Hey!! Let's get some action going! What are we reading?

[poohbear_nc]

Originally Posted by bfisher

You make me want to do a re-read.

It's well worth it IMHO ... once you get the myriad cast of characters sorted out fairly well, the writing is luscious and wickedly funny.

[issybird]

Originally Posted by poohbear_nc

It's well worth it IMHO ... once you get the myriad cast of characters sorted out fairly well, the writing is luscious and wickedly funny.

I read these decades ago as they came out in a new cheap paperback edition. I started a reread a while back, but got distracted midway. I think now I'd want to restart at the beginning; for all that it's published as 12 discrete books, everyone knows it's really one (very long) novel.

[astrangerhere]

Originally Posted by poohbear_nc

Last year I had reported finally making it through all 12 volumes of Anthony Powell's A Dance to the Music of Time, and how much I had enjoyed the experience, mingling with the fantastically original cast of recurring characters, whilst awaiting with eager dread the return appearance of the dreadful Widmerpool in each volume.

Well, I've begun a slow re-read, accompanied by Hilary Spurling's magisterial, yet entertaining, Invitation to the Dance -- a handbook par excellence to the series. I'm simply wallowing in Powell's vocabulary and sentence structure, e.g. "The passages seemed catacombs of a hell assigned to the subdued regret of those who had lacked in life the income to which they felt themselves entitled..." -- a brilliant, atmospheric description of a second class private hotel in London for gentry who had fallen on hard times.

Powell constructed sentences whose length rivals Henry James at his most florid, whose intricate structures are descriptive of both the inner and outer landscapes. Sentences and paragraphs are to be savored slowly, allowing them to reveal their concealed nuances of meaning and insinuation.

The Chapel Hill library has these, so I might tackle them soon. I've never read them, and you make them sound very inviting.

Since my last update here, I have completed:

• The Organically Clean Home by Becky Rapinchuk [4/5]
• Places in the Darkness by Chris Brookmyre [3.5/5]
• Please Look After Mom by Kyung-Sook Shin [3/5]
• Master Keaton Vol. 7 by Naoki Urasawa [4/5]
• "The Winds of Harmattan" by Nnedi Okorafor

[poohbear_nc]

Originally Posted by issybird

I read these decades ago as they came out in a new cheap paperback edition. I started a reread a while back, but got distracted midway. I think now I'd want to restart at the beginning; for all that it's published as 12 discrete books, everyone knows it's really one (very long) novel.

Very true - each book contains 4 long chapters, so that the entire series is in reality a novel comprised of 48 chapters.

As I continue my re-read, I'm impressed, and surprised, with Powell's ability to weave characters in and out of the narrator's experiences, and the overall time line of the series. It truly is a dance akin to those elaborate reels, etc. of yore in which partners are exchanged and reunited as the dance progresses.

[PurpleStar]

Stayed up last night to finish Star Trek Titan: Fortune of War by David Mack.

Just started Monster Hunter Alpha by Larry Correia. Don't know how long it'll take to finish. Don't have much quiet time to read lately.

[gmw]

Originally Posted by Dngrsone

Just finished The Long Earth by Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter on recommendation from a coworker. I've shied away from Pratchett because of the long bibliography (Discworld), but I'm glad to finally read a book of his. [...]

Very little of Pratchett's voice comes through on these Long books (double highlighted because they felt - to me - to be very aptly named). So liking - or not - these books won't give you much idea of how you will react to his other work. ... Just saying

[Dngrsone]

Originally Posted by gmw

Very little of Pratchett's voice comes through on these Long books (double highlighted because they felt - to me - to be very aptly named). So liking - or not - these books won't give you much idea of how you will react to his other work. ... Just saying

I do have the first Discworld book in my TBR, so there is that.

[MickeyC]

Just finished John Sandford’s latest book, Twisted Prey and it was one of his best.

[latepaul]

Originally Posted by latepaul

I really should start on this month's NLBC pick but I'm thinking of trying to squeeze in something short and fun first. Haven't decided what yet though.

And it turned out to be On the Beach by Nevil Shute mostly because my hold for it at the library came through.

I enjoyed it mostly. It was a bit odd. The characters felt stuffy and formal - which is probably the period in which it was written. There's a general response to the events immediately prior to the book, which whilst fascinating to explore, isn't plausible as the near universal reaction that it is in the book.

Now I really must buckle down and read The Radium Girls

[ReadingManiac]

I'm about to start reading an old Mary Stewart book, The Moonspinners.

I first came across her with her Merlin series but have started trying a few of her Mysteries. Some grab me, some don't, but this one looks like it will.

[Dngrsone]

Finished The Radium Girls:The Dark Story of America's Shining Women by Kate Moore, and I'm sure my tears will have dried in time for the discussion in a few days.

I have a lot of good book in the TBR... I may go ahead and read The Long War, though I invested heavily in the next three "Jack" Daniels books.

[RobertLCollins]

Today I finished Throne of Jade, the second Temeraire novel. I enjoyed it, though it wasn't quite as fast-paced as the first book. Still, I do want to continue with the series. It's interesting to read a fantasy series set in alternate-history Napoleonic Wars. My next read will be a novella that's given me the idea for an upcoming story I'll be writing soon.

[bfisher]

Originally Posted by poohbear_nc

It's well worth it IMHO ... once you get the myriad cast of characters sorted out fairly well, the writing is luscious and wickedly funny.

Yes, reading his prose is like indulging in a really decadent desert.

[CRussel]

As an anodyne to this month's New Leaf Book Club selection, I've been reading the Petaybee books by Anne McCaffrey and Elizabeth Scarborough. The first, Powers That Be, was an excellent light SF read, with the second starting out a bit darker, but still positive.

[latepaul]

Just finished The Radium Girls for the book club. Should probably save my impressions but let's say I found it hard going in more ways than one.

Will probably start something new tomorrow. Have still got book 3 of the Divine Cities but that's pretty long. Fancy something short.