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I read this earlier this year, really liked it and wrote this on my blog- A brilliantly described re-creation of WWII London and the post-war reconstruction. You can almost feel the bombs bursting, see the streets in total blackness, and taste the putrid air. It took me almost 200 pages to end my confusion over the identities of Kay, Helen and Viv, I kept getting them mixed up for some reason. Maybe because their dialogue is rendered in identical 1940s British movie actress lingo "oh, yes, ever so much". But they make a memorable love triangle in the end, not least because of their homefront bravery. The author's decision to present her story backwards in time - three sections- 1947, then 1944, then 1941, was interesting. You get little clues in the opening section of what happened in the past, and is ironically yet to come, narrative-wise. The plot is a bit over familiar, but the milieu and the characters aren't, and therefore, a good read.

Well good luck, Paul. I hope I haven't oversold it. The last part of Dream struck me as some of the finest contemporary writing I've come across, described elsewhere as "aesthetic bliss". Once you get into the long nightclub scene, that is the centerpiece of this volume, hopefully you'll be hooked. Tupra may really surprise you.

One of the few things - perhaps the only one - that I know for certain is that my name is Mattia Pascal. The Late Mattia Pascal by Luigi Pirandello

The Silver Swan by Benjamin Black Benjamin Black (aka John Banville) continues his quirky Quirke mysteries. Very literary, full of atmosphere (50s Dublin), and depth of character. The mystery sometimes seems perfunctory, although Banville gives his full talent to genre fiction, there's no appearance of slumming. On the edges, a beautifully rendered depiction of a dysfunctional relationship between a father and his daughter. The Solitude of Prime Numbers by Paolo Giordano The plot moves at pell mell speed. A boy and a girl experience traumatic childhood incidents. She becomes lame from a sking accident, he becomes a cutter, after leaving his mentally challenged twin sister alone in a park. The sister disappears without a trace. Gruesome heart rendering stuff. They become the only friends either of them ever know, but they never really connect. They are like prime numbers (divisible only by themselves or 1) 17 and 19 eg. with a small space of solitude between. I was hoping this novel would take me someplace. It never did. Monsieur Pain by Roberto Bolano Probably only for confirmed Bolano fans, this early short novel of 1930s Paris is nightmarish, even Kafkaesque. The shadow of Fascism looms large, connecting it to the later works. Your Face Tomorrow: Dance and Dream Vol2 by Javier Marias I will wait until I read the final volume of this trilogy before making any in depth comments. Suffice it to say that Vol 2 blew me away, there are passages that are as aesthetically pleasing as any I have ever read. Just great literature!

I finished Vol 2 this morning. I urge you guys to stick with this, a great reading experience, everything in Vol 1 is ratcheted up a notch, I'll have more thoughts on my blog after I've absorbed it more.

I started Vol 2 Dance and Dream a couple of nights ago. Had a difficult time getting going, the long sentences, the qualifiers, the digressions. 300 pages more? But then one of the digressions struck me as absolutely brilliant (the dirt poor Romanian emigre mother begging for money with her two little ones, and Luisa's benevolent reaction) it may not lead anywhere, but like the unexplained drop of blood on the floor of Wheeler's hallway in Vol 1, I can't seem to shake it. Also I keep remembering Marias exhorting his readers to read his prose quickly, don't pause, catch the musical current. So I'm hooked again.

Terrific overview of a very mysterious and unique novel I also enjoyed. Vol 2 is due any moment from UPS. I've fallen behind in the conversationalreading.com group read, which has been a terrific resource, an essential podcast of a Marias interview, and an online interview with the incredible translator, if you haven't been following.

I zipped right through The Silver Swan by Benjamin Black over the weekend, terrific writer, one of these days I'm going to have to try one of his literary works as John Banville. I kindled and started The Solitude of Prime Numbers by Paolo Giordano last night. A children in distress story so far, not normally my cup of tea, but I'm having a hard time putting it down.

I read about 20 percent of The Silver Swan by Benjamin Black last night. I enjoyed Black's previous Quirke mystery, Christine Falls, but so far Swan seems like the same novel, slightly altered.

I read about 20% of The Silver Swan by Benjamin Black last night. I much enjoyed his previous Quirke mystery, but so far I feel as if I'm reading the same novel slightly altered. I often suspect you only have to read one novel by most authors, the rest can sometimes be superfluous, or at least tediously repetitive.

The local weather has been nothing short of miraculous these last few weeks after an abominable and interminable winter, the soft spring breezes billowing through my house, me often sitting on my front door stoop marvelling at the procession of life inching forward on my quiet street, daydreaming away. After sixty years on this planet, I'm still in awe of this kind of stuff, so my indolence has produced only two humble and brief reports from my reading experience. The History of Mr Polly by H. G. Wells The life of an ordinary man who feels trapped by the conventions of society, a loveless marriage, and an unfulfilling occupation. Often the story veers close to an illustration of points the author holds dear. The soullessness of the capitalist world being one, a point I would vaguely subscribe to myself, there are indeed dead souls walking among us, but I'm not always sure the deadness comes from without or from within. Evil as an immutable force of human nature being another point. It must be recognized, faced up to, and valiantly opposed. The three campaigns of Mr. Polly's War with a dastardly villain who arises out of the bushes of a Mark Twain novel, encompass the most entertaining section of the story, truly hilarious. And there is a modicum of contentment in the victorious aftermath I can relate to - being able to sit peaceably under a shade tree at twilight of a summer's day, with a congenial friend, pondering on fate, while watching the river flow. The Confessions of Noa Weber by Gail Hareven An Israeli woman worships a man, she's seventeen, he's a few years older, they have a marraige of convenience, it keeps her out of her military obligation. They develop a sexual relationship, she knows it will not lead to anything steady or permanent, he's not that kind of guy. She gets pregnant, decides to keep the baby, he drives her to the hospital when she gives birth, and then immediately disappears from her life for years. He's not the fatherly type either, she understands that, forgives him. They ultimately rekindle their friendship and the sex, although he marries another, she never remarries, she remains at his beck and call for decades, he just rings her bells, it's all she needs. I found this central conceit of the novel preposterous, and irritating. Every few pages there are some poetic lines of adoration aimed towards this **** of a guy. I guess anything is possible relationship-wise in this wacky world, maybe it would look more plausible from a female point of view, and as I have never been worshiped by another, sexually or otherwise for more than a few moments, perhaps this type of life-long obsession is something beyond my ken. When the boytoy is off stage the novel is quite good, like a foreign film, even if the plot drags one does get a sense of place, local customs, what life feels like in a distant and somewhat mysterious country. I should also point out that the novel has won several awards including a recent Best Translated one, and that my record with award-winning authors and novels is very poor. .

The only one on the short-list I've read is A Gate at the Stairs by Lorrie Moore, earlier this year. Here's what I wrote on my blog about it.... A yes-but book. I read it in two long sittings. I loved the voice of it's 20 year old college student narrator, Tassie Kjetlin, a farmers daughter come to study and learn about life in a town much like Madison Wisconsin. She wise-cracks her way through life, and much of the novel is very funny. There is an eerie foreboding, however, that seems to mock the levity. And the sadness comes in droves. Unfortunately, it all seems a bit forced. The boyfriend who may or may not be a terrorist. The mysterious couple who adopt a bi-racial daughter for whom Tassie nannies. The shaggy-dog younger brother who has his eye on the military (the action occurs the year after 9/11). There is an overall formlessness, as there was in Moore's earlier novel, Anagrams. Characters disappear, and plot lines end, with a jarring abruptness. But then, the section in which Tassie bonds with her two year old charge conveys much of the joy inherent in childhood. Little Emma is beautifully drawn. And the long final section with Tassie working on her father's farm has moments of enchantment, and deep tragedy. I have a feeling the novel will linger in my memory.

Sleepless by Charlie Huston A plague sweeps the world, a mutant germ bores into peoples' brains, mainly the section that supplies sleep. You sleep less, then not at all, and death is certain within a year. There's an alleged cure, but it is in short supply, and a black market develops. In a rapidly deteriorating Los Angeles, a righteous cop, whose wife is sleepless, and possibly his baby too, goes undercover to investigate the supply train. He's also on a collision course with a paid assassin, working freelance, incurably amoral, who's seeking evidence our hero cop inadvertently possesses. The novel is sometimes overloaded with jargon - armaments, medicine, video games. Huston has done his homework and he wants you to know it. But he also creates a believably nightmarish environment, sudden violence that disturbs, a number of twists and turns you might not see coming, and a surprisingly tender finale. Huston writes from the heart, with set pieces that border on hard-boiled pulp brilliance. As A Man Grows Older by Italo Svevo Some background on the author. His first novel (late 1800s) is critically well-received but doesn't sell. He persists, writes another (As A Man Grows Older), ignored by readers, reviled by critics. He gives up writing, works as a clerk in a bank, marries, eventually runs his father-in-law's business. He needs to learn English, his duties often take him to England, and he hires a tutor, a young James Joyce, who is intrigued to hear Svevo is a failed novelist, lingering for 25 years in literary obscurity. They become friends, Joyce reads the two novels, thinks they're amazing, gets them published in Paris, acclaim pours in, by the time of his death Svevo is well on his way to becoming one of Italy's most admired authors. As a Man Grows Older snuck up on me. At first, I thought I was reading an ironic comedy-of-manners. Our hapless hero, Stefano, is a man of artistic tendencies, working as a clerk for an insurance company, in his late thirties, living with his spinsterish sister, neither has ever known love. He finally finds it with a young, adorable, but flighty girl-about-town, he's heard rumors of a scandalous past, and present, but he places them on a back burner. He's besotted, filled with desire for the first time in his life. He believes he can control the situation, but he is a man of monumental indecision, he breaks it off, he reunites, he's often consumed by jealousy. The tone has been deceptive, or maybe I just didn't notice, for this is a deeply mournful tale. Stefano's single-minded, foolish quest for a doomed love has blinded him to a tragedy that develops right in front of his eyes, with one he truly loves, and who truly loves him. Svevo's estimable accomplishment is in granting a universal dimension to this ordinary man's emotional downfall. Stefano's dilemma, his inability to see clearly, is in Svevo's view, the human condition. If I were a reader inclined towards proclamations, I surely would proclaim this novel a masterpiece.

I finished As A Man Grows Older by Italo Svevo last night, still in the clutches of its power, a story no doubt to haunt me the rest of my days. I'm thinking of downloading Benjamin Black's (John Banville) The Silver Swan. The second of his Quirke mysteries, I loved Christine Falls, his first.

I finished Sleepless by Charlie Huston earlier today. Superior pulp fiction, very violent, many twists and turns, surprisingly tender at the end. I read a chapter of As A Man Grows Older, an Italian novel published in 1892, first translated in 1932, and recently re-issued by the New York Review of Books.

Some catching up...... Your Face Tomorrow Vol 1 Fever and Spear by Javier Marias You fall in love with someone, quite probably their face, in it you see a missing piece of yourself, you see tenderness, approval, desire, sometimes whatever you want to see whether it be there or not. But what will you see in that face tomorrow, or maybe after many tomorrows? In an interview, Marias says that his prose is meant to be read fast. I took his advice, and his long sentences, filled with digressions and qualifiers, a world record perhaps for the ubiquitous use of the word or, becomes the literary equivalent of music, with rhythm and melody rising and falling in every passage, some of them quite beautiful. The Land of Green Plums by Herta Muller Life under Ceausescu in Romania, totalitarianism rules, an age never to be forgotten, bleak and surreal, infecting every aspect of life, every human relationship. Short, clipped sentences and paragraphs, some cryptic poetry, possibly more powerful in the original German, so hopeless in tone, even exile offers little real escape, I often felt I was wallowing in victimhood. The Ask by Sam Lipsyte No totalitarianism in the USA by the government, but the consumer culture, in case you haven't heard, it's got us by the throat, it's destroying everything human in its wretched wake. We are lost souls, the super-hip, the super-rich, the super-struggling, in a vision, despite the satire and humour, every bit as bleak as that in Plums. At least that's the way it appears from the academic world of creative writing classes where Mr. Lipsyte lives. A Scanner Darkly by Philip K Dick Great pulp fiction, one from the heart, its poignancy grabs a hold of you, and may never let you go. Written in Bone by Simon Beckett Not much heart in this thriller/mystery, more a plea to a Hollywood studio for a lucrative movie deal. I'll admit to a couple of moments when chills ran up and down my spinal cord, and maybe that's all I needed on a rainy Sunday afternoon.

I finished this Sunday night, really loved it, and have been processing it in my mind the last couple of days, hoping my lost writing mojo would rejuvenate itself, and I might be able to say something coherent. I was in my twenties during the time frame of the novel, early 70s, although a sci-fi imperative (really just the scrambler suit) moves the time frame up to 1994. PKD captures the druggie slang and craziness of that incredible era with great wit and compassion. He viewed drug addiction as a choice rather than a disease, children wishing not to grow up, facing responsibility, staying in the playpen far too long, and paying an awful price. Why does Arctor become addicted? There a couple of cryptic references to hitting his head on a pipe while doing some kitchen plumbing work, then leaving a wife and two daughters behind to seek adventure. The feds wanted him addicted, but how did they know he would succumb? The whole planting a burned out mole operation seems more than a bit implausible. Why not just raid the place? Such are the vagaries of pulp fiction, and as practiced by PKD, fully transcended by the palpable paranoia, the overwhelming feeling that something is definitely rotten in the world, the autobiographical truth of his tumultous life, and still space for a small hope for humanity. And humor. A couple of years before writing A Scanner Darkly, PKD reported a break-in at his house to the police in which his safe was blown up and his personal possessions stolen. The police understandably thought PKD was loony(the high point of his druggy days), and began to suspect that he had blown up the safe himself. When PKD heard he was suspected, he began to think that maybe it was indeed possible, although he had no memory of doing it. I was reminded of this story in the hilarious bad check sequence, Arctor believing his supposed buddy had maliciously written a bad check on one of Arctors old discontinued accounts. But he can't figure any motivation, and lodges a professional type investigation, he is after all a cop, then gradually realizing he had written the check himself. This novel is so rich in themes and ideas. The whole duality theme is beyond my ability to articulate. But it is interesting to note that PKD had a twin sister who died after living only five days, an event that haunted him all his life, a feeling that he was missing a piece of himself.

I finished A Scanner Darkly last night, still processing my thoughts about it and hope to add something to the book club thread soon. Tonight I'm going back to the next section of Your Face Tomorrow, if I don't get too sleepy.

I finished the next section of Your Face Tomorrow by Javier Marias for the group read at conversationalreading.com. Tremendous literature, and a great read. What's it about? a bloodstain, betrayal, the Spanish Civil War, 007, the way we look at others.... Here's a good bit- "How can I know today your face tomorrow, the face that is there already or is being forged beneath the face you show me or beneath the mask you are wearing, and which you will only show me when I am least expecting it?"

On my Kindle I finish a book before I download another, although I do read way faster on the Kindle. I read many books in translation ( unavailable in e-book form) which I have to order on-line, and I usually buy 2 or 3 at a time but only so I can get free shipping, and finish them before I order more. My sister loves showing me her books tbr which fill a shelf, sometimes two. I'm so indecisive a person I would never know where to start, and would probably go turn on the tv and watch a ballgame instead, and decide what to read another day.

I have a difficult time remembering the details of my own plot-line no less the plot-line of books. But I do recall the feelings I experienced while reading books, even if I can't recall the narrative. How the story is told may be more important than the story itself. I have read Gravity's Rainbow twice but I would be hardpressed to coherently explain what went on during it's gargantuan length. But it occupies the most prominent place on my main bookshelf, and every time I take a glance in it's direction I feel really good.

Go Tell The Spartans is a solid movie, far less pretentious than the classics thus far mentioned. I can't say I care much for the classics, except for the first half of Full-Metal Jacket ("what is your major malfunction, numnutz?") and the surfing scene from Apocalypse Now ("I love the smell of napalm in the morning"). I kind of agree with Frank Kermode's famous dismissal of The Deer Hunter - "one of the worst films ever made,a rambling self indulgent, self aggrandising barf-fest steeped in manipulatively racist emotion, and notable primarily for its farcically melodramatic tone which is pitched somewhere between shrieking hysteria and somnambulist somberness". An interesting movie sub-genre covers the effect of the war on the USA homefront. Who'll Stop the Rain, directed by a Brit, Karel Reisz, from a Robert Stone novel, features the music of Creedence Clearwater Revival and an absolutely great Nick Nolte performance. It describes with frightening clarity the introduction of the drug culture into mainstream life, and the loss of the heroic self-image us Americans still mourn.

I've finished the first 95 pages of Your Face Tomorrow by Javier Marias Vol 1 of a trilogy. I'm following along with the group read at the very excellent blog conversationalreading.com.

I bogged down a third of the way in The Land of Green Plums. Like most novels by Nobel winners, it's earnest, plodding and dull. So I quickly downloaded a thriller, Written In Bone,to my Kindle, read it in a day, a page turner , or more accurately, a button clicker. I'm going to try some more plums today.