What BOOK are you reading right now?

Thanks, osso. Will do.

I guess you're not a fan of Raymond Chandler.

You're welcome, Tak. The start of the book can get fairly hard to deal with since the author doesn't mince words, and those were real happenings, but it ended up being one of my favorite books ever. Not that you need to like it since I did, we're all different, just that it was a strong one for me.

Thanking Tsar again for introducing me to Alan Furst's books. Roberta mentioned him too.

I'm on my fourth now, and not reading them in any particular order re publishing dates.
I've liked all three - Foreign Correspondent, Spies of the Balkans, and Mission to Paris.
Am just starting dark star. It has me completely confused at this point, but I'm only on page 11. He doesn't go into long descriptive explanations of what is going on, just shows it as happening, what the protagonist is feeling. I'm sure I'll start getting it after a few more pages. Right now 'we' are in Belgium, when the book's map shows Denmark to Russia..
Plus, when I read at bedtime, I can tend to fall asleep, which doesn't help my perception of a story.

A powerful book. I haven't seen the movie.

I finished Friday the Rabbi Slept Late, and I've started Saturday the Rabbi did something else. Don't remember, but I'm reading it. The Friday book was excellent.

dark star got less confusing for me almost right away. Now my reading it is in the 'I can't put it down' stage. Well, off and on. As with Furst's other books I've read so far, there is history, there are situations, I'm well aware of, and bunches of stuff that is new to me. Learning again... Also, the usual matter of wondering what will happen next or by the end of the book.

So how's the movie?

After Kemelmann I took down some of my books by Jewish authors.
Isaac B. Singer I like, there is Joseph Roth whom I cannot remember HannaKrall and Bruno Schulz. See which one I will start with.

"Little America- The war within the war in Afghnistn".
I needed to see how geologists and engineers from the US actually began the entire **** up.

I'm on page 184 (of 390) of dark star, and still occasionally confused, more than in others of Furst's books I've read. But, I knew more general information re the countries in those other books, and in this one I'm learning stuff I didn't know about Russia circa 1937 and 1938; plus there are many characters to watch. Luckily there's a page with a handy chart, page 80, damn helpful, I must say. Of course I'll finish the book, how could I not...

ehBeth, you mentioned Raymond Chandler a while back. I'm a huge fan -- even went to visit his grave in San Diego.

A couple of people mentioned American Gods by Gaiman after I mentioned it. Not only did I finish it, I've gone on a Gaiman binge since then, including Anansi Boys, which has similarities to American Gods.

So I started reading—“Cinnamon Shops” (1934; the English translation is titled “The Street of Crocodiles”) and “The Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass” (1937)—create a fantastic universe, a private mythology of one family, and are written in a language that brims with life, a language that is itself the main character of the stories and is the only dimension in which they could possibly exist.

What is being said is corrct, but I get so tired of reading I am just going to put it back in the bookcase. There it can hide another 15 years - then I give it another try.

forgot to say by Bruno Schulz

It's about an entomologist fascist scientist in Britain in the mid 1930s who discovers a beetle which helps the Nazi narrative. He also is fascinated by a scrawny Jewish boxer.

Then there's a dealer in Nazi memorabilia in the present day who is forced to investigate both boxer and scientist if he doesn't want a bullet in the head.

After giving up on Bruno Schultz I started Hanna Krall- It is short stories and she writes just fashinating about Polish Jews.
Krall is of Jewish origin. . She was four years old, living in Lublin, when the World War II began with the Nazi German invasion of Poland. Krall lost most of her close relatives in the Holocaust. She survived deportations to death camps only because she was hidden from the Nazis by the Polish rescuers.

Nuts, another author to put on my To Read list. (kidding about 'nuts').

there are some Gaiman in the neighbourhood library box - I think I may grab them the next time I go by

I simply love his writing.

Just read a few pages when I got back from swimming. Realized that I am absolutely savouring his sentences. Some of them are better than any kind of chocolate.

With a box of chocolates, you never know what ur going to get.