What are You Reading?

[TonyDown]

On 5/10/2022 at 8:18 AM, Lucky said:

I hated Shuggie. The author's next book, Young Mungo, was a little more acceptable. Either way, he takes the darkest parts of Glasgow to feature.

I just finished Young Mungo.

Fun fact for those that read it.

+++++++++++++++++++++++

The hairdressing student Young Mungo met outside the pawn shop was Shuggie Bain.  You can Google that. 

A24 is working a TV series Young Mungo.

The two books share similarities.  Young Mungo is well written IMO.  I enjoyed it more.

Edited April 26, 2023 by TonyDown

[JourneysEnd]

I'm re-reading The Good Fairies of New York by Martin Millar. Absolutely hilarious.

[Rod Hagen]

On 4/27/2023 at 12:19 PM, JourneysEnd said:

I'm re-reading The Good Fairies of New York by Martin Millar. Absolutely hilarious.

I just read the description, sounds batshit, and therefore interesting :-)

 

[Rod Hagen]

On 4/25/2023 at 10:00 PM, TonyDown said:

I just finished Young Mungo.

Fun fact for those that read it.

+++++++++++++++++++++++

The hairdressing student Young Mungo met outside the pawn shop was Shuggie Bain.  You can Google that. 

so glad to know that he's doing reasonably well, thank you.

Tennessee Williams once said that after she got out of the hospital, and after a few bad affairs, Blanche became a hairdresser (the implication being she found stability).  Good for her. And Shuggie!

[JourneysEnd]

29 minutes ago, Rod Hagen said:

I just read the description, sounds batshit, and therefore interesting 🙂

 

He's one of my favourite authors. And yes, it's batshit crazy and an amazing chaotic story. More England-centric but even more entertaining is Lux the Poet. So is Dreams of Sex and Stagediving (although that doesn't have the fantasy edge that works so well in Good Fairies and Lux).

Milk, Sulphate and Alby Starvation doesn't quite get there, but has some great parts. Ditto Suzy, Led Zeppelin and Me. 

I've not had time to read Kink Me Now yet.

[TonyDown]

The Kite Runner.

I listened to the audiobook.

Although an immensely popular book, I found myself getting impatient and even angry with the author. 

I just could not understand how the main character Amir allowed himself to behave in so many despicable ways. 

Afghanistan is a culture I would not want to live under.   I could not bring myself to empathize where the author probably expected the reader to.  It felt manipulative and melodramatic.

If not for the sweet and noble Hassan I would not have kept on.

[+ Lucky]

I just finished Edmund White's latest novel The Humble Lover. For starters, it's about a wealthy 80-year old New Yorker who falls madly for a beautiful ballet dancer. Perhaps many of us might identify with that, but when White proceeds to discuss how disgusting this old man's body is, well, our self image might suffer. (White himself is 83)

The book does not proceed as expected. The niece-in-law of the old man likes the dancer too. She is a pretty strong dominatrix and is used to having her way. The novel contains lots...I say lots!...of sex, with some rather unpleasant tastes for feces and urine. This may turn off some readers, just saying.

Ultimately I did finish the relatively short novel. My reaction to the ending may not be yours, so I won't spoil it for you.

[+ Charlie]

I am reading A Voyage Long and Strange, by Tony Horwitz, a Pulitzer Prize-winning American journalist known for books like Confederates in the Attic, who died four years ago. When he realized how little he really knew about the early history of European interaction with the Americas besides Columbus "discovering" America and the Pilgrims landing at Plymouth Rock, he started exploring places like the Viking settlement in Newfoundland, the places Columbus visited on his later voyages in the Caribbean, the routes taken by the Spanish explorers like Coronado and DeSoto in what became the US, etc. Along the way he discovered many interesting local people and events, like a "re-enactor" festival in Florida, where he got dressed up in authentic Spanish Conquistador gear.

As I read about his travels in places mostly ignored by tourists, I wondered if he were gay; although he was married with children, he seems to pick up companions easily in bars, and his family doesn't interfere with his long travels alone; along the way he picks up men who seem happy to travel with him, even stay with him in sleazy motels. (The Dominican Republic Bureau of Tourism would not want you to read this book.) He also uses non-academic language ("Oh, shit! We're fucked.") that one wouldn't find in a typical historian's descriptions. He smoothly integrates his serious academic knowledge about Columbus--a more complicated character than one usually learns about--with his own experience on his voyage of discovery. I am finding it very enjoyable.

[+ Lucky]

Confidence, by Rafael Frumkin is an entertaining novel about young con men who meet in a juvenile facility and go on to create a massive scam. Ezra is the brains behind it, and he is in love with Orson, who is the charming and handsome public face of it.

Naturally some people are wise to the scam, which has become hugely popular. As Orson becomes more famous, he pulls away from Ezra and starts dating...a woman! Orson's fate also changes as the popularity of the scam increases.

I liked the novel.

[Guest]

I just finished Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin. 
 

Now I’m reading Small Mercies by Dennis Lehane. 

[+ Lucky]

I enjoyed Small Mercies. Lehane is a great writer.

[samhexum]

[TonyDown]

I just finished Harvard Square, by Andre Aciman.  This is the 4th book I've read by him.  I like his writing style and his characters.

[Ali Gator]

I'm in the middle of 'The Heart's Invisible Furies' , a 2017 novel by John Boyne. A friend of mine recommended this to me (she read it over the winter for a book club).  It's one of those books I'm reading slowly, as I don't want it to end. 

I encourage everyone to read this book about a boy named Cyril, and his 'coming out' in Ireland. Beautifully written, heartwarming, touching, tearful and mostly funny. You won't be disappointed. 

[Ali Gator]

On 5/28/2023 at 6:47 PM, Lucky said:

I just finished Edmund White's latest novel The Humble Lover. For starters, it's about a wealthy 80-year old New Yorker who falls madly for a beautiful ballet dancer. Perhaps many of us might identify with that, but when White proceeds to discuss how disgusting this old man's body is, well, our self image might suffer. (White himself is 83)

The book does not proceed as expected. The niece-in-law of the old man likes the dancer too. She is a pretty strong dominatrix and is used to having her way. The novel contains lots...I say lots!...of sex, with some rather unpleasant tastes for feces and urine. This may turn off some readers, just saying.

Ultimately I did finish the relatively short novel. My reaction to the ending may not be yours, so I won't spoil it for you.

Someone recommended this to me about a month ago. I borrowed it from my library (where I work) and couldn't get into it - there was not one character I liked that I wanted to root for. I ended up returning it after reading about 20 pages - I just didn't care about any of the characters. 

[+ poolboy48220]

I just finished "Ghostbuster's Daughter", Violet Ramis's biography about growing up with Harold Ramis as her father.  Very easy read and I enjoyed it very much. 

[Simon Suraci]

Just By Looking at Him, by Ryan O’Connell (audio format read by the author). Many of you may know Ryan from the Netflix show Special. I listened to it on the road during my driving days on tour this month. If you enjoyed Special, you will love this. It’s honest, touching, and very funny. 

The main character is a TV writer who lives with cerebral palsy. He hires a sex worker he heard about from his boss and goes on to hire many more, without telling his loving, monogamous boyfriend. He struggles with why and how to cope with his shame and sense of addiction. He keeps on hiring the first sex worker over and over - until his boyfriend mentions that he wants to hire the same guy for a special threesome experience. The novel continues to spiral from there as the main character works through his feelings and everything comes to a head.

Worth a read. Well done.

[+ Charlie]

I was looking for something to take with me to read on a trip, and on our bookshelves I found a copy of The Paris Diary of Ned Rorem, the American composer who lived and worked in Europe in the early 1950s, and whose art songs are still performed in classical concerts. It was published in 1966 by George Braziller, a respectable publisher, and my spouse had obviously bought it at that time under the influence of his then-partner, a musician who had studied in Europe, despite the fact that Rorem frequently lapses into French, which my spouse doesn't understand. It is a book that I have often seen mentioned in memoirs over the years, so I decided to give it a try.

What surprised me most about the book was how frank Rorem was about his gay sexual experiences and love affairs not only among the haute monde of musical society, but also his casual sex experiences with the lowlifes he picked up on the streets and in Arab bathhouses. He also makes veiled references to what sounds like a proclivity for rough S&M. At the time he was in his late 20s and early 30s, and from the many photos it is clear that he was a very beautiful young man, which was part of the reason he had easy access to such a rarefied world of famous artists, intellectuals, and wealthy French aristocrats of both sexes. The sexual material seemed to be seamlessly integrated into his commentary about music, politics, and his social life in the 1950s.

I'm sure that in person I would have found him intellectually stimulating but obnoxious in those years, and he wouldn't have found me worthy of mention in his diary. Since he often comments on his fears about death, particularly about dying young, I decided to google him, and was amazed to learn that he died only last year at the age of 99!

[+ Lucky]

Well, I don't claim the intellectual heft of someone like @Charlie but I do HIGHLY recommend the novel that I just finished- Killing Moon by Jo Nesbo. He's a famous Norwegian author and this novel is quite long, which is good because it is so good that you don't want it to end. It involves odd killings and washed-out Inspector Harry Hole, recently retired to Los Angeles is given a compelling reason to return to Oslo to help prove the innocence of the main suspect. Cleverness abounds.

There are gay characters, including an Asian cop who neglects his partner for work, and bad gays who rape young men. Author Nesbo takes us to a gay club that you probably wouldn't want your relatives reading about...are we all really so horny?

Anyway, it is not a gay novel as such, but if you enjoy murder mysteries as much as I do, then this is one you won't want to miss.

 

[RealAvalon]

Best Minds, very smart writing. 

[RealAvalon]

On 5/28/2023 at 3:47 PM, Lucky said:

I just finished Edmund White's latest novel The Humble Lover. For starters, it's about a wealthy 80-year old New Yorker who falls madly for a beautiful ballet dancer. Perhaps many of us might identify with that, but when White proceeds to discuss how disgusting this old man's body is, well, our self image might suffer. (White himself is 83)

The book does not proceed as expected. The niece-in-law of the old man likes the dancer too. She is a pretty strong dominatrix and is used to having her way. The novel contains lots...I say lots!...of sex, with some rather unpleasant tastes for feces and urine. This may turn off some readers, just saying.

Ultimately I did finish the relatively short novel. My reaction to the ending may not be yours, so I won't spoil it for you.

Edmund White writing about himself, how new is that ... (I've read a lot of his stuff, and he can definitely turn a phrase.) 

[+ Lucky]

I just finished reading Farrell Covington and the Limits of Style by Paul Rudnick. It is a very likable gay romance novel about a very handsome rich kid and an aspiring young playwright. Lots of history, lots of sex. Pretty good book. Not that it didn't irritate me a time or two.

[Ali Gator]

Finally finished reading "Hearts Invisible Furies" after pacing myself so it wouldn't end (what a beautiful book) and just started "Ghosted" by Rosie Walsh. Only read the first few chapters, but it's holding my interest so far. 

 

[TonyDown]

Been on my "want to read" list for a long time.

A well regarded, award winning book.

Ultimately I am in the minority.  Did not appreciate the story as much as many others did.

 

[Simon Suraci]

13 hours ago, TonyDown said:

Ultimately I am in the minority.  Did not appreciate the story as much as many others did.

Thanks for your comment. I’ve had it in my list for many years thinking I might like it as much as I did The Persian Boy, by Mary Renault, due to the ancient historical context and subject matters. I might still read it one day, just placing it further down my already long list.