What are you reading?

[Manny Calavera]

I'm playing catch-up on novels released this year, a couple of which I put down and am just now coming back to:

The Savage Detectives by Roberto Bolano
The Yiddish Policeman's Union by Michael Chabon
Bowl of Cherries by Millard Kaufman
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz

 

[rdawson808]

Agatha Christie's The Passenger to Frankfurt. It's really kind of crap, I can't believe it. It was written in 1970 so that might explain it. No Poirot, no Marple.


b

 

[gamelan]

Jane Eyre. Charlotte Bronte.

-Jeff

 

[dirt_lawyer]

I bought Greenspan's book a couple of weeks ago but have been too busy to sit down and start it. I recently finished a booked called Shadow Voyage about FDR's attempt to keep the German liner Bremen in New York long enought to seize it but failing.

 

[Quirk]

edited

 

[Stazy]

Phil Gordon's Little Blue Book
Phil Gordon's Little Green Book

Essential poker reading!

 

[jkennett]

Originally Posted by Dedalus

I've regretfully neglected the Russians in my readings. What would you suggest as a good starting point?

That's a very difficult question. A lot of it depends on what sort of writing you enjoy reading normally. I was going to say Gogol's Dead Souls might be a good start. Dostoevsky has references to Gogol in some of his work. However, I find personal enjoyment in the sick comedies these gentleman created.

Gogol and Dostoevsky are completely insane. Seriously, they were mentally ill.... Dostoevsky was an epileptic with a gambling and drinking problem. He also spent several years in a gulag for political associations early in life. Both of them were possibly bipolar. Also, many believe that Gogol was buried alive (accidentally?) They're great fun to read partially because of their mental imbalances!

Dostoevsky is incredibly popular for a reason. His stories are more complete than Gogol, and his work has influenced a lot of other authors (James Joyce for one). Then there are all the other authors: Pushkin, Tolstoy, Nabokov, etc.

Nabokov also treads into darker territory with Lolita. Tolstoy was a realist and sort of a romantic. Anna Karenina was held in very high esteem by Dostoevsky and Nabokov. Pushkin was the the "father" of modern Russian literature, but was primarily a poet.

Celebrate the season of Halloween with Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment. (Sorry about the odd reply, it was influenced by too much Robitussin, as I am home sick today.)

 

[Britalian]

Cigarettes are Sublime, Richard Klein on smoking and ciggy philos. Interesting.

 

[lawyerdad]

Originally Posted by jkennett

That's a very difficult question. A lot of it depends on what sort of writing you enjoy reading normally. I was going to say Gogol's Dead Souls might be a good start. Dostoevsky has references to Gogol in some of his work. However, I find personal enjoyment in the sick comedies these gentleman created.

Gogol and Dostoevsky are completely insane. Seriously, they were mentally ill.... Dostoevsky was an epileptic with a gambling and drinking problem. He also spent several years in a gulag for political associations early in life. Both of them were possibly bipolar. Also, many believe that Gogol was buried alive (accidentally?) They're great fun to read partially because of their mental imbalances!

Dostoevsky is incredibly popular for a reason. His stories are more complete than Gogol, and his work has influenced a lot of other authors (James Joyce for one). Then there are all the other authors: Pushkin, Tolstoy, Nabokov, etc.

Nabokov also treads into darker territory with Lolita. Tolstoy was a realist and sort of a romantic. Anna Karenina was held in very high esteem by Dostoevsky and Nabokov. Pushkin was the the "father" of modern Russian literature, but was primarily a poet.

Celebrate the season of Halloween with Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment. (Sorry about the odd reply, it was influenced by too much Robitussin, as I am home sick today.)


Nabokov is fantastic, but I think it's a bit of a stretch to count him as "one of the Russians", especially with his best/most celebrated stuff (Lolita, Pale Fire, etc.) having been written in English and being very much about the language of English itself.

 

[chronoaug]

A bunch of different books/articles/primary sources from medieval iberia. Primarily stuff dealing with crypto-judaism in iberia, the new world and amsterdam. Most recently i finished "Dying in the Laws of Moses" by Bodian. It was really entertaining and informative.

 

[LabelKing]

Originally Posted by rdawson808

Agatha Christie's The Passenger to Frankfurt. It's really kind of crap, I can't believe it. It was written in 1970 so that might explain it. No Poirot, no Marple.


b

Yes, the later Christie books with the spy intrigue are rather bad and disorienting.

 

[dusty]

I Am Legend, hopefully followed by Blood Meridian if I can get through it.

 

[jkennett]

Originally Posted by lawyerdad

Nabokov is fantastic, but I think it's a bit of a stretch to count him as "one of the Russians", especially with his best/most celebrated stuff (Lolita, Pale Fire, etc.) having been written in English and being very much about the language of English itself.
Good point. Though he was raised in St. Petersburg, his family was trilingual. His first nine works of literature were in Russian. The fact that his family was forced into exile due to his noble blood makes me still think of him as a Russian, though he came to fame through his works in English (as Lawyerdad points out). Also, his abilities in English in a lot of ways opened the gateway to Russian Lit. because of his translations of other's works. I don't know... I guess in my opinion he's still a Russian, who never got to really live in Russia after childhood. I'm not a scholar on the subject, just a fan of the work, so it's really just an opinion.

 

[Dedalus]

Originally Posted by jkennett

RUSSIANS

Awesome, thanks. I love mental instability in authors. I'll probably chug my way through Gogol before Dostoevsky, so that I can catch those references that you mentioned.

 

[philosophe]

Gandhi's speeches and essays on Satygraha
Mark Lilla's The Stillborn God