What Are You Reading

[Marc Chevalier]

Almost finished Aldous Huxley's first novel: Crome Yellow

Simply brilliant.

And one of Louise Brooks's favorite books, or so she claimed. Gotta love that woman: she dug Huxley and Debussy.


.

 

[jake_fink]

And one of Louise Brooks's favorite books, or so she claimed. Gotta love that woman: she dug Huxley and Debussy.


.

She went on to become a writer herself. (And a drunk, but who's gonna blame her for that.)

 

[Elaina]

I don't get into this thread because I'd have to update it daily. I read several at a time. Today I have:

In my car I have Stephen King's The Stand. I spend a lot of time in there waiting.

Bedroom: A romance titled "Something Shady"

Bathroom: Gone with the Wind

Kitchen: The Kitchen God's Wife

Living Room: A wizard alone.

Sewing room (because apparently I can't JUST sew): The Greek Shipping heir, another romance.

By tomorrow, at least one of them will be read, and I'll have to find something else to read.

 

[Marc Chevalier]

She went on to become a writer herself. (And a drunk ...)

That's sort of synonymous, isn't it?


.

 

[jake_fink]

That's sort of synonymous, isn't it?


.

Heeeeyyyy. I resemble that remark.

 

[The Duke]

 

[Shade]

Down These Mean Streets

 

[Willi_Goat]

I am about a third of the way through A Farewell to Arms.

 

[olive bleu]

I have been reading a lot of history lately,first it was a book on the wives of henry vIII.then i read one on Marie Antoinette...now i am almost through an Agatha Christie,"Murder at the Vicarage".I am being greatly amused by this as in 2 months we will be renting a house that a priest has just moved out of and does belong to the Anglican (Episcopal) Church.. We have been referring to it as "...when we are living at the vicarage.." or to our friends.." you must come stay with us at the Vicarage.."

 

[Dinerman]

Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
and
The Stand by Stephen King

 

[Harp]

Book

John Henry Newman's Apologia Pro Vita Sua.

 

[Curt Chiarelli]

I always have several going at once. This month it's S.T. Joshi's biography, H.P. Lovecraft: A Life, a rare 1944 anthology entitled Great Tales of Terror and the Supernatural (edited by Herbert Wise and Phyllis Fraser) and Neal Gabler's Walt Disney: the Triumph of the American Imagination, an outstanding blend of social history and critical biography served up as only Gabler can. Trust me on this one, ALL of Gabler's books are brilliant. You're doing yourself a great disservice by not checking his stuff out!

 

[Mojito]

A bit of a grim old week for me - I finally read the last of the Phryne Fisher detective series thus far released. I'd been putting it off, as I wanted the pleasurable anticipation of knowing there was still one book unread...

It's not a genre I'm usually into, but they're absolutely delicious books. Set in the late 20s, Phryne is a Melbourne based 'lady detective'...looks like Louise Brooks, acts like Ms Marple's naughty niece. Has money, style and intelligence. The author, Kate Greenwood, pays a good deal of attention to the details of clothing and design. Well researched, it runs the gamult of life from the salons to the street. It's mindcandy, but very yummy mindcandy.

Curt, Great Tales of Terror and the Supernatural is one of my favourite horror/supernatural anthologies. I came across it as a child, and it was my first exposure to some of the greats - including F Marion Crawford and du Maupassant. I'd borrowed it as a library book, and years later found my own copy that I read until it fell apart.

I'm waiting for the new Brooks bio - Lulu Forever - to appear in Oz bookshops.

 

[BegintheBeguine]

just ordered that series for my branch library

www.phrynefisher.com
Louise Brooks lived here in my adopted hometown until her death.
I'm having read to me This Dame for Hire by Sandra Scoppettone. Reading Game for the Living by Patricia Highsmith.

 

[Curt Chiarelli]

A bit of a grim old week for me - I finally read the last of the Phryne Fisher detective series thus far released. I'd been putting it off, as I wanted the pleasurable anticipation of knowing there was still one book unread...

It's not a genre I'm usually into, but they're absolutely delicious books. Set in the late 20s, Phryne is a Melbourne based 'lady detective'...looks like Louise Brooks, acts like Ms Marple's naughty niece. Has money, style and intelligence. The author, Kate Greenwood, pays a good deal of attention to the details of clothing and design. Well researched, it runs the gamult of life from the salons to the street. It's mindcandy, but very yummy mindcandy.

Curt, Great Tales of Terror and the Supernatural is one of my favourite horror/supernatural anthologies. I came across it as a child, and it was my first exposure to some of the greats - including F Marion Crawford and du Maupassant. I'd borrowed it as a library book, and years later found my own copy that I read until it fell apart.

I'm waiting for the new Brooks bio - Lulu Forever - to appear in Oz bookshops.

Hi Mojito:

Yes, what a great collection it is! Included are not just the predictable, hoary old staples of the genre but a lot of classic out-of-print tales, with several by authors like Kipling and de Maupassant who generally aren't associated with the macabre. I love de Maupassant's stuff and Kipling's tale They is a tragic masterpiece of understatement and suggestion. The editors certainly had excellent taste and discernment when they chose those stories!

Every year in late October I make a special trip to my favourite used bookstore (Treehorn Books in Santa Rosa) and select a few volumes appropriate to the Halloween Season. Apparently the owner and I are in simpatico when it comes to taste in literature because he always has a fresh crop of goodies that satisfy my booklust, regardless of my mood or timing. This year it was Great Tales of Terror and the Supernatural.

I can see you and I share the same feeling for books. They do become dear and comfortable like old friends don't they? And like old friends, no matter how worn or battered they become, we never forsake them!

I've never heard of the Phryne Fisher detective novels. Although like you I'm not much into detective fiction, the angle sounds fresh and compelling (and the vintage era it's set in is easily the biggest hook in the whole deal). I'm afraid that the only detective fiction that I know and love are the Sherlock Holmes stories!

 

[Polyhistor]

Curt,

how do you like Joshi´s book so far? I´ve been thinking about getting it, but it´s kind of expensive here.
I have read Sprague de Camp´s biography of Lovecraft, but IMO it wasn´t that good actually.

A.

I always have several going at once. This month it's S.T. Joshi's biography, H.P. Lovecraft: A Life, a rare 1944 anthology entitled Great Tales of Terror and the Supernatural (edited by Herbert Wise and Phyllis Fraser) and Neal Gabler's Walt Disney: the Triumph of the American Imagination, an outstanding blend of social history and critical biography served up as only Gabler can. Trust me on this one, ALL of Gabler's books are brilliant. You're doing yourself a great disservice by not checking his stuff out!

 

[Curt Chiarelli]

Curt,

how do you like Joshi´s book so far? I´ve been thinking about getting it, but it´s kind of expensive here.
I have read Sprague de Camp´s biography of Lovecraft, but IMO it wasn´t that good actually.

A.

Hi Polyhistor:

I think it's great and well worth the money! A very detailed and balanced account of Lovecraft's life and times, some it quite revelatory even for those of us who think we really have a good focus on his personality. My only criticism of the book is that it should be chock-full of pictures! Aimed as it is at a niche market, this exclusion is, no doubt, an economy measure to keep the cost of the book more affordable.

And I believe you're dead accurate about the de Camp bio - it was terrible. Lots of half-baked Freudianism slathered over less-than-scrupulous research compounded with a grotesque over-emphasis on Lovecraft's personal flaws and you get a very distorted picture of an otherwise gentle, benign and gracious genius.

 

[Mojito]

Hi Mojito:

Yes, what a great collection it is! Included are not just the predictable, hoary old staples of the genre but a lot of classic out-of-print tales, with several by authors like Kipling and de Maupassant who generally aren't associated with the macabre. I love de Maupassant's stuff and Kipling's tale They is a tragic masterpiece of understatement and suggestion. The editors certainly had excellent taste and discernment when they chose those stories!

Every year in late October I make a special trip to my favourite used bookstore (Treehorn Books in Santa Rosa) and select a few volumes appropriate to the Halloween Season. Apparently the owner and I are in simpatico when it comes to taste in literature because he always has a fresh crop of goodies that satisfy my booklust, regardless of my mood or timing. This year it was Great Tales of Terror and the Supernatural.

I can see you and I share the same feeling for books. They do become dear and comfortable like old friends don't they? And like old friends, no matter how worn or battered they become, we never forsake them!

I've never heard of the Phryne Fisher detective novels. Although like you I'm not much into detective fiction, the angle sounds fresh and compelling (and the vintage era it's set in is easily the biggest hook in the whole deal). I'm afraid that the only detective fiction that I know and love are the Sherlock Holmes stories!

Like old friends indeed! You can slip back into them like a wrap and a pair of slippers - particularly those delicious spooky anthologies. I tend to leave them for a few years, then give them a reread - and being re-acquainted with old favourites. While I like the Victorian and Edwardian staples (M.R. James *never* gets old), it's great when they throw in an unexpected curve ball of a recent yarn. What would be your favourite post-Edwardian story? I'm particularly fond of "Smee" - by A.M. Burrage 1929, which I first came across in the Oxford Book of English Ghost Stories. The classic English house party in the inter-war period goes rather awry...a bit conventional, but beautifully written and very creepy, even if you know precisely what is going on. I have a friend who has asked me for ideas for 20s/30s parlour games, as he's having a party in an Art Deco hotel. I'm thinking about recommending 'Smee' as a game.

Phryne not only gives you such a lush tour of the 1920s that you tend to forget there's a murder to be solved, the books are also a non-stop parade of cocktail making (sometimes with recipes). I, too, need a butler who takes one look at me when I walk through the door and can determine whether I'm in need of a gin fizz or an old fashioned.

Must check out this HP Lovecraft bio - I've read all his stories and few inspired by them, but never really a bio of the man. His fascist inclinations turned me off pursuing his personal life, but no doubt there was more to him than that. I seem to recall coming across a suggestion he corresponded with M.R. James - or at least that James had read his work.

I work at Darling Harbour, and every so often look out the window and try to imagine the Vigilant towing the Alert to a berth there, after their interesting encounter with a certain tentacled elder god between NZ and Oz.

 

[Polyhistor]

Well, then I think I know now what I want for Christmas.

The way you describe de Camp´s book resembles my impression to the T.
He has his three or four theories about HPL and he´s in love with them so much and thus unable to let go of them. Sloppy is a word that comes to mind when I think of that work.

Hi Polyhistor:

I think it's great and well worth the money! A very detailed and balanced account of Lovecraft's life and times, some it quite revelatory even for those of us who think we really have a good focus on his personality. My only criticism of the book is that it should be chock-full of pictures! Aimed as it is at a niche market, this exclusion is, no doubt, an economy measure to keep the cost of the book more affordable.

And I believe you're dead accurate about the de Camp bio - it was terrible. Lots of half-baked Freudianism slathered over less-than-scrupulous research compounded with a grotesque over-emphasis on Lovecraft's personal flaws and you get a very distorted picture of an otherwise gentle, benign and gracious genius.

 

[Sunny]

I have been reading a lot of history lately,first it was a book on the wives of henry vIII.then i read one on Marie Antoinette...now i am almost through an Agatha Christie,"Murder at the Vicarage".I am being greatly amused by this as in 2 months we will be renting a house that a priest has just moved out of and does belong to the Anglican (Episcopal) Church.. We have been referring to it as "...when we are living at the vicarage.." or to our friends.." you must come stay with us at the Vicarage.."

Ooh... Murder at the Vicarage is such a treat. I love the dialogue in that one! And Griselda as a vicar's wife - splendid! lol