Your space to discuss the books you are reading and what you think of themRead more Tips, links and suggestions blogsWelcome to this week’s blog. Here’s a roundup of your comments and photos from last week.daylightsimulator shared: It’s taken me three weeks to get to page 174 of Elizabeth Bowen’s second world war novel In the Heat of the Day. Its endless ambiguity makes it the most putdownable book I’ve ever read. It’s impossible to read more than twenty pages without a kind of mental peasouper descending (the fog of war?). The phrase “or rather” seems to follow every observation or thought. There are more commas on one page than in Cormac McCarthy’s entire oeuvre. This doesn’t mean I’m not enjoying it. On the contrary, it’s a treat to see how a writer can evoke and sustain a feeling of limitless opacity. I think this book was popular at the time it was published, but can imagine it would get little public interest today.It deserves all the plaudits it has received. It’s one of those occasions when a wildly experimental form just works. It’s written in short separated paragraphs; tiny vignettes, asides and quotes from other writers, depicting a relationship in crisis. It’s extraordinarily funny in places, and moving in others. Although it is so fragmentary, each seemingly random observation builds on the last, and it really does feel like you’ve read something wholly original.I watched The Grand Budapest Hotel just before Christmas, and Zweig went back on my reading list as a result. This is my first attempt at Zweig (and my first post on this blog!), and I’m really enjoying it. A faux pas by an Austrian cavalry officer leads to him becoming entangled with the local nobility.I’m interspersing this with The Global Minotaur (by the Greek finance minister Y Varouflakis) as well as the 80p Penguin little black classic of Circles of Hell (extract of Dante’s Inferno). I’d highly recommend The Global Minotaur. A book to make one think (whether or not you agree with Varouflakis!).I first picked the book up about three years ago, but gave up fairly quickly. This time I began it on the beach, which meant more time to persevere and I am so glad I did. Somewhere around page 200 the strands began to come together and it became one helluva good read. Yes, it’s a little wordy, but they’re really good words. I’d recommend it to anyone who likes long reads and doesn’t mind working a little bit for their entertainment!well, I've almost finished Lucy Hughes-Hallett's 'The Pike', a really fascinating account of the life Gabriele D'Annunzio, what a nutter! Also been dipping into H.V. Mortons 'A Traveller in Rome', so evocative, beautifully written. And as for the 1906 'Every Boys Book of British Natural History', well, it tells you how to build a camera for 14 shillings, then how to photograph wildlife with it, amazing!Sent via GuardianWitness By ID8459116 18 March 2015, 23:05 There, amongst the shiny children’s books and DIY manuals, was an unexpected gem – Haruki Murakami’s Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki, still a virgin with no stamps inside the cover. Joy. Just finished it and couldn’t do anything else but read it … Kids had defrosted and heated food, dishes remained unwashed, cats and dogs lost weight, husband turned into a reluctant au pair … Nothing came between me and sheets of Colorless. There is very little on this planet to compare to reading Murakami for the first time. [...] Burrowing into the mind of a Japanese 31 year old shy man and reading his thoughts, his paranoia and his hurt made me very happy. What strange creatures we are.Found the 1972 Turkish edition of Straw Dogs in my library #WorldBookDay @GuardianBooks pic.twitter.com/GcH9wq7y3Z Continue reading...
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