What are you reading now - and then

[sukumvit boy]

Thanks,I must read Joseph Conrad's ,"Nostromo" ,I read, "Heart of Darkness" and"The Secret Agent" and very much enjoy his writing.
I also much prefer George Orwell's ,"Burmese Days" to the Maugham .Although I understand that they expressed admiration for each others' writing I prefer the lean muscular style of Orwell to Maugham's flowery style
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nostromo

[Stavros]

I agree with you re Orwell and Maugham, but as Orwell is one of the finest writers in English anyway it is almost an unfair comparison. In terms of fluency of writing, I would bracket Orwell with Jane Austen, who to me is the Mozart of English letters. If you want a more elaborate form of writing, but one that is engaging in its tone, replete with humour, insight, criticism and wit, Emerson is always reliable, his essays on the English a particular delight. I came acrosss when sections were read on BBC Radio in the 1970s by the American actor David Bauer who lived in London. He had the perfect voice for it, and if I think of Emerson I always hear that voice.

For Conrad, the essential reading is obviosly Heart of Darkness, but a short work with layers of meaning, I have been reading it since 1975 and I still don't fully understand it. I also recommend Under Western Eyes, which explores Conrad's 'difficult' relations with the Russians, but is evocative of an expatriate community in Geneva, pubished in 1911 thus a few years before a very real Russian community was living in Zurich -compare the revolutionary Sophia Antonova and her "true spirit of destructive revolution" with Lenin -mysticism in one, cold calculating violence in the other. A superb book.

[sukumvit boy]

Sounds good I will look into "... Western Eyes" I ordered a copy of "Nostromo".Thanks

[broncofan]

I'm starting a book called Nightmare Alley by William Lindsey Gresham. It's supposed to be one of the better, if darker, American pulp fiction books. It's about the seedy underworld of carnivals though I don't know too much more than that except that it's not supposed to be a feel good.

It was made into a movie in 1947 starring Tyrone Power and is being remade by Guillermo Del Toro starring Bradley Cooper and Cate Blanchett. That's my motivation for reading it really. I haven't watched the original film and would like to read the book before I see what Toro does.

[sukumvit boy]

I'm starting a book called Nightmare Alley by William Lindsey Gresham. It's supposed to be one of the better, if darker, American pulp fiction books. It's about the seedy underworld of carnivals though I don't know too much more than that except that it's not supposed to be a feel good.

It was made into a movie in 1947 starring Tyrone Power and is being remade by Guillermo Del Toro starring Bradley Cooper and Cate Blanchett. That's my motivation for reading it really. I haven't watched the original film and would like to read the book before I see what Toro does.

Yes, both the book and the upcoming movie look very interesting.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nightmare_Alley_(novel)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nightm...ey_(2021_film)

[GroobySteven]

seedy underworld of carnivals

You had me at this. Buying it now.

[broncofan]

You had me at this. Buying it now.

Books these days are competing with netflix, porn, and sports highlights so there often has to be a murder in the first twenty pages to keep me glued. I have one of those attention spans that maybe gives the author fifty pages to hook me. Just like I tend to want songs to have vocals within the first minute though I might wait longer if it's an iconic song. But carnivals and sex and amoral grifters also works as a hook

Plus we get a good movie out of it with an all star cast come December.

[broncofan]

But carnivals and sex and amoral grifters also works as a hook

The other good thing is that Gresham seems to be a pretty good writer. I'm enjoying it so far.

[killingmrwatson]

I'm starting a book called Nightmare Alley by William Lindsey Gresham. It's supposed to be one of the better, if darker, American pulp fiction books. It's about the seedy underworld of carnivals though I don't know too much more than that except that it's not supposed to be a feel good.

I don't usually post here, but I read Nightmare Alley about a year ago and it is really good.

[Stavros]

I am awaiting

perpetually and forever

a renaissance of wonder


Lawrence Ferlinghetti, 1919-2021

In October 1971 I was on my own in a friend's house north west of Chicago -the family had moved there from London. I went for his wedding, but as he was at work and I was on my own, I rifled through his books to discover Lawrence Ferlinghetti for the first time, reading A Coney Island of the Mind, and Her. He became a favourite as soon as I read him, and though for reasons I cannot explain I did not go to the City Lights bookstore on my first trip to San Francisco in 1983, I made a point of going in 2003, and even bought a book (at that time not available in the UK)- Franz Werfel, The Forty Days of Musa Dagh. He was giving a talk too, but the tickets cost $25 and I decided it was too much, but have regretted it ever since.

I would go so far as to rank the poem Autobiography has one of the finest American poems ever written, and were I to compile an anthology of great American poems, it would be the without question.