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Post by casimira on Aug 1, 2021 19:41:30 GMT
I don't think I could get through all that BJD. I am having difficulty concentrating while trying to read much these days. Some of it is due to not being able to concentrate as my mind is preoccupied but then I also came to the realization that I miss my "reading chair" and can't seem to find a comfortable spot to read where we are right now.
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Post by whatagain on Aug 1, 2021 20:25:24 GMT
I am close to the end of Vol de nuit, from Antoine de Saint Exupery. For the pleasureof french literature at its best. And starting clised casket, for the pleasure of following Hercule Poirot.
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Post by rikita on Aug 19, 2021 17:33:45 GMT
i restarted the book i posted about a while ago during the summer holidays, and got quite a bit further - and then summer holidays were over, and once again i don't get around to reading and so when i do, after several days or weeks of not reading it, i have a hard time getting back into it ...
else, a. and i read "matilda" by roald dahl recently, and now we are reading the sixth "harry potter" book and the first "school of magical animals" book (the last is a german book, i think so might not be that well known elsewhere) ...
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Post by Kimby on Sept 4, 2021 3:15:06 GMT
I just finished Finding the Mother Tree by Suzanne Simard. Now I look at forests differently. www.amazon.com/Finding-Mother-Tree-Discovering-Wisdom/dp/052565609X/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?The author was a young forester with the Canadian forestry department who was dismayed by the logging practices of her employer and went to college to research different ways of doing things other than clear cuts and replanting monocultures. She eventually became a professor at the university in Vancouver, and her research eventually gains grudging acceptance in the good old boy forestry field. For me, it was interesting to see what kind of work I might have done had I continued my studies, instead of meeting Mr. Kimby and going a different direction. For you e-readers, the link offers a Kindle version, and there’s also an audiobook on Audible that’s free with a trial version.
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Post by bjd on Sept 4, 2021 5:54:58 GMT
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Post by rikita on Sept 4, 2021 11:05:22 GMT
agnes is currently not that interested in harry potter, i guess the sixth one starts off kind of slow and it also becomes more obvious that it is written for older kids - but she loves the school of magical animals. there will be a movie coming out in october, too. we are in the second book, now ...
as for me, still not had time to continue in my book (well, two pages during agnes' recorder lesson last tuesday, but then, i also try ot listen what the teacher tells her, to remind her when we practice)
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Post by bjd on Sept 7, 2021 18:56:36 GMT
I started reading a Jack Reacher novel that my son found in a book box. Ironic that the writer is a Brit and his hero is so American.
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Post by kerouac2 on Sept 11, 2021 14:22:53 GMT
I recently finished a disturbing book by Joseph Ponthus. He studied literature but ended up working as a temp in seafood and meatpacking companies in Brittany. A la ligne is written in free verse without punctuation and means both "factory line work" but also "line break" in terms of presentation since each line is short and presents his days and nights in abbreviated form. You learn more than you would probably ever want to know about seafood processing, the sorting, the gutting, the deheading, the smell... all in a 24-hour plant where you can begin your day at 3 a.m. or 8 p.m. with very little advance notice. Even the fish finger section is awful. The meat factory is no better with all of the blood, the conveyor belts of dead pigs and oxen, and all of the rejected bits which still end up being used for other purposes. And yet the book is full of humanity, the lives of his colleagues, the solidarity, the joy of endless showers to wash off the nasty stuff after work, the support of his wife. A la ligne won a number of literary prizes after its publication in 2019. I checked to see if he had written anything else. He died in February 2021 of cancer at the age of 42. www.editionslatableronde.fr/var/flammarion-multisite/storage/images/home-table-ronde/complements-infos-auteur/ponthus/49324-2-fre-FR/Ponthus.jpg
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Post by lugg on Sept 18, 2021 19:38:34 GMT
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Post by kerouac2 on Sept 26, 2021 16:02:17 GMT
I bought the new Carto Maltese graphic novel, of course not written by Hugo Pratt who died way back in 1995, but Pratt was not against Corto Maltese continuing his adventures after he was gone (unlike Hergé and Tintin). The new authors decided to jump ahead a century to bring Corto into the 21st century. I completely approve, even though this adventure in Peru is totally classic. But in the background of the story, the World Trade Center in NYC is destroyed, so I can imagine that future stories might be more topical, in spite of the fact that Corto's old friend/adversary Rasputin has also arrived in this period.
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Post by bjd on Sept 26, 2021 18:18:59 GMT
I recently saw an exhibition of Hugo Pratt's drawings for Corto Maltese in Bayonne. Some really interesting drawings from all over the world, mostly in black & white, but also some colour-washed, especially from South America.
I started a novel by William Boyd: Trio. I usually like his books but have only read a few chapters so far.
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Post by bixaorellana on Sept 26, 2021 18:35:52 GMT
I recently finished Three Apples Fell from the Sky, a book translated from Russian about an isolated village in Armenia. The advertising from book sellers makes the book seem too, too quaintly sweet. But the reader reviews on Amazon convinced me that I would enjoy it, which I did. This thoughtful review from The Calvert Journal has the nice bonus of an overview of contemporary Caucasian fiction in a separate article at the bottom of the page.
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Post by bixaorellana on Sept 27, 2021 0:31:05 GMT
Thank you, Huckle. After reading your post, I went back & looked at the site some more. My 2020 trip was to be to that part of the world. It seems a nice trick of fate that I found a peephole into deeper insight while sitting here waiting for travel to be safe and easy again.
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Post by bixaorellana on Oct 2, 2021 17:48:00 GMT
I am reading Zoli by Colum McCann and am completely absorbed by it. It is loosely based on the life of the Gypsy poet Bronisława Wajs, aka Papusza. This is no fluffy confection of stereotypes, but a research-based imagining so finely drawn that it makes the reader feel she has lived the events depicted. The writing itself is beautiful without ever veering towards the purple. As I read, I'm constantly admiring the author's lyricism. At the same time, I was feeling embarrassed that I didn't know him, although his name certainly seemed familiar. When I finally looked him up, I was quite surprised to find that he is the author of Let the Great World Spin, a critically acclaimed book that I actively disliked and found a chore to finish. I believe I still own that book and am thinking I need to give it another chance.
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Post by bjd on Oct 6, 2021 6:05:47 GMT
I started a book about Middle Eastern affairs, the Islamist movement, "Sortir du Chaos" by Gilles Kepel. He is a well-known French professor, researcher and writer on the subject of Arab affairs. What is interesting is how he ties everything together, starting with the oil price shock of 1973, the money flowing into Saudi Arabia and the Salafis/Wahhabi influence flowing out, how the rise of Shiite Islam started with Khomeini in Iran in 1979, filling in gaps left by the West in Lebanon -- the kidnappings of Westerners in Lebanon in the 1980s... The influence of the jihadi fight against the USSR in Afghanistan, funded to a great extent by the CIA, and the subsequent Islamist fighters who returned to their home countries like Algeria and started a radical fight against local governnment...
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Post by casimira on Oct 6, 2021 15:34:19 GMT
I picked up a book from the Little Free Library this past week. Trumpets from Montparnasse by Robert Gibbings. More of a travel book that takes the reader to Italy and France through a painter's eye. History, art and legend each add their store to the the enchantments of the places Gibbings visited. The book is interspersed with reproductions of paintings and wood engravings by the author. It is both enchanting and intriguing and makes one yearn to travel to the places described by the author. (Written in 1955, one realizes that the places described are no longer the same as they were when written).
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Post by whatagain on Oct 20, 2021 17:38:09 GMT
I got the last Donna Leon at the airport. Transient desires. Perfect reading at an airport.
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Post by bjd on Oct 20, 2021 18:07:48 GMT
I just read a Zygmunt Miloszewski book about his prosecutor -- one of the early ones. Pretty good. Am still reading the Kepel book about the Middle East and Islamism but it takes longer than a detective story, so for breaks I have been reading old Simenon Maigret stories and two Ngaio Marsh books.
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Post by whatagain on Oct 22, 2021 18:58:53 GMT
My 'nysteries' reading of the moment, save the Zygmunt, already read. I really like Mark Billingham, real black stories but usually a good scenario.
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Post by whatagain on Oct 22, 2021 19:04:58 GMT
And my historical books. I have finished Winston - brilliant book about a brilliant man, am nearing Barbarossa, the best book i have ever read about the patriotic war, and the other 2 are next un line. Unlike novels, i can only read one historical book at a time.
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Post by bjd on Oct 22, 2021 19:13:24 GMT
I just read the same Zygmunt, Whatagain. I liked it better than "Rage". I passed it to my neighbour to read. Yesterday I read a comic book about Isaac Babel -- I already returned it to the library so don't remember the authors but I didn't much like the drawings or the story. A back story about Odessa's Jewish bandit king and Babel being tortured by the Soviet secret police before he is murdered in 1937. Not cheerful.
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Post by whatagain on Oct 23, 2021 6:42:42 GMT
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Post by bjd on Oct 23, 2021 8:24:07 GMT
Nice, Whatagain, but I can't read the initials.
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Post by whatagain on Oct 23, 2021 8:53:16 GMT
Jla. Jean luc Ancely.
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Post by Kimby on Oct 24, 2021 1:56:53 GMT
Thanks, bjd. Our library has it and also has a beautiful illustrated version with abridged text and gorgeous photographs. I checked out both. In the first few pages, the author mentions the groundbreaking research done by Suzanne Simard, the author of Finding the Mother Tree…
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Post by Kimby on Oct 24, 2021 2:25:04 GMT
My current book is THE ACCIDENTAL PRESIDENT. It’s the story of Harry Truman’s first 4 months in office. He had almost no experience that would help him deal with taking on the presidency and FDR did not include him in his inner circle, yet he dealt with the end of WWII in Europe and the beginning of the Atomic Age with the decision to drop atom bombs on Japan, leading to Japanese surrender. In his first 4 months! He served two terms in office, and turned out to be a pretty good president despite his inauspicious beginning. The Accidental President: Harry S. Truman and the Four Months That Changed the World g.co/kgs/S7MxB2
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Post by bjd on Oct 28, 2021 15:58:11 GMT
I found John le Carré's book about his life and writing at the library this afternoon: The Pigeon Tunnel, Stories from my Life. In French, unfortunately, but I am looking forward to reading it. I only found it because they had put it in with the novels.
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Post by kerouac2 on Nov 21, 2021 20:54:11 GMT
While rummaging through my books and looking for something else, I happened upon Thomas Mann's Death in Venice. The pages were so yellow that it indicated I have had it for at least 40 years. I distinctly remembered the movie by Visconti but had no idea how faithful it was to the original. So I ordered the DVD for 4.50€ and it arrived just as I finished the book. Anyway, the movie is one of the most faithful adaptations that I have ever seen, just as creepy as the book. Even more creepy, I watched the documentary on Arte The Most Beautiful Boy in the World about what happened to Björn Andresen.
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Post by Kimby on Nov 22, 2021 15:08:58 GMT
“Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers” by Mary Roach.
A matter of fact look at what happens to human bodies when they die, covering topics such as embalming, donations to scientific research, forensic investigations of plane crash scenes, crash-testing vehicles using human bodies, etc.
Author has a humane but rational outlook and a sense of humor that isn’t ghoulish.
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Post by Biddy on Nov 22, 2021 15:46:07 GMT
I just finished - John Banville's April in Spain which I enjoyed. It's a continuation of the Quirke series. Next up is John Le Carre's Silverview.
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