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Post by lagatta on May 2, 2020 16:02:19 GMT
I'd love to read Naples '44, but in Italian. Can't seem to find the original title; I did read the wiki articles in English and in Italian. Naples '44 wasn't simply fascism, but much worse; the Nazi-German occupation of much of Italy, the former fascist ally.
His sport writings look interesting too. I'm not the greatest sport fan, but sport writing can be wonderful. Like watching a vintage Maradona match with Neapolitans and Argentinians.
Edited to add: By the way, that stuff is also known as chick lit. Because of feminism, so many younger people in Québec have both parents' names (though it isn't a rule, as in Spanish), that I wouldn't even notice one given name and two family names.
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Post by whatagain on May 4, 2020 15:01:10 GMT
I am teading 4 books at this time and only Churchill is fascinating me. But i cant read hu dreds of pages of a biography contrary to a fiction.
Having 2 names us now allowed in Belgium. But who would want to be called Van Overtfeld - Vandenabeele...
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Post by casimira on May 10, 2020 11:43:08 GMT
I am not reading very many books right now which is unusual for me.
A lot of short stories by Joy Williams (who Bixa gratefully turned me onto). I thoroughly enjoy her work.
I have a mountain of other books staring at me but, for right now it's been NYers, The Sun (a literary periodical I adore), The NY Review of Books and other periodicals that have also been piling up.
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Post by bjd on May 10, 2020 14:45:54 GMT
I also subscribe the NY Review of Books but haven't received any since late March. They did tell me my subscription had to be renewed though!
I also got a mail from the library that they will reopen on Tuessday but you have to wear a mask, clean your hands, only 5 people at a time and only 2 books at a time.
So I am reading old detective stories by Ngaio Marsh right now.
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Post by bixaorellana on May 10, 2020 16:24:15 GMT
I'd love to read Naples '44, but in Italian. Can't seem to find the original title LaGatta, I did not check, but would swear that Naples '44 is the original title, seeing as how it was written in Englsh by an Englishman. I am reading Earth Abides, a 1949 speculative fiction book about a plague that wipes out most humans. I got it either for free or for 99¢ from one of my ebook deal groups. It is very well written, logical and calm, making it seem all the more real. It's not in the least quaint, despite the lost technology being radio broadcast rather than wifi. I was braced for that blandly unconscious racism or sexism that might be expected from a book of that era, but the only trace of it was in line with the main character's make-up. There is a little bit of philosophical maundering, certainly allowable in such a context, but the book is really holding my attention. www.barnesandnoble.com/w/earth-abides-george-r-stewart/1100623632
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Post by lagatta on May 10, 2020 20:25:01 GMT
Sorry, I thought it was an English translation of an Italian giallo. One gets a bit confused. I'm trying to read Brazilian Portuguese these days. (though really Bolsonarish & Trumpish).
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Post by spaceneedle on May 12, 2020 8:54:32 GMT
I'm reading Elton John's autobiography. Good read so far.
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Post by Kimby on May 16, 2020 20:12:14 GMT
I was looking for something to read on the way home and perused the guest room book shelves where renters have left behind books they’ve finished during their month here. I was delighted to find ANOTHER title by Kristin Hannah, the author of The Nightingale, and Winter Garden that I’ve akmost finished. As I flipped through it, I found a bookmark near the end of the book that was n airline boarding pass. With my name on it. From December 2015. Meaning that I had already read almost all of this book, and had no recall of it. Sad.
I also read Earth Abides, bixa, if it’s the dystopian novel I’m thinking of. Wasn’t there something in it about people scavenging for decades-old canned goods in long-abandoned houses, risking food poisoning, but not getting sick. They’re my inspiration, for when I disvover food of unknown vintage at the back of the pantry.
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Post by bixaorellana on May 16, 2020 21:06:50 GMT
Wasn’t there something in it about people scavenging for decades-old canned goods in long-abandoned houses, risking food poisoning, but not getting sick. They’re my inspiration, for when I disvover food of unknown vintage at the back of the pantry. That's the book! In fact, at some point the characters have a conversation about how to tell if something is too iffy to eat. They sound exactly like the thread on that subject in this forum. I've avoided Kristin Hannah even though I know she is wildly popular. That's because I suspect I'd wind up picking her writing to bits. But I just finished a book by an author who is also quite popular -- a "woman's author", as it were. The book was Paper Wife, by Laila Ibrahim. It starts in 1923 in China & concerns the "paper" family members that managed to get into the US at that time when they weren't wanted. These were people who weren't who the papers said they were. They weren't criminals, just people circumventing harsh laws. Anyway, it's one of those books that you read when you want something completely plot-driven, something that will just carry you along with no detours into philosophizing or developing the characters. Don't get me wrong, Ibrahim is not at all a bad writer. Her plot is compelling & the historical background is fascinating. The thing is, as far as vocabulary & style go, I'm sure it wouldn't present any challenge to a 5th grader. Even so, it would be a good book to read when you were in the right mood, as stated above.
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Post by fumobici on May 17, 2020 3:15:18 GMT
If you're pursuing the Qanon "movement" I suggest the book by the Wu Ming/Luther Blisset collective Q. I found it fascinating and well written. As this book deals with an important part of German History, there is naturally a movie that, although in German, is pretty easy to follow. Koenig der letzten TageGuided by anti-science fools in the US, we're awash in conspiracy theories.
If you're so inclined, The Atlantic is running an interesting series on this topic. Shadowland. I don't know if it's pay walled.
That's funny, I've got this book in Italian. I bought it in a famous bookstore in Florence. It's a rather harrowing thing to read, but so was the subject. Just found it on the shelf.
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Post by Kimby on May 17, 2020 10:52:56 GMT
Reading A Very Stable Genius: Donald J. Trump’s Testing of America, by Philip Rucker and Carol Leoning.
We got it from the Sanibel Library which now has curbside pickup for items ordered online. It’s an easy read and I’m not learning much I didn’t already know - or suspect - but it lays out all the Trump assaults on democracy and decency in sequence.
Useful for arguments with misguided Republican friends, online and in real life.
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Post by bixaorellana on May 17, 2020 16:44:02 GMT
Last night I started The Wanted by Robert Crais. He is an author who always delivers & I love his detective, Elvis Cole, & Elvis's taciturn partner, Joe Pike.
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Post by kerouac2 on May 23, 2020 14:57:10 GMT
I am still slowly progressing through my second Geoff Dyer novel (slowly due to it being toilet literature, which means it is not good enough to bring it from the WC to bed with me), but I am very impatient to finally return to a bookstore. Many of them have reopened, but not yet the one to which I want to go.
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Post by bixaorellana on May 23, 2020 18:01:24 GMT
I am reading A Free State, Tom Piazza: A Free State opens on eve of the Civil War in 1855. Blackface minstrelsy is the most popular form of entertainment in a nation about to be torn apart by the battle over slavery. Henry Sims, a fugitive slave and a brilliant musician, has escaped to Philadelphia, where he earns money living by his wits and performing on the street. He is befriended by James Douglass, leader of a popular minstrel troupe struggling to compete with dozens of similar ensembles, who imagines that Henry’s skill and magnetism might restore his troupe’s sagging fortunes. The problem is that black and white performers are not allowed to appear together onstage. Together, the two concoct a masquerade to protect Henry’s identity, and Henry creates a sensation in his first appearances with the troupe. Yet even as their plan begins to reverse the troupe’s decline, a brutal slave hunter named Tull Burton has been employed by Henry’s former master to track down the runaway and retrieve him, by any means necessary. Bursting with narrative tension and unforgettable characters, shot through with unexpected turns and insight, A Free State is a thrilling reimagining of the American story by a novelist at the height of his powers. sourceWhat I don't understand is how I somehow missed ever reading Piazza before. His writing is excellent -- as vividly descriptive as Dickens, and limpidly complex in a way that is never obtrusive, if that makes sense. I must point out that so far there have been two scenes of cruelty that I found unnecessarily graphic, but that seems to be the way of books now. I'm not very far into the book so far, but it's one of those you can't wait to get back to.
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Post by bixaorellana on May 31, 2020 2:32:12 GMT
After I finished A Free State I read another one of Donna Leon's books about Brunetti, a police inspector in Venice. So far, these books have all been satisfying, which is a good thing since I have all but the last one in the series.
Last night I started The Practice House, by Laura McNeal. So far I believe the book has been a workup to the main story, but what a readable trip that has been. It starts in 1929 with two orphaned sisters, aged 19 & 20, living with their loving but stifling aunt in a Scottish village. Two Mormon missionaries from the US ring the doorbell and then ......................
That's not where I left off last night, but I forced myself to turn out the light as I was too willing to keep reading the book all night. Let's see if it stays that good.
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Post by bjd on May 31, 2020 5:54:11 GMT
I like Donna Leon's Brunetti books too.
Even though it reopened, the local library has such strange conditions that it's hard to find anything to read, so I went through my old Ngaio Marsh detective stories, a Simenon Maigret, and am looking through my shelves for light reading of books I have forgotten the endings of.
I did find two books at the library, both set in Glasgow, one in the 1960s/now, another in 1973. I gave up on the first, even though I have enjoyed other books by Peter May. I read the second, by Alan Parks, called Bloody January. It's hard to know whether things were quite so awful or whether contemporary ideas about what is acceptable about sex, drugs, violence, have seeped into books set in the not so distant past.
On my most recent outing to the library I took a recent French book called Requiem for the Republic. It's set in late 1959-early 1960s, when the Algerian independence movement and French reaction to it were at their height. One of the characters in the book is a young policeman and others are taken from real life: Maurice Papon, Mitterand, Jean-Marie le Pen. The author, Thomas Cantaloube, is a reporter at a French investigative news website, Mediapart, so is not tender with the way the state treated North African workers in France, the police repression, etc.
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Post by spaceneedle on May 31, 2020 9:19:55 GMT
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Post by fumobici on May 31, 2020 14:57:57 GMT
Mark went to the same high school I did. We have mutual friends, and lemme tell you, they aren't happy about that book.
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Post by spaceneedle on Jun 3, 2020 0:36:48 GMT
fumobici, memoirs are often difficult to write (and read!) because the experiences of that individual are always seen through their lens. The book is very raw and honest (and difficult to read at times), and ML certainly makes no excuses for himself in it either.
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Post by bixaorellana on Jun 3, 2020 1:06:00 GMT
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Post by fumobici on Jun 3, 2020 1:38:25 GMT
fumobici , memoirs are often difficult to write (and read!) because the experiences of that individual are always seen through their lens. The book is very raw and honest (and difficult to read at times), and ML certainly makes no excuses for himself in it either. BTW I am a huge fan of Mark's musical talents.
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Post by bixaorellana on Jun 3, 2020 2:40:16 GMT
Oh, that was a good book! I read it some time back, but wouldn't mind re-reading it. Not to suggest that your preference is grave-robbing literature, Huckle, but I read this book recently and think you might enjoy it. The writing is excellent: The Good Thief, by Hannah Tinti.
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Post by whatagain on Jun 4, 2020 3:40:52 GMT
I found a Fred Vargas i had not yet read. Debout les morts. Fantastic.
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Post by bjd on Jun 4, 2020 5:39:11 GMT
I like Fred Vargas too. I just finished an Ian Rankin "Rebus" novel -- Rather Be the Devil.
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Post by bixaorellana on Jun 4, 2020 16:50:03 GMT
Thank you, Huckle!
That's an interesting remark about how and what you are able to read right now. I'm wondering how much the current situation is affecting our attention spans, energy, etc.
The first thing I read every morning is the news, to a greater or lesser degree. I say greater or lesser because some days I'll read through multiple stories on a given topic, including commentary. But on other days I will make a conscious decision to remain semi-ignorant of events, just because I can feel them making a cloud of depression descend upon me.
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Post by lagatta on Jun 6, 2020 12:57:00 GMT
I'm listening to the music channel of Radio-Canada now. Both CBC (English) and Radio-Canada (French) have one channel that is more news, and another that is more music of different kinds. I'm a bit saturated now. However, although I feel just hopeless and frightened by the danger posed by the idiocy of Trump (evil twin of the North) and Bolsonaro (evil twin of the South) I was heartened by a story about Brazil's top doctor refuting that murderous crap. I'll post it in the COVID thread.
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Post by kerouac2 on Jun 8, 2020 18:56:23 GMT
I finally finished Death in Varanasi (it took lots of trips to the WC to finally reach the end, since that is the only place where I read it). It really made me want to go to Varanasi, but if any of the rest of you read it, you will think that I am completely crazy.
I bought two French novels the other day (a post confinement splurge), but I also have an urge to reread Helen Garner's Monkey Grip which would be about the 4th time.
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Post by bixaorellana on Jun 8, 2020 20:47:04 GMT
It really made me want to go to Varanasi I thought you were going to say, "It really made me want to go to the bathroom". That would have been a neat trick, making you both more literate and more regular.
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Post by bjd on Jun 13, 2020 7:20:48 GMT
I found a recent book by Margaret Atwood at the library the other day. I didn't want to spend much time in there because masks are obligatory and I find them uncomfortable. Anyway, the book, The Heart Goes Last, is another dystopian novel and after reading the first few chapters and flipping through the rest, I probably won't read it. Too depressing.
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Post by bjd on Jul 16, 2020 12:34:08 GMT
Our library is going to close for a month in August. This is France! As far as I know, they used to stay open and visitors to could get a temporary card. Now they are building a new library which was supposed to open in April and then July and now in September. So even though they were closed for 2 months, they are still taking a month off, although I hope part of it will be used to put books at the new bigger library.
Anyway, I took a few books to read but the choice was really not wonderful. One really crappy book translated from English about a young woman, part of the royal family who moves to London in 1932 to get a job and is supposed to spy on Wallis Simpson for the queen. It might have been more amusing in English. I also took a book by Donna Leon, which it turned out I had already read some time ago. I started a book by William Boyd, who I usually like. It's called Stars and Bars. I read another of his books last week: Armadillo, found in a book box. I also read Solar by Ian MacEwan. The book jacket was wrong -- it was not "savagely amusing". Okay, but an annoying main character.
And I bought and read Isabel Allende's latest book Largo Petalo de Mar, about some Republican Spanish refugees who go to Chile in 1939 in a ship chartered by Pablo Neruda. It was quite good and not too difficult to read at my level of Spanish which is going downhill rapidly from lack of use.
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