Ersatz TLS discussion

Hello everyone

Sad events in the UK in the last few days with the death of the Queen, which came, I think, as a shock to most in spite of her age. Hearing “God save the King” will take some getting used to. Lass suggests reading Alan Bennett’s The Uncommon Reader.

A perfect wee gem of a novel.

And Lass was lucky enough to attend again The Edinburgh International Book Festival, back in its usual form this year. She made many of us jealous, I’m sure.

Only three events for me this year, but all were excellent and well attended. Currently reading The Fortune Men from the lovely Nadifa Mohamed. Her Black Mamba Boy, shortlisted for the Guardian First Book Award some years ago was very good, and this is proving so too. Monica Ali was on great form, discussing Love Marriage, and Maggie O’Farrell was her usual engaging self on her latest, The Marriage Portrait.

If, like me, you're interested in watching some of the events, those which can be watched online can be found here:
https://www.edbookfest.co.uk/the-fest...

Most events are available to watch on-demand on the website video player pages immediately after the live broadcast for a period of time... If you didn't book to watch the livestream, you will be asked to log in or create an account (name and email only) and to Pay What You Can to watch on-demand.

Recordings of events of previous years can be found here (for free):
https://www.edbookfest.co.uk/look-and...

AB76 also has The Fortune Men which he is enjoying unlike On Heroes and Tombs by Ernesto Sabato, set in Buenos Aires, which started promisingly but but went downhill. He had better luck with William Golding’s The Spire.

Fuzzywuzz warned us off The Echo Chamber by John Boyne.

Overall I disliked this book so much that I could not recommend it and still feel like I had a conscience.

CCCubbon is also having some mixed reading experiences:

The Ink Black Heart is irritating me and I am only a little way through. Large sections are taken up with reported silly social media speak with print so small I have abandoned all efforts to try and read it - just hope it’s not important...
Back I go to the serenity and beauty of Winters in the World: A Journey through the Anglo-Saxon Year and commune with these poets writing so long ago but whose thoughts are still relevant today. Lovely.

Giveusaclue shared a good experience: An Empty Throne by Robert Fabbri.

Currently reading this, the third in the series. I enjoyed the first two, there was plenty of action and sly humour.
The series has followed the fortunes, or lack of them, of Alexander's generals and household following his death without naming an heir. Shifting alliances is an understatement.

MK says:

For anyone into spies and Berlin, be on the lookout (or ask your library to buy it) for Winter Work by Dan Fesperman.

Speaking of spies, the yellow cars continue to manifest themselves. MK is watching out!

Andy recommends Vine Street by Dominic Nolan.

Most of all, this is an intense portrait of London, and in particular Vine Street (perhaps the most obscure location on the Monopoly board) and Soho. Of course the research is important, and Nolan is flawless here, but it is more about getting into the emotional heart of the city, which he does with aplomb, its rough edges and all.

Russell has been reading Bouvard et Pécuchet by Gustave Flaubert.

He wrote this book, he said, to vomit on his contemporaries the disgust they inspired in him. After the first rather tender meeting of his two title characters he is so engrossed piling up the instances of their ridiculousness that he completely neglects momentum and plot. It becomes a compilation instead of a novel, and one which fails in its purpose - because this reader at least felt sympathy, not contempt, for Bouvard and Pécuchet.

And he had some exciting news: Mrs vermontlogger is opening a metaphysical bookshop. Members of the group came up with ideas for stock. We wish them well!

Afternoon all, a lovely warm late summer or early autumn day in the shires, with less sun about due to shortening days, its far more pleasent though still fiercely strong in direct contact with the sun

Thanks for your intro GPFR and the services and mourning for Her Majesty still seems rather like a dream, she is gone, just a few months since her Jubilee....

Lined up to read now are:
Capitalism and Slavery by Eric Wiliams (tip came from Veuf i think)
The Skin by Curzio Malaparte(1949)

I finished The Fortune Men and commend it to one and all, as the main character and events all actually happened, the note at the end of the novel was good to read, to see what happened long after events in Tiger Bay, Cardiff, 1952.

I'm also reading David Grossman's study of the 1987 Intifada The Yellow Wind, where he talks with both sides in the disturbances, arguing with stubborn Israeli settlers and listening to Palestinian voices. Over 35 years later, the desperation, anger and despair are poignant and Grossman writes well from an Israeli perspective.

Gpfr - Thank you for the intro and the mention.

Despite the distance from events, I too felt saddened by the death of the Queen. In today’s world there are not many examples of the dignity she displayed. Watching the coronation on a tiny TV is almost my earliest memory.

The library is getting the Alan Bennett book for me. It was new to me, so thank you to Lass as well.

Russell wrote: "Gpfr - Thank you for the intro and the mention.

Despite the distance from events, I too felt saddened by the death of the Queen. In today’s world there are not many examples of the dignity she dis..."

just watched the queens four children holding a vigil over her coffin at St Giles in Edinburgh, as the public filed past. A very moving moment and Edinburgh is wonderful setting for this stage of the mourning, it feels right.

wow its quiet in here...20 hrs since the last message

steady drizzle falls in the shires as the queen's hearse heads to the airport in Edinburgh

The Simon Schama article in the weekend FT on Her Majesty was superb, well worth reading if its available online

i feel sad the scene is shifting from well preserved and stately architecture of Edinburgh to the architectural alphabet soup of London. London is impressive in small sections but monstrosities abound

Yes, it is quiet!
I'm going to Wales tomorrow for a few days, so won't be around. See you all next week 🐲

It's a so-so uploaded picture, but there's wildlife in my neighborhood!

🚕🚕🚕 (mustn't forget the cars!)

In Capitalism and Slavery, Eric Williams describes brilliantly the world that the british mercantile exploitation of the poor was about.

Cruel, exacting extraction of profit from cheap white labour, with limited rights was the scene from the start, a brutal chasing of the margins between profit and loss. White labour was shipped and exploited until they found something even cheaper and more profitable which was black labour without any rights at all. Into an already established system of pitiless cruelty, the african slaves were thrown.

MK wrote: "It's a so-so uploaded picture, but there's wildlife in my neighborhood!"

They look quite at ease and unafraid.

AB76 wrote: "In Capitalism and Slavery, Eric Williams describes brilliantly the world that the british mercantile exploitation of the poor was about.

Cruel, exacting extraction of profit from cheap white labo..."

Similar words are found early on in How the South Won the Civil War: Oligarchy, Democracy, and the Continuing Fight for the Soul of America as Heather Cox Richardson documents the beginnings of our (US) racism.

MK wrote: "AB76 wrote: "In Capitalism and Slavery, Eric Williams describes brilliantly the world that the british mercantile exploitation of the poor was about.

Cruel, exacting extraction of profit from chea..."

i think i saw that reviewed in NYRB,. will make a note, thanks MK

Gpfr wrote: "Yes, it is quiet!
I'm going to Wales tomorrow for a few days, so won't be around. See you all next week 🐲"

enjoy your trip!

Thanks for the new thread, and have a good trip.

The British mercantile exploitation of the poor AB. Oh yes. In the 18thc, child slavery was rife in Aberdeen, practised by the local burgesses and merchants. Stray children were rounded up off the streets, even those who had parents, kidnapped, held in three places across the city, so this was organised not random, and shipped to North America and sold for servitude of seven years, bought for 16 dollars. So of course, though these white children, mainly boys I believe, had some rights, it needed only one step further to self justify the trade in black slaves who had no rights at all.
Peter Williamson, originally from the Aboyne area, managed to get back from North America and advertised his shameful treatment by writing a pamphlet and going around the country, walking from Plymouth, in Indian dress. He had lived with and been treated kindly by the Native Americans, and he was therefore known as Indian Peter. Too long a story to tell but there is a book about him, called , unsurprisingly, Indian Peter, and lots of articles online.
According to sources, some say 600, others 700 children were abducted and sold. Few were as lucky or as entrepreneurial as Peter.
So, despite the Kirk going, and professed Christianity of these worthies of Aberdeen, capitalism, I would say greed, triumphed over ethics or morality. That is why we need laws to regulate it. No “free” enterprise for me.

Storm wrote: "The British mercantile exploitation of the poor AB. Oh yes. In the 18thc, child slavery was rife in Aberdeen, practised by the local burgesses and merchants. Stray children were rounded up off the ..."

oh yes, free enterprise is the freedom to starve, to exploit and to get filthy rich. the freedom to cross a cold hostile channel from france to dover and then be left drifting in a cold, hostile system.

Freedom means so much and i respect it but anglo-saxon mercantile capitalism confers freedom on anyone, whatever their condition and then leaves them in the cold. Charities do good work but the myth of trickle down capitalism (are you listening Liz Truss), has always been a myth and the small state free enterprise, individualist anglo-saxon capitalist world is a harsh one, the USA shows how extreme it can get

Storm wrote: "The British mercantile exploitation of the poor AB. Oh yes. In the 18thc, child slavery was rife in Aberdeen, practised by the local burgesses and merchants. Stray children were rounded up off the ..."

I had not heard of Indian Peter before, these abductions quite shocking and quite believable. I found a short YouTube video about him which has a little more information

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TqC-z...

Let me say firstly that I admired the old Queen and thought that she ‘did her job well’ as they say but, and a big but, I find the present display of excess wealth quite sickening. One sees ( I cannot turn the tv off fast enough) the rich and powerful gathering in their finery and decked in posh clothes, unearned medals and jewels while staff members of Clarence House get their redundancy notices. Johnson smirking at the Proclamation ceremony disgusted ne. We hear that King Charles will pay no tax on money he inherits from his mother.

All those flowers rotting. The money would be better given to charity. The media urging sycophantic behaviour upon us all - things don’t change much - it’s all about control.

I have no wish to offend anyone - just what I have observed. Truss, she looks like a little mouse but is very much another self server, Trickle down capitalism is meaningless, just another phrase to persuade people that benefits will trickle down to them instead of trickling up to those who already have more than they need.

The Heart of Midlothian – Sir Walter Scott

Having read only a couple by Scott I was expecting something in the line of action and romance. This one, starting from historical events in 1730s Edinburgh, does have elements of both, and some violence too. However, the dominant tone of this slow-paced tale is soon established by the sober, serious, and dignified manner of bible-reading presbyterians. I was engrossed. The story itself revolves around a monstrous law for executing mothers presumed to have done away with their new-borns.

Alongside it I enjoyed the Bloomsbury selection of his verse. I didn’t realise that Marmion began with a long descant on national loss – the deaths of Pitt and Fox, and Nelson as well, but mainly those two.

@Storm – Child-abduction in 18C Scotland - Not to give anything away, The Heart of Midlothian touches on your very subject.

GP.. many thanks for all your work on the introduction.

I’m sure I speak for all of us in saying that a mention in the summary is my equivalent of being longlisted for the Booker.. cheers cheers..

It’s 2 degrees here in Finnish Lapland, specifically Kilpisjärvi, probably most famous because of its (on a fine day) picturesque setting close to the three border cairn, which is a few hours walk to, or a very expensive boat trip to.

A good chance for me to catch up on some book reviews, one just so-so, the other two tremendous, and very recommended..

The Madonna of Notre Dame by Alexis Ragougneau translated from the French by Katherine Gregor.

This is the sort of crime whodunnit that I used to read a lot of, and no doubt would have scored more highly if I’d read it a few years ago. These days my reading habits of changed, a good reason to go back and read the odd one, especially if they are a bit different.

The morning after the Feast of the Assumption mass, an American tourist discovers that the beautiful woman kneeling beside her is not actually praying, rather, she is dead. The cathedral is closed and the police are called.

The setting used to be enough for me to add it to my tbr list, and though the church and the 4th arrondissement are attractive, it was Ragougneau‘s characters that I enjoyed the most here, not least the tribulations of Father Kern, a flawed and unimportant bit part whose appearances are the highlight.

Old Man Dies by Georges Simenon translated from the French by B. Frechtman.

Here’s a piece of long buried Simenon treasure.

It’s not a Maigret, neither is it a romans-durs, neither is it really a crime novel, but it does concern something that Simenon wrote a lot across his many books, French restaurants.

It opens with the death of old Auguste, while in service as Maitre D’, in his 80s. He was a taciturn self-made man from Auvergne, who had come to Paris and established a restaurant in the Central Market in Les Halles (flattened in 1970) with his wife, who cooked their regional dishes and they prospered. They dealt only in cash, not trusting banks, lawyers or accountants. He left no will. His three sons, each of them nasty pieces of work, are only interested in one thing.. inheritance.

It’s an ideal Simenon for a newcomer to him to read, it encompasses many of his strengths; building an atmosphere of suspense amidst to the backdrop of the detail of the restaurant schedule.

Published in 1966, it has been out of print as an English translation for some years. Other countries have commissioned new translations more recently. It also has the title La Mort d’Auguste, and The Old Man Dies.
It is however available as a scanned version of a library copy on the Internet Archive.

and, The Boy Who Ran Away to Sea by Barry Gifford

I first came across Gifford after a recommendation for the Roy stories, and read The Cuban Club: Stories, and really enjoyed it.

This though, I found even better, perhaps because Roy is, in many but not all of the stories, older.
I can’t think of another writer who does anything similar to these very short stories, most of them are less than 2,000 words. They are not in chronological order, which at first seems illogical, but what actually happens is that in a short space of time, the whole picture of young Roy builds up. A highlight of this book is the illustration or cartoon sketch at the end of each piece on its key character.

Many books concern the childhood experience, but what makes this stand out is Roy’s hard-boiled straight talking as he observes adults around him wreck their lives (to various degrees), then try desperately to save themselves.
Though each story tells only of a fleeting moment in the Chicago-born boy’s life, it’s not long before there is a clear image of a young person with a determined curiosity and a passion for exploration.

This from Gifford..

I have often been asked if I were interested in writing my memoirs or an autobiography. Given that the Roy stories come as close as I care to come regarding certain circumstances, I remain comfortable with their verisimilitude. They all dwell within the boundary of fiction. As I have explained elsewhere, these are stories, I made them up. Roy ages from about five years old to late adolescence. After that, with the exception of a sighting in Veracruz, I have no idea what happened to him.

CCCubbon wrote: "Let me say firstly that I admired the old Queen and thought that she ‘did her job well’ as they say but, and a big but, I find the present display of excess wealth quite sickening. One sees ( I can..."

Agreeing with you over the ostentatious display of wealth CC. I came across an item on the internet today where someone who had worked for the Crown years ago posted up his contract of employment with name redacted. It appears that every contract of employment for the crown comes with the clause that the job dies when the "crown" does unless the new crown takes you on or you are redeployed. Many of them I believe and hope will retain their jobs or be redeployed to other posts. Is it employment law that these notices were sent, but it could have waited until after the funeral? I guess employees would be fully aware of the situation before the notices did go out. But very worrying for them

Andy wrote: "GP.. many thanks for all your work on the introduction.

I’m sure I speak for all of us in saying that a mention in the summary is my equivalent of being longlisted for the Booker.. cheers cheers...."

2c! Balmy late summer temps up there lol, i hope you are well insulated Andy, the dog wont mind, labs have the coats for all weather(cept they cant take em off in heat, as i found with my dogsitting in the august heatwave, one very sweaty hound!)

CCCubbon wrote: "Let me say firstly that I admired the old Queen and thought that she ‘did her job well’ as they say but, and a big but, I find the present display of excess wealth quite sickening. One sees ( I can..."




"The 28 members of his household staff include four chefs, five house managers, three valets and dressers and a couple of butlers."

Made me wonder:

Why do 2 people need 4 chefs?
What do the 5 house managers actually manage?
Why do 2 people need more than one butler?
Is squeezing toothpaste on his toothbrush a full-time job?
Is there another person whose full-time job it is to tie his schoe-laces?

Sorry, I shouldn't be so hard on him. After all: he has travelled thousands of miles on a private plane to pontificate about climate change.

Bees and CCCubbon? I don't know why I connect the two, but . . .

https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-w...

There is also a book which I am tempted to buy - which is less expensive at bookdepository.com with free shipping. (I'm not going to ask whether one part of Amazon talks to another.)

🚕🚕🚕

Have now started The Skin by Curzio Malaparte, his second WW2 novel based on his own experiences, written in 1949

Unlike the earlier Kaputt that covers the bestial cruelty of the Axis gallery of rogues in Finland and the Eastern Front, "The Skin" is set in newly liberated Naples, Autumn 1943. Naples has been devastated by allied bombing and german demolition teams, a city of 800,000 people in rags and poverty.

Malaparte's focus in this novel is on the Allies, the liberators, mainly the Americans but also the French. Whether his narrator is reliable, like in Kaputt, is unclear but the rich language and slightly unusual episodes are great to read almost a decade after reading "Kaputt".

Naples, once the largest city in Italy but even by the 1930s a huge neglected once royal city, is a haunting location, abundant with beauty and good weather but sick, sick of war

An interesting contempary angle to this is the memoirs of my Great Uncle (hand typed), which i just consulted. He was in the Royal Artillery and spent that autumn 1943 in the vicinity of the italian city of Lanciano as they pursued the Germans north of Naples.

Georg wrote: "CCCubbon wrote: "Let me say firstly that I admired the old Queen and thought that she ‘did her job well’ as they say but, and a big but, I find the present display of excess wealth quite sickening...."

Squeezing the toothpaste only happened when he had a broken arm I believe. And look at it this way, you don't have to pay for them if you are in Germany!

Georg, I think you are being disingenuous. Being a Royal is a job. It is constant. You also have to entertain. A lot. So are you going to work your one chef from 6 till midnight when guests are expected? I can perfectly well see why he has two as I am sure any Prime Minister or President or Head of State has. Because they are needed.
Which brings me to the Head of State question. The King is now a symbol of the U.K., of all four countries. He belongs to all. Now, a Prime Minister is a different animal and brings all sorts of baggage and of course belongs to one group of people rather than all. Look up how much money Royalty brings to the U.K.
Now think about who you would rather have as a Head of State to represent you. A past or failed Politician? A CEO who has made loads of money? What about Richard Branson? A celebrity? Mabel next door?
I believe the U.K. needs change but getting rid of royalty is not vital.We need constitutional change. Proportional representation. A written constitution. Citizens’ assemblies. Abolish the House of Lords and give us an elected second house. Abolish hereditary peers. But I am ok with a symbolic figurehead to represent the four nations but with a slimmed down, modernised monarchy.
Money? Yes, but it isn’t only old families is it? Look at Trump’s gold fripperies. The Russian oligarchs. Most of what you are seeing is not wealth translatable into hard cash.

Storm wrote: "Georg, I think you are being disingenuous. Being a Royal is a job. It is constant. You also have to entertain. A lot. So are you going to work your one chef from 6 till midnight when guests are exp..."

And you forgot;

https://www.theguardian.com/business/...

Grrr. The IPad only gives a limited size paragraph then cuts bits out. That last sentence is ISN’T wealth translatable into cash.

Giveusaclue….that is utterly obscene!

When I rule the world, I will sort that out!

Storm wrote: "Grrr. The IPad only gives a limited size paragraph then cuts bits out. That last sentence is ISN’T wealth translatable into cash.

Giveusaclue….that is utterly obscene!

When I rule the world, I w..."

It is particuarly obscene bearing in mind what misery betting causes to so many - it makes the wages of footballers (on whom she made much of her money) seem almost (!) normal by comparison. 😀

Storm wrote: "Georg, I think you are being disingenuous. Being a Royal is a job. It is constant. You also have to entertain. A lot. So are you going to work your one chef from 6 till midnight when guests are exp..."

Maybe, growing up in Germany, I just have a different perspective.
And, maybe, my working-class roots make me utterly intolerant regarding toffs without any personal merits displaying their grossly wealthy lifestyles that are only due to inherited privilege when millions of people work so hard and still cannot make ends meet.

I have never loved my country. I was born with a large millstone around my neck, Germany's past. To digest it has taken decades. A worthwile process eventually leading to a more balanced view incorporating a more critical view of what other counties have a achieved or not.

To quote @FranHunny: only small stones please.

With all this money (riches) talk my inner Karl Marx has once again kicked in. Of course it doesn't hurt that I am listening to when I am out and about in the car (only 1🚕 spotted yesterday).

I think it was 2007 when I signed up for a library tour in England. We visited some excellent spots including the library at Wells Cathedral - some of the tomes were chained up. One spot on the schedule was Chatsworth and my first Karl Marx appearance. While the rest bused there, I got myself dropped off in Matlock Bath where I remember visiting a mining museum (so-so), taking a bus back to Cromford where we were staying, visiting Cromford Mill before it was re-developed, and finding Scarthin Books, too. (If you are ever in the area, Scarthin Books is well worth a look.)

I'm reading rather a niche book (I think). It's by Darra Goldstein (https://darragoldstein.com/). In a way it is also about Russian history through food. I'm enjoying it.

Some of posters here who read Russian literature might want to ask their local library ILL folks to procure a copy. In the book, the author sometimes links a particular food to a character in a book. (Note - I don't read Russian literature because I believe I would find it depressing.)

PS - I am pleased to announce that fall has arrived in my particular portion of the PNW. Our days are getting significantly shorter (4 minutes gone today), and the Sun is no longer shining in a vertical east-west arc but has (when it is visible) slanted to the south. (Most of the streets (except for a few remaining native trails) are on a strict N-S/E-W axis which means it's easy to measure the arc of the sun.)

MK wrote: "I'm reading rather a niche book (I think). It's by Darra Goldstein (https://darragoldstein.com/). In a way it is also about ..."

http://www.scarthinbooks.com/

Still there! I live about 30 miles or so away.

Watching the BBC live feed of Her Majesty lying in state is a sobering thing, you have the wonderful display of state, with the guards and the crown and spectre atop her coffin.

Then there is the people filing by,all ages, all races. Men in their 80s with sticks solidly walking on, little toddlers or babies in their parents arms, a good number of catholics crossing themselves, some deep prostrations. Clerics, scouts, ambulance workers, policeman,veterans bedecked with medals

One place i worked a long time ago had a huge picture of Her Majesty at the top of the stairs leading down to the canteen. I loved that

She is gone and its very sad, not a book related post really...

Is it just me? I'm unable to sign in to check out the latest on WWR. Please advise. Thanks

MK wrote: "Is it just me? I'm unable to sign in to check out the latest on WWR. Please advise. Thanks"

I seem to be permanently signed in, without me having to do anything, and have no difficulty. I do find I have to renew the page to see new posts. On the old TLS the thread scrolled up automatically.

A chance find when i was reading about the Portugese Colonial Wars 1961-74, was Portugal and Africa: The People and the War by John Sykes (1971). I have just started it

Sykes explores the Portugese attitude towards a nine year war that was being fought to defend the Ultramar(Overseas Portugal). The book opens on an old estate of the nobility in the south where left wingers are muttered about and a kind of British style household is maintained by the host

A local priest laments that for him, the war is everywhere, in every house, mothers lament conscripted sons and the government needs more men to serve. Any racial divide is not referred to, there is a unity(at least when talking to Sykes, maybe) about all the colours of humanity in the Portugese Empire.

Of course within three years, all this would fall with the Carnation Revolution but Sykes captures tired, fascist Portugal in its last years of frantic struggle against change.

Still the best novel on the Portugese Colonial War is Os Cus De Judas by Lobo Antunes. His narrator is based on his own experiencesd as military doctor in eastern Angola, the novel is widely available in translation.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1...

Just saw on The G's book page that Andrea Wulf (of The Invention of Nature) has brought out a book called Magnificent Rebels: The First Romantics and the Invention of the Self. It seems to cover much the same ground as Peter Neumann's Jena 1800 - all about the Schlegel/Schiller/Novalis circle - but per the review carries the story forward more. Expensive, but I'm very tempted to get it.

I was hoping to settle in and listen to A Place of Secrets. What could be better than a (female, of course) auction house (which appears to have some money troubles of its own) valuer who is lucky enough to be asked to look at books at a once grand estate on her home turf of Norfolk? After adding a (probably) nasy next-door neighbor and a possible love interest, the author, Rachel Hore got too cute for words by inserting such an unnecessary complication. I had to give it up. Grr! Why do authors do that?

Oops - almost forgot - 🚕🚕🚕

Chilly morning in the Shires, a first feel of proper autumn in this royal mourning period

Fum d'estampa press specialise in catalan literature translated, my gentle catalan theme continues with the diaries of Ferran Soledevila English Hours that cover his time in Liverpool in the late 1920s, as a lecturer at the university

Like with Eca De Querioz and his "London Letters", its a study in my own people from a foreigner and its fascinating. A chain of stations on the Wirral is recounted "Birkenhead Central...etc" and he observes the soupy autumn light upon arrival in Blighty.

Observing two students celebrating their welshness and the majority english students in quiet respect, he wonders if a catalan display in a castilian university in spain would be quite as calm or as respected

https://static01.nyt.com/images/2022/...

MASH is fifty!

PS - not sure that NYT will allow all to see.

Russell wrote: "MK wrote: "Is it just me? I'm unable to sign in to check out the latest on WWR. Please advise. Thanks"

I seem to be permanently signed in, without me having to do anything, and have no difficulty...."

I'm on a desk top. It seems Chrome and the Guardian are not getting along. But all is not lost as Microsoft's browser and the Guardian get along.

Me again! I've finished listening to and recommend it highly. It may be slotted in the Western category, but it certainly fits in the thriller category just as easily.

It's nothing like any western I've imagined. Try it, you'll like it.

It's official: I've lost touch with the current world of fiction.

Some of you may remember: One of my 2022 New Year's resolution was to buy no books for a year. Despite @machenbach's prediction that I would fail, I've made it 9+months (unlike my add'l resolution to stop buying yarn). And now today I recognize the repercussions of this book-buying-ban resolution: Here is the 2022 National Book Awards Longlist for Fiction:

https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-...

I don't recognize a single title or author.

Lljones wrote: "It's official: I've lost touch with the current world of fiction.

Some of you may remember: One of my 2022 New Year's resolution was to buy no books for a year. Despite @machenbach's prediction th..."

No books for a year?? Amazing LL, i admire your fortitude and resisting the temptation we all suffer from and enjoy. Keep is posted if you make it to Dec 31st with no new books.....

Curzio Malaparte The Skin(1949)

This novel of Naples in WW2 and defeat is moving fast, the style of Malaparte is always congenial, he is a garrulous host, full of vignettes, anecdotes, unusual turns of phrase and deep thought.

Comparing this novel with his earlier WW2 novel Kaputt(set on Russian and Finnish front), this one feels somewhat sadder as it reveals the dark side of liberation by an oppressed people, while in the previous novel its all about occupation, which should feel darker but doesnt. Maybe its the loss of hope, starving Italians, abandoned by the Fascist regime and then brutalised by the retreating Germans dynamiting their city.

For a modern reader its still graphic, there is some homophobia and a lot of sleaze, Malaparte plays his usual role of rather unreliable narrator(he is the fictional version of himself in the novel).

AB76 wrote: "Lljones wrote: "It's official: I've lost touch with the current world of fiction.

Some of you may remember: One of my 2022 New Year's resolution was to buy no books for a year. Despite @machenbach..."

If its any consolation, I bought too many books this year (and hence none these past 3 months) and didn't recognize a single author either. The world has turned and left me here....

Paul wrote: "AB76 wrote: "Lljones wrote: "It's official: I've lost touch with the current world of fiction.

Some of you may remember: One of my 2022 New Year's resolution was to buy no books for a year. Despit..."

where do you all put new books?(unless you are an e-reader) i'm sort of managing tidy piles out of the way of the floor but am realising shelf space is fading and soon it will be time for another bookcase in my modest abode