What Book Are You Currently Reading?

[Storebought]

Henry James: The Golden Bowl and, later The American Scene. I have to reacquaint myself with literary English.

[Storebought]

Fascinating. Black Argentines made up 2 in 5 of the population at independence to near zero in 1900.
Argentines take exception in even acknowledging that their country had any black citizens at all.

Could you give a précis of that book when/if you have finished it?

[Storebought]

Lectures on Quantum Mechanics, by Gordon Baym, with supplements from the Landau and Lifsh**tz series. There are *many* graduate level books written on quantum mechanics, but Baym is one is the best for self-study on the basis of its not-too-easy-not-to-difficult problem sets.

[Storebought]

I am rereading Tess of the d'Urbervilles. It was one of the few assigned texts that I did read in high school. It didn't make much sense then, and all I could recall of it before rereading it is that it somehow involved lots of cows.

Reading it this time around is trying my patience to its very core. It's so exasperating that I look forward to the milking and grass-watching scenes, if only because takes narrative focus away from paragraph-after-damned-paragraph of the inexpressible virginal goodness of Tess and her beloved milksop "Angel Clare."

"Oh, I shan't, I musn't!, I'm too fallen for his love!"

Gag.

After having read it, I'm glad I was put off by the narrator's, and Tess's, repeated assertions on how good Angel Clare is.

Now reading Balzac's Lost Illusions. Now, this is an outstanding novel. Balzac even manages to make the history of papermaking exciting.

[Storebought]

I've been diverted from literature by a bunch of technical books -- I mean you, Landau and Lifsh(i)tz Vol 8 -- but I've been reading Pride and Prejudice just to see what all the fuss is about.

EDIT: What a damn absurdity. The forum formatting actually impedes communication.

[Storebought]

Mrs Beeton's Book of Household Management

I attempted one of her chicken recipes, but discovered that I didn't have arrowroot or pounded mace at hand.

[Storebought]

An online copy of Buddenbrooks. That was the only one of Mann's novels I could read in the original. German

[Storebought]

An online copy of Buddenbrooks. That was the only one of Mann's novels I could read in the original. German

I've been meaning to read it (in English) for a while; how is it?

Young and ambitious, stately, and deeply Wagnerian.

I admit that Buddenbrooks is not the pure adventure that is the Magic Mountain (I don't care what people say, that novel is fantastic, and I regret not reading it earlier in life), since it really does live up to its subtitle as a chronicle of a rich north German family in terminal decline.

But it is more than just another 19th century family saga: The themes that Mann develops in his later novels all come to maturity in this one book -- the third and fourth "acts," when the decline is manifest, are in particular superb. Even at age 26, Mann was just better at describing physical decay and spiritual lassitude than he was vigor and optimism. I can see how Faulkner and Toni Morrison both loved this book.

[Storebought]

Continuing my series on reading the high school literature that I should have read but never did, I've just finished Mansfield Park. I honestly don't know what to think about this book -- I have words to say about it, unlike Pride and Prejudice, which was mostly just a colossal bore.

[Storebought]

Villette. I really need to start reading books with a male protagonist.

[Storebought]

I really need to start reading books with a male protagonist.

Why?

I've been reading Austen and Bronte books for weeks now and I need a change of perspective. In retrospect what I wrote was sexist but that wasn't its intention.

[Storebought]

Death Comes for the Archbishop. I always wanted to read something by Willa Cather.

[Storebought]

Die Welt von Gestern.

I've read very mixed reviews about it, saying it's mediocre compared to Ein Mann ohne Eigenschaften, but who has the lifetime to try to read that thing?