176 replies to this topic

[fsharpminor]

Finished the Tremain. Not as enjoyable as her Gustav Sonata.  Started reading 'Lost' by Min Kym, true story of a young violinist prodigy having her Stradivarius stolen from under the table at a fast food outlet

[Misterioso]

Started reading 'Lost' by Min Kym, true story of a young violinist prodigy having her Stradivarius stolen from under the table at a fast food outlet

 

This sounded interesting, so I looked it up online. Did you mean "Gone" rather than "Lost"? At any rate, it's winging its way to my Kindle just now.

[fsharpminor]

 

Started reading 'Lost' by Min Kym, true story of a young violinist prodigy having her Stradivarius stolen from under the table at a fast food outlet

 

This sounded interesting, so I looked it up online. Did you mean "Gone" rather than "Lost"? At any rate, it's winging its way to my Kindle just now.

 

Yes , apologies for error ! Its Gone !

[Aeolienne]

Prairie Fires: The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder by Caroline Fraser

[fsharpminor]

Benjamin Britten, by Paul Kildea. Quite a detailed story of his life. My wife is from East Suffolk so I know the area well. When finished I have waiting  a book about Chopin by the same author

[ejw21]

Prairie Fires: The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder by Caroline Fraser

I read this a few years ago -  a surprise Christmas present because I didn't even know it was out! I found a lot of the economic/social history background to the family story as interesting as the main characters.

[Tortellini]

Dracula - I'm sure I read it years ago but couldn't really remember it. Enjoying it immensely so far.

[Gordon Shumway]

Of the two books, I preferred Dracula to Frankenstein.

Dracula seemed a bit slow in places, but Frankenstein I found pretentious, although its greater age lets it off the hook a little bit.

[musicalmalc]

I actually borrowed some library books for the first time in years (excluding music scores of course)

 

A couple of Jeeves & Wooster including the first in the series

Mussolini, My Part In His Downfall (Spike Milligan)

and as I couldn't find either of David Niven's memoirs (the Moon's A Balloon & Bring on the Empty Horses) I got John Bishop's autobiography.

 

All very light reading but have to start somewhere - some of the slightly heavier classics I was going to borrow were all out.

 

Progress not as fast as I expected - still have a backlog of music tasks to do!

[Aeolienne]

 

 

Husband read that recently and kept saying "just listen to this!" before reading out lengthy passages to me.
It's message seemed to be that whatever the climate crisis of the moment, it's not the first time it has happened.

 

 

 

Prairie Fires: The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder by Caroline Fraser

I read this a few years ago -  a surprise Christmas present because I didn't even know it was out! I found a lot of the economic/social history background to the family story as interesting as the main characters.

 

The subject matters of the two books are not as far removed as you might think. To quote from Prairie Fires:

 

In 1877, Major John Wesley Powell, a war hero who had lost his right arm at the battle of Shiloh, gave a speech on "The Public Domain" to the National Academy of Sciences, arguing that the Great Plains should not be parcelled out to homesteaders. Powell, who had conducted major expeditions into the Rocky Mountains and the Grand Canyon and would soon become chief of the U.S. Geological Survey, illustrated his talk with maps, pointing out the country's "humid", "sub-humid" and "arid" lands. It was as if someone had taken a piece of chalk and drawn a line down the middle of the country, at the 100th meridian. Across the eastern half lay a dark shadow, the "humid area". A similarly dark band tinged the coast of the Pacific northwest. But virtually everything in between was arid, bleached white on the map. The Great Plains, running from the eastern Dakotas down through Nebraska and Kansas into Texas, formed a transitional "sub-humid" area, but even there the average rainfall was far less than in the "humid" zone.

...

In a campaign comparable to modern-day corporate denial of climate change, big business and the legislators in its pocket brushed Powell's analysis aside. Railroads were not about to capitulate to the geologist's limited vision, and his plans as director of the U.S. Geological Survey to limit western settlement would be undermined by intense political attacks. James B. Power, land agent for the Northern Pacific [Railway] - who had earlier admitted that Dakota was a "barren desert" - dismissed Powell as an elite intellectual, lacking the experience of "practical men". "No reliance can be placed on any of his statements as to the agricultural value of any country," Power said.

[Gordon Shumway]

I just pre-ordered this, in case anyone is interested.

https://www.amazon.c...0?ie=UTF8&psc=1

And those of you keen on Loeb Latin may like to know that a completely new edition of Petronius (by Gareth Schmeling) is near completion.

[thara96]

I do not know what I wish to read next. Anyone read anything interesting lately or not?