New now reading

[Minnie the Minx]

Just started this and hooked already. Wonderful.

[Minnie the Minx]

Just started this and hooked already. Wonderful.

Finished this. What a book. What a writer! Stunning. I feel like reading it again already!

Also this week - the December copy of the Paris Review. It is always full of exceptional writing- always -but this edition was extraordinary, including writers I had never heard of. Notable mentions this month - "Walks" by Caleb Crain, "Letter From Lafayette Square" by Lawrence Jackson, "Exhaling" by Emmanuel Carrere and "This Then Is A Song, We Are Singing" by Sterling HolyWhiteMountain. The latter two stories blew my mind.

[Six String]

Sterling HolyWhiteMountain! What a name.

[Six String]

Sterling HolyWhiteMountain! What a name.

[Tom Waits For No One]

So good they named him twice!

[Tom Waits For No One]

[Six String]

Louise Penny’s Still Life. Becca likes mysteries and really likes Penny so I’m giving her first one a shot.

[Rorschach]

On a related theme:



A book for which the collocation 'brutal honesty' could have been invented.
She doesn't spare anyone, including herself, but it's not in any way an attack piece, it's just brutally honest.

[Tom Waits For No One]

A book for which the collocation 'brutal honesty' could have been invented.
She doesn't spare anyone, including herself, but it's not in any way an attack piece, it's just brutally honest.

I preferred Viv's writing to Jordan's.

Have you read Viv's other book 'To Throw Away Unopened'?
Further frankness and very well written.

[Rorschach]

I preferred Viv's writing to Jordan's.

Have you read Viv's other book 'To Throw Away Unopened'?
Further frankness and very well written.

No. Not yet, anyway.

I'd never even listened to the Slits when someone sent me a €100 Amazon voucher in December and I bought this, along with a few other books, just because it had great reviews. It seems to be in the top ten of a lot of certain types of lists.

I loved it and I'll probably get the other one pretty soon.

I don't like the music much though.

[yomptepi]

Just finished Clock by old and departed friend Nick Hemsley. It has taken me 13 years to gird myself to face it, and it was a real pleasure to read. lots of stories from the building sites where we worked together for ten years. Lots of paranoia and erotic undertone. But beneath all theat a great story about a man who borrows his wife's company car , and runs down and kills a small child , and then fails to stop. The way events catch up, and his life disintegrates around him following the crash is superb. I must admit I am wondering how much of it was true .



Just starting the seventh of the Michael Dibden Aurelio Zen books. I have been reading them all up to this point over the past year, and I really like them.

[Fonz]

Just finished Clock by old and departed friend Nick Hemsley. It has taken me 13 years to gird myself to face it, and it was a real pleasure to read. lots of stories from the building sites where we worked together for ten years. Lots of paranoia and erotic undertone. But beneath all theat a great story about a man who borrows his wife's company car , and runs down and kills a small child , and then fails to stop. The way events catch up, and his life disintegrates around him following the crash is superb. I must admit I am wondering how much of it was true .



Just starting the seventh of the Michael Dibden Aurelio Zen books. I have been reading them all up to this point over the past year, and I really like them.

I enjoyed the TV Zen adaptions. Haven’t quite got around to reading the books. Are they ‘deeper’ than Montalbano? As in, less humourous?

[yomptepi]

I enjoyed the TV Zen adaptions. Haven’t quite got around to reading the books. Are they ‘deeper’ than Montalbano? As in, less humourous?

Not humourous at all. They are a bit long winded when it comes to backgrounds and landscapes. But I like that. I am not in any hurry to finish the book. I would say the books are much better than the TV adaptions. Much more intricate and nuanced.

[Fonz]

I enjoyed the TV Zen adaptions. Haven’t quite got around to reading the books. Are they ‘deeper’ than Montalbano? As in, less humourous?

Not humourous at all. They are a bit long winded when it comes to backgrounds and landscapes. But I like that. I am not in any hurry to finish the book. I would say the books are much better than the TV adaptions. Much more intricate and nuanced.

Cheers. I’ll make Zen my next read.

[Minnie the Minx]

Finished this last week - Peter Hessler's account of the development of China. I have always loved his extraordinary writing in the New Yorker and was thrilled to find his books just as engaging.

I've got so many books recently, both bought myself and as presents that I don't know where to start next.
I'm currently reading Jonathan Franzen's 'How to Be Alone' and had no idea the state of the Chicago Post Office could be so compelling!

[Minnie the Minx]

A book for which the collocation 'brutal honesty' could have been invented.
She doesn't spare anyone, including herself, but it's not in any way an attack piece, it's just brutally honest.

I preferred Viv's writing to Jordan's.

Have you read Viv's other book 'To Throw Away Unopened'?
Further frankness and very well written.

Seconded.

[Minnie the Minx]

Current downstairs book. Sedaris gets funnier and funnier. It's been a bit of a downer now he has arrived at 2016, given all the shit that went down. But what a book.

Current upstairs book:



The start of this book had such a maudlin tone that I almost set it down. Glad I didn't, it's unwinding really nicely.

[Samoan]

It's been years since I read this, far too long..

[Brickyard Jack]

I am reading the Penguin classics edition of Polybius’s History of the early Roman Empire: Hannibal is about to cross the Alps!

[Tom Waits For No One]