What are you reading now?

[AeolianHarp]

Perusing

I'm perusing this rare antique book, published in 1916 I got for free from Healthy Planet. It is a beauty- just look at the cover and some of its pictures!

[Decrepit Poster]

What film script draft?! Do tell me more DP. My copy is the first edition.

I'm not sure I can say much more about the 'screen play'. The second edition cover states ". . . with screen play of the movie . . .", which led me to assume that there was/is a film based on the author's finding in the works. This is, so far as I know, not the case. It is instead a proposal of how the story of Beethoven and Josephine can be told 'with images and sounds' in the Hollywood manner while remaining largely faithful to the source material. I enjoyed reading the screen play because it summarizes the author's viewpoint in straight forward way.

[AeolianHarp]

Intriguing DP! I think Mr Klapproth should send this idea to Jane Campion- if anyone could make a respectful, authentic and moving film about Ludwig and Josephine, she could...

I will have to get the 2nd ed..I'd love to read this!

[Decrepit Poster]

I failed to mention that I broke off reading The Last Plantagenets and read Cornwell's The Last Kingdom instead. I enjoyed it, but am not sure I'll buy more of the series. I have resumed The Last Plantagenets.

[Decrepit Poster]

I have read a decent number of titles since my most recent thread entry. I mention only the last, a recently acquired copy of Beethoven for a Later Age: Living with the String Quartets by Edward Dusinberre, current first violinist with the Takacs Quartet. It's a good read, though as a long-ago performing musician and fairly well read on Beethoven I encountered no shocking new revelations on the inner workings of a performing ensemble or the composer himself. One sad reminder of classical music's ever sorrier status in the commercial recording industry: even a group as prestigious as Takacs needed to self-fund seven of the nine recording sessions required for their early 2000s Beethoven complete quartet CD set, which according to Dusinberre added up to almost $100k.

[Decrepit Poster]

At 1221 today I finished The Claw of the Conciliator, volume two of Gene Wolfe's The Book of the New Sun. This was its fourth reading, the first having ended Sep 1988, the most recent Apr 2002. I find it interesting that this series' main character, Severian, claims to forget absolutely nothing, while another of his series centers on a fellow who, due to a head wound, forgets pretty much everything after a brief span of time. (This wound also lets him see and communicate with gods and other supernatural beings.) I think Wolfe's handling of the man's forgetfulness very well executed. That said, I feel the meat of the story is contained in volume one, Soldier of the Mist, while volume two is more "The continued adventures of . . . ". (Wolfe wrote a third volume many years after publication of the first two. I never bothered with it.)

I will continue on with volume three of The Book of The New Sun, The Sword of the Lictor. Gotta love those Wolfe titles.

[Decrepit Poster]

At 2037 this evening I finished my fourth reading of volume three of Gene Wolfe's The Book of the New Sun, The Sword of the Lictor. I'll begin volume four, The Citadel of the Autarch, either later tonight or sometime tomorrow.

[Decrepit Poster]

At 0742 this morning I finished my fourth reading of The Citadel of the Autarch, volume four of Gene Wolfe's The Book of the New Sun. I might of might not continue on with Wolfe's followup, The Urth of the New Sun.

[Peter]

I'm re-reading Jerrold Northrop Moore's excellent biography of Elgar.

[Decrepit Poster]

I keep forgetting to log my reading here. As can be seen, I've read a few books since my last entry, most of which are, as is usual for me, re-reads. The majority are "fantasy", a few "history, one a "celebrity autobiography" which is also a loan from my brother. The Beethoven is a sort of surprising read, since I first read it only a year ago. Thing is, its printing isn't the best, so that some of it confused me first time round. I figured out what was throwing me off and got more out of it this second time.

It must be said that the reason so many books appear below is at least partly because I find myself reading much of the time when, in the past when my hearing was up to the task, I once listened to music. (I have not abandoned music listening altogether, but such forays tend to be fewer and further between, and limited in scope to those works which don't "freak out" my ears.)

Favorites amongst the below? Tad Williams' Memory, Sorrow and Thorn has long been a favorite Tolkien influences "traditional" epic fantasies. I'm a huge fan of almost anything by Guy Gavriel Kay, though neither of the two Kay books here are among my favorites of his works. The McKillip books are a long time favorite I'd not read in a good many years.

The list; time and date at the beginning of each entry signify book completions:

07/17/2016: 0309 “Beethoven's Only Beloved: Josephine” John Klapproth (2nd reading)
08/05/2016: 1236 “The Lost Prince” by Paul Edwin Zimmer (third reading)
08/11/2016: 1653 “Shadows of the Storm” editor William C. Davis (2nd plus reading)
08/13/2016: 2315 “King Chondos' Ride” by Paul Edwin Zimmer (third reading)
08/21/2016: 1552 “Tales of Neveryon” by Samuel R. Delany (second reading)
08/28/2016: 1339 “So, Anyway...” by John Cleese
09/11/2016: 1025 “The Guns of '62” editor William C. Davis (2nd plus reading)
09/16/2016: 2254 “Neveryona, or The Tale of Signs and Cities” S. Delany (2nd reading)
09/21/2016: 1252 “The Riddle Master of Hed” by Patricia A. McKillip (fourth reading)
09/24/2016: 1204 “Heir of Sea and Fire” by Patricia A. McKillip (fourth reading)
09/26/2016: 0055 “Harpist in the Wind” by Patricia A. McKillip (fourth reading)
10/15/2016: 1020 “The Embattled Confederacy” ed Wm C. Davis (2nd plus reading)
10/21/2016: 1323 “The Dragonbone Chair” by Tad Williams (sixth reading)
11/04/2016: 1845 “Stone of Farewell” by Tad Williams (sixth reading)
11/11/2016: 0005 “To Green Angel Tower, Part 1” by Tad Williams (fifth reading)
11/15/2016: 1536 “To Green Angel Tower, Part 2” by Tad Williams (fifth reading)
11/21/2016: 1657 “Children of Earth and Sky” by Guy Gavriel Kay
11/25/2016: 2226 “The Last Light of the Sun” by Guy Gavriel Kay (second reading)

[Peter]

You are a very quick and industrious reader Decrepit! I find the older I get the more I'm into biography rather than fiction though - my latest reads being the fascinating (if not totally reliable) autobiography of the pianist Harriet Cohen 'A Bundle of time' and now 'The house of Wittgenstein - a family at war' by Alexander Waugh.

[Decrepit Poster]

At 0358 this morning, just prior to shambling out of bed, I concluded my third reading of Dreams of Stone, volume 1 of Jonathan Wylie's The Unbalanced Earth Trilogy. Last read roughly 18 years ago this was a fairly fresh experience. I deem it a satisfactory read but nothing special. I spent much of the read debating how best to classify it. The book labels itself as fantasy. Not far in I began to feel that science-fantasy, as some Wolfe books used to be classified, might be closer to the mark. Occasionally it felt more science fiction. Then it would veer back to science-fantasy or even straight-up fantasy. And so on. In the end I settled on labeling it Speculative Fiction and calling it a day. I also found it interesting that Wylie's descriptions are such that it is hard to discern what earth-equivalent period, if any, the book equates to. It definitely takes place some years following an apocalypse of some sort, but this is kept somewhat vague and subject to debate in volume one.

I'll likely begin volume 2, The Lightless Kingdom, ere day's end.

You are a very quick and industrious reader Decrepit! I find the older I get the more I'm into biography rather than fiction though - my latest reads being the fascinating (if not totally reliable) autobiography of the pianist Harriet Cohen 'A Bundle of time' and now 'The house of Wittgenstein - a family at war' by Alexander Waugh.

I read little other than history (including bios of historic figures), along with books related to classical music, for roughly the first fifteen years of my adult life. Then, after being given a number of fantasy and sci-fi novels by a fellow military dorm rat who didn't want to lug 'em along during his upcoming change of duty station, changed my primary allegiance to fantasy. (I never developed a taste for sci-fi literature.) I still enjoy history, prolly as much as I ever did. But the vast bulk of my library is fantasy. Since I mostly re-read these days and seldom buy new books, the preponderance of my reading tends to be speculative fiction. (It doesn't help that my early library, which was entirely history or music related, was lost in 1973 when a tornado totaled my parents home, there the books were stored during a military oversees assignment.)

[Humoresque]

Jan Swafford, in his excellent biography of Brahms, writes about the growing love between Clara Schumann and Johannes Brahms. There's such beautiful prose here in the writing of this book - simultaneously poetic - that I cannot avoid quoting one irresistible passage about the love that dared not speak its name.

"That summer of 1854 such understanding lay in the future. That summer Johannes seethed in his passion. His emotions had become like a harmonic suspension in music, when a composer allows a tone from a previous chord to linger piercingly into a new harmony, and the music cannot find rest until that dissonance is resolved. To Johannes, his love felt like an endless, unbearable suspension"(p.116).

No Mills and Boon here, but the author evoking a passion using the 'voice' of an inexperienced 21 year old whose love of music is suffused with that of his love for a woman and musician. His musical and sexual responses were part of the same impulse.

I absolutely get that!!!

[Megan]

Enoch Powell Biography, by Robert Shepherd.
Powell's gifts and abilities were simply astonishing. He must have been one of this countries greatest linguists.
His ability is such that during the war as an intelligence officer, he lectured the Generals on faulty translations that they were making or being given. His great teacher at Cambridge was A. E. Housman.

I understand Powell also played the Clarinet to a high standard.




.

[Decrepit Poster]

At 0208 this morning I brought to conclusion my third reading of Jonathan Wylie's The Lightless Kingdom, volume II of The Unbalanced Earth Trilogy. As with book one, I found it an enjoyable read but not a fantasy for the ages. Like that first volume I consider it more science-fantasy and often pure science-fiction than fantasy, though there are certainly fantasy elements (and magic) in it.

I began volume III immediately afterward but was thankfully able to put it down after page one and get a tad more sleep before waking for the day (at as still-too-early circa 0341).