What's Everyone Reading At The Moment?

M.Gorky-"The Artamonov Business "

Maxim Gorky! Ashamedly I must admit that I haven't read anything by him, though I've seen one of his plays. I should really read his three authobiographical novels (I've seen Mark Donskoy's screen adaptation of them). At the moment I'm reading Felix Krull by Thomas Mann.
 
Maxim Gorky! Ashamedly I must admit that I haven't read anything by him.
Well he was a close friend of Lenin so his books are quite"communistic".My favourite book by him is "Mother".
 
the poetry threads seem to be read only, so i'll add this here.

my friend made me a surfboard that has a photo of sylvia plath on the top and hand written poems of hers on the bottom.
 

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The Aleph, in typical Borges fashion, is extraordinary. It's incredibly arrogant, but I'd say you haven't read until you've read Borges.

Jorge Luis Borges was possibly the greatest Spanish-language writer of the 20th century, but the Chilean author Eduardo Labarca felt the best tribute a fellow writer could pay would be to urinate on his tomb.

A photograph on the cover of 72-year-old Labarca's latest book appears to show him doing exactly that in the Geneva graveyard where Borges's well-tended, flower-adorned tomb lies.

The photo has provoked outrage in Borges's native Argentina, even though Labarca admits the stream of water descending on the great man's grave actually came from a bottle of water hidden in his right hand.

"This is in bad taste and is a violation," said the Argentine culture minister, Jorge Coscia. "You don't gain anything by urinating on a tomb."

Labarca was unapologetic today about the cover to his book The Enigma of the Modules, saying it could best be understood by reading the work itself.

"Peeing on that tomb was a legitimate artistic act," he told the Guardian. "The cover of the book is coherent with the contents and is best understood through that."

Labarca is a translator, writer and journalist who went into exile and worked for a Soviet radio station after the coup d'état that overthrew Salvador Allende and brought in the dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet. He went on to work as a translator for various United Nations organisations and currently splits his time between Vienna and Chile.

"I am not just a person who goes around peeing on tombs, but a writer with a serious oeuvre," he said today.

Labarca told Argentina's perfil.com that Borges's talent as a writer had not been matched by his behaviour outside literature.

"Anyone who is offended by this is very short-sighted," he said. "Borges was a giant as a writer but I feel complete contempt for him as a citizen. As an old man, almost blind, he came to meet the dictator Pinochet in the days when he was busy killing."

Borges was delighted with Pinochet. "He is an excellent person," he said afterwards. "The fact is that here, and in my country and in Uruguay, liberty and order are being saved."

- http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/jan/24/jorge-luis-borges-grave
 
"England Made Me" by Grahame Greene. I quite like the English authors of the '30's and '40's. To complete my theme I just had to go to YouTube and watch Black Box Recorder sing "England Made Me"/
 
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its the 2nd book of his I ever read, but that was like 15 or more years ago :straightface:
however, I now hardly remember reading it all :eek:
so hey, thats one good thing about getting old, you can do things again and its just like the first time :p
 
reading kenneth clarke's 'civilisation'. the book version of the groundbreaking tv series. a great read. especially for art lovers.
 
I have begun reading Lust by Elfriede Jelinek today. I really love her language. Women as Lovers (Die Liebhaberinnen) by her is one of the best novels I've read. I hope that Lust turns out to be as good.
 
I'm reading 'Eating Animals' by Jonathan Saffron Foer, a copy of which may be won in a current PETA competition - http://www.peta.org.uk/features/win-eating-animals/default.asp . It's actually a real page-turner.

I agree, it is such a good book. His language is beautiful (especially considering the subject matter), I found myself reading sentences aloud.

Rather depressingly I am reading 'turbocharge your writing' as I aim toget my post-grad thesis turned in on time.
 
I've just finished "Six Weeks, The Short and Gallant Life of the British Officer in the First World War". Very very well written. Author effortlessly covers such a range of topics from God in the trenches to the unmployment of 1919 where many officers who faced death each day were unable to find work. A very good read. I'd like to the book to pick up a few awards. It deserves them.
 
I've just finished "Six Weeks, The Short and Gallant Life of the British Officer in the First World War". Very very well written. Author effortlessly covers such a range of topics from God in the trenches to the unmployment of 1919 where many officers who faced death each day were unable to find work. A very good read. I'd like to the book to pick up a few awards. It deserves them.

Reminds me of a short story called The Pugilist At Rest by Thom Jones I've just read; little bit about it here - http://www.newyorker.com/archive/1991/12/02/1991_12_02_038_TNY_CARDS_000358161

I agree, it is such a good book. His language is beautiful (especially considering the subject matter), I found myself reading sentences aloud.

Rather depressingly I am reading 'turbocharge your writing' as I aim toget my post-grad thesis turned in on time.

I found a paragraph which sets the tone of Eating Animals, I think:
"Perhaps in the back of our minds we already understand, without all the science I've discussed, that something terribly wrong is happening. Our sustenance now comes from misery. We know that if someone offers to show us a film on how our meat is produced, it will be a horror film. We perhaps know more than we care to admit, keeping it down in the dark places of our memory - disavowed. When we eat factory-farmed meat we live, literally, on tortured flesh. Increasingly, that tortured flesh is becoming our own."

Good luck with the thesis! ;)
 
I found a paragraph which sets the tone of Eating Animals, I think:
"Perhaps in the back of our minds we already understand, without all the science I've discussed, that something terribly wrong is happening. Our sustenance now comes from misery. We know that if someone offers to show us a film on how our meat is produced, it will be a horror film. We perhaps know more than we care to admit, keeping it down in the dark places of our memory - disavowed. When we eat factory-farmed meat we live, literally, on tortured flesh. Increasingly, that tortured flesh is becoming our own."

Good luck with the thesis! ;)

Thanks! I'm writing a chapter on craft history/theory tomorrow, so today I re-read through the pile of journal articles, books & mad scribbled notes to myself.
The paragraph from Eating Animals you qouted is one that also stood out for me, it really does set the tone.

tonight I am reading a book lent to me by a friend, 'Tuesdays With Morrie', I thought I'd dislike it, maybe because it's popular...but it's been good so far.
 
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books wit no pitchers but not much more just fuck off literary ponces long live books more to life than books nerds n squares obscurer and obscurer shakespeare is smart
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