Here it is... the book thread!

[Ulrich]

I've been reading "His & Hers" by Alice Feeney. I tried to avoid spoilers, when looking for reviews. It all will depend on the ending and who will be revealed to be the killer (will it make sense? will it be "credible"), but so far it's been a good read.

http://crimebythebook.com/blog/2020/7/26/review-his-and-hers-feeney

There are two sides to every story: yours and mine, ours and theirs, His & Hers. Which means someone is always lying.

Narrated alternately by two protagonists whose dubious connections to a murder victim make them instantly-unreliable guides through our story, HIS & HERS gives readers a passenger's seat on a twisty journey to find the truth about a local woman's death.

[MeltingMan]

It looks like Amazon has lifted the restriction on certain zip codes, which I'm very happy about. I have now finished L'Éternelle jeune fille and also the seven-part series by Peladan. At the moment I'm reading ZeitGeschichte - 1700 years of Jewish life in Germany. 🕍

[Ulrich]

Worst book of the year for me was the one by Joel Dicker (as previously mentioned in this topic). Not well-written and the persons in it didn't "come alive", they were often making "strange" decisions within the story which didn't fit their character (as it had been described before).

ALice Feeney (mentioned above) was okay, but the "solution" at the end wasn't too credible.

One I liked recently was Simon Beckett's "Stone bruises". 

Stone Bruises is a stand alone thriller that starts with the main character Sean, abandoning his bloodstained car and taking to the woods. Set in France mid summer, Sean soon is in trouble when his foot is caught in a trap. Rescued by the farms owners and hidden away in an attic it is soon apparent that the family that have taken him in, are anything but normal. Written in two time sequences we follow Sean as he recovers from his injury, and also in the events that have lead up to him being in his car in the first place (starting in London).

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18189475-stone-bruises

[MeltingMan]

I'm reading Les dévotes d'Avignon right now - my first novel in years. It's actually two novels in one book, which was published in 1984. The first edition was in the 1920s, after Peladan had passed away. Of course I got it second-hand. The chapters are significantly longer and the font smaller compared to the print-on-demand brochures; additional challenges for me in addition to the French Language. Nevertheless, it is a very nice copy with the cover picture by Fernand Khnopff. I also bought a number of new textbooks.

[Ulrich]

Just ordered this book, should be interesting (an autobiography by musician/songwriter/producer Alan Lee Shaw, who used to be in bands like Maniacs, Physicals, Brian James Gang and even in The Damned from 1993 to 1995):

https://www.lulu.com/en/gb/shop/alan-shaw/damned-if-you-do/paperback/product-k42p5d.html

[Ulrich]

I just bought one by Val McDermid, apparently start of a new series of books called "1979", so I thought I'll give it a try (cheap English edition), I haven't started reading yet, but the playlist at the end of the book (she played this music to get her in the mood of the year '79) looks nice! (I know most of those songs of course.)

Next installment is gonna be called "1989" (announced for this summer), I'm gonna have a look and if she won't list "Disintegration" in that playlist, I won't buy it, ha ha! 

[Ulrich]

I'm halfway through with Paula Hawkins' "Into the water".

I can't help but agree with comments like "way too many characters"! Nothing wrong with different perspective (as in the abovementioned "His & hers"), but here it changes too often... not a bad read anyway.

This is not an easy book to get into. Lots of diverse characters and you are left trying to suss out who's who and what is happening and why so many people don't seem to like Nel and are glad she's dead. But the book does grab you. You only see glimpses, back and forth, but they are fascinating, shimmering glimpses, like trying to determine what's underneath the water.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/33151805-into-the-water

[Ulrich]

I've been reading "Good as gone" by Amy Gentry, yet another book with (at least 2) different perspectives (is that a new trend or just coincidence?)...

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/29975458-good-as-gone

Thirteen-year-old Julie Whitaker was kidnapped from her bedroom in the middle of the night, witnessed only by her younger sister. Her family was shattered, but managed to stick together, hoping against hope that Julie is still alive. And then one night: the doorbell rings. A young woman who appears to be Julie is finally, miraculously, home safe. The family is ecstatic—but Anna, Julie's mother, has whispers of doubts.  ...

[MeltingMan]

I'm currently jumping between several titles, including Among the Ranks of the Carrion Men (K.C. Seldon). I have finished reading Les dévotes vaincues. Right in the first chapter I stumbled across what I initially thought was a fictitious book title, until I found out that it actually exists... Mandragore by Hanns Heinz Ewers! After a package was lost, I initially held back on orders overseas. I still get new or used books all the time.

Mandragore (original title: Alraune. Die Geschichte eines lebenden Wesens) is a novel by Hanns Heinz Ewers published in 1911. It is the most famous but also the most controversial novel by its author. It involves the character of Frank Braun, a sort of Doppelgänger of Ewers, who is present in his two other novels, The Sorcerer's Apprentice and Vampir.

[Ulrich]

I found a cheapo edition of an Ian Rankin thriller (little book with large print, ideal for an old friend whose eyesight is not so good - I'll read it before I pass it on to him).

https://www.buecherserien.de/de/ian-rankin-ein-kaltes-herz/

[Lollo]

Ive been reading "Johnny got his gun" by Dalton Trumbo .

It was a bit strange but not in a bad way. The singer of Metallica wrote the song "one" after reading this book.
There is also a movie which was used in part in the musicvideo.

[MeltingMan]

Although I'm still busy with Les amants de Pise, I've been quite distracted with the Lilith theme over the weekend. Because I have this placement in Scorpio. Fortunately, I found information about this in my books, which I can recommend without hesitation. They are La déesse cachée by Agnès Spiquel and the Dictionnaire littéraire de la nuit by a team of authors led by Alain Montandon.

[MeltingMan]

I am currently reading Réponse à Tolstoï from 1898. Peladan refers, among other essays, to an article by Tolstoï in the Journal des débats of October 30, 1896. Here is the last paragraph. Fortunately, all sources are digitized and accessible online, but must be understood in the historical context. Van der Veer had objected to being drafted into the National Guard.

Van der Veer's refusal to obey will necessarily be followed by similar and increasingly frequent refusals. As soon as the number of these refusals is considerable, the men who, only yesterday, claimed that life without war is impossible, these same men, and they are legion, will say that for a long time already they have been proclaiming the folly and the immorality of war, and advising everyone to behave as van der Veer behaved. And then of the war and the army in the form in which they now exist, there will remain only the memory. And those times are near.

[Ulrich]

Bought the newly released "Faith, Hope and Carnage" by Nick Cave & Seán O'Hagan. It is not a biography, more a collection of conversations, which they were starting to have on the phone during lockdowns and quarantines.
They focus on the subjects you'd expect: songwriting (now and then), collaborations (now and then), religion, tragedy, loss, love, work, concerts etc. etc.! The making of the albums "Ghosteen" and "Carnage" is being talked about in depth of course. 

A short quote:

It's intrinsically human to doubt though, don't you think?

Yes, I do. And the rigid and self-righteous certainty of some religious people - and some atheists, for that matter - is something I find disagreeable. The hubris of it. The sanctimoniousness. It leaves me cold. The more overtly unshakeable someone's beliefs are, the more diminished they seem to become, because they have stopped questioning, and the not-questioning can sometimes be accompanied by an attitude of moral superiority. The belligerent dogmatism of the current cultural moment is a case in point. A bit of humility wouldn't go astray.

Got to admit this rings a bell with me... people who are way too certain about their beliefs are off-putting at times. 

Faith, Hope and Carnage is an extended conversation between Nick Cave and Observer journalist, Seán O'Hagan, who have known one another for thirty years. Created from over fourty hours of intimate recordings, the book examines questions of faith, art, music, freedom, grief and love. It draws candidly on Cave's life, from his early childhood to the present day, his loves, his work ethic and his dramatic transformation in recent years.

https://store.nickcave.com/products/faith-hope-and-carnage

...essentially the transcripts of several long conversations between Cave and O'Hagan that began in summer 2020. Its 15 chapters cover a lot of ground – from Staffordshire pottery to the existence or otherwise of God.

It's occasionally deeply harrowing reading: even O'Hagan seems stunned by Cave's precise, agonising description of the day his son died. But it's ultimately enriching, a story suffused with love, teeming with ideas, a document of an artist's journey from holding the world "in some form of disdain" to a state of empathy and grace. "Despite how debased or corrupt we are told humanity is, and how degraded the world has become," Cave says at one point, "it just keeps on being beautiful. It can't help it."

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2022/sep/28/faith-hope-and-carnage-by-nick-cave-and-sean-ohagan-review-towards-grace

[MeltingMan]

In the meantime I have read three paperbacks by Claude Langlois and Claude Louis-Combet, all from the Golgotha series. It wasn't easy for me because every author has his own style. Since I need the space they take up, I didn't want to donate them unread. Otherwise, I don't part with books that easily. Some really follow me. Because of the current inflation, another collection cannot grow as planned, but that's actually a good thing, because, as Schopenhauer rightly pointed out, you can't buy time to read. 🤓