[andy popp]

I've recently finished two excellent books. First,  "Independence Day, " the second of Richard Ford's Frank Bascombe books. I know some people can't get on with these; people don't like the narrator's voice,  or the endless digressions and lack of plot. But I love them completely. I love the rich humanity with which Frank' character is portrayed, the pathos and humour, the wonderful prose. Second, Mikhail Sholokhov's sweeping masterpiece of war and revolution "And Quiet Flows the Don," which follows a group of Don Cossacks from one village through WWI, revolution and civil war.  It's wonderful how Sholokhov is able to combine epic scale and fantastically rendered characterisation on the same page. You live every moment with these people. And there's breathtaking descriptions of the lives of the Cossacks and of the Steppes. Hard to recommend too strongly. Read with Tolstoy's "War and Peace" and Vassily Grossman's "Lifeand Fate" it would comprise part of an incredible trilogy.

[geoffg]

I couldn't agree more with Andy about Mikhail Sholokhov's novel. Absolutely immersing and some of the most evocative writing I have ever had the pleasure to read.
I love a lot of Russian literature for its depth and ability to take me into the character of the person and the environment about them.

[SA Chris]

I feel your pain with Percy Jackson. We are currently on some turgid David Walliams thing - Ratburger?

I'm in the middle of Shalimar the Clown by Salman Rushdie. It on the Kindle which only comes out on the train, so gets approx 15 mins a day 3 or 4 days a week and actually enjoying reading it so slowly. Great story though.

[andy popp]

I've recently finished two excellent books. First,  "Independence Day, " the second of Richard Ford's Frank Bascombe books. I know some people can't get on with these; people don't like the narrator's voice,  or the endless digressions and lack of plot. But I love them completely. I love the rich humanity with which Frank' character is portrayed, the pathos and humour, the wonderful prose.

My sister left me with this book when she visited Canada in July. She has been a good source of book recommendations for much of my life so I have tried my hardest with this one. However ... I am definitely in your "can't get on with these" camp. My sister assured me that it picked up pace after the protagonist embarks on a road trip with his uncommunicative teenage son (perhaps as I have one of these) but it has been a tough ask to wade through 2/3rds of the book to get there, and even now the needle on my "give-a-shit-meter" is barely flickering. I am actually deriving very slightly more pleasure from reading the objectively-ghastly Percy Jackson and The Olympians book series out loud to my eight year old. Do you feel any resonance with the characters or their observations, Andy, or is it more that you admire the craftsmanship of the book?

First, have you read the first volume "The Sportswriter?"? It gives Frank's back story and helps us much better understand his character and behaviour. Even so,  I acknowledge that might not make much difference.

I do believe Ford is a very fine writer and that the book is brilliantly crafted,  but its also more than that. I'm not sure that it's really that the Frank resonates with me particularly directly. The similarities - male,  middle-aged - are superficial. I'm not even sure I always like Frank that much. But has a deep humanity. He can't help evoke my empathy. And the things that confront him - the doubts, uncertainties,  regrets, desires - are universal really.

That and it can be very funny and very beautiful.

[kelvin]

Alan Moore's Jerusalem - anyone bought this yet? I'm a bit nervous if I'm honest, as I think it'd take my life over for a while. Obviously living in Northampton since '79 and for 15 years just down the road from him, it's something I need to read at some point.

[JamieG]

Recently finished
 
At the Edge of the Orchard by Tracy Chevalier

Really enjoyed this. Really good story of frontier life in 19th century America. Recommend it if you like that peroid of American history or are interested in the history of trees (no joke).


The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach

American college life, revolves around baseball. It was okay. Thought the characters were pretty cliche, but it moves along at a decent pace and overall I quite enjoyed it.


Disgrace by J. M. Coetzee

Very good book. Story of a father and daughters relationship in South Africa. Quite a cynical book with quite a bit of philosphy about love/lust etc. Very well written.

[slackline]

Just finished...

Probably Approximately Correct : Natures Algorithms for Learning and Prospering in a Complex World

Really interesting, intersection between computer science, statistics and evolution.  Proposes a framework for testing evolutionary theory.

The author, Leslie Valiant, first proposed PAC in this 1984 paper.  A longer overview is provided by this PDF (its a bit more technical than Valiants book).

[Brannock]

Master of the Senate, Robert A. Caro.

This book opens with the epigraph, "I do understand power, whatever else may be said about me. I know where to look for it, and how to use it. Lyndon Baines Johnson"

Part of Caro massive series of  biographies of Lyndon Johnson, this it covers his extraordinarily fast rise to prominence in the senate, breaking all the unwritten rules of seniority, to become majority leader and then to pass the 1957 civil rights act, the first civil rights act in 70 years.

The picture Caro paints is of a very complicated character, all politics is compromise but Johnsons ambition to be president was always his main priority, and that drove his actions in the senate. To stand any chance of the Democratic nomination in 1960 he had to pass a civil rights bill, passing it was more important than the content. Its quite neutrally written so the reader is left to draw their own conclusions if the compromises and the dire way he treated those around him where worth it.

It is pretty heavy going in places, but the set piece actions in the senate are gripping and the early chapters offer a good history of the senate and its role.

[andy popp]

That's interesting. I nearly bought Caro's The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York the other week but will admit I was put off by the sheer bulk. Have you read the first two volumes of the Johnson biography?

[Brannock]

Only read this one, its is fairly intimidating. The shear weight of detail can drag a bit, he must have interviewed virtually everyone Johnson ever met, but its worth it in the end.

Two other good books read recently.

Napoleon the Great, Andrew Roberts

Solid biography of the life of Napoleon, all the battles, mistresses, plundering and legal codes you'd want, fairly sympathetic portrait without being a hagiography.  However for a more evocative book about the period...

Moscow 1812: Napoleon's Fatal March, Adam Zamoyski

Fantastic descriptive history, great portraits of the landscape, events  and characters. Some of the artwork, sketches and watercolours from those in the field at the time is also extraordinary, could easily be from a century later.

[fatneck]

Lowering the tone as I seem to read at a much lower brow level than most contributors to this thread (not a dig BTW) but for what it's worth, I am on book 8 of 10 of the Bernard Cornwell Saxon Stories. Enlightening for the historically challenged (me), I am fascinated by how the country must have looked having been deserted by the Romans. It seems the Saxons existed in an almost post-apocalyptic world of Roman ruins and built around them with wattle and thatch - who knew!

Am looking forward to book 10 which comes out today!

[andy popp]

Kind of following on from my live music post I'm nearing the end of Bethany Moreton's To Serve God and Wal-Mart: The Making of Christian Free Enterprise. The histories of capitalism and of conservatism have been two of the most vibrant sub-fields of history in the US over the last decade and Moreton's book is an exemplar, tracing changes in economics, managements, ideology, religion, gender, culture, demography etc. to understand how a corporation like Wal-Mart, and the values it represents, ends up so powerful. Kind of a follow on to the live music thread because this kind of literature helps us see that the rise of a figure like Trump is about much more than celebrity culture or any other shallow explanation. Sorry, I'll stop banging on about this election now.

[andy popp]

Who said anything about either "Marxists" or "vicious polemics"? Anyway. Sure, it could be argued that Wal-Mart gave people what they wanted but to suggest that this appeal to market forces is all we need to explain the success - or significance - of Wal-Mart is simply reductive. The market is a social thing. Simple appeals to it take little account of the complexity of the social and cultural contexts all markets embedded in, of the way in which Wal-Mart emerged from, was shaped by, and in turn itself shaped those contexts, or of the deep changes Wal-Mart eventually wrought on all around it. Could all of these be understood simply via laws of supply and demand? Was the emergence of one of the world's most powerful corporations from a dime store in Arkansas.

More worryingly, as a historian, I didn't realise it was pointless to study things that are already "toast".

[Falling Down]

Alan Moore's Jerusalem - anyone bought this yet?

Got it this afternoon on the Kindle as I hear the physical version has a tiny font which I really struggle with as I get older.  Looking forward to getting stuck in as I enjoyed Voice of the Fire and Unearthing (and the comics of course).

[AndyR]

Alan Moore's Jerusalem - anyone bought this yet? I'm a bit nervous if I'm honest, as I think it'd take my life over for a while. Obviously living in Northampton since '79 and for 15 years just down the road from him, it's something I need to read at some point.

Dunno - but I read the review in The Globe and Mail this morning and it was pretty meh.

I'm also a northamptonite, but I wouldn't buy it on the review I just read...

[Rocksteady]

Lowering the tone as I seem to read at a much lower brow level than most contributors to this thread (not a dig BTW) but for what it's worth, I am on book 8 of 10 of the Bernard Cornwell Saxon Stories. Enlightening for the historically challenged (me), I am fascinated by how the country must have looked having been deserted by the Romans. It seems the Saxons existed in an almost post-apocalyptic world of Roman ruins and built around them with wattle and thatch - who knew!

Am looking forward to book 10 which comes out today!

I really enjoy those books, and the TV series was good too. Thanks for the heads up on the new release. If you like them, try the Warlord series which he wrote in the mid-90s. https://www.amazon.co.uk/Bernard-Cornwell-Warlord-Chronicles-Collection/dp/B00742E6KC

They're some of my all time favourite novels - I find them to be a more tightly plotted (original) version of the Saxon stories.

[fatneck]

Thanks for the heads up Rocksteady! Will check them out...

[andy popp]

More worryingly, as a historian, I didn't realise it was pointless to study things that are already "toast".

Fair point. I was just being ironic, really. Bezos seems like a quite popular guy at this point in time but I feel confident that at some point in the future people will find reason to criticise him. I imagine at some point in the past the same might have applied to Sam Walton. Anyway, FWIW I think I will read this book. It does sound quite interesting.

It is interesting, I certainly thought so anyway. I hope you enjoy it.

[cowboyhat]

Second, Mikhail Sholokhov's sweeping masterpiece of war and revolution "And Quiet Flows the Don," which follows a group of Don Cossacks from one village through WWI, revolution and civil war.  It's wonderful how Sholokhov is able to combine epic scale and fantastically rendered characterisation on the same page. You live every moment with these people. And there's breathtaking descriptions of the lives of the Cossacks and of the Steppes. Hard to recommend too strongly. Read with Tolstoy's "War and Peace" and Vassily Grossman's "Lifeand Fate" it would comprise part of an incredible trilogy.

I love the Tolstoy Novella 'Cossacks'.  There is a new translation of 'the Don' coming out from Penguin so I've pre-orded it.

[Fultonius]

I'm almost done with Consider the Lilies. Any recommendations for good books related to/about the clearances?

My uncle also ordered Life and Fate by Vasily Grossman to be sent to my mum's, because I'd commented on Facebook that it sounded good after he'd posted a mini review. So that'sup next!

[andy popp]

Life and Fate is very good! I need to focus more. I normally only ever have one book on the go (excluding stuff I'm reading for work) but am currently going back and forth between three - Postwar, which is on the back burner for some reason, the Wal-Mart book mentioned above and now I've just started Studs Terkel's Working, which I've wanted to read for a long time.

[Will Hunt]

The Violins of Saint Jacques by Patrick Leigh-Fermor. A very short wee book which I've just enjoyed. I've struggled with this author before on account that I think he takes for granted that everybody else is as classically educated as he is. What? You don't speak French, Latin, and have good grounding in classical arts? However the passages of French are kept to a minimum and once it gets going it shoots along at quite a pace. Difficult to say much about the plot without spoiling everything, but the vivid descriptions are what make it really.

[Will Hunt]

A thought. If you can read it on a Kindle then do. Unless you have a vast vocabulary, the on-board dictionary will probably be useful.

[cowboyhat]

Unusual for me i've just read two contemporary american novels.

Train Dreams by Dennis Johnson, beautiful simplicity.

Leaving the Atocha Station by Ben Lerner, I really enjoyed this expecting not to.

Both very short but I recommend them both highly.

[Will Hunt]

Over the past week and a half I've reread the His Dark Materials trilogy. I read them when I was young and, reading them as an adult, they are completely different books. Amazing. I've now got that inconsolable bittersweet feeling of loss and satisfaction that comes with having to leave the story that you were immersed in when you turn the last page.