What are you reading these days?

[martinus]

I guess there is at least one book everyone of us has read: Chapter & Verse. But what else do you read? Share it with us - and tell us why you like that book (not).

[martinus]

Uh, I'd better go first... it's bad manners to ask and not do it yourself

So I have just finished reading The Good German by Joseph Kanon. I have actually also just finished watching the movie made from this book.

First of all, forget the movie. It may or may not be good in its own right, but it certainly does not do any justice to the book. Now that that is sorted out...

It is July 1945 when American journalist Jake Geismar returns to Berlin to cover the Potsdam conference in which Stalin, Churchill and Truman were to decide on, well, what the post-war world would look like. Berlin is a desert, most buildings are reduced to rubble and people try to live in the ruins. Geismar has a personal agenda, too: He wants to find the (married) German woman he had an affair with before he had to leave Berlin two years before. In a city where nothing really works that is not an easy thing. And suddenly he has a story to write about: An American soldier turns up near the location of the Potsdam conference.... dead, with lots of money in his pockets. As he tries to find out why that man was killed, he, like the Berlin people, has to confront the question of what is good or evil in war times - and the difference between guiltiness and feeling guilty...

Kanon takes his time to set the scene. Berlin with its ruins, its struggle for survival and the first signs of the Cold War is not merely a backdrop, it is a pervading feeling that tints the whole novel. The plot is quite intricate, but it works very well. Characters are introduced so carefully that they do not only bring their own history with them but also their own well-argued points of view. It is a good read, the more so because Kanon avoids cliché situations and characters. (Oh, and the book has some passages that, as Kurt Tucholsky put it, "can be read with one hand holding the book". So all you American minors, go play with your shotgun and do not read this dangerous stuff, okay?)

[jebho62]

I know a LOT of good Germans Marty....sounds like an intersesting read.

I am reading:
Clapton: The Autobiography

Listening to audible of:
The God Delusion: Richard Dawkins (don't believe most of it but am willing and strong enough to listen to it)

[Danlaw83]

Food menus of course

[Visionsofangels]

My Bank Statement...it doesn't make for pleasent reading & i think i already know how it's going to end....*sigh*




Book wise, I'm actually reading Rachel's Holiday by Marion Keyes, she's one of my fave authors, she's so witty and her jokey style of wisecracks & one liners are second to none and even though her stories can sometimes be sad & poignant, she can still get her message across without being maudlin.

Here's a snippet of what i'm reading, if your intrested.....

Here's Rachel Walsh, twenty-seven and the miserable owner of size 8 feet. She has regular congress with Luke Costello, a man who wears his leather trousers tight. And she's fond - some might say too fond - of recreational drugs.

Read an extract from: Rachel's Holiday
» Click here to read an extract from Rachel's Holiday



Until everything goes pearshaped and she finds herself being frogmarched to the Cloisters - Dublin's answer to the Betty Ford Clinic. She's outraged. Surely she's not thin enough to be an addict? But on the bright side, she's heard that rehab places are wall-to-wall jucuzzis, gymnasiums and rock stars going tepid turkey. Besides, it's about time she had a little holiday.
Rachel isn't expecting plump, middle-aged men in brown jumpers, and more group therapy than you can shake a stick at. That - alarmingly - she seems to be expected to join in with. Who cares for introspection when all there is to look at is damaged and broken?
Heartsick and Luke-sick, she seeks redemption in the shape of Chris, a Man with a Past. A man who might be more trouble than he's worth.
Rachel is airlifted from addiction to the unfamiliar terrain of adulthood, via a love story or two, in a novel by turns poignant, powerful and seriously funny.

[martinus]

Visions, that sounds like a fun read. I'll give it a try once I finish the book in hand.

Oh, and I guess we have the same bank statement printers... Does yours always say "bring more money", too?

[Man_u_fan#1]

Originally Posted by jebho62

Listening to audible of:
The God Delusion: Richard Dawkins (don't believe most of it but am willing and strong enough to listen to it)

Hey Jebhodhia.....I am reading The God Delusion....pretty deep shit for a simpleton like you to be listening to though...must make the day pass by faster though.....they call Dawkins "Darwins Rottweiler".

What a co-incidence!!!!