Thread: What books are you reading right now?

Glenn Plaskin's 1983 biography of Vladimir Horowitz, first in the field. 440 pp., many photos, 150 pp. of appendices, notes, bibliography, discography, and index. Thoroughly researched including hundreds of interviews with those who knew him. Yesterday on Plaskin's website I found a complete listing of all Horowitz's known concerts with program details from 1920-1987, including all the ones I missed in Oakland, San Francisco,...

I'm working on various things at the moment, but one thing I just began is Mortimer J. Adler's How To Read A Book. Actually, it's a fascinating guide that makes up for the formal education that you never receive on how to become a serious, professional reader. I am finding it quite useful, and a pretty quick read. I particularly thought of you Aggie, because you and I share issues of "drifting" a lot when...

What a coincidence John, I just started Founding Brothers yesterday. I'm not very far yet, and I've never read anything by Ellis before, but so far I'm very impressed by his writing. More style than almost any historian can muster.

Eutychus If there is anything we can do - bribery, blackmail, extortion, threats - to encourage you to post here more often, I will gladly take up a collection.

Gotta keep an eye on you guys, or soon one--or both--will claim you've written an excellent poem about a medieval Sino-emperor, but were stopped in mid-reverie by the sound of a fax machine. We and an infinite number of simians at same number of PCs will spend our days trying to recoup the ethereal middle and end. Always been suspicious of Coleridge's claim, just like Poe's yarn of how he came to write "The Philosophy...

Re-reading "The Last Prima Donnas" by Lanfranco Rasponi. Interesting especially reading about sopranos who I have first heard sing since the last reading. The opinions and memories of these divas are not always consistent or according to common opinion which makes this book very interesting.

I won't hit you, you are completely right, of course. I'll hit myself instead for reading all of them before realizing that one would have sufficed. Ouch!

Henry, I may check out the Lopate book (or at least some good, long reviews) -- that subject definitely is intriguing. Funny to think, had Susan S. and I been contemporaries and at the same school, how unlikely we almost certainly would have been ever to cross paths.

Zadok, thank you so much for the informative post and the time you put into it. It's a pity the second half of the book went down the slope (is this expression correct?). Hopefully you won't give up on Saramago - I'd still recommend for you to read "Baltazar and Blimunda" (the reviews on Amazon will give you an idea what it's all about), it's kind of a "baroque" novel. The original...

Piso-- Thanks for the Mann-Hesse information. The thing that is striking me about Hesse's work is how different each major book is from the last one. Siddhartha, Narziss, Steppenwolf, and Morgenlandfahrt, for example. Sure, there are common themes, but how unique each is!