November, 2018 (Reading) "I'll wait until November/And sing a song of gray" (G. Brooks)

Getting colder and grayer--this is usually the time of year I love reading LeCarre or Philip Kerr.

Something suitably grim...

Still working on The Book of Disquiet. Bernardo Soares is brilliant but not very likeable.

Finished Sabrina by Nick Drnaso, recently nominated for the Man Booker Prize. A girl disappears and we enter the world of conspiracy theories. It is of the Chris Ware school of empty panels with nothing happening, a device that is sometimes effective but sometimes feels like mannerism. The best thing about the book is that it feels very current and has a complicated view of the issue. Not sure about that ending, not very satisfying. The story is told with intelligence though. It is a scary book, and I suspect that I won't forget it. That has merit.

OT but hey, Cliff, I can't remember which thread you use to post news about your terrorist Honduran Muslim lefty press--? In any case & on the offchance that anyone is interested in modern(ish) poetry, http://burningdeck.com/ has ceased publishing in the past year & so I imagine books in stock are last-chance ones. And there's a sale on them as well. (Can recommend the sseries of books translated fr. French & the one fr. German, not all of which are poetry.)

Have just fetched Desperate Journeys, Abandoned Souls. Great stuff. Have read it but think I shall pick at it off and on now.

Was that Verso Press? I'm trying to remember...

Everything, frankly, about me is Leftish.

I'm even left-handed.

Just finished two books over the weekend, a very interesting mystery set in Ottoman Istanbul, The Janissary Tree, and a book about the psychology of disasters, The Unthinkable.

The disaster psych book was really interesting reading, in a very light journalistic easy to read style. Both are highly recommended.

I am going to read the other books in the Ottoman mystery series for sure. The investigator is a eunuch! That's pretty different! The guy obviously did a lot of research on Ottoman culture and the way their court worked / didn't work. (The book was set in the 1830s so things were already pretty darn decadent)

Heidi – Johanna Spyri
Digital audiobook performed by Johanna Ward.
4.5****

This classic of children’s literature tells the story of Heidi, a young orphan girl who lives with her gruff grandfather up on a Swiss mountain. She befriends Peter, the goatherd, and becomes beloved by all the villagers.

I’d seen the Shirley Temple movie about a million times when I was a child and absolutely loved it, but I had never read the book. It’s a wonderful story about a child who has lost much but relishes all that she has. She’s intelligent, open-minded, hind-hearted and has a great generosity of spirit. She comes across several mean-spirited (and downright nasty) people, but her cheerfulness wins over many people and she eventually prevails.

I listened to the audio performed by Johanna Ward. She does a marvelous job, with clear diction and a pace that isn’t too fast for younger listeners to absorb.

Finished REMEMBER? REMEMBER?, a collection of essays written by the late, great Charles Beaumont.

The book was written in the early 1960s, the essays originally commissioned by PLAYBOY MAGAZINE (Beaumont was a regular contributor). Beaumont laments the passing of his "Golden Age": radio dramas, amusement parks, movie palaces, steam engines, pulp magazines, etc.

Well written and authentically nostalgic.

Recommended.

Just wrapped up ZOO STATION, a thriller by David Downing set in Nazi Germany.

A friend told me it was better than Philip Kerr's "Bernie Gunther" series.

It wasn't, but still an enjoyable, diverting read.

Just finished Louise Bogan's The Blue Estuaries, as well as Joy Williams's short story collection, Honored Guest. Regarding the latter, there were a few great pieces in there, especially the last one, "Fortune." Now I'm on to Jean Paul Richter's Flower, Fruit, and Thorn Pieces, which has the smallest print I've ever seen in my life. My eyes may never forgive me for this one, but it's such a weird book so far, I don't think I can give it up. (I even tried using a magnifying glass, but said attempt drove me crazy.)

Currently reading Such Good Friends, which was a drunk eBay purchase after watching the not-very-good film adaptation by Otto Preminger.

Of Mice and Men– John Steinbeck
Audio book performed by Gary Sinise.
5 stars and a ❤

Steinbeck’s novella is taken from an incident in his own background. His emotional closeness to the story is evident in this tragedy.

George Milton and Lennie Small are migrant workers. During the Great Depression, they travel the small towns of California seeking labor where they can find it. Lennie is a giant of a man, who has limited mental capacity and cannot think for himself, but who can perform any labor he’s instructed to do. George is a small, quiet man; he looks out for Lennie, making sure he gets work, housing, food. More importantly George gives voice to their dreams … a little place of their own, where they can have a garden, fruit trees, a cow or goat, some chickens, and just for Lennie, some rabbits. A place where they can live “off the fat of the land” and not be beholden to anyone else, where they can take off to go to a ball game or a fair without seeking permission.

They are hard workers and George is smart enough to have a plan and try to save enough to make their dream come true, but Lennie … Well, Lennie keeps “getting into trouble,” and they keep having to flee one location for the next. When they land on a ranch near Soledad in the fertile Salinas River valley, they are hoping to finally have a place they can stay for a few months. The other men in the bunk house are friendly enough; the boss is hard but fair. But Curley, the boss’s son, is a mean, banty rooster sort of man, always looking to pick a fight. And Curley’s new wife – she is Trouble (with a capital T). Lennie tries his best to follow George’s order to stay away from Curley and his wife. But the reader knows that an altercation is inevitable.

Steinbeck’s genius here is to write a spare story that still tells volumes about the human condition. It is a story of friendship, loyalty, and love.

Sinise’s performance on the audio is flawless … well, maybe he could have raised the pitch of his voice just a tad higher for Curley’s wife. All the hopes, dreams, innocence, anger, pity, love, and sorrow of the characters are in his voice.

Currently reading Stoner by John Edward Williams. Dry, austere, and bleak. Oddly enough it reminds me a bit of To Live by Yu Hua. Hard to feel for a character that absorbs so much abuse without complaining. It is written with intelligence but I have the app in extra fast speed to finish this pronto!

>12 mejix: I have that book somewhere on my TBR.

>13 iansales:
It is a good book. Let us know what you think when you read it.

I loved STONER--the passiveness of the main character is heart-breaking and maddening, the writing of a very high order.

I've enjoyed everything I've read by Williams.

Just finished Ottessa Moshfegh's Eileen. I was skeptical at first of the hype, but now I'm already looking forward to checking out her short stories. Also cracked open the complete set of Remembrance of Things Past, which may take me an eternity, but so be it.

Currently reading Spring Snow, which I ordered after seeing, and being impressed by, the film Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters. Good, so far.

>16 KatrinkaV:, I'm still building up to Proust, that set has been on my shelf for a couple years now.

>17 iansales:, The Sea of Fertility is another one I want to tackle, but I don't have copies yet. Ideally I'd like an omnibus edition, doesn't appear to be in print at the moment.

Just finished The Things They Carried and am in the middle of The World Without Us. I'm also reading my friend's new book, Voices After Evelyn.

>18 Cecrow: I've had Proust on my shelves for years, really must get round to reading it. If I like Spring Snow, I'll probably end up picking up the other books. I'm not a big fan of omnibus editions. They're usually uncomfortably large - cf The Books of Earthsea - and reading them only counts as reading a single book not however many books it actually contains...

>20 iansales:, true. Lugging around a full dictionary-sized version of The Raj Quartet with its onion-skin paper pages wasn't a lot of fun. But I always enter the individual books separately on LT for cataloguing and tracking purposes (I rarely read all the books in an omnibus back-to-back, sometimes months apart). I've an omnibus of The Alexandria Quartet waiting in the wings (happily much more portable), and I'll be doing the same with that.

Proust presents a challenge in doing entries that way, he's packaged differently in different editions so some of the parts are hard to pin down here on LT. My set is six books, but the fifth volume is The Captive and The Fugitive published together. There's an entry for that combination, so in that case I'll probably read them/catalogue them together.

And I can just forget about trying to sort out all the various part of Goethe's autobiography here on LT individually, it's practically a swamp.

Was interested by the posts about Stoner; to me his life seemed in the end to be all the sadder because it was the sort of life that I assume isn't uncommon--mass of men/quiet desperation. Anyone interested in other books whose protagonists are like Stoner+ might look out for Belchamber and The Case of Mr Crump.

I'm reading The Last of the Egyptians, a book about Champollion, the decipherer of the Rosetta Stone. Unclassifiable: in a way it's a history, in a way it's an essay, in a way it's a collection of thoughts expressed creatively. The French do this sort of thing so well.

>21 Cecrow: I have the omnibus edition of The Alexandria Quartet, and the individual editions. I bought the omnibus because Durrell made some changes when the omnibus edition was first published.