Summer Time is Mahler-Time

Composers Pierre Boulez & Rocco DiPietro and Ray White

I never cared for Gustav Mahler's Symphony No. 1, "Titan" until I listened attentively recently to Pierre Boulez's DGG recording with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Such detail, such clarity - I've read that Boulez's Mahler recordings are conceptually the antithesis of Leonard Bernstein's much admired Mahler recordings. My first Mahler recordings were Maurice Abravanel's Mahler Symphony No. 8 with the Utah Symphony and Leonard Bernstein's Mahler No. 7 with the New York Philharmonic - recordings that I still admire.  

It's not only Mahler-Time, but Mahler's time - think of Fin-De-Siècle Vienna.

Derek Raymond's The Crust on its Uppers

I've just finished Derek Raymond's 1962 London crime novel The Crust on its Uppers. It's a novel about three Etonian/Oxonian morries of the SOHO manor who become involved in a slush scheme. This fascinating work begins with a three page Glossary of poetic underworld argot.

Read it whilst learning a new language.