What book are you reading right now?

[MintJulie]

We watched the movie about Roald Dahl last week.  TO OLIVIA.  I was saddened through much of the movie.  But then I thought to myself how I love Charlie and The Chocolate Factory but never read the book.   So I got a copy of it.  I'm glad I watched the movie to view the actors portrayal because it makes the book seem so much better.

[Elizabeth]

Reading a collection of books right now all by the late author Sara Douglass.
By the way if you like fantasy her six volume series "The Wayfarer Redemption" is outstanding.

Love,
Liz

"Bite Me....Just Bite Me"       <-----There I said it, happy now?

[msslave]

Love,
Liz

"Bite Me....Just Bite Me"       <-----There I said it, happy now?

 

[Shiela_M]

Reading a collection of books right now all by the late author Sara Douglass.
By the way if you like fantasy her six volume series "The Wayfarer Redemption" is outstanding.

Love,
Liz

"Bite Me....Just Bite Me"       <-----There I said it, happy now?

I've been rereading the wheel of time, and once I'm done, I'm feeling like reading another fantasy fiction. Thanks for the recommendation.

[MintJulie]

 Considering rereading one of my favorite book ever.  CLAN OF THE CAVE BEAR, part one of her EARTHS CHILDREN series. 

[Hilda]

• Stephanie Conybeare. Deep Diving. London: Collins, 1988.
• Stephanie Conybeare. A Death in the Family. London: Collins, 1989.
• Stephanie Conybeare. The White Macaw. Beckington: Luniver, 2006.

I stumbled on the first by accident, soon after it was published. I was browsing in a bookshop and my eye was drawn to the author's name. Could it be? I wondered. Sure enough, it was the same Stephanie Conybeare I knew a long time ago.

Recently I decided to catch up on her work. I found Death in the Family and The White Macaw through the AbeBooks website.

I'm reading the former and will follow with the latter. As far as I can tell, her poetry collections are out of print, but I'll keep looking. They're bound to pop up from time to time.

She has a small website at http://www.stephanieconybeare.com/

[Hilda]

I dip into this book from time to time. I bought it because I couldn't for the life of me recall the names of some of the organists. This book has them all, together with a history of the recitals and a breakdown of the pieces played.

I couldn't help smiling at the list of composers sorted by frequency of performance:

• Johann Sebastian Bach — 479
• César Franck — 91
• Max Reger — 80
• Dieterich Buxtehude — 64
• Franz Liszt — 56

and so on. Most performers played their pieces in chronological order, which wasn't such a good idea. I can recall the Bach fanatics getting up and walking out as soon as the Bach pieces had finished. I always stayed to the end.

[Mike81]

Johns Barnes' autobiography.

(Barnes was a magically talented winger who played for Liverpool in the late 80s/early 90s and has remained my favourite player since the 7 year old me first watched him. I was lucky enough to meet him at a meet and greet event a few weeks back and I've never been so star-struck). 

[Hilda]

I'm re-reading Dennis Kincaid's British Social Life in India 1608-1937.

In one section he's describing how live musical entertainment was provided by British military bands. One exception was Pathan bagpipers from the Northwest Frontier:

They would play old Scottish airs too with quite a swing; and they sometimes played some of their own border tunes which were surprisingly melodious, unlike these horrid Hindu efforts at music. There was one Pathan marching song which was especially popular. It was called “Zakhmi Dil”, which means “Wounded heart”, a nice romantic title, and the ladies sometimes showed some curiosity over the words of the pleasant lilting song. But even if the gentlemen knew enough Urdu to interpret them it would have been quite impossible for them to satisfy the ladies’ curiosity, for the least obscene lines in the song were those of the first verse which ran, “There is a boy across the river with a —— like a peach. But, alas, I cannot swim.”

[Hilda]

Another little gem from Dennis Kincaid's British Social Life in India 1608-1937.

In describing Christmas Week in Lahore in the 1930s, he writes:

. . . subalterns fresh from remote outposts remarked on the number of Sikh girls ("surprising percentage of good-lookers") with smart shingled hair and elaborate cigarette-holders who enjoyed their cocktails and beat time to the strains of "Ten cents a dance”.

I don't know why I overlooked that reference when I read the book forty years ago. I went over to the Apple Music streaming service and listened to several versions of the Rogers and Hart classic "Ten Cents a Dance", by Ella Fitzgerald, Anita O'Day and other artists.

The connection I missed was with Steve Miller Band's "Dime-a-Dance Romance", on their Sailor album.

I don't know whether Boz Scaggs, who wrote the song, had the Rogers and Hart song in mind, or whether "Dime a Dance" has acquired the status of a cliché in popular American culture. Is it still current?

[Writers Bloque]

Another little gem from Dennis Kincaid's British Social Life in India 1608-1937.

In describing Christmas Week in Lahore in the 1930s, he writes:

. . . subalterns fresh from remote outposts remarked on the number of Sikh girls ("surprising percentage of good-lookers") with smart shingled hair and elaborate cigarette-holders who enjoyed their cocktails and beat time to the strains of "Ten cents a dance”.

I don't know why I overlooked that reference when I read the book forty years ago. I went over to the Apple Music streaming service and listened to several versions of the Rogers and Hart classic "Ten Cents a Dance", by Ella Fitzgerald, Anita O'Day and other artists.

The connection I missed was with Steve Miller Band's "Dime-a-Dance Romance", on their Sailor album.

I don't know whether Boz Scaggs, who wrote the song, had the Rogers and Hart song in mind, or whether "Dime a Dance" has acquired the status of a cliché in popular American culture. Is it still current?

Not really, as most of the people I know who listen to the many versions of that song, equate it also to Lady Marmalade, not the pop version, but the classic. Its along the lines of how everyone believes BOC's (Don't Fear) The Reaper was about suicide, when it really was a spiritual love song. I believe it survived so long due to it being an easy song to dance to. Beware, make it too popular and the hipsters will remix it.

Currently reading Volume 13 of the Arifureta light novel. The climatic final battle to save the vampire princess who is being taken over by an evil god, who discovered the existence of earth and is going to destroy the world they are on now to go fuck with earth forever....

[Hilda]

Recent KB discussion of the Ten Commandments Bill in Louisiana and other Evangelical enthusiasms had me reaching for a slim volume that I haven't read in decades.

==> Hoffman, R. Joseph. Celsus on the True Doctrine: A Discourse Against the Christians. Oxford University Press, 1987.

From the publisher's blurb:

Although the works of many early critics of the Church were burned by Christian emperors or were otherwise destroyed in the second and third centuries, the major work of the Greek philosopher, Celsus, is an exception. His polemical attack on the beliefs and practices of Christianity, On the True Doctrine, written around 178 A.D., is one of the earliest surviving documents of its kind. Preserved almost in its entirety within Contra Celsum, a counter-polemic written by Origen of Alexandria, On the True Doctrine provides an accurate portrait of the attitudes of most detached pagan observers of the time: interested in the latest religious trends, but suspicious of the religious enthusiasm and the newer proselytizing sects of the empire. Professor Hoffmann’s lucid reconstruction of Celsus’ treatise, based on the thirteenth-century manuscript archetype of Contra Celsum found in the Vatican Library, is the first modern English translation of this classic work of antiquity.

[Hilda]

Earlier today I pulled out an old Eric Frank Russell novel called Wasp and began re-reading. That took me to Wikipedia for information about the original date of publication. At the end of the article I found this:

In 1970, Russell was paid £4689 by the Beatles's company Apple Corps for the motion picture rights to his novel Wasp, the contract being signed on behalf of Apple by Ringo Starr. The film was never made, but it remained one of the most lucrative deals Russell ever made.

Wasp in one of Russell's best science-fiction novels. I can understand why Apple Corps was interested, and I think I can understand why the movie was never made. It takes place on an alien planet where the inhabitants have purple complexions, pointed ears, and walk bow-legged. A planet ruled by a Stasi-like surveillance government whose arm is the dreaded "Kaitempi" secret police.

One interesting point is Russell's choice of name for the secret police. It echoes the notorious Japanese "Kempeitai".

I think the novel is a masterpiece, and I'm glad to see I'm not the only one. Here's a quote from Terry Pratchett:

I'd have given anything to have written Wasp. I can't imagine a funnier terrorists' handbook.

[Hilda]

==>  Albert Costa. The Bilingual Brain: And What It Tells Us about the Science of Language. Penguin Books, 2020.

[Pornhubby]

[Rajah Dodger]

Orphans of the Sky, by Heinlein.

I don't think I've picked this up to re-read it for fifty years.

[Raceway]

"Snow Country" by Yasunari Kawabata. I remember reading it a long time ago, and not enjoying it. A few weeks ago a literary blogger posted a review. I can barely recall the plot, so I'm giving it another shot.

Update: Gave up after a dozen pages. It was even worse than I remember it.

[Raceway]

This morning I began reading Rumer Godden's "Kingfishers Catch Fire" (Macmillan, 1953) and was pulled up short by the quotation that prefaces the Prologue. It's from Gerard Manley Hopkins and contains the phrase from which Godden took the title of her book.

When I saw the "Gerard Manley Hopkins" attribution I remembered, for the first time in decades, that a collection of his poetry was one of the required texts for my English Literature exam in grammar school.

Evidently his poetry didn't leave much of an impression.

[Raceway]

I've been sorting through what's left of my book collection and removing those I'll never read again.

That leaves a few dozen that I still haven't read. These I've been scanning and digitizing. The resulting files go into a document folder. The books go into the recycle bin.

I've scanned so many books that I've got the time down to 60 minutes for a 300-page book. What slows me down are stiff paperbacks that won't lie flat. I have to slice off the glued spine with a craft knife, then slip the pages under the overhead scanner, one at a time.

The last three books I scanned this way were military histories. Fascinating reading but challenging for someone who can't keep track of military ranks and military units.

[Raceway]

Some time ago I bought four music-related autobiographies and they've been gathering dust on my bookshelf. Last month I got around to reading Richard Thompson's Beeswing and currently I'm reading Jorma Kaukonen's Been So Long ,  and not enjoying either of them.

Both contain "I didn't know that" insights into the authors' respective bands: Fairport Convention and Jefferson Airplane. What makes the books heavy going is that I can't relate to the personalities of the authors. I get the feeling that, even though I love their music, I wouldn't take pleasure in their company.

When I finish Been So Long I'll dip into John Peel's Margrave of the Marshes and then John French's Beefheart: Through the Eyes of Magic.