died in 2001 so it is his last book. I have something else by him on my shelves -- will have to dig it out and re-read it.
I find the Ford book a lot of navel-gazing, the narrator full of himself, so it may end up back in the book box without my finishing it. As for Hemingway, I found his early journalism writing interesting, but don't like his novels much. And absolutely despise all the big-game hunter/fisherman stuff. I read a book about Martha Gellhorn, one of his wives, and the man sounds like an absolute asshole.
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Post by bixaorellana on Aug 29, 2018 16:03:25 GMT
Hemingway of course had a perfect right to write like Hemingway, and his positive effect on literary writing cannot be overestimated. But Hemingway wannabes are excruciating, especially when, as with Ford, they have nothing to say anyway. And yeah, Hemingway was probably not a laugh-a-minute to be around.
Thanks for pointing me back toward Austerlitz, especially with the extra information about your daughter's take on it. I've always been a little embarrassed that I couldn't stick with it the first time.
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Post by mossie on Aug 31, 2018 20:01:14 GMT
Now starting on "Paris Babylon,
The story of the Paris Commune",
by Rupert Christiansen
Serious stuff
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Post by bixaorellana on Aug 31, 2018 21:42:53 GMT
Hope to hear your take on that book, Mossie. Here is a review of it that you might like, although I can't agree with the author's stance that a chapter devoted to urban renewal programs in Paris in the 1860s wasn't necessary. I would think it would add greatly to getting to grips with the bigger picture, would be innately interesting, and is a topic automatically of concern to the modern reader.
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Post by mossie on Sept 2, 2018 20:32:36 GMT
I think the Napoleon III/ Haussmann urban renewal was a prime factor in the unrest leading to the Commune. A lot of the lower orders were forced out of their homes and rents rose strongly, plus some in the upper class made a lot of money in the process, causing ill feeling.
I do think there are some parallels with the situation here today, particularly in London. So much new property there stands empty, having been sold to foreign speculators, and rents are going up strongly. House prices generally are at ridiculous levels, I am sitting pretty with the mortgage paid off, but I do feel sorry for the youngsters, struggling with big university debts, shortage of decent jobs and foreigners seemingly being given preference.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 2, 2018 22:01:37 GMT
I'm very interested to hear about Austerlitz, Bjd. Back when the book was much newer, a friend of mine whom I greatly admired was reading it and was enthusiastic about it. I tried, but couldn't get into it, even though I realized it was a worthy book. I'm glad you reminded me of the book, which I'm going to try again. Richard Ford, who seems to have taken a Hemingway-fueled writing course at some point, bores the piss out of me.<iframe width="15.7" height="4.86000000000001" id="MoatPxIOPT0_13394274" scrolling="no" style="border-style: none; left: 14px; top: -5px; width: 15.7px; height: 4.86px; position: absolute; z-index: -9999;"></iframe> <iframe width="15.7" height="4.86000000000001" id="MoatPxIOPT0_93499936" scrolling="no" style="border-style: none; left: 733px; top: -5px; width: 15.7px; height: 4.86px; position: absolute; z-index: -9999;"></iframe> <iframe width="15.7" height="4.86000000000001" id="MoatPxIOPT0_88854463" scrolling="no" style="border-style: none; left: 14px; top: 182px; width: 15.7px; height: 4.86px; position: absolute; z-index: -9999;"></iframe> <iframe width="15.7" height="4.86000000000001" id="MoatPxIOPT0_15172320" scrolling="no" style="border-style: none; left: 733px; top: 182px; width: 15.7px; height: 4.86px; position: absolute; z-index: -9999;"></iframe> I couldn't agree more. I read one of his early novels and positively loathed it. He does seem to be quite popular, something I never quite understood.
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Post by bjd on Sept 3, 2018 4:45:47 GMT
I confess I left the Ford book where I stopped, after about 100 pages, and didn't bring it home. Will put it back in a book box on the next occasion.
I started reading a book by Elizabeth Bowen, who I had always read about as being a great writer. A Penguin Classics edition. It was written in 1931 or so and, although I have liked many books written at this time, I find her sentences strange. Long and confusing. And the mentality of her characters, in post-WW1 England seems so old-fashioned compared to some contemporary books. I guess I'll slog on to the end because it's not very long.
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Post by kerouac2 on Oct 2, 2018 16:47:45 GMT
I finished reading The Arab of the Future 4 today -- excellent as always, but Riad Sattouf is getting a bit like J.K. Rowling. Each book seems longer than the previous one. This one is almost 300 pages. Even worse, it ends on a dramatic cliffhanger. When Sattouf first started this project, he thought that he would cover it in 3 volumes, but it's going to be 5 and maybe even 6. Since it has already been translated into 22 languages, obviously it strikes a major chord around the world. All of us who have been uprooted from one country and deposited in another or just born and raised in a country with a foreign name that certain people reject can immediately identify with his childhood. I don't know when the English version of volume 4 will be published, but it should not be a long wait. From volume 1: cdn.nybooks.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/boxer_1-102716.jpgFrom volume 3: us.macmillan.com/static/holt/thearabofthefuture/the-arab-of-the-future-3-4.png
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Post by kerouac2 on Oct 2, 2018 17:19:45 GMT
Anyway, now I can go back to what I was reading before, a collection of Malian folk tales and fables by Amadou Hampâté Bâ. It is part of my research for my next writing project, along with the Koran.
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Post by bjd on Oct 2, 2018 18:22:08 GMT
That should keep you busy, especially if you have to memorize the verses of the Koran.
I am re-reading a travel book by Colin Thubron, The Lost Heart of Asia. He talks about travelling to Central Asia in 1993, shortly after the various Stans got their independence from the USSR, the people who have identified as "Soviets" with no boundaries for decades and were being forced to identify as Uzbeks, or Tajiks, the reopening of mosques and medresas (his spelling). All very interesting, especially when looked at in hindsight of nearly 30 years and seeing that all those places are dictatorships with the same old rulers, poverty, etc.
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Post by questa on Oct 3, 2018 14:24:20 GMT
bjd. I have had several journeys in the Central Asia regions, now generally called the 'stans. It is fascinating country which is changing quickly. The people tell me they are the Tajiks and Han, Kazakh, Hui, Mongol, Xibo, Uzbek and Russian. East Turkestan is the name they want for their own independent nation as most of the tribes are of Turkic origins.
There is a fantastic book written by the wife of the British consul in 1938.They were stationed in Kashgar not far from the Russian Consul at a time when hints, whispers and general skull-duggery between the countries were part of life.
"An English Lady in Chinese Turkestan" by Lady Macartney. It is very funny in many places, but the seriousness of both countries spying on each other is not lost.
Both consulate buildings are in use as 3 star accommodation now. I have stayed in both...the Russian one is better!
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Post by whatagain on Oct 4, 2018 10:04:21 GMT
I am reading the memoirs of Guderian and a french Vargas - pars vite et reviens tard. Both books in french something highly unusual fir me. I have restarted a book by a friend 'ga ik dood als ik 12 ben? A book about her both children who have progeria. Title translates into 'mum shall i die when I am 12 ?' Great people.
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Post by kerouac2 on Oct 4, 2018 10:32:13 GMT
They even made a pretty good movie out of Pars vite et reviens tard.
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Post by questa on Oct 4, 2018 12:48:30 GMT
"An English Lady in Chinese Turkestan" by Lady Macartney. It is very funny in many places, but the seriousness of both countries spying on each other is not lost. Alas, I have led you astray.The book was first published by Oxford University Press in 1931 but the Macartneys were in Kashgar from 1890 until 1918.
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Post by bixaorellana on Oct 4, 2018 18:13:33 GMT
A friend gave me World's End, by T.C. Boyle. I believe the last book I read by him was unsatisfying, so I wasn't that enthusiastic about starting this one. Boy, was I wrong! It has so much of what I look for in a novel -- well-drawn characters, wonderful use of language, an intertwined plot of history & present-day, a mystery about an absent character -- all extremely well woven together. So far I don't know where it's going, but here is what GoodReads says about it: www.goodreads.com/book/show/24736.World_s_End
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