Recent Reading

[Bleak&Icy]

Late one night, several weeks ago, in a moment of financial abandon, I made a preposterously large purchase at the Book Depository:




Yikes!

I also ordered, from Amazon, Octave Mirbeau's In the Sky, based on gveranon's recommendation. Add to this sundry other titles picked up in local bookstores over the holidays, and borrowed from the library. Happy reading to me.

[Acutely decayed]

I have been reading Musil, slowly, which is a good way to read him I think - I don't mind that he never completed his major work but I know I am going to wish he wrote more of it...my german is poor, and it does not seem to be a very german book anyway, but if anyone knows if there is a translation of his notes into English past the Knopf edition (trans Sophie Wilkins) I would be thankful - material involving Agatha etc.

....I start reading Leppin and enjoy it so much that I salt it down for later in case I need it in a lean time.

Coincidentally I read Rodenbach in Bruge (my profile photo is from the main square)

and who doesn't apprciate Strindberg

Strindberg and Helium in the park - YouTube

[qcrisp]

Currently neck and neck for place as my 'main reading' are...

This:

The Adolescent by Fyodor Dostoyevsky — Reviews, Discussion, Bookclubs, Lists

And this:

Star Maker by Olaf Stapledon — Reviews, Discussion, Bookclubs, Lists

I have also, intermittently, been re-reading M.R. James.

[SeductiveAbyss]

So I’m new, but here’s what I’m reading ATM:

Working my way through:

North American Lake Monsters by Nathan Ballingrud

 

North American Lake Monsters by Nathan Ballingrud

Which I am enjoying a good bit. Of the shorts I’ve read so far, I think the Monsters of Heaven was my favorite.

and

Nihil Unbound by Ray Brassier

 

Nihil Unbound by Ray Brassier

It's good, but I feel like I’ve read so much of his argument elsewhere that it doesn’t have the punch it would coming in cold.

next up once I finish one of those

Weird Realism Lovecraft and Philosophy by Graham Harman

 

Weird Realism Lovecraft and Philosophy by Graham Harman

[Murony_Pyre]

Quote Originally Posted by gveranon

I read Octave Mirbeau's In the Sky a few weeks ago and intended to post here about it but couldn't figure out what I wanted to say. This novel was translated by Ann Sterzinger and recently published by Nine-Banded Books. I can't speak to the accuracy of the translation, but the English prose is always eloquent and compelling, with a slightly archaic feel, feverish and nearly hysterical at times. Despite the clarity of the prose, the novel is somewhat bewildering in ways that I am still thinking about. In her Translator's Note, Ann Sterzinger mentions plot incongruities and bizarre structure. (She also brings up Ligotti in her comments.) I was especially thrown off by a seeming switch of first-person narrator. Mirbeau is up to some things here that I can't quite divine. Anyway, J. P. Drapeau might find something in this to slake his awful thirst. Now I am wondering: Mirbeau, Drapeau...

Thanks. I didn't know about this and, like Bleak&Icy, ordered one.

[qcrisp]

Just to add something to my brief post above, I'm quite a way through Star Maker (Olaf Stapledon) now, and can safely say I've never read anything like it. I also mean that in a good way. If I get time, I'll probably review it on Goodreads. I've been pretty busy recently, but... well, hopefully I'll get time, as it's been very absorbing and thought-provoking for me.

If this book isn't 'cosmic' in its vision, I really don't know what is.

[marioneta]

Finished Lolita, what a ride. Starting Ada, or Ardor in my Nabokovian affair. Also reading Machen, The White People and Other Weird Stories. Rereading Ligotti's The Spectral Link. Dip into The Trouble With Being Born, E.M. Cioran, every now and then. Next in line, Nabokov's Stories.

[xylokopos]

Quote Originally Posted by Bleak&Icy

Late one night, several weeks ago, in a moment of financial abandon, I made a preposterously large purchase at the Book Depository..

I salute your glorious lunacy.

Regarding Moravagine, I am sure you will find it as spectacular as I did, when I read it a few months back. [Find my slightly incoherent reaction here]

Even though I see my TBR pile rising like the Burj Khalifa, I still reread books I have read multiple times: Right now, I am going through The Spy Who Came In from the Cold and The House on the Borderland.

I am still reading Ghelderode's Sortilèges - Le Jardin Malade easily makes it in the top-10 Weird Stories I have ever read, it is a Poesque-Maupassantian hybrid, overflowing with disease, deformity and rotting vegetation.

After reading the first five stories - and realising I only enjoyed one of them - I have largely given up on ever finishing Lovecraft's Monsters. I don't know why writers like Barron or Gaiman do this to themselves. Their heart is obviously not in it. They can't do lovecraftian-type horror.

I have reread the SOADD portion of the Penguin Ligotti and will probably move on to the Grimscribe part soon.

Over Christmas, I purchased books by Cioran and Brussolo that I will not have the time to read before the end of this decade. In all honesty, it is a disease and an addiction.

[Bleak&Icy]

Quote Originally Posted by xylokopos

Quote Originally Posted by Bleak&Icy Late one night, several weeks ago, in a moment of financial abandon, I made a preposterously large purchase at the Book Depository.. I salute your glorious lunacy.

The best thing about ordering from Book Depository, apart from the free shipping, of course, is that they send the books individually, so each day when I open my mailbox there are two or three padded envelopes waiting for me: "A present for meezy-weezy!" I exclaim to myself as I carry them back up to my apartment. Speaking of presents, the mailman just delivered a belated Christmas gift from my dearest friend: a first edition of Joko's Anniversary, inscribed by the author! Can anyone make out Roland's scribbly French?





Thank you, N.

[xylokopos]

Quote Originally Posted by Bleak&Icy

Speaking of presents, the mailman just delivered a belated Christmas gift from my dearest friend: a first edition of Joko's Anniversary, inscribed by the author! Can anyone make out Roland's scribbly French?

"For Jean-Claude, who is sitting on my right side inside the taxi, with the hand on the heart's side,

Roland"