THE JAMES MASON COMMUNITY BOOK CLUB discussion

I've archived the old thread because it was getting so long.

Tell us what books you're reading.

"The Dead Cry Justice - A Gilded Age Mystery" by Rosemary Simpson. (borrowed it from the local library last week)

From a Far and Lovely Country by Alexander McCall Smith

Currently reading Anne of Green Gables and When We Were Orphans.

The Murdered Molls by Graham Brack

Murder and the First Lady by Elliott Roosevelt

Lone Wolf by Gregg Andrew Hurwitz

Everyone on This Train Is a Suspect by Benjamin Stevenson

Tehanu by Ursula K. Le Guin (Earthsea #4)

They Do It With Mirrors by Agatha Christie

Leader of the Pack by David Rosenfelt

Where Are the Children Now? by Mary Higgins Clark

Extinction by Douglas Preston

Zero Days by Ruth Ware

The Soulmate by Sally Hepworth

The Beginning Place by Ursula K. Le Guin

DeKok and the Geese of Death by A.C. Baantjer (Dekok #20)

The Gathering by C.J. Tudor

I am reading so many books at the moment it's ridiculous. I have mystery books and books about bookstores.

Three of my fave writers these days are Virginia K Bennett - Gail Meath and Jenny Colgan.

Among the books I'm now reading are ...

1. The Continental Affair by Christine Mangan (novel set during the 1960s)



2. The Helsinki Affair by Anna Pitoniak (a modern day spy novel)



3. The Palace Papers: Inside the House of Windsor - the Truth and the Turmoil by Tina Brown



4. Luftwaffe Aces: German Combat Pilots of WWII by Franz Kurowski



5. The Hello Girls: America’s First Women Soldiers by Elizabeth Cobbs

Tells the story of a group of women who served with the U.S. Army Signal Corps in France during World War I as telephone switchboard operators. Indeed, before joining the Army, many of these women had been highly skilled switchboard operators. Some of them also spoke fluent French, which the Army prized. These women would be denied veterans' benefits until 1979 - 61 years after the end of the war.

By the Pricking of My Thumbs by Agatha Christie

Bill wrote: "By the Pricking of My Thumbs by Agatha Christie"

Can't go wrong with Agatha Christie. 🙂

Tell-Tale Bones by Carolyn Haines

A Fistful of Collars by Spencer Quinn

The Ninth Directive by Adam Hall (Quiller #2)

The White Road by John Connolly (Charlie Parker #4)

Witchcraft: A History in Thirteen Trials by Marion Gibson

Lore Olympus: Volume Five by Rachel Smythe

Paw and Order by Spencer Quinn

Look To The Lady by Margery Allingham (Albert Campion #3)

Oath and Honor: A Memoir and a Warning by Liz Cheney

The Liz Cheney book looks interesting.

I'm just starting The Field Guide , Vol 1 of the Spiderwick Chronicles by Tony DiTerlizzi & Holly Black

American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer by Kai Bird

I've just read "V" by Thomas Pynchon.

Martin Amis wrote that, when reading William Burroughs, he was reduced to identifying the good bits. This was exactly how I felt. There is, for example, Esther's plastic surgery (a good bit), Father Fairing's conversion of the rats (a very good bit) and the following list of guests at Iago Saperstein's party:

"an inventor celebrating his seventy-second rejection by the U.S. Patent Office, this time on a coin-operated whorehouse for bus and railway stations...; a gentle lady plant pathologist, originally from the Isle of Man, who had the distinction of being the only Manx monoglot in the world and consequently spoke to no one; an unemployed musicologist named Petard who had dedicated his life to finding the lost Vivaldi Kazoo Concerto", and so on.

Now, I like this very much. It's Joycean, I think; it's like one of those lists in "Ulysses". However, there's also the following:

""Inside, outside", he said, "you're being inconsistent, you lose me."

"I'd like to", she said, rising. "I have bad dreams about people like you."

"Have your analyst tell you what they mean", he said.

"I hope you keep dreaming." She was at the door, half-turned to him."

I don't care if this is meant to be laconic: it's terrible. There are whole swathes of this sort of thing. It feels like a first draft, with bits of plot that don't join up as well as a weird sort of styleless style that hustles you clumsily over events. It's a kind of literary fugue state, a mixture of dream and paranoia, and you feel as though you have been cast adrift.

Well, I say "you". My copy has a quote from the Atlantic Review, saying that it "may well stand as one of the very best novels of the century". The New York Times says that it shows "staggering promise". Elsewhere, Anthony Burgess calls it a "higher game". Pynchon seems to have an unassailable reputation; he is one of those (counter) cultural touchstones, beloved of the Simpsons.

It must be me. I could say that he feels terribly dated; that he sounds, at times, just like a cross between William Burroughs, Lenny Bruce and Nelson Algren. I could say that the sense that everything is connected in some sinister way - that, if you could only devote enough time to it, you could fathom the relationship between the First World War and World War 2 and crash test dummies and Auschwitz and the bomb and Maltese independence and the characters' personal unhappiness - is terribly dated too. (Conspiracy theories just aren't respectable anymore.)

But, in truth, I just don't understand it. It infuriates me to have to say this, but it's true. What's more, I don't want to understand it. I have devoted a lot of time to "Ulysses", for example, and this has given me enormous pleasure. But I won't be returning to "V".

I'm starting Very Far Away from Anywhere Else by Ursula K. Le Guin

Barbara wrote: "The Liz Cheney book looks interesting."

Enjoying so far.

Planet of Exile by Ursula K. Le Guin (Hainish Cycle #2)

Easter Basket Murder by Leslie Meier

The Complete Orsinia: Malafrena / Stories and Songs by Ursula K. Le Guin

The Private Life of Spies and The Exquisite Art of Getting Even: Stories of Espionage and Revenge by Alexander McCall Smith

Small Mercies by Dennis Lehane

Holly by Stephen King

Monstress, Vol. 2: The Blood by Marjorie M. Liu

Slow Horses by Mick Herron

Don't Mess with Mrs In-Between by Liz Evans (Grace Smith #3)

The Lede: Dispatches from a Life in the Press by Calvin Trillin

Currently reading the Victorian classic Middlemarch and the sci-fi classic Who Goes There? .

Franky wrote: "Currently reading the Victorian classic Middlemarch and the sci-fi classic Who Goes There? ."

Nice mix.

An Amateur Corpse by Simon Brett (Charles Paris #4)