So, What Are You Reading These Days? (besides comics)

[Alan M.]

Just bringing this discussion over to ning...

What books are you reading right now that don't have a narrative driven by images as well as words?

[Luke Blanchard]

I've just finished Tales From Two Pockets, by Karel Čapek, which contains his collections Tales From One Pocket and Tales From Another Pocket. These are sometimes described as detective stories, but they're more exactly stories about people's habits, quirks and obsessions, often involving crimes. I found "The Case Involving the Baby" the funniest.

The edition was translated by Norma Comrada, and published by Catbird Press.

[Luke Blanchard]

I've finished The Man From U.N.C.L.E. No.12: The Monster Wheel Affair by David McDaniel, and Taras Bulba, by Nikolai Gogol.

The U.N.C.L.E. book is an enjoyable short light thriller. Taras Bulba is a short historical novel about the fifteenth century Cossacks. They are vividly depicted as passionate, warlike, and lacking self-control. Jews are depicted antisemitically. This translation, by C.J. Hogarth, translates the revised 1842 edition.

[doc photo]

Luke, funny you should mention the U.N.C.L.E. books - as a kid I read the first dozen or so in the series and have recently been tempted to pick up copies on Ebay. I shied away from bidding because I didn't want to be disappointed by the content. What thrilled me at age twelve was not likely to hold up to my much older sensibilities. Your comments indicate otherwise. David McDaniel was a regular contributor to the series and I believe The Monster Wheel Affair and The Vampire Affair were two of his best.

Luke Blanchard said:

I've finished The Man From U.N.C.L.E. No.12: The Monster Wheel Affair by David McDaniel, and Taras Bulba, by Nikolai Gogol.

The U.N.C.L.E. book is an enjoyable short light thriller. Taras Bulba is a short historical novel about the fifteenth century Cossacks. They are vividly depicted as passionate, warlike, and lacking self-control. Jews are depicted antisemitically. This translation, by C.J. Hogarth, translates the revised 1842 edition.

[Luke Blanchard]

It's a very short novel, the opening is dramatic, and the story moves briskly. The adventure is played straight, and there's an element of humour. THRUSH needs better security.

[Luke Blanchard]

I've just finished Cavalleria Rusticana and Other Stories, by Giovanni Verga. This is a selection of Verga's stories , translated by G.H. McWilliam.

Most of the stories are concerned with rural life in Sicily (where Verga was born). A few are set elsewhere in Italy. The stories are vivid, unsentimental, and emphasise the harshness and tragedy of life. A number are concerned with sexual passion.

The title story was turned by Verga into a play, and then by others into the libretto of Mascagni's opera.

[The Baron]

Currently a little over two-thirds of the way through The Malleus Maleficarum of Heinrich Kramer and James Sprenger, translated by The Reverend Montague Summers, a 15th Century Catholic witch-hunter's manual. It's interesting stuff, but it's a very dense text. There's also an introduction by the translator, in which he seems to be saying that the medieval witches were the spiritual ancestors of the Bolsheviks.

[Luke Blanchard]

Malleus Maleficarum is commonly held to have contributed significantly to the witch craze. Summers is worth looking up at Wikipedia.

[The Baron]

Yeah, Summers comes across as a bit of an odd bird.

[Luke Blanchard]

I've just finished The Mind of Mr. J.G. Reeder, by Edgar Wallace.

[doc photo]

John Carter of Mars a hardback collecting the first three Mars novels, illustrated throughout by Tom Yeates. I'm really looking forward to finally reading ERBs original Mars trilogy.

[The Baron]

Burial in the Clouds, by Hiroyuki Agawa, a novel about a naval aviator in the Pacific War, who is transferred to a "Special Attack" (i.e., "Kamikaze") group. Agawa himself was a naval aviator during the war.

[Luke Blanchard]

I've read four longer J.G. Reeder stories by Wallace, “The Treasure House”, “The Shadow Man”, “The Man Who Passed” and “The Guv’nor”.