patrick leader wrote:
> .....'what's bred in the bone', one of the best
> novels i've ever read about painting.
and "Gerald Notaro (LIB)" wrote:
So glad to see one of my favorite authors talked about. My favorite of his
is What is Bred in the Bone.
Well, I can't wait now to give Robertson Davies a try. The colorful covers of
his paperbacks have caught my eye many times, but always when I already had a
pile of books in my hand to pay for, so I never got one. But now that I've
heard all about him by several people I'm very curious..... what a great list,
this Joni list. My thanks to everyone for giving all this great book advice. (I
do hope I'm remembering his books correctly; it may be another author, but even
if the covers of Davies' books are the dullest ever designed, I'll try his
writing anyway.)
For years, when I was younger and much more serious, I read only the
"classics", usually by culture (love French literature, Les Miserables
especially, and all of Balzac and Stendahl, and Latin American literature too,
but forced myself through the Russian books; each character having 5 nicknames
that sound nothing like the original name got on my nerves; at the end of War
and Peace I still had to refer to the list of characters and all their
nicknames at the front of the book, sad, I know, but by then I'd gotten the
"war is bad" message a million times, and I apparently was never very engaged
by the characters, whatever their name is, whoever they were).
In the past few years I've read all the books I could find and now wait for the
new ones by PD James, Martha Grimes, Elizabeth George (reading her newest one
now), and Ruth Rendell (although I like her Barbara Vine ones best), all
writing English murder mystery novels with very complex characters and an
emphasis on the psychology behind people's actions, and along with that a
description of English life that I find fascinating (hanging out in pubs,
keeping emotions in, and that class structure thing, and lots of talk too about
moors; I don't even know what a moor is really). I love Agatha Christie too and
read most of them long ago in high school; she's such a clever writer, cool and
surprisingly bloodless considering there's always a dead body at the center of
it all.
Those are my "comforting" books, and then there are others that I have on the
table and read sporadically, and may actually finish before new ones get added
to the pile:
--Rumi, "Whispers of the Beloved" (have read this collection of little love
poems many times; what a wonderful poet)
--Suzi Gablik, "Conversations about the End of Time: Dialogues on Art, Life and
Spiritual Renewal"
--Gary Zukav, "The Seat of the Soul"
--Daniel Boorstin, "The Seekers"
--Julian Bell, "What is Painting?"
--Brian Green, "The Elegant Universe"
And for enjoyment and inspiration, some art books are in the pile too.
Currently the most thumbed ones are of frescoes by Fra Angelico and paintings
and drawings by Gustav Klimt. There's something about the elegance and
stillness of the figures and all that gold leaf used by both artists that
appeals to me these days, although boldly colorful Matisse is never far away.
And Stephen King.... oh, no, he's too scary for me.
Debra Shea
NP: local TV news, but still all about hanging chads ("well, they're hangin'
off the back so OF COURSE some of them are gonna fall off")
> barbara wrote:
>
> >i went from "widow" to that book. then read "cider
> house rules", which made me want to read "david copperfield". i can
> really see how influenced by dickens irving is.
>
> irving is also, i think, very influenced by davies, and in fact he paid
> homage to him in 'owen meany' when the narrator taught davies to canadian
> high-schoolers. by the way, i haven't read irving's new 'widow', but i
> place 'owen meany' very high in my list of books. not quite as high as
> 'hotel new hampshire'. unlike barbara and a lot of other listers, i reread
> a lot a lot a lot. i often finish books and go back and reread chapters
> that were particularly gorgeous. but 'hotel new hampshire' is the only book
> i've ever finished, turned back to page 1, and read again. just a fantastic
> book.
>
> patrick, book freak
>
> np - rickie lee jones in montreaux, 1982. fantastic!!
