Current Reading - Books best thread

[Lang Spoon]

Reading David Cavanagh's history of Creation records, which is fantastic. The first hundred pages or so are as much about late 70s Scotland and early 80s London and associated scenes as about McGee and his rampant ego, fantastic evocation of time and place.

he really was a great writer, maybe the only one on Select worth a damn.

[Jobi1]

I finished reading Homage to Catalonia. It's not really a book to enjoy but I got through it quickly and kept wanting to read the next bit. As it was contemporary writing, the war hadn't concluded and there was still some hope that Franco would be defeated, which was sobering.

If you haven't seen it yet, Ken Loach's Land and Freedom is an interesting 'inspired by' piece.

[steveeeeeeeee]

Have been reading "Pessoa" by Richard Zenith for the past week or so. I'm just reaching page 200, so about a fifth of the way through. It's probably the best researched biography I have read; in the first hundred or so pages there were various times when Zenith describes the weather in Lisbon, or Pessoa's mother playing piano to the family in the evening, a peaceful evening in Lisbon or a ship having a rough crossing to Africa and I think "how the hell does he know that?" But every time I question the sincerity of the book's phenomenal detail, there will be a footnote pointing to a newspaper report, a letter between aunts or a shipping record. I can't recall reading something so meticulously researched.

I've never found a way in with Fernando Pessoa, despite a few attempts. Which version/heteronym of Pessoa do you choose to read? What is the difference between them? How can I get to grips with so many detailed alter-egos, each with their own detailed history. Well, I already feel far more knowledgeable in that respect and each heteronym is introduced carefully upon their development in relation to Pessoa's developing life, so I'm happy that I'm beginning to understand more about him and his unique approach to writing.

I'm still reading about adolescent Fernando Pessoa, he's just about to leave Durban for good and return to Lisbon. Due to this, I'm still largely unmoved by his poetry and writing, which is introduced in the biography within the context of his developing life (and the life of his heteronyms). But his life is fascinating, and I imagine the world he created within his writing and the complexity of the intertwining, imaginary lives of those who existed within it are the main components of his genius. It is fascinating that academics are still trying to piece together the pieces of his writing, Pessoa left a huge trunk of papers which have not all been assessed or compiled. HIs most famous work "The Book of Disquiet" was probably too hastily compiled and writings on napkins and scraps of paper are still being found that should probably form part of that work.

[ad hoc]

That sounds great. I'm putting that on my list. My reactions to Pessoa are similar to yours, but I've always wanted to at least partly "get" him (or some part of him)

[steveeeeeeeee]

It's a really readable biography and brings in other really interesting strands of history. For example there is a chapter on Gandhi's time in Durban and another on the refugee crisis caused by the Second Boer War and its impact on Durban. All things I was largely unaware of and again, the level of research, detail and insight is phenomenal.

Also, the author makes clear quite early on that nobody really "gets" Pessoa, yet. There's still so much uncovered and earlier attempts to explain his life and work relied heavily on anecdotes retold by his step-sister, those anecdotes are now proven to have many factual inaccuracies. Pessoa inly really came to worldwide literary attention in the beginning of the 1980s with the publication of The Book of Disquiet. Based on the way he is referred to in Portugal, I always believed he was well established before that.

He had published and won awards during his lifetime, but the work he produced under his own name is generally discredited as Estado Novo propaganda poetry.

[Patrick Thistle]

I've started reading A Stroke of the Pen, which is a new release of rediscovered stories by Terry Pratchett, gleaned from 1970s newspapers. There is a lovely foreword by Neil Gaiman.

[Amor de Cosmos]

I studied Carter's Wise Children on my uni course, less than a decade after it was published, and remember really enjoying it. Must seek out some more of her stuff.

You can get all her published short stories stories in one paperback, Burning Your Boats (Vintage.) Well worth it, I think short form writing was when she was at her very best.

[imp]

Before that I read Idaho by Emily Ruskovich which was brilliantly evocative and fist-gnawingly dull at the same time. And also How Not to Be a Boy by Robert Webb. Surprisingly engaging if overly obvious. It often uses a sledgehammer where a nutcracker would do, but had a lot of easily recognisable and relatable situations for me and I assume any bloke around my age.

I just read the Robert Webb book too, which due to him growing up in Lincolnshire had many, many relatable moments (going to out-relate hobbes there). Meanwhile, his experience of going to Cambridge and not being an upper-class twat reminded me closely of another friend's experience there around the same time. I think I'd have dropped out after 24 hours and gone to be a postman (a secret ambition of mine).

It was easily readable and very entertaining, though no stunning achievement of prose composition. It was very honest about what a prick he used to be, and why. I hope that - being a best-seller - it helped enough people struggling with pre-conceptions of what masculinity is, or is not.

[RobW]

Finished Blood Meridian the other day and started Owen Hatherley's The Ministry of Nostalgia.

[tee rex]

From Robert Webb to David Mitchell (telly guy not novelist).

Unruly is a history of English (sic) monarchs, finishing at Elizabeth I, but starting at the end of Roman times. My knowledge of anything pre-1066 is minimal (Alfred and his cakes, Canute and the Unready bloke both being famous for one misunderstood thing, and ... that's about it) and I don't think I'd bother with an academic tome about which forgotten king beat another forgotten one in 855 AD. But Mitchell has a light touch and the balance of facts and jokes is enjoyably Brysonesque.

My new catchphrase is "At least it's not 536 AD!".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volcanic_winter_of_536

[Duncan Gardner]

Our own Logan Mountstuart was on the BBC book club show this week

[Jon]

Was that the one about the Celtic tiger years, DG?

[Evariste Euler Gauss]

Reading Caitlin Moran’s Moranifesto, a very diverse collection of her columns from the first half of the 2010s.

Bloody hell, she writes great columns. Some of them are better an/or more interesting than others for sure, but for me there’s a very high hit rate. Her political ones, highlighting the cruelty and false thinking of austerity, are calm and patient and all the more excoriatingly powerful for it. They reflect of course the insights that she can bring from her shockingly underrepresented council house background. And the lighter columns are always engaging and usually funny (and sometimes side/splittingly funny, such as her comments on Tom Jones in a review of The Voice.)

She’s awesome.

[Levin]

I read the first volume of The Legend of the Condor Heroes. A Wuxia novel first published in installments in the Hong Kong Commercial Daily in the late 50s.

It was a lot of fun, reading a Wuxia novel makes it easier to see how Kung Fu works, and just how much a historical fantasy the genre is.

Guo Jing is a frustrating himbo of a main character, but weirdly believable and likable.

[Jon]

Her political ones, highlighting the cruelty and false thinking of austerity, are calm and patient and all the more excoriatingly powerful for it. They reflect of course the insights that she can bring from her shockingly underrepresented council house background.

I remember an interview where she was asked why she writes for the Times but, for the reasons you give above, that is exactly the kind of paper she should be writing for. And, in fact, that was the answer she gave in the interview.

[steveeeeeeeee]

Finished the Fernando Pessoa biography over the holidays, which I'm quite proud of achieving as a 1000 page biography about a fairly obscure Portuguese poet is not something many people will read in its entirety. Will tackle "The Book of Disquiet" sometime this year as I know Pessoa's life, heteronyms and opinions inside out now.

What I found really interesting about the book is the ability to create a legend and image around a writer few people have actually read. Most people are aware of Pessoa because of his statue outside the Cafe Brasiliera in Lisbon. But, in real life, Pessoa detested that cafe and its clients and spent all his time in another cafe called Martinho da Arcada. Also, Pessoa produced practically no complete works. The few literary works he completed were not great and it was a struggle to get him to publish fully completed poems in the handful of magazines he was associated with in his lifetime. But what he did complete, at times, was incredible, no more so the The Tobacco Shop.

Pessoa left behind a huge wooden trunk of his writings, mostly written on scraps of paper or old napkins, which is still being pieced together today - so he's a researchers dream come true. But despite this, his only real significant published work is "The Book of Disquiet", which is probably unfinished in its present published format. Much of his western popularity comes from the publicity Allen Ginsberg gave him with his "Salutation to Fernando Pessoa", but I get the impression Ginsberg was just trying to show off by revealing a poet nobody had heard of who wrote explicitly about homosexual desire and admired Walt Whitman. But I imagine that was the bridge that introduced people like Patti Smith to Fernando Pessoa and got him published in the US since the turn of the century.

Since finishing this book, I chose the smallest book on my Kindle, which is Iain Banks's Wasp Factory. Just go 2 chapters left, can't say I've enjoyed it, but glad I've read it.

[ursus arctos]

Pessoa is highly valued among a number of ms. ursus' academic literary connections, who are at least a generation removed from Ginsberg

[Etienne]

Drugstore wrote a "Song for Pessoa". Obviously as a Brazilian Isabel Monteiro would have a language link to him, but I'm sure that made a few more people aware of him.

I keep getting him confused with John dos Passos even though they have very little in common beyond slightly similar surnames.

[steveeeeeeeee]

The first posthumous collections of Pessoa's work were published in Brazil, decades before any such collections were published in Portugal. Pessoa's friend Luis de Montalvor emigrated to Brasil and set up the publishing house Atica to do this. He published the works of Pessoa and his heteronyms as individual works. Without those collections, we may not be fully aware of Pessoa's work to this day.

Pessoa's fame during his lifetime was basically for 2 things, the production of the scandalous magazine "Opheu", which contained homoerotic poetry and illustrations by Pessoa and his associates. Then, just before Pessoa's death, he won second prize in a poetry competition organised by the fascist Estado Novo. Another old friend of his, Antonio Ferro, had become Salazar's PR man and he wanted to promote Pessoa as a great Portuguese poet of the Estado Novo, but it all back fired and Pessoa spent the last year of his life trying to write letters, newspaper columns and a little poetry criticising the reduction of artistic freedom the Estado Novo imposed. However, little of his critique was completed, and little of what was completed was published.

One funny thing about Pessoa was that he was an avid cricket fan, due to his time living in Durban. He never played, but he would write detailed reports of imaginary games played in his mind, the games would include some of his heteronyms and himself as players and he kept detailed statistics of run rates and bowling averages.

[Jobi1]

Knocked off the first book from my Christmas haul in a few days – The Book of the Gaels by James Yorkston. I'm not particularly familiar with Yorkston's music, but if it's anything like this book I'd imagine it's something you really need to be in the right frame of mind for. The book is well written, and really captures the main characters and their scenarios vividly, but good grief it is unremittingly bleak and harrowing, borderline traumatic.

By way of recovery I've moved straight on to Unfit and Improper Persons by the lads behind the Price of Football podcast, all about club ownership, hung around how they are taking a fictional team from park football to the top of the game. Kevin Day has taken on the main writing duties so it strikes a nicely light-hearted tone alongside the more serious/informative tales of ne'er-do-wells who've ruined football clubs over the years. No stories most of us wouldn't be familiar with so far, but I'm enjoying it (unsurprisingly, as I'm an unashamed fanboy of their show).

[Sam]

Catching up, because the last time I posted was before I went to the UK. The trip seriously slowed down my reading, but I've reeled off We Begin at the End by Chris Whitaker, which is a murder mystery that was quite good while I was reading it but I can't remember much of now, Churchill's Secret War by Madhusree Mukerjee, which is a shocking history of how the British government basically let the Bengal famine happen during the Second World War, and highly recommended, Unmasking Autism by Devon Price and (finished this last night) We Are All Birds of Uganda by Hafsa Zayyan, which I very much enjoyed.

Off to bed now, so time to decide what's next.

[Sporting]

Off to bed now

But it's not yet 5am where you are!

[Sam]

No, but it was quarter to!

[Sam]

This afternoon I finished Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan, which is a novella (hence my polishing it off in a couple of days) about Ireland's Magdalene laundries, which I'd never heard of before. It's a very good novella indeed, as reflected by its winning the Orwell Prize and being shortlisted for the Rathbones Folio and Booker prizes in 2022, and has taught me something I sort of wish I'd remained ignorant of.

[Sam]

And tonight I'll be starting a physical book that I brought back from England with me (bought at the wonderful Mr B.'s Emporium in Bath): The City & The City by China Miéville.