What are you reading?

[MrG]

I started Shadow Country by Peter Matthiessen on my lunch hour yesterday. I'm excited about reading it, even if I'm a bit intimidated by the fact that it's 900 pages long.

 

[romafan]



I started Shadow Country by Peter Matthiessen on my lunch hour yesterday. I'm excited about reading it, even if I'm a bit intimidated by the fact that it's 900 pages long.

is this the fla. trilogy? i read killing mr. watson years ago - good book. never got around to lost river or the bone one,. iirc, shadow country is not just the collected books but rather an altered rendering of the story?

 

[MrG]



is this the fla. trilogy? i read killing mr. watson years ago - good book. never got around to lost river or the bone one,. iirc, shadow country is not just the collected books but rather an altered rendering of the story?

You're correct. Matthiessen re-worked the Florida trilogy so that the it would work as one book. He says in the author's note that this was because the original concept was to present it all together, with the split into three books coming at the behest of the publisher because they weren't thrilled about releasing a 1500-page book. No idea if that's true, but the combined edition is what was recommended to me, so it's the one I grabbed. I'm a little iffy on losing so much text, despite Matthiessen's reassurances that this is the better version, but I also know this is the format in which I'm most likely to get through all three stories.

 

[javyn]

I'm digging this one. A little dated but not bad.

 

[FLMountainMan]



I started Shadow Country by Peter Matthiessen on my lunch hour yesterday. I'm excited about reading it, even if I'm a bit intimidated by the fact that it's 900 pages long.

I plodded through that. I'm a big history buff, but that was a waste of time.

 

[MrG]

Dammit, don't tell me that! I've had that stupid book on my shelf for two years, putting it off until I got motivated enough to give it a try.

 

[aravenel]

Yeah, the problem with it is they bill it as one thing (murder! mystery!) and it's really something else entirely (history of the fair and the folks who put it on).

 

[L'Incandescent]

I am listening to Du Cote de Chez Swann on audiobook. (I'm also reading along.) It is a joy to hear Proust's text recited in perfect French. (My French is pretty good, but less than perfect.)

 

[HORNS]

Just bought this:

 

[FLMountainMan]



Dammit, don't tell me that! I've had that stupid book on my shelf for two years, putting it off until I got motivated enough to give it a try.

I got about a hundred pages in. It's back on my shelf. And I LOVE Florida History.

 

[Geoffrey Firmin]



Just bought this:

I recently picked up Sleepwalkers How Europe Went To War in 1914 by Christopher Clark and just ordered The War That Ended Peace The Road to 1914 by Margaret MacMillan

Would also highly recommend The Dance of the Furies Europe and the Outbreak of World War 1 by Michael S Neiberg

 

[L'Incandescent]

Now I am reading La Carte et le Territoire (The Map and the Territory) by Michel Houellebecq, which won the Prix Goncourt in 2010. (This year's Prix Goncourt is going to be announced soon, so that put me in the mood to read novels that had won in the past.) I'm enjoying it very much so far, despite the heavy atmosphere of melancholy.

 

[clockwise]



Now I am reading La Carte et le Territoire (The Map and the Territory) by Michel Houellebecq, which won the Prix Goncourt in 2010. (This year's Prix Goncourt is going to be announced soon, so that put me in the mood to read novels that had won in the past.) I'm enjoying it very much so far, despite the heavy atmosphere of melancholy.

I've read it and liked it. I have actually read all of Houellebecq's work but I am afraid to admit it since it may prove that I am a pervert.

In my view, his best, but thoroughly vulgar and sometimes not easy to stomach, is The Possibility of an Island.

 

[Geoffrey Firmin]

Same here I have read all of Houellebecq's work started with Atomised and I am proud to be a (literary) pervert.

 

[i10casual]

Curious...