What are you reading - on or about October 2006

Now reading Utterly Monkey by Mr Zadie Smith er I mean Nick Laird. It's a bit boring. And something or other by Mavis Cheek, who I guess would be my favourite 'guilty pleasure' author if I had any guilty feelings about books.

i'm reading schopenhauer, montaigne, and a book about wcw and the art world.

The Spy Who Came in from the Cold

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (great bbc miniseries btw)

A Perfect Spy

My non-school reading is "The Know-It-All by A.J. Jacobs, about how he read the entire Encyclopaedia Brittanica. It's set up as a series of alphabetical entries running parallel to where he is in the encyclopedia at the time. I am a total sucker for this kind of book.

And now, "Gold - The Marvellous History of General John Augustus Sutter" by Blaise Cenrars. I wouldn't normally pick up a book with a title like that, but (a) a novel by my favourite of all the Swiss - Scottich poets! and (b) you have to love those Peter Owen Modern Classics, eh?

The Manuscript Found in Saragossa
Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said

Manuscript was one of the best works of fiction that I have read in some time. The Dick was disturbingly entertaining -- most of his books incite similar responses when I read them.

Now, I am beginning to commence reading Rabelais's Gargantua and Pantagruel and some scholarly book on the devil.

mj, have you gotten to the toilet paper chapter yet? That's really all I remember from however little of that book I read. Also, I am hella overdue with sending you a package...

No rush on the package, really -- whenever you find the time works for me.

More Yuri business: "Envy" by Yuri Olesha. I'm only a few pages in but it's started marvellously.

So far I think it is rubbish because

a) I don't think it is particulalrly clever to find out what brain surgeons do and then show off about it

and

b) I hate the "blues musician" son and his autographed beer mat from Ry Cooder.

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/departments/syndicates/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003255156

I am currently reading nothing but textbooks and the latest NYRB.

IMO, Kittredge sprinkles veiled implications all over his chapters as if they were some sort of magic fairy dust for making vaguely suggestive writing into 'creative' writing. He seems to have been marked by Hemingway like some big ole' inky thumbprint on his forehead. He's not quite my style, but good enough for all that.

I have reverted to Titus Groan, which is like Fattypuffs and Thinnifers for adults, and quite enjoyable, if not entirely gripping.

But this morning I read the adventures of Rooney, Mourinho et al in The Guardian, and then I closed my eyes.

We were talking about Fattypuffs and Thinnifers on Sunday - M was in a stage adaptation of it at school, which would so NEVER happen nowadays. 'Right, casting: all the fat kids line up over here, and all the skinny kids over here...'

I recently finished Murakami's "Kafka on the Shore". It was enjoyable enough, Murakami's usual strengths and weaknesses, but I'm starting to find his amiability and imaginative zip insufficient compensation for his aimlessness and self-indulgence. I've read most of what he's written, but suspect I won't be reading any more.

Next up: The Naked Madonna by Jan Wiese. That doesn't look to me like the name of a Norwegian, but apparently it is. Jan is about to chew the arm of his specs on the back cover, I think that's a bad sign but I'll give him the benefit of the doubt, for now.

Although I would have to agree with the general position of the author that peak oil will touch off a great many chronic problems worldwide, I find the book is insufficiently researched and rather weakly argued. The author (whosis) tires quickly of supporting his opinions, so that often he just collects them and hands them to you with very little more than this sort of 'argument': "Is it likely this technology can continue without the platform of cheap oil to support it? I think not." End of story.

I'm disappointed, because this issue needs to be much more thoroughly presented. We are already fighting our second oil war in two decades and we are likely to be fighting more of them in the next several decades, unless the American public grasps the nettle and decides to change its way of life, rather than always being caught far behind the curve of events, manipulated, impoverished, and terminally stupid.

i really liked this until the end, which i found really awful. it was all build up but the payoff didn't work for me.

i'm reading a 70s sci-fi short story collection, "Where Do We Go From Here?" it was collected for high schools by isaac asimov, and as such has leading questions for discussion after each story to engage the class/serve as homework for lazy teachers. i've got about 6 or 7 of this sort of short story collection, with various themes. they're always really enjoyable.

next i want to read ray bradbury's something wicked this way comes, because it fits the weather nicely.

I haven't decided on my next book, but I did pick up The Perennial Philosophy by Aldous Huxley and started in on it last night. It may be a bit too introductory to hold me for long.

70 pp of Titus Groan to go.

Please do not come back here trying to get us to buy Noel Edmonds' book. If you do, I will assume you are being paid by a viral marketing company.

I am still wading my way through The Scramble for Africa. Too many wars and not enough exploration for my liking, at this point. However, I took a break from it at the weekend and read Affinity by Sarah Waters. I'm not sure I'd describe her books as pastiche Victoriana really. Although Fingersmith certainly does have a great deal of lesbianism in it. Affinity is slighter, shorter, and very gothic.

Just started Paul Theroux's The Old Patagonian Express and so far it's giving me aching wanderlust (not much use when you're 5 months pregnant).

Anyway, after finsihing that, everything else kinda pales in comparison (to coin a cliche) - I've picked-up and put down five books, at last count, and finally settled on The Coroner's Lunch, 'cause I figured that it was different enough I wouldn't keep comparing it to Suite. It's pretty entertaining, I must say.