One for those stuck in the UK…
I’ve just finished reading Pour Rétablir Une Verité a collection of memoir and commentary by Georges Pompidou. Particularly interesting is his account of de Gaulle’s actions during Mai 68. Published posthumously at the request of his widow. I’m now going to read something read before as the Amazon has reportedly slowed to a trickle.
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I’ve just finished reading Pierre LeMaitre’s novel ‘Au revoir là-haut’ in the English translation by Frank Wynne (The Great Swindle). LeMaitre won the Prix Goncourt in 2013 with this superb work.
Almost impossible to describe, except that it is about the astounding adventures of two poilus thrown together by an act of murderous treachery by an aristocratic officer in the closing days of the Great War, it is irresistibly bleak but full of black humour, an astonishing drama in the war’s messy aftermath, with magnificent characterisation and utterly French. A “must read” IMO.
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“South” by some fellow called Shackleton, if memory serves
Hi Anne-Marie, I absolutely adored All The Light We Cannot See especially as it’s set in France, such a beautifully written evocative book. Have you read anything else by Anthony Doerr?
Izzy x
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The Great Swindle. I agree - amazing book. Highly recommended.
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A truly great Polar explorer and leader of men.
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Agreed. A great man.
My reading’s always simultaneously split between the theoretical and the practical.
My current pile - in the following descending order - consists of Chiang Yee (1937) The Chinese Eye: an interpretation of Chinese painting (possibly the first attempt to explain Chinese painting to the British); Turan T. Turan (2017) Smoking; Curing and Drying: the complete guide for meat and fish (self-explanatory and very thorough); Norman Davies, (1993) Europe: a history (Vast, encyclopaedic, intellectiual tour de force of millennia of pan- European history - began reading it at the end of January; and at the bottom, though currently much consulted, Judy Rodgers (2003) The Zuni Cafe Cookbook: a compendium of recipes from San Franciso’s beloved restaurant. traditional French and Italian food reworked through a modern Californian resto.
Make of that what you will…
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If I properly understand simultaneously, it occurs to me - given your ability to read two books at the same time - that you may be a swivel-eyed chameleon, and not human at all. But you must the first Old World lizard to come out of the closet and announce its literary proclivities to an admiring if astonished world.
Do you change colour to match the colours of the books you read? Do you, perhaps, have a bookcase that might serve as a background for a picture of your reptilian self?
Your choice of books suggests a mighty intellect, and one is wondering what use you put it to besides catching flies and things, but you may find turning pages a very time-consuming a d energy-sapping activity.
Do let us know! And take your time.
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Not a chameleon. I simply use bifocals, rest one book on my knee and place the other at the far side of the room…
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Does that mean I’m a chameleon too? Cool, it’s like a trip on acid (not that I know much about such things) but I never knew people could be mono-book, one book at a time people, poor mono-book people!
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It’s great that this thread is still going strong, and full of interesting book choices! Lots that I still haven’t read.
My ambition is to run a bookshop, yes really, French and English books, and I will just read and write all day in between customers. Heaven.
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Machines Like Me, Ian McEwan.
As an old computer programmer I have serious reservations, but I have only just started this book and I suspect it isn’t really about technology. . . . .
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You could always get in touch with your inner hippie and read Tom Wolfe’s Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test 
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You can pretty much rely on McEwan for a decent read - and one of his earlier books, Solar, had a technology theme but as you say was not really about technology.
I don’t like Stephen King.
I am going back into my Kindle and finding books I haven’t yet read.
I am now reading ‘A Tangled Mercy’ by Joy Jordan-Lake which is set in Charleston both in 1822, when the slave uprising took place and now and with characters which connect the two times. It is a fascinating, if disturbing, read.
You’ve tempted me, I will look it up.
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We’ve had lots of interesting posts on books, but I don’t recall anything on writers and writing. However, this afternoon I read the interview below that’s just been re-published by The Paris Review. It’s a lovely read in which one of the C20th’s great writers talks very directly and eloquently about the difficulties and the art of writing:-
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I’ve had to go back to reading Howard Jacobsen’s first novel “Coming from behind”. It’s remarkably good although my ancient copy is like me suffering from a loosening binding.