[Dartmoor Dave]

I thought it might be time to reread "The Plague" by Camus, but on my hopelessly disorganised bookshelves my copy turned out to be next to "The Golden Ass" by Apuleius. So I decided to reread that instead. I need the laughs, and frankly the story of one man's increasingly absurd attempts to cope with having been turned into a donkey seems more appropriate to the way Covid is being dealt with generally.

[lesmore49]

Just finished C.J. Box novel, Long Range. Highly recommended if you like adventure and mystery. Set in Wyoming...which for those of who have never visited...is a wonderful state, scenic, loads of western (North American) history. If you ever do get out that way...Montana and South and North Dakota, Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta are also great areas to visit...for the same reasons. Yep being a prairie boy, I do consider prairies/plains as scenic.

Now I'm reading Michael Connelly, Black Echo and The Historical Atlas of Germany...which features maps of this area, from 264 A.D. onward. Also some history to accompany the maps.

Being a history buff, I love reading old historical maps.....amazing how history comes 'clearer' when you see how parts of the world have experienced 'boundary' changes and the historical politics that developed as a result....both before and after.

[robgski]

I should read "The Plague" as well as "the Stranger". A few years ago, a novel was published in which the protagonist was investigating a shooting on a beach in Algeria, a companion piece to Camus, though I have not read this novel , the idea is intriguing. Slightly related, I love attending theater, and one of my most cherished experiences was seeing a matinee of "Hamlet" followed by an evening performance of "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead" , the performers played the same roles in both plays, with the same costumes, etc. The amazing thing to me was that in the second play the two named characters, previously clad in dull brown befitting minor characters at the back of the scene, were now in costumes entirely white in color, and the staging was reversed, so they were now at the front of the stage. It was brilliant.

During my long commutes, I've been listening to a multi-disc audio narration of the entire "Divine Comedy", fantastic way to spend a long drive, especially since the version I have provides a summary of each Canto, then the verse itself. Now that I am working from home, I have less time commuting, but I'm using that time to finish books I started some time past . Right now I'm halfway through "The Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu" great nonfiction account of the struggle to save the ancient manuscripts and cultural heritage from modern-day barbarians.

[aslyfox]

[ on the lap top actually ]

the words Don’t Panic inscribed in large friendly letters on its cover.

and my towel is within reach

" The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy "

[timb64]

Well the library service I work for has now been suspended for the foreseeable future (talking about at least 12 weeks) so I’ve stocked up to see me through the next few weeks

The Wall by John Lanchester

Middle England by Jonathan Coe

The Sand Men by Christopher Fowler

Lucid Dreaming by Charlie Morley

[robgski]

"Last Call" the history of Prohibition in the US, by Daniel Okrent.

[Liney]

After many years I finally got a copy of "Braver men walk away", an autobiography of Peter Gurney. You probably won't recognise the name, but if you recall when the IRA launched mortar bombs at John Major when he was in Ten Downing street there was a photo in the papers of a burning van in the background and a man in the foreground walking calmly away from the van. That was Peter Gurney.

Peter was an Explosives Officer with the Metropolitan police, previously he had been in the British Army in explosives ordnance disposal including quite a bit of time in Northern Ireland. He left the army and joined the Met, worked through the IRA bombing campaign and finally retired as head of the Met's EOD team. The book follows his life from a kid till his retirement, there are very deep and dark sections and some funny bits, but it's written in almost a conversational style which is hard to put down.

I read it many years ago and have been looking for a copy for years so I was very happy to get my hands on another one. If you ever see a copy grab it with both hands!

[timb64]

Just read “Lucid Dreaming - A Beginner’s Guide to Becoming Conscious in Your Dreams”, a subject I’ve been interested for a while and just beginning to be able to take “control” of my own dreams.

Now reading “Middle England” by Jonathon Coe, a novel about recent political/social upheaval in the UK.

[lesmore49]

I'm a car/motorcycle/truck enthusiast and I like reading histories particularly of vintage vehicles...whether they are of American, Canadian, European or Asian manufacture.

To me it's all fascinating.

Right now I'm reading Mick Walker's 'European Racing Motorcycles' that looks at road racing motorcycles from countries, other than Great Britain, Germany and Italy, which have individual tomes devoted to those countries' efforts. European Racing Motorcycles focuses primarily of the post WW2 era. Walker was a great writer of motorcycle history and this book's quality is consistent with his impressive vein of writing.

This book includes racers from communist countries , such as Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia , etc....which show tremendous engineering in countries that back then often didn't have the advantages of the non communist world. But it also features racers from non communist countries, such as Austria, Spain, Sweden and other countries that also did very well considering their much smaller motorcycle industries.

Another book on the table right now is by well known American author Allan Girdler and it is entitled American Road Race Specials - 1934-70..the Glory Days of Homebuilt Racers.

It's a fascinating account of custom sports racing cars that mostly used souped up American V8's in homebuilt racing cars in the USA. It really catches the American spirit of 'can do' quite well and these road race specials did remarkably well against expensive, mostly European, factory sports racing cars.

Now admittedly, these two books appeal to a niche audience...but the research, writing , rare photographs used in compiling these excellent books is of a high standard.

[timb64]

To War with the Walkers by Annabel Venning

The fascinating wartime experiences of six siblings, abounds with lots of British stiff upper lip and the sort of "just get on with it" attitude we really need in the present circumstances.

[clackers]

"She stopped at the window of a department store to examine an enormous bed. Colin drew level with her, lingered a moment, and then walked on. Two dummies, one dressed in pyjamas of pale blue silk, the other in thigh-length nightie trimmed with pink lace, lay among the artfully dishevelled sheets. The display was not quite complete. The dummies were from the same mould, both bald, both smiling wondrously. They lay on their backs, but from the arrangement of their limbs - each lifted a hand painfully to its jaw - it was clear they were intended to be reclining on their side, facing each other fondly."

'The Comfort of Strangers' was the second novel by Ian McEwan (Amsterdam, Atonement). An English couple who tend to relate to each other by compromise and consensus are on summer holiday in Venice. They encounter two locals - a wealthy Italian and his Canadian wife - who turn out to be a couple with a very different dynamic. She may be the subject of domestic abuse.

Things start to get a bit crazy, and it becomes a race for our protagonists to work out what's going on.

You can tell from the passage above that McEwan's background was horror fiction before his 'serious' literature. There are forebodings, the mundane is suggested to be sinister, and key scenes have a striking, surreal visual as if from a film.

[savoche]

I've started reading 'På spaning efter språkets ursprung' (roughly "Hunting for the origins of language") by Sverker Johansson. As far as I know it's only available in Swedish. Johansson attempts to piece together a picture of how and when language developed, using recent research on several fields such as biology, archeology, neurology and liguistics. It looks to be an easy read despite all the science - well written and sprinkled with dry homour.

And yeah, Camus may be up next - well worth a re-visit

[robgski]

I like reading histories particularly of vintage vehicles

I also enjoy automotive history.

If you haven't read it, I recommend "Engines of Change" by Paul Ingrassia.

[Canada_Rockies]

Reading for the umpteenth time J.N. Walton's "Doble Steam Cars". Abner Doble was a genius and developed a steam powered auto that started up as fast as an internal combustion powered auto, and was powerful enough to accelerate to 75 mph (120 kph) in less than 15 seconds. The only internal combustion engined vehicle to do that in the early 1920's was the Deusenberg. Unfortunately Abner, as do many geniuses (genii?) was never satisfied and no two of the Dobles are the same.

[clackers]

"There was this English butler out in India. One day, he goes in the dining room and what does he see under the table ? A tiger. Not turning a hair, he goes straight to the drawing room. "Hum, hum. Excuse me, my lord," and whispering, so as not to upset the ladies : "I'm very sorry, my lord. There appears to be a tiger in the dining room. Perhaps his Lordship will permit use of the twelve bores?" They go on drinking their tea. And then, there's three gunshots. Well, they don't think nothing of it, this being out in India where they're used to anything. When the butler is back to refresh the teapots, he says, cool as a cucumber : "Dinner will be served at the usual time, my lord. And I am pleased to say there will be no discernible traces left of the recent occurrence by that time." There will be no discernible traces of the recent occurrence by that time!"

I read Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go' in the summer and figured I wanted more. His third novel was a Man Booker winner in 1989 and is one of the reasons he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2017.

In 'Remains of the Day, a repressed and ageing butler drives across England in 1956 to meet up with a housekeeper he used to work with.

Over the years, he's let duty to his job take the place of hobbies and any real relationship to his father, friends or women. The original lord of the manor came to be regarded as a prewar Nazi sympathizer and has died in disgrace, so with nothing on the scoreboard in his life after decades, our Jeeves is having a real crisis of confidence.

This book's been made into both a film and a play, but adapted it would make a great monologue too, I reckon. There's lots of first person narrative, so naturally Ishiguro gives us a three course meal of the butler's evasion, self-justification and selective memory, all slightly comical. An actor like Stephen Fry could have a field day.

With a big rod wedged seemingly permanently in his rectum, I did find it difficult to see how that housekeeper could've had any feelings for him. Still, it's a tear jerker towards the end of the novel when he breaks down in front of a stranger on a beach.