Just started The Editor's Wife ( Clare Chambers )- written in the first person & the main character is a man. Impressed so far.

Finished Twilight of the Idols, onto The Anti-Christ now...

I'm reading Lud-in-the-Mist by Hope Mirrlees. It's completely aces. It's so obviously what Susanna Clarke must have read before she wrote Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell. Just the same sort of allegorical things. and because I am obsessed with bucolic landscapes in literature, perhaps even something I can actually get something out of for my work too...

Guilty of Everything John ('Buck Cherry') Armstrong's memoir of the punk scene in Vancouver. As such I suppose it's of mostly local interest except Armstrong is a better than average writer with a wry sense of humour:

"[The Windmill was] notable only in that it would book our band and that it had a steel-plate dance-floor. Why, no one ever found out, but it made for real excitement the night a guitar player who hadn't checked his amp's ground jumped into the audience. Beer on metal is not only slippery as hell but an excellent electrical conductor; when his guitar hit the floor the crowd looked like dancing chickens at a county fair."

That's made me want to see dancing chickens at a county fair.

[digression]
I once saw The Clash at the Hammersmith Palais. Leaping about on a proper sprung dancefloor was extremely enjoyable.
[/digression]

I'm currently reading Harry Pearson's Around The World By Mouse, which as high-level concept probably sounded great (man stays in bedroom and explores countries he's never visited using internet; writes humorous travel guide). But it's straining my interest.

I like all his other books, and he's always good for a chucklesome line and interesting fact, but you can't help feeling a lot of it would be funnier as captions to the photos or sites he's looking at. I may have to set it aside and mention it in a different thread.

I once saw The Clash at the Hammersmith Palais. Leaping about on a proper sprung dancefloor was extremely enjoyable.

Oh absolutely! I too saw the Clash (and many other bands) at Vancouver's Commodore Ballroom which, among aficianados, rates as one of the top half-dozen dancefloors in the world. Being among a couple of hundred people bouncing up and down on it is an experience like no other, some find it terrifying, others as exhilarating as group bungee jumping. It was put down in the 1920s so no one knew what gave it its elasticity until ten years ago when it was relaid, under the boards they found hundreds of truck tyres packed with horsehair.

Hm...I wonder if my ex-wife makes an appearance in Armstrong's book...that was very definitely her scene...

A quick PM will satisfy your curiosity AG, I'll finish the book by the end of the day.

PM sent.

I've still not picked up a book. I'm beginning to wonder if I ever will...

AG: PM reply.

I'm currently working my way through John Foot's Calcio and very enjoyable it is too

After that I have Lukyanenko's Night Watchand Day Watch awaiting me.

I also have the last two volumes of Orwells Collected Essays, Journalism and General Musings sitting on the bookshelf (As I Please, 1943-1945 and In Front of Your Nose, 1945-1950). Looking forward to them - Orwell is never anything less than readable and even his most mundane letters give some insight to wartime life.

Unfortunately I never seem to get time to read more than a couple of paragraphs a day these days, so they could well be sitting there for a fair while yet.

Finished Michael Lewis' very entertaining Liar's Poker. Now reading Iris Murdoch's Metaphysics As A Guide To Morals which, since it bears no relation to the title, is superb, and the Cantos. Still.

I'm about two thirds of the way through Paul Morley's 'Nothing', an account of his father's suicide. As you would expect from Morley it's exceptionally literate, heartfelt and compelling, and wanders quite formlessly all over the place. His life story often takes second stage as the book becomes a series of philosophical discourses on the reasons why a person might choose to extinguish their own existence, and the repurcussions of such a decision. At times Morley's garrulous style becomes overwhelming, but appropriately, his concern often seems to be with filling in the blanks left by a distant relationship with his father.

Despite the subject matter it's a warm, rather than depressing, read.

toro x4, that's weird, I'm re-reading Liar's Poker at the moment, having read it about 10 years ago.

It's strangely in tune with the current state of investment banking isn't it.