What are you reading - on or about October 2006

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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).

Now: "The Goodbye Kiss" by Massimo Carlotto, which is brutal Italian hard-boiled crime fiction. I'm about halfway through and it's all too macho for me, I think. It looks like I'm the sort of person to enjoy the more bleeding heart liberal Scando version.

That being said, "Portrait of a Lady" was a fairly smashing book, and I feel wonderfully happy being lost in the jungle that is "The Golden Bowl." Strange, too, because I had always heard that Henry James was a tedious read -- I guess I'm just a sucker for florid prose.

Rabelais has been put on hold until I can find a better version.

But, to reward myself for actually finishing them, I've just started Suite Francaise which is achingly beautiful ... at least the first couple of chapters. But it's going to be getting grim really soon, I fear. And, knowing what happened to the author and all, I have this overall feeling of bleakness.

glad to hear you say this to know that i'm not just mad. it was so wonderfully delightful until the very, very end, and the anticipation makes the lousy payoff seem all the worse. i felt cheated :(

this week, i am cracking into turkey: a modern history and terrorists or freedom fighters: reflections on the liberation of animals.

So now I'm reading "Portnoy's Complaint", which is much more up my proverbial alley. NO I DON'T MEAN BY WAY OF IDENTIFICATION WITH THE LEAD CHARACTER, cheeky.

*I have met more first year undergraduates who take this self-congrtulatory and fruitless line than I have any other broad group, please don't take this as some kind of blanket condemnation of undergraduates!

Have you read anything by him before? The early work is actually written in a fairly straightforward manner -- it just isn't as interesting as the later stuff (to me, anyway). The ornate style only really confuses in the final works.

Could I recommend one of his novellas to you? "Daisy Miller," perhaps? "The Aspern Papers"? Those probably wouldn't require a whole lot of time if they interested you.

I like them, but I definitely wouldn't start with The Bostonians or What Maisie Knew.

LRB has not yet shown, but a letter arrived, with a little slip on it, a little slip I completed and returned by return.

The next day the same letter arrived (with a date two days later than the first) , with an identical little slip. I thought it best not to return that one, it might have confused them.

I have not yet seen a real actual LRB, but I hope to and I remain very grateful for your kind thoughts.

DESCRIPTION OF STRATA

Tarmac

Dense Brown Granular FILL - MADE GROUND*

Firm / Stiff Red Brown silty sandy
gravelly CLAY*

Soft Mottled Brown clayey sandy
SILT some gravel*

Loose Brown silty SAND*

Medium Dense Brown silty gravelly
SAND

Medium Dense Grey Brown silty sandy
GRAVEL with cobbles*

(Continued...)