What are you reading now?

[LMcD]

I read that. I always enjoyed Updike but remember thinking he was a bit out of his depth there

I agree, but I stuck with it to the end!

[smittims]

Yes, I see what you mean, thought I didn't notice that so much when I read it. The thing that struck me was that it lacked a satisfactory conclusion.

[richardfinegold]

John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath. I’m reading it for a book club. I had read it when I was 14-it was a standard of American Education of the day- and its depiction of people chewed up by capitalism and being helpless and destroyed is timeless. Steinbeck is quite preachy nd repetitive and if I had been his Editor I would have left most of these out and let the story speak for itself

[richardfinegold]

Just started John Updike's 'Terrorist'

I read that. I always enjoyed Updike but remember thinking he was a bit out of his depth there

[smittims]

I remember Paul Foot's fearless writings. We need more people like him today.

I'm re-reading Smoke. one of Turgenev's shorter novels , about a man whose life is turned upside down by the reappearance of a first love . I find more and more in Turgenev every time I re-read him. He was much admired by other novelists.

[Jazzrook]

Margaret Renn’s recent biography of the great investigative journalist and revolutionary socialist, Paul Foot:

https://www.YouTube.com/watch?v=8dmjtcxLU2Y

JR

[LMcD]

Just started John Updike's 'Terrorist'

[smittims]

Lady Anna, one of Anthony Trollope's less-well-known novels , dating from 1874, after Phineas Redux.

Unusualy for Trollope it has only one plot. Usially there are at least two; it's a familiar story of a wronged heiress contesting a will and finding love,etc. but what made me post this is the type face for this Oxford World Classics reprint. It is notoceably larger than normal , and seems to be an enlargement of the old miniature World's Classics hardbacks, if you remember them; they were much on sale inthe 1970s.

This set me thinking about cheap reprints. Does anyone remember Heron Books, who used to advertise on the backs of magazines, tempting you to subscribe to a whole series of what looked like leather-bound 'fine editions' but which were actually laquered paper and card , and usually reprints of 19th-century editions. A neighbour of mine had shelves full of them , which sadly he never got around to reading.

[smittims]

Richard III, to follow my re-reading of the Henry VI plays. On ething I hadn't appreciated before was the variety of writing in these plays, which of course has given rise to much speculation about joint authorship , especially in Henry VI part One.

These plays have had many different attempts ot interrpet them on stage, including the very realistic TV version with Bendict Cumberbatch. Reading them again convinces me that I would prefer a more ritualistic, symbolic approach. Trying to put two armies on one stage is doomed to failure, as Shakepeare admits in the prologue to Henry V. But the verse is fascinating and would repay being brought into relief by a less active staging.

[AHR]

'Injury Time' by D. J. Enright. I knew him only as a poet so this, part journal, part memoir, part splendidly in defence of language, has been quite a discovery.

[Pianorak]

Michel Barnier: My Secret Brexit Diary. Fascinating trip down memory lane. Somwhow seems like ancient and modern history rolled into one.

[gradus]

Back to Evelyn Waugh after a long gap, Vile Bodies remains very funny but I found Put out more Flags a bit flat although being EW there are always smiles to be had.

[smittims]

see my R3 jazz over New Year above. I agree.

[DracoM]

Re-iterating my support for the quiet, finely narrated 'In the Heart of the Country' by JM Coetzee.
Truly worth reading and re-reading. An author I have been delighted to follow for years.

[smittims]

A much-loved rarity: Commonplace, a novella by Christina Rossetti. A quiet family drama, it would make an excellent BBC costume mini-series. Like Margaret Drabble more recently , Rossetti had the art of writing from a woman's perspective without sounding like a ranting feminist, and thus has something to offer the male reader.