What are you currently reading?

[AnotherSpin]

Finished reading. For its genre, the book is very good. The Russian characters and the atmosphere in the country are portrayed as realistically as possible, not caricatured, as often happens in 'Russian' books and films by Western authors. There's a lot of healthy and completely understandable disgust toward all this Russian madness, which has engulfed today's world like a cancerous tumor. I gave it 5 stars on Goodreads without hesitation.

[ritter]

It's been quite a while since I read any Marguerite Duras, an author I was almor obsessed with in my twenties and still rank among my favourites...

Starting her early (1955) novella Le Square, written as a long dialogue between two anonymous characters (a nanny-maid and a travelling salesman) who meet by chance in a square in Paris.

[Florestan]

[vandermolen]

Simon Scarrow 'Dead of Night'
I enjoy detective thrillers set in Nazi Germany. Bought at my local supermarket:

[Florestan]

The idea is interesting: a novel built around the last 17 years of Granados' life. The author says that he originally wanted to write a proper biography but the documentary material suggested him rather the novel form. All fine and well, but how can one trust the factual accuracy of someone who states, in a presentation of the main characters, that Paderewski was President of Poland? 

[Florestan]

Simon Scarrow 'Dead of Night'
I enjoy detective thrillers set in Nazi Germany. Bought at my local supermarket:

The theme reminds me of The Night of the Generals. Without reading the book, I guess Yul Brynner would have been the best film incarnation of Inspector Schenke. What say you, Jeffrey?

Also, slightly related: do you know the Babylon Berlin German TV series? Set in the late years of the Weimar Republic, Nazis in full ascension, Soviet spies all around, a police inspector just trying to do his honest job. Recommended.

[Dry Brett Kavanaugh]

Why We Die: The New Science of Ageing and Longevity. Venki Ramakrishnan

[DavidW]

Simon Scarrow 'Dead of Night'
I enjoy detective thrillers set in Nazi Germany. Bought at my local supermarket:

His previous novel Blackout is at my local library. I'll have to give it a read when I have the chance!

[Mandryka]

It's been quite a while since I read any Marguerite Duras, an author I was almor obsessed with in my twenties and still rank among my favourites...

Starting her early (1955) novella Le Square, written as a long dialogue between two anonymous characters (a nanny-maid and a travelling salesman) who meet by chance in a square in Paris.

I would quite like to read the Le Ravissement de Lol V. Stein again but to be honest I'm so much enjoying rereading Voyage au Bout de la Nuit that I'm quite tempted to start at the beginning again just as soon as I get to the end. 

[AnotherSpin]

Why We Die: The New Science of Ageing and Longevity. Venki Ramakrishnan

We do not die. It is not an experience that can be lived through. Or, to put it differently, what dies is not us.

[vandermolen]

His previous novel Blackout is at my local library. I'll have to give it a read when I have the chance!

I'm reading that one now David, having read 'Dead of Night' which I enjoyed.
Sorry - posted wrong image below.

[vandermolen]

The theme reminds me of The Night of the Generals. Without reading the book, I guess Yul Brynner would have been the best film incarnation of Inspector Schenke. What say you, Jeffrey?

Also, slightly related: do you know the Babylon Berlin German TV series? Set in the late years of the Weimar Republic, Nazis in full ascension, Soviet spies all around, a police inspector just trying to do his honest job. Recommended.

'Babylon Berlin' was one of the best series I've watched on TV for ages Andrei. Incredible sets, great music (I have several of the soundtrack CDs  ). Also terrific performances by the two central characters (Liv Lisa Fries and the young male drug-addicted detective). It also conveys a great sense of looming catastrophe against the backdrop of the crumbling Weimar Republic. I can't wait for the next series.

[vandermolen]

Now reading this:

[Dry Brett Kavanaugh]

Moscow & St. Petersburg 1900-1920: Art, Life, & Culture of the Russian Silver Age. John Bowlt.

[AnotherSpin]

[NumberSix]

The Outrun by Amy Liptrot

I saw the excellent film starring Saoirse Ronan last weekend, and I thought I would get the book. I'm about 20% through it so far, and she's a terrific writer.

This book is a memoir, particularly about her addiction to and recovery from alcohol.

[hopefullytrusting]

Intense and mind-altering: Adams's Fundamentals of Game Design:



A testament to the power of technical communication.

[ritter]

Bought yesterday afternoon at the "Old and Antique Book Fair", which is held twice a year in the central Paseo de Recoletos boulevard in Madrid.



Salvador de Madariaga (1886 - 1978) was a Spanish diplomat, historian and author, who held a ministerial position during the 2nd Spanish Republic in the mid-1930s, and went into exile in the UK during the Franco regime, to return only in the last years of his life (in 1976, to take possession of his chair at the Royal Academy of the Spanish Language, to which he had been elected 40 years earlier!). He was one of the leading figures of the moderate, centre-right wing exiled opposition to the Franco regime. Curiously (and this is a telling sign of how the Franco regime worked in its final years), he was awarded Spain's most prestigious journalism award, the Premio Mariano de Cavia, while in exile in 1968, and this after being one of the guiding lights of the "Contubernio de Múnich" (the "Munich Conspiracy"), a 1962 conference that tried to set the basis for a transition to democracy in Spain.

This book collects his articles for Ibérica, a magazine for the exiled democratic Spanish opposition, published on New York between 1953 and 1974. Seems like a good entry point to Madariaga's thinking (my father used to admire him, but this will be my first approach to his writing).

[NumberSix]

Someone on another forum mentioned John Cage. It reminded me of a book that's been on my Kindle wishlist for a while now, Where the Heart Beats: John Cage, Zen Buddhism, and the Inner Life of Artists. I don't know much about the man, and the book looked interesting.

And what do ya know? It was on sale! So I bought it just now.

[Dry Brett Kavanaugh]

Successful Aging.