Question What are you reading?

[Tangled up in Blue]

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This was Raymond Carver's 'breakthrough' collection of short stories from 1976. Everyone's a winner. Either my memory's getting far worse, or I didn't get around to reading this beauty when I bought it probably about twenty years ago. If you've not read any of the great man's work, it's frippery-free and directs you straight to the possibilities of what's going on in the minds of his well-etched protagonists but there's always room for your imagination to fill in the gaps. I'm going to try to find another of his collections that I know is somewhere around Fort Nox in the hope that I've not already read any of the gleaming gems that are bound to be contained within. But even if I have, I know that there'll still be much to admire.

Quite possibly Elephant or Cathedral or What we Talk about When We talk of love.

Edit.If you've ever read a RC short story you can't forget the ending.

 

[Tangled up in Blue]

Just started Eddie S.Claude Jr.`s Begin Again:James Balwin's America and its urgent Lessons for Today.Powerful stuff.Always beeen a big JB fan.

 

[yogi bear up the cagire]

Just finished reading 'Soeurs' by Bernard Minier. Much slower reading in French and sadly, if I looked up every word I didn't understand, I'd still be reading it at the end of the year! Of particular interest to me because his policeman Martin Servaz is based in Toulouse. So lots of local interest and in the above book his character comes down the motorway and leaves it at St Gaudens en route for Aspet. This is not totally inconsequential for readers on here as his books have been translated into English and are definitely worth investigating.

 

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Just started Yanis Varaoufakis's Another Now.Yanis has long been a favourite economist of mine.Now he turns his hand to a rather different style of writing.SF.

 

[Rob Noxious]

I was very pleased to rediscover this one after reading it over 20 years ago. I recalled it having some interesting insights into the assassination of Bobby Kennedy in particular, especially with how the man convicted of his murder, Sirhan Sirhan, was never in a position to fire the fatal bullet which was shot from immediately behind RFK's right ear and how an eye witness in the pantry of the Ambassador Hotel in LA where the shooting took place saw a security guard immediately to the side and behind Bobby also firing that night.

Matthew Smith delivers plausible arguments towards the existence of a Consortium of the US power elite being behind the killings of the Kennedys and how renegade CIA agents helped to plan the hits - as payback for the brothers' lack of support when the Bay Of Pigs invasion was crushed by Fidel Castro's Revolutionary Armed Forces in 1961 - with use of decoy 'patsies' to deflect attention from the real assassins. He also argues that Marilyn Monroe was murdered in an effort to ensnare Bobby Kennedy (who visited her on the evening before she died, reportedly to confirm the end of their affair) into the frame for her killing and also that Ted Kennedy's fateful drive on Chappaquiddick Island was not the accident it seemed though it was effective in the Consortium's plans to thwart any future Presidential bid by the youngest brother. That particular thread is more nebulous and less convincing but the death of Mary Jo Kopechne in the back of the Senator's car certainly seems shrouded in uncertainty just by virtue of Ted Kennedy's own strange account of what transpired. A very intriguing book and it's available pleasingly cheaply via that well known internet retail giant beginning with the letter A.

 

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Currently reading Daniel Farson's Sacred Monsters.Very gossipy and snobbish but well written.TBF he photographed and interviewed quite a few well known people back in the day..Not Prince Philip though.Obviously missed a trick.

 

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Just picked up Lamorna Ash's Dark,Salt,Clear:Life in a A Cornish Fishing Town.Set in Newlyn.Extremely well-written.

 

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Just started Yanis Varoufakis' Talking to My Daughter: A Brief History of Capitalism.

Better tnan anything I read studying Ecomics at A level in the 6th form.

 

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Currently reading Johann Hart's Chasing the Scream:The Truth about Addiction.

 

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Just started Richard Thompson's Beeswing;Fairport,Folk,Rock and Finding My Voice 1967-75.Wonderful memoir by Britain's best musician over the last 50 years or so.

 

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Just finished Sandy Tolan's The lemon Tree:An Arab,A Jew,And The Heart of The Middle East.Moving.

 

[RobQ]

Forgotten Voices of WW2. A very moving insight into what out brave lads and ladies did for us so that ve are not not speaking ze german!

I've read the forgotten Voives of WW1, which was excellent. Will look out for the WW2 book now.

 

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Just finished Larry McMurty's epic western novel Lonesome Dove.Will catch up wit the DVD soon.Many thanks to Jim for the heads up on this.

 

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Just finished Larry Mcmurtry's The Last Picture Show,Enjoyed the film too when that came out back in the day.Seem to remember there was a lot of teenage angst about sex in it as there is in the novel.Imagine it was ever thus.

 

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Currently reading Jesica Bruder's Nomadland.

 

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Just finished Geoff Norcott's Where did I go Right? :How the Left lost me.

First off, I'm not RW at all.

Second, this book is often laugh out loud funny.

Third, the Left in general and Labour in particular need to learn a few things from this account.

 

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Currently reading Martin Amis's Inside Story.Now Mart is a snob and an inveterate name dropper but his saving grace is that he writes well.Though I still much prefer Amis père (who was a lot funnier).

 

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Just started Héctor Abad's Oblivion:A Memoir.An excellent read for anyone interested in the recent history of Colombia.

 

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Just finished Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's well .written Notes on Grief.This will be a familiar story, unfortunately, to anyone¡s who's lost a loved one.

 

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Just finished Long Players:Writers on the albums that Shaped them Edited by Tom Gatti.A bit hit and miss but mostly a good read.