What 📔book are you reading right now?

Well-aged Ent said:

Personally, Ive always been more interested in what was written, than who wrote it.
Might I suggest looking through some of the materials they’ve written, and trying to choose based on a subject that interests you? Might make it more valuable an exercise.
Unfortunately, I’ve no personal suggestions to give. Of the names, only Ian McEwan stands out, and that only because I’ve enjoyed a bit of his acting. I recognize Peter Ackroyd, but have no idea why.

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Squint-eyed Southerner said:

Interesting list. All 20th century authors involved in modernist or post-modernist writing. Is this from a specific professor for a class, or part of the general curriculum?

If you'd like to investigate from a fantasy angle, several of these have written some fantasticated works: you could try The Ebony Tower, by Fowles, which contains several shorter works. Lessing wrote a series: Canopus in Argos, which is outright Science Fiction.

If you want my advice, you should try to find out the kind of thing the "responsible parties" are interested in, and work from there. If that seems cynical, well, it is. 😄

For example, Graham Greene's novels fall into two main categories: thrillers -- mostly spy novels. -- which he called "entertainments", and what have come to be called the "great works", in which he wrestled with his Catholic faith. You wouldn't want to choose the "wrong" one, from the standpoint of the faculty! 😉

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HALETH✒🗡 said:

Thank you, I'll take it into consideration. The list is from a specific professor for our English class (as a foreign language, of course). By contrast, for our Literature classes we have a lot bigger lists and there we have no choice, we have to read them in whole. For example, we've read a great deal of Medieval literature during the previous term.

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Deimos said:

Our Man in Havana (satire)

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Squint-eyed Southerner said:

Ah, OK. If you have the time, I'd suggest looking into that professor's publications, which should give you an idea.

Of course, they could be the easy-going type. 😃

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Deimos said:

I've read a few of those authors and what I read I've generally liked.
Muriel Spark is a favorite, but her earlier works are her best.... I'll recommend three of them in moment.
I agree with SeS on Graham Green... maybe avoid "The Power and the Glory" and look at other works.

Many of these authors wrote in the early -mid 20th C when the reading public was much much larger than today.
Therefore I do not hesitate to recommend reading these authors' "Best-sellers" of the time.
Reviewers back then were more literate and would never consider "canceling" an author because they disagreed with the author's views, or religion or politics. They might write a mercilessly scathing review, but that very denunciation of the work would drive people to read it because "There is no such thing as bad publicity." 😄
One piece of advice: whatever work(s) you decide upon, read up on the author first, so you will know something about him/her and also the times (historically speaking) in which he/she wrote.

OK... Muriel Spark (order does not indicate my preference, in fact I'm not even listing my favorite one):
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie
Girls of Slender Means
The Ballad of Peckham Rye

Martin Amis: Lucky Jim

Kazuo Ishiguro: Remains of the Day
Never Let Me Go (a somewhat disturbing story)

Graham Greene: The End of the Affair
Our Man in Havana (satire)
Travels With My Aunt (you may really enjoy this one)

,

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StaraEnt said:

Oh, and by the way, is anyone here interested in russian literature or in classics in general?

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HALETH✒🗡 said:

I am from Russia, so I'm interested in Russian literature. And I study at the Faculty of Philology, so I'm interested in classics in general too.
If you want to discuss these topics, I'll be happy to do that.
Welcome to the forum, @StaraEnt !

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Squint-eyed Southerner said:

Takes a dark turn though, IIRC.

I guess most of his spy stuff could be considered satire or parody, in some sense. I found The Ministry of Fear pretty nightmarish. I need to reread some of those.

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StaraEnt said:

Thank you for welcoming me Haleth!
When it comes to russian literature, I'm not the most appropriate person to give any kind of teachings, but I do appreciate seeing other people discuss it and from time to time I'll pop in on the convesation to give some opinions, so if you want to recommned me any book and give me a reason as to why you picked that one, I'd love to hear you.
My favorite book is Crime and Punishment, I've read it a long time ago and I honestly barely remember enough to have a long and educated discussion about it, but, what I do remember is what I felt when I first read it, so that for sure counts for something.
Another russian book I was really enjoying was "War and Peace", but unfortunately I dropped the reading half way through and when I tried to get back to it I had already forgotten a lot of the characters and since the book has a really large amount of them I felt as though I coud not get back to it and enjoy the piece fully, but I know that is was a really immersive reading (the descriptions of what was happening felt so real that I would spend hours reading without even noticing) and I actually got attached to some of the characters.
What's your favorite book?
I'm from Portugal, I don't know if you ever read any book from my country, but we could 100% talk about it too.

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HALETH✒🗡 said:

If you like "Crime and Punishment", it might be a good idea to recommend you something by the same author. What about "White Nights" by Dostoevsky? This is a very beautiful and charming story about love. The main hero is a lonely dreamer. The title refers to such summer nights in St. Petersburg during which it doesn't get dark.
I'm not sure that I can choose a favorite book but I have a favorite poet. He is Nikolay Gumilev. I've already posted his poems translated by Martin Bidney. If you are interested, I can send you some links by Private Messages to avoid repetition here.
What would you recommend reading from Portuguese literature?

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StaraEnt said:

I've been wanting to read another book by Dostoevsky for quite some time now, but I've never heard about the one you just recommended, it does sound really appealing tho, so I'll check it out.
Now commenting on the other 2 things you talked about, I can recommend you a portuguese author, which is also a poet (and a really good one), his name is "Fernando Pessoa" and he's an absolute portuguese icon, you can read his book called "the book of disquiet" or you can read his poems. He uses heteronyms, so you will find poems of his by also searching the names "Álvaro de Campos", "Alberto Caeiro", "Ricardo Reis" and so on and so on. He would give a life a personality to each of his heteronyms and would write poems based off of that, so it's pretty intresting.
Thanks for sending me those videos, I'll watch them!

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Well-aged Ent said:

... Of the names, only Ian McEwan stands out, and that only because I’ve enjoyed a bit of his acting. I..

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Deimos said:

Are you perhaps confusing Ian McEwa

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Well-aged Ent said:

actually, no. in yet another 'hasty moment' i confused the name with Ian Mckellen, a travesty I'll now never be able to live down..!!!
but thanks for pointing it out...the correction is important.
(though sadly, the reference to McGregor reminding me of the MOST unfortunate casting choice if Christensen will be difficult to put out of mind for a time now.)

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Deimos said:

run the gamut from A to .... B.

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