What are you reading now?

[Historian]

A Month in the Country, by JL Carr. It has the same quiet charm as Travels with a Donkey.

Saw this in a charity shop the other day and bought it because of this mention: thank you.

Won't get on to it for some time as I have just started 'Barnaby Rudge'.

[french frank]

Saw this in a charity shop the other day and bought it because of this mention: thank you.

Won't get on to it for some time as I have just started 'Barnaby Rudge'.

and double Never been a particular Dickens fan, but I did find Barnaby Rudge very absorbing.

[teamsaint]

and double Never been a particular Dickens fan, but I did find Barnaby Rudge very absorbing.

“Barnaby” must surely be cockney rhyming slang for something........

I must re read A Month in the Country. Read it as a student, and thought it was great.

[gurnemanz]

Gavin Esler: How Britain Ends

John Kampfer: Why the Germans Do It Better

[Historian]

and double Never been a particular Dickens fan, but I did find Barnaby Rudge very absorbing.

Only read the first few chapters as yet, but already absorbed.

[gradus]

Saw this in a charity shop the other day and bought it because of this mention: thank you.

Won't get on to it for some time as I have just started 'Barnaby Rudge'.

Carr's other books are good and funny (The Harpole Report) too.

I'm just about to start A Farewell to Arms being somewhat under-read in Hemingway.

[Guest]

Hardy: Return of the Native

[Petrushka]

George Orwell: Down and Out in Paris and London

I've not read this before and am loving the wonderfully vivid writing, the comic set pieces and finely drawn characterizations nicely off-setting all the grim stuff. Still in Paris so far.

[french frank]

George Orwell: Down and Out in Paris and London

I've not read this before and am loving the wonderfully vivid writing, the comic set pieces and finely drawn characterizations nicely off-setting all the grim stuff. Still in Paris so far.

I enjoyed that many, many years ago. It reminded me of the life in the small hotels I used to stay in, now either converted into offices or similar, or transformed into 'boutique hotels'. Wasn't there a bit where he inked his ankles to make it look as if he was wearing socks?

[Petrushka]

I enjoyed that many, many years ago. It reminded me of the life in the small hotels I used to stay in, now either converted into offices or similar, or transformed into 'boutique hotels'. Wasn't there a bit where he inked his ankles to make it look as if he was wearing socks?

Yes, I think it was an idea he got from the Russian captain when they were going for interview at one of the hotel jobs they were seeking. This is one of those books I wish I'd known many years ago but unfortunately never did.

Also on the catch up list are A Month in the Country by J L Carr (recently recommended on here) and Lark Rise to Candleford by Flora Thompson (enthusiastically recommended by Bernard Levin, I remember). Both books have been on the 'to read' list for far too long.

[Bryn]

Just delivered, the English translation by Erica Segre and Simon Carnell as "Ever Smaller" (MIT October 2020) of Antonio Ereditato's "Le Particelle Elementari" of 2017. A great follow-up to a series of three Radio 3 programmes on the subject in the late 1970s or early 1980s which further stimulated my interest at the time.

[french frank]

Also on the catch up list are A Month in the Country by J L Carr (recently recommended on here) …

Yes, by me although I'm not sure I 'recommended' it - just said I was reading it. I do shy away from recommending anything to anyone, largely through having been caught out by other people's 'recommendations'. One man's meat &c.

I may root out Down and Out again as I still have the Penguin edition. I'm not a great fan of 'blockbusters' and prefer quite short works to get through quickly and move on to something else. Travels with a Donkey and A Month in the Country were ideal.

Incidentally, A Month in the Country is a rare example of one of my reading choices exciting any comment at all on here

[Richard Barrett]

I got to the end of John Banville's Ancient Light and only then realised it's the third book in a trilogy. That's my next two books decided then.

I know I've said this before but I haven't come across another living author who writes English prose as beautifully as Banville.

[Petrushka]

Yes, by me although I'm not sure I 'recommended' it - just said I was reading it. I do shy away from recommending anything to anyone, largely through having been caught out by other people's 'recommendations'. One man's meat &c.

I may root out Down and Out again as I still have the Penguin edition. I'm not a great fan of 'blockbusters' and prefer quite short works to get through quickly and move on to something else. Travels with a Donkey and A Month in the Country were ideal.

Incidentally, A Month in the Country is a rare example of one of my reading choices exciting any comment at all on here

When A Month in the Country was first published (1980s?) I noted it down after positive reviews as one to read but never followed up. Here we are 40 odd years later and Amazon are delivering it later today!

I also noted your interesting comments on Barnaby Rudge and although I have a complete set of Dickens there have been too many times when I've given up halfway through on some of his works and it'll have to wait for another day, if ever.

Retirement/lockdown has at last given me the impetus to start reading the mountain of unread books on my heaving shelves but panic sets in when I see how high that mountain is! And then there are the old favourites I read time and time again...

[Joseph K]

About 100 pages into rereading David Harvey's Seventeen Contradictions and the End of Capitalism, and just started the most recent edition of Alex Callinicos's The Revolutionary Ideas of Karl Marx, which should complement it, I'd've thought.