What are you reading? 2024

I’ll start I guess.

Have just finished The Cloister and the Hearth by Charles Reade (1939). Not the most attractive LEC I’ve seen but what a great story! This is the imagined story of the lives of Erasmus’ parents in the 15th century. It is broadly about the struggle between the obligations of family and church, hence the name. It often reads like a moral adventure story however (it goes on my shelf next to The Count of Monte Cristo) and was apparently Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s favourite book. It is a well-researched historical novel with lots of detail about medieval times and places and habits and people (to give one example, the merchant from Augsburg who goes by the name of Fugger that Gerald travels down to Venice with for a few pages is a real historical figure, whose family name is still well-known in Augsburg today). And that’s just one of many examples. It’s full of action though, after a slowish start, and is well worth (not to mention fun) reading. The dialogue is a stylised Elizabethan English, so perhaps not so great for second language English speakers.

Physically, as I said, it’s not the most attractive book. It seems to have been done in an older style and so is a bit drab and unexciting for me: the page numbers for example are printed in a Fraktur/calligraphy-style font which just doesn’t please me aesthetically at all. This is more than made up for by the story though, and it is a robust binding if nothing else.

Next up is Madame Bovary, the beautiful but large 1950 edition.

I’m currently reading A Study in Scarlet, which is paired with The Sign of Four as one of the volumes in the first LEC Sherlock Holmes set, all of which are a pleasure to read. It is part of a project to read all 4 of the Holmes novels this year, after reading all of the short stories last year. I don’t have the 2nd LEC set, so to fill those gaps I’ve been relying on my set of The Annotated Sherlock Holmes, and will be reading a Folio Society copy of The Hound of the Baskervilles.

I am currently wrapping up Sister Carrie and am about halfway through All the King's Men. Both are worthwhile for differing reasons. While Sister Carrie feels dated, especially Dreiser's style, it has historical merit for being at the forefront of naturalism and, for me at least as a native Chicagoan, for its portrayal of that city from long ago. The moody crayon illustrations fit the story very well. This book is also one of the more affordable of the George Macy LEC's. As for King's Men, it's one of the great American novels and has held up well over the years, and this is a typically strong and classy Schiff design. And I have been reading An Almanac for Moderns daily for the last 10 months and will finish that on March 20, barring an unforeseen mishap :)

>2 jsg1976: I have been eyeing off the Holmes volumes - at some point I fear I will give in to temptation!

>3 A.Nobody: OT: I tried to re-read An American Tragedy a couple years ago, and I couldn't make it through 100 pp., and that was only 1/8 of the book! Dreiser writes the worst kind of turgid prose, almost as though he wants readers to suffer through his novels. Naturalism generally has aged more poorly than most literary fads. Crane is the only one whose stuff holds up.

>2 jsg1976: There are three sets in all. Send me a dm and I'll send you I piece i wrote on how the series came to be. The editor emeritus of the Baker Street Journal told me that the LEC set was always his source for the authentic text of the stories.

>3 A.Nobody: Do you happen to have the Monthly Letter for Almanac for Moderns. it is one I've futilely been searching for.

Reading the 1938 LEC War & Peace slooowly!

>7 laotzu225: No, I do not have the Almanac for Moderns ML. My book does have this inscription from author Donald Peattie written on August 31, 1939:



It sadly was the "last day of peace" as World War II broke out the next day. The quote at the end about August being "the aureate month" was from his entry in the almanac for August 31.

>9 A.Nobody: Hardly anyone does since I have been unable to find a copy. But thanks for the dedication note. I may try to read the book (I haven't yet) as a daily almanac and see how it goes.
I was drawn to the book by fact that I had a book edited by Peattie, Audubon's America from the Riverside Press in 1940, and signed by him, which is a real treasure.
I'll copy this inscripton out and keep it with my copy of The Almanac.

Started reading “Dubliners”, and it’s a pleasure, though the book is a bit hefty for comfort in the hand.

Back in June I read the LEC Poems of Wordsworth. What a treat, both for the poetic content and the fine craftsmanship of the book. Lovely tan quarter leather binding with yellow boards, heavy satisfying paper, color illustrations. All the drawings are of nature scenes, very apt, although Wordsworth produced striking human characters in his verse that would have made for good visuals. Still, an excellent volume to hold and read. And the selections made by Jonathan Wordsworth (the poet's great-great-great nephew) sample nearly all of Wordsworth styles, some of which I wasn't familiar with. There is a poem included--"Away Away, it is the Air"--that I would swear was written by Blake.