Reading Horizons: Episode 2
Reading Horizons, 25 April 2018
Currently reading
Searching for Schindler by Thomas Keneally
Schindler’s Ark by Thomas Keneally was a Booker Prize winning novel from 1982 and then an Oscar-winning film bySteven Spielberg in 1993. In Searching for Schindler Keneally explains how he first heard about Oskar Schindler, a German businessman, who saved the lives of more than 1,000 Jews during World War 2, when he walked into a shop in Los Angeles to buy a briefcase and met the owner Leopold Pfefferberg. Essentially this is a memoir of how his book came to be written, of his many interviews with people saved by Schindler and his development as a writer.
Recently Finished
The Danger Tree by Olivia Manning
This was my contribution to the #77club reading week run by Kaggsy and Simon though I didn’t quite get to complete it before the end of the week. It’s the first of Manning’s Levant Trilogy which probably explains why it ended so abruptly and with no real conclusion. One of the central characters – Guy Pringle – is a very irritating man but overall I enjoyed this tale of the odd collection of people assembled in Cairo uncertain whether to stay or flee before the invading German army reaches them.
Reading next
I’ll be starting a new book tonight but still don’t know what I’ll choose.
I might go for Love by Hanne Ørstavik which is the March selection from the Asymptote Book Club. I’ve read only one other book by Ørstavik, The Blue Room, which I found quite extraordinary. Love is meant to be even better – apparently the newspaper Dagbladet placed it sixth in a list of the best Norwegian novels of the past quarter-century.
Or it might be time to delve into my collection of Virago Modern Classics. They keep staring at me from the bookshelves.
Or maybe it’s time to return to my Classics Club list which hasn’t received much attention of late. Both Edith Wharton and The Age of Innocence and Anthony Trollope and Framley Parsonage are calling to me.
I have a strong feeling that all of this speculation is futile since when the moment comes to pick the book off the shelf, my hand will reach for something completely different.
Reading Horizons is linked to WWWednesday, a meme hosted by Sam at Taking on a World of Words. It involves answering 3 questions:
The three Ws are:
What are you currently reading?
What did you recently finish reading?
What do you think you’ll read next?
I have Schindler’s List on my TBR, never read or seen the film but can’t part with it, even though I’m not sure I’ll ever read it.
Here’s my WWW – https://bookboodle.co.uk/2018/04/25/www-wednesday-april-25th/
I have a few of those books too. I occasionally take them off the shelf and put them to be taken to the charity shop only to have second thoughts and return them to the shelf
Here is mine: Currently reading The Black Prince by Iris Murdoch. Recently finished Small Great Things by Jodi Picoult (not entirely my choice, reading group pick.) Next I will read The Bear and the Nightingale by Katherine Arden.
Searching for Schindler sounds interesting. I’ve seen Schindler’s Ark and have the book (but haven’t read it yet) – it’s an amazing story! I’ve read two of Olivia Manning’s Balkan Trilogy – and agree about Guy – not someone I’d like to meet.
And I couldn’t agree more about speculating which book I’m going to read next – I usually pick anything but the book I say I might read next.
It was the book Schindler’s Ark that I encountered first, the year it was published but then had to wait so long for that remarkable film. Keneally tells a fantastic story about how he came to hear about Schindler. The middle section about the trips they took around the world is funny and also moving.
I love the Aussie author Thomas Keneally. I do need to read this book. It’s one of those books you continually say you must read. I have seen him interviewed on tv several time and he is such a brilliant author and person. Don’t you love it when there is a character in a book that is so disliked and you can commiserate with others how bad he/she is? Like they’re real. Always fun.
It’s a harrowing read but well worth it. Good point about the fact we can react so strongly to a character shows how well they have been depicted….
Searching for Schindler sounds like a good one. Thanks for sharing, and here’s
MY WWW POST
Isn’t Guy Pringle annoying? I want to slap him at times!
i can’t believe Harriet stays with him – I’d have wrung his neck by now