Good non-fiction, please

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Recommend me some.

I do not read a lot of fiction anymore. I like stuff about the history of cities in particular, but I am open to any and all subjects, if a bit tired of straight biographies.

Stuff I have enjoyed recently:
The Basque History Of The World (Basque)
Beneath Mulholland (Movie stuff)
Under The Banner Of Heaven (Mormons)
Ponzi/Black Dahlia (True crime/grifter stuff)

There is a giant Cuba reader that I want that has recently come out and I want to read Leadville, which is about the A40. Anyone read these?

― adam... (nordicskilla), Thursday, 4 November 2004 20:59 (twenty-one years ago)

Kurlansky (Basque History of the World) also wrote Cod, which was really good, and Salt, which I haven't read but is probably good too.

― Tep (ktepi), Thursday, 4 November 2004 21:05 (twenty-one years ago)

Oh yeah, Cod looks great!

― adam... (nordicskilla), Thursday, 4 November 2004 21:06 (twenty-one years ago)

Actually, has anyone read any good books about pre-sound film industries in the US or Europe?

― adam... (nordicskilla), Thursday, 4 November 2004 21:07 (twenty-one years ago)

I'm currently on hold in the middle of a slew of good nonfiction as I work my way through Nanowrimo, but when I surface I'll have some things to say...

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Thursday, 4 November 2004 21:08 (twenty-one years ago)

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0691057192/qid=1099602735/sr=1-2/ref=sr_1_2/103-9860862-6355829?v=glance&s=books
My co-worker said this is great. We fought over who got to read it first when it arrived in the library.

― jocelyn (Jocelyn), Thursday, 4 November 2004 21:09 (twenty-one years ago)

I would recommend one of those Henry Petroski engineering books or one of the many Stephen Jay Gould essay collections.

― n/a (Nick A.), Thursday, 4 November 2004 21:14 (twenty-one years ago)

What was that New Yorker profiles book that s1ocki was talking about?

― adam... (nordicskilla), Thursday, 4 November 2004 21:16 (twenty-one years ago)

i liked "foreign devils on the silk road" by peter hopkirk about the plunder of china's ancient buddhist relics by whiteys.

― phil-two (phil-two), Thursday, 4 November 2004 21:21 (twenty-one years ago)

Dangerous Waters
Stiff
Complications
Cartoon History Of The Universe
Into The Wild
Dogwatching
Catwatching
The Naked Ape
How To Lie With Statistics
Noodling For Flatheads
Confederates In The Attic

― TOMBOT, Thursday, 4 November 2004 21:37 (twenty-one years ago)

Annals of the Former World, John McPhee - about the geology of the continental USA, but told in a narrative form that's highly readable. Sounds dry, but is genuinely fascinating.

The Song of the Dodo, David Quammen - what you need to know about extinctions and humans. Another narrative look at a scientific subject. Terrific stuff.

The Making of the Atomic Bomb, Richard Rhodes - entwines just enough hard science with a lot of narrative history and biography so a layman can grasp what the scientists did and why.

― Aimless (Aimless), Thursday, 4 November 2004 21:46 (twenty-one years ago)

Adam, you're out in cali now, right? There's a book called, I think, Cadillac Desert, that I read a while ago and remember being really well written. As a bonus, it will help you to understand why norcal and socal don't get along.

― mouse (mouse), Friday, 5 November 2004 01:03 (twenty-one years ago)

the man who mistook his wife for a hat by oliver sacks

― gem (trisk), Friday, 5 November 2004 01:15 (twenty-one years ago)

Actually, Oliver Sacks' Uncle Tungsten: Memories of a Chemical Boyhood is the best memoir I've ever read, and I'm currently working on a spec script of it.

― Remy (x Jeremy), Friday, 5 November 2004 03:53 (twenty-one years ago)

the man who mistook his wife for a hat by oliver sack

Good book. I read quite a lot of non-fiction, but nothing of the sort I feel I could recommend to anyone. Do diaries count?

― Kevin Gilchrist (Mr Fusion), Friday, 5 November 2004 03:55 (twenty-one years ago)

what is a spec script??

oliver sacks was my hero when i was doing my psych degree

― gem (trisk), Friday, 5 November 2004 04:02 (twenty-one years ago)

Uncle Tungsten was boring as fuck!

I forgot some:

The Code Book
Krakatoa
Inviting Disaster
The Botany Of Desire
The First Time I Got Paid For It
Last Breath (Admittedly these are fictionalized vignettes but the medical science is real. I'm morbid.)

― TOMBOT, Friday, 5 November 2004 04:18 (twenty-one years ago)

ooh yeah i liked the code book too

― gem (trisk), Friday, 5 November 2004 04:19 (twenty-one years ago)

I really don't understand why it doesn't get more props as a cryptography starter in my career field. Then I remember it's in paperback and not very thick, so people probably think it's kid stuff in there or something.

― TOMBOT, Friday, 5 November 2004 04:26 (twenty-one years ago)

maybe it's considered like "popular" or "pseudo-science" too?

― gem (trisk), Friday, 5 November 2004 04:28 (twenty-one years ago)

it's so easy to read cover-to-cover I've recommended it to tons of people just to read for FUN. That must be the root problem.

― TOMBOT, Friday, 5 November 2004 04:30 (twenty-one years ago)

yeah that's exactly what i mean, i'm a total cryptography pleb and i thought it was a great read.

― gem (trisk), Friday, 5 November 2004 04:31 (twenty-one years ago)

to be honest I've gotten by without reading anything else on the subject so far. maybe once I actually take a grad level course in it I'll learn something new but honestly that book covers a shit ton of material.

― TOMBOT, Friday, 5 November 2004 04:33 (twenty-one years ago)

Guns, Germs and Steel, Diamond
City of Quartz, Davis

That geology book sounds good.

― Magic City (ano ano), Friday, 5 November 2004 04:34 (twenty-one years ago)

Spec script -- speculative screenplay. Hopefully to be optioned for a feature film.

― Remy (x Jeremy), Friday, 5 November 2004 04:36 (twenty-one years ago)

Tom -- it's telling you found Uncle Tungsten dull as fuck; I give you tremendous respect for making it through the code book. Couldn't concentrate past the first three dozen pages. Guess it's a career-path thing.

― Remy (x Jeremy), Friday, 5 November 2004 04:37 (twenty-one years ago)

My career path had like nothing to do with crypto when I read it, though! It's just differing interests. I was totally unable to empathize with Sacks' boyhood fascinations in that book, so it was a no-go for me.

― TOMBOT, Friday, 5 November 2004 04:41 (twenty-one years ago)

the thing i like most about sacks' writing is his ability to express his perceptions about human behaviour so articulately and so 'readably'. it seems to me that it is very evident in everything he writes, academic articles or otherwise.

― gem (trisk), Friday, 5 November 2004 04:46 (twenty-one years ago)

I really enjoyed the Code Book too. Actually, it was serialised on BBC Radio 4, which at the time I listened to all day at work. I enjoyed it so I read it. I loved Uncle Tungsten - I think the attraction is how fucked up his childhood is, it's not really meant to be identifiable.

― Kevin Gilchrist (Mr Fusion), Friday, 5 November 2004 04:47 (twenty-one years ago)

I am reading "Seriously Funny: The Rebel Comedians of the 1950s and 1960s" by Gerald Nachman. I worry that I am now going to be spending my weekend buying old comedy albums.

― tokyo rosemary (rosemary), Friday, 5 November 2004 05:01 (twenty-one years ago)

that's how really dorky obsessions always start ... go for it! next thing you know you'll be collecting tin plates, thermoses and posing in costume as half-decent funnymen nobody remembers, infuriated at your lack of being recognized.

― Remy (x Jeremy), Friday, 5 November 2004 05:03 (twenty-one years ago)

I'm gonna start dressing like that blonde lady on the Allen Sherman record.

― tokyo rosemary (rosemary), Friday, 5 November 2004 05:22 (twenty-one years ago)

I like stuff about the history of cities in particular,

the Powerbroker by Robert Caro.
Boss by Mike Royko.

― C0L1N B3CK3TT (Colin Beckett), Friday, 5 November 2004 05:25 (twenty-one years ago)

"Autobiography of a Face" by Lucy Grealy, about surviving cancer in childhood, and "Truth and Beauty" by her friend Ann Patchett, about how she self-destructed. Absolutely heart-wrenching.

― Layna Andersen (Layna Andersen), Friday, 5 November 2004 06:39 (twenty-one years ago)

'How Mumbo Jumbo Conquered the World' by Francis Wheen is fantastic, just out in paperback and painfully timely. 'Leadville' is okay, if slightly insubstantial. Marc Reisner's 'Cadillac Desert' is a history of water exploitation in the Western US, which explains just how state subsidies in America are forever handed to the rich rather than the poor and how the Corps of Engineers is very interested in the continuing success of the Corps of Engineers. It's a few years out of date now though. I found it fascinating. Peter Hall's 'Cities and Civilisation' would probably interest you too, but John Reader's recent 'Cities' is a mere primer in comparison.

― snotty moore, Friday, 5 November 2004 16:08 (twenty-one years ago)

Stephen Jay Gould's essay collections

― Markelby (Mark C), Friday, 5 November 2004 16:15 (twenty-one years ago)

Ah fuck it, you'll have to use the search function yourself I guess.

― Markelby (Mark C), Friday, 5 November 2004 16:16 (twenty-one years ago)

I'm looking for some good books about ancient Rome. More day-to-day life stuff than emperors and wars and all that jazz. Though hearing the "behind the scenes" stuff about emperors would be cool, too.
Suggestions?

― oops (Oops), Friday, 5 November 2004 16:24 (twenty-one years ago)

In honor of the hundredth anniversary of the theory's publication -- Einstein's Relativity can't be beat (look for a good later edition). One of the best pieces of scientific popularization of the 20th century, and on one hell of a subject.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Friday, 5 November 2004 16:32 (twenty-one years ago)

Emperor Claudius: Behind The Music

― adam... (nordicskilla), Friday, 5 November 2004 16:32 (twenty-one years ago)

I'm looking forward to reading Susan Orlean's new book . . . although if you read the New Yorker regularly, you've probably read a good chunk of it.
Among the Thugs by Bill Buford (i believe that is his name) is a really great read.

― kelsey (kelstarry), Friday, 5 November 2004 16:39 (twenty-one years ago)

Rosemary, that Nachman book sounds fascinating. Tell us a joke or a story!

I'm reading Nora Waln's House of Exile an American woman's account of pre-revolutionary China, written in a beautiful, antiquated prose style. Richly sensuous, detailed listings of food, clothing, natural phenomena on just about every page. I love this kind of thing.

― briania (briania), Friday, 5 November 2004 16:40 (twenty-one years ago)

cities: Gangs of New York; Luc Sante's Low Life; A.J. Liebling's The Earl of Louisiana. All classics. I believe it's North Point who's recently reissued Liebling's work--nice piece on him in the current New York Review of Books. Neglected figure.

Joseph Mitchells' Up in the Old Hotel is a masterpiece--he's probably the best New Yorker writer.

Ned Sublette's new book, Cuba and Its Music, is awesomely great.

For anyone who's interested in succinct analysis of '90s economics, Enron, the bursting of the bubble, and the stupidity of Bush's "economic vision," Joseph Stiglitz's The Roaring '90s is essential.

― eddie hurt (ddduncan), Friday, 5 November 2004 16:47 (twenty-one years ago)

Has anyone here suggested "Arigo, Surgeon Of The Rusty Blade," yet?

― Annoying Man, Friday, 5 November 2004 16:52 (twenty-one years ago)

Aimless OTM

(I have never read the books he recommends)

― gabbneb (gabbneb), Friday, 5 November 2004 17:22 (twenty-one years ago)

Delirious Manhattan, Koolhaus
What's the Matter with Kansas (I actually haven't read this one)
Conquest of Cool, both by Thomas Frank

― Magic City (ano ano), Friday, 5 November 2004 19:40 (twenty-one years ago)

Uh, Delirious New York not Manhattan

― Magic City (ano ano), Friday, 5 November 2004 19:41 (twenty-one years ago)

what about bob dylan's book? i've heard it's actually pretty good.

― kelsey (kelstarry), Friday, 5 November 2004 20:46 (twenty-one years ago)

Fucking hell, Adam.. dude.. you need to read A Nervous Splendor by Frederic Morton. I started re-reading it last night. It's about Vienna 1888/89. Totally mindblowing.

― Ian John50n (orion), Friday, 5 November 2004 21:07 (twenty-one years ago)

This is the greatest gossipy history of the period. It traces the earliest cultural roots of twentieth century "angst" in Fin-de-Siecle Vienna. Morton focuses his analysis around the death by suicide pact of Crown Prince Rudolph (and incidentally, the end of the Hapsburg empire).

― Ian John50n (orion), Friday, 5 November 2004 21:10 (twenty-one years ago)

Oh my god! I have that book sitting right here with me at my desk, I was going to be reading it soon. Thanks for the further recommendation!

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Friday, 5 November 2004 21:24 (twenty-one years ago)

I bought the book because I liked the title when I saw it in a used shop. Pengo later used it as an album title!

― Ian John50n (orion), Friday, 5 November 2004 21:57 (twenty-one years ago)

if you like science stuff

Elegant Universe by Brian Greene
and Making of the Atomic Bomb by Richard Rhodes

are both really good

― A Nairn (moretap), Friday, 5 November 2004 22:10 (twenty-one years ago)

anyone have a good recommendations for Indian, Chinese, Japanese history books?

― A Nairn (moretap), Friday, 5 November 2004 22:13 (twenty-one years ago)

let me get back to you on the chinese history . . .

― kelsey (kelstarry), Friday, 5 November 2004 22:16 (twenty-one years ago)

two more I like

Gig: Americans Talk About their Jobs (it's like that older book called "Work" with many short interviews with all kinds of workers)

Huston Smith's The World's Religions (It's a really good academic nonbiased look at religions)

― A Nairn (moretap), Friday, 5 November 2004 22:19 (twenty-one years ago)

Not really history, but Musashi and Taiko by Eiji Yoshikawa are wonderful historical fiction about feudal Japan.

― Ian John50n (orion), Friday, 5 November 2004 22:19 (twenty-one years ago)

nickel & dimed was a very easy-breezy read . . . although i had some issues with it, it was mostly worthwhile.

― kelsey (kelstarry), Friday, 5 November 2004 22:20 (twenty-one years ago)

Ian Frazier's Great Plains may be my favorite book in the world. Insane travelogue/history of the middle of the US...Lawrence Welk and Crazy Horse and misslile silos. Perfect time to read it. Weird, erudite, funny and heartbreaking.

― Marcel Post (Marcel Post), Friday, 5 November 2004 22:25 (twenty-one years ago)

How about a little book....called THE BIBLE, adam? Especially THE NEW TESTAMENT. You can truly learn about what makes your new home, AMERICA!!! GREAT!!!

― kyle (akmonday), Friday, 5 November 2004 22:32 (twenty-one years ago)

Some of these are worth reading,

http://www.randomhouse.com/modernlibrary/100bestnonfiction.html

― A Nairn (moretap), Friday, 5 November 2004 22:32 (twenty-one years ago)

The Geography of Nowhere and Home From Nowhere by James Howard Kunstler.

Really great analysis of where america went wrong in the first book, and some pretty good ideas (mostly gathered from others) on how to make it better in the second.

― trigonalmayhem (trigonalmayhem), Friday, 5 November 2004 22:34 (twenty-one years ago)

kyle do you ride the bus with me?

― still bevens (bscrubbins), Friday, 5 November 2004 22:35 (twenty-one years ago)

GRAY'S ANATOMY

― A Nairn (moretap), Friday, 5 November 2004 22:40 (twenty-one years ago)

The bible isn't nonfiction!

― adam... (nordicskilla), Friday, 5 November 2004 22:41 (twenty-one years ago)

nothing is nonfiction!

― A Nairn (moretap), Friday, 5 November 2004 22:43 (twenty-one years ago)

heathen!

― kyle (akmonday), Friday, 5 November 2004 22:44 (twenty-one years ago)

since you're watching the show, you might like Homicide: A Life on the Streets by David Simon. You might like The Corner by Simon as well, which I still haven't read.

― kyle (akmonday), Friday, 5 November 2004 22:45 (twenty-one years ago)

this is a bit shameless, but...if you like books like Salt and Cod and Petroski's engineering books, you might like this short volume on music and technology.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0306809842/102-2662151-7376924?v=glance
paperback edition comes out early next year.
my favorite of this pop-science genre is Longitude by Dava Sobel.

― lovebug starski (lovebug starski), Saturday, 6 November 2004 12:47 (twenty-one years ago)

'the boy that books built', francis spufford
'I may be some time', francis spufford

― cºzen (Cozen), Saturday, 6 November 2004 12:53 (twenty-one years ago)

The Child That Books Built

― cºzen (Cozen), Saturday, 6 November 2004 12:54 (twenty-one years ago)

branagh pretty OK shoXoR

― cºzen (Cozen), Saturday, 6 November 2004 12:54 (twenty-one years ago)

They're two psuedo-biographies, whoops

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0374528306/ref=pd_sbs_b_3/104-0327287-2703152?%5Fencoding=UTF8&v=glance
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0841913773/qid=1099801082/sr=2-1/ref=pd_ka_b_2_1/104-0327287-2703152

and here's an out-and-out bio
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0380788276/qid=1099801233/sr=2-1/ref=pd_ka_b_2_1/104-0327287-2703152

this is also good
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0226524248/qid=1099801112/sr=1-2/ref=sr_1_2/104-0327287-2703152?v=glance&s=books

and so is this
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/067975704X/qid=1099801151/sr=2-1/ref=pd_ka_b_2_1/104-0327287-2703152

― Allyzay Science Explosion (allyzay), Sunday, 7 November 2004 04:17 (twenty-one years ago)

Ah, good ol' Dark Continent, that keeps showing up on the history reserve lists I process.

Hey Ally, did you ever get that Encyclopedia of Assassinations?

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Sunday, 7 November 2004 04:21 (twenty-one years ago)

NO but I plan to eventually. My mom saw that on my wishlist and was terrified.

Dark Continent is good, I was disappointed Mazower cancelled his seminar at Columbia next semester.

― Allyzay Science Explosion (allyzay), Sunday, 7 November 2004 04:24 (twenty-one years ago)

I'll second Eddie Hurt on Sante, Mitchell, Liebling and Stiglitz. I'll add Death and Life of Great American Cities by Jane Jacobs.

― C0L1N B3CK3TT (Colin Beckett), Sunday, 7 November 2004 05:53 (twenty-one years ago)

The first volume of Edmund Morris' Teddy Roosevelt bio (The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt) is excellent -- exciting, hilarious, heartbreaking, breathtaking. (The second volume probably is too, I just haven't read it yet.) Morris makes things like state legislature debates seem raucous and riotous, because that's how everything around Teddy Roosevelt was. And then you get to the part where he goes out on a raft in midwinter to track down a pair of rustlers...

And if you ever see Poppy Z. Brite's Courtney Love bio remaindered for a quarter or whatever Courtney Love bios sell for these days, it's worth trouble.

― gypsy mothra (gypsy mothra), Sunday, 7 November 2004 07:02 (twenty-one years ago)

worth the trouble...

― gypsy mothra (gypsy mothra), Sunday, 7 November 2004 07:02 (twenty-one years ago)

And speaking of Russell Baker (mentioned above in relation to his Liebling piece and also in this related thread, Growing Up is one my favorite autobiographies. A lot of what I understand about daily life during the Depression comes from that. The sequel is good too, but maybe more interesting to journalism people than others, I don't know.

― gypsy mothra (gypsy mothra), Sunday, 7 November 2004 07:12 (twenty-one years ago)

i'm reading Siva Vaidhyanathan's "The Anarchist in the Library". As a slsk user you may wish to read a theoritical underpinning for your activities adam.

― bulbs (bulbs), Sunday, 7 November 2004 08:22 (twenty-one years ago)

for free: LA's top 100 songs.

― cºzen (Cozen), Sunday, 7 November 2004 11:49 (twenty-one years ago)

newjack
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0375726624/qid=1099831911/sr=2-1/ref=pd_ka_b_2_1/104-2772887-1389527

― \(^o^)/ (Adrian Langston), Sunday, 7 November 2004 12:49 (twenty-one years ago)

Another good TR bio is Theodore Roosevelt: A Life; I forget who the author is now, unfortunately. I want to say somebody Green? I had to read it in high school, and it turned TR into my favorite president.

― Ian John50n (orion), Sunday, 7 November 2004 15:08 (twenty-one years ago)

"I'm currently on hold in the middle of a slew of good nonfiction as I work my way through Nanowrimo, but when I surface I'll have some things to say..."

hey, did you surface yet?

― A Nairn (moretap), Thursday, 18 November 2004 03:10 (twenty-one years ago)

"let me get back to you on the chinese history . . ."

What about you too?

― A Nairn (moretap), Thursday, 18 November 2004 03:12 (twenty-one years ago)

Hmmm...well the current one is sorta dry, but A Nervous Splendour by Frederic Morton, which I talked about last week on Freaky Trigger, is definitely well worth it. Study of Vienna, 1888/89.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Thursday, 18 November 2004 03:12 (twenty-one years ago)

any joan didion

― fauxhemian (fauxhemian), Thursday, 18 November 2004 06:25 (twenty-one years ago)

Finished these over the summer, all terrific:

World of Late Antiquity-Peter Brown
Hiding the Elephant-Jim Steinmeyer
Sex and Rockets: The Occult World of Jack Parsons

― lymphtaco, Thursday, 18 November 2004 07:14 (twenty-one years ago)

random family - adrian leblanc. amazing chronicle of an extended family in the south bronx/upstate ny in the 90s.

― lauren (laurenp), Thursday, 18 November 2004 12:25 (twenty-one years ago)

Sex and Rockets: The Occult World of Jack Parsons

This one's good but I have yet to finish it!

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Thursday, 18 November 2004 13:41 (twenty-one years ago)

http://bookweb.kinokuniya.co.jp/bimgdata/FC0812969766.JPG

I'm reading this now. It's good. It says that today's obsession with sanitation is merely a fear of germs we cannot control. Tomorrow will be dirty, smart, and fun.

― adam... (nordicskilla), Thursday, 18 November 2004 16:09 (twenty-one years ago)

Yes, because our bodies will be robots, with the strength of ten gorillas.

― TOMBOT, Friday, 19 November 2004 21:21 (twenty-one years ago)

Has anyone read Gulag by Anne Applebaum yet? It looks interesting. Or I could just read Solzhenitsyn

― jocelyn (Jocelyn), Friday, 19 November 2004 21:25 (twenty-one years ago)

Currently reading Losers by Michael Lewis, about the '96 Presidential election. At once enjoyable and a product of a time that's already VERY distant.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Friday, 19 November 2004 21:31 (twenty-one years ago)

if you want to read about elections, Richard Ben Cramer's What It Takes (which I've been 'reading' for about five years) about the '88 race is the gold, silver and bronze standard

― gabbneb (gabbneb), Friday, 19 November 2004 21:55 (twenty-one years ago)

eight months pass...

did nevada lime ever read evad lille?

― charltonlido (gareth), Monday, 15 August 2005 14:30 (twenty years ago)

one month passes...

Auto summarize novelists' entire careers

Joan Didion: Some people ask me, why do you hate fun? I never ask.

-- Justyn Dillingham (aubade8...), April 2nd, 2003.

She doesn't appear to have her own thread. Her essay in the The New York Times magazine is really good (by her own standards, too, I would guess). I quoted the above because I thought it was apt, especially the last sentence. (The 90s made a mockery of me.) She seems to be around fun but not in it. I'm very fond of her.

― youn, Sunday, 25 September 2005 13:30 (twenty years ago)

Venice: Lion City by Garry Wills

― lyra (lyra), Sunday, 25 September 2005 14:54 (twenty years ago)

three months pass...

did a nevada lime read leadville

― terry lennox. (gareth), Friday, 6 January 2006 18:40 (twenty years ago)

not yet!

Cheap copies harder to come across in the US. I have been thinking about it this morning, though.

― [tuvan throat singer's profound lyric sheet-must read again] (nordicskilla), Friday, 6 January 2006 19:13 (twenty years ago)

John Berendt Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil

― luna (luna.c), Friday, 6 January 2006 19:29 (twenty years ago)

He's written a new one! On Venice!

― [tuvan throat singer's profound lyric sheet-must read again] (nordicskilla), Friday, 6 January 2006 19:34 (twenty years ago)

Ascending Peculiarity: Edward Gorey on Edward Gorey
by Edward Gorey, Karen Wilkin (Editor)

― andrew m. (andrewmorgan), Friday, 6 January 2006 19:41 (twenty years ago)

I know it, I'm reading it right now.

― luna (luna.c), Friday, 6 January 2006 19:49 (twenty years ago)

did a nevada lime read leadville

This looks like a palindrome at first blush.

― jaymc (jaymc), Friday, 6 January 2006 19:50 (twenty years ago)

i just got this like 1000 page book on Postwar Europe by tony judt. he was my professor at nyu, so i thought i would buy it. not sure when im gonna get around to reading it though. will let you know how it is

― phil-two (phil-two), Friday, 6 January 2006 19:50 (twenty years ago)

I'm reading Luc Sante's Low Life, a factual book about the Lower East Side of NYC from about 1840-1920. Many great stories, really deep research, excellent writing, spectacular intelligence - terrific.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Friday, 6 January 2006 20:26 (twenty years ago)

I've read that! I liked it.

― [tuvan throat singer's profound lyric sheet-must read again] (nordicskilla), Friday, 6 January 2006 20:27 (twenty years ago)

'easy riders raging bulls' is fun.

― sunny successor (katharine), Friday, 6 January 2006 20:29 (twenty years ago)

I've read that! I liked it.

― [tuvan throat singer's profound lyric sheet-must read again] (nordicskilla), Friday, 6 January 2006 20:31 (twenty years ago)

cadillac desert 'bout water issues in the american west
collapse by j. diamond is good if somewhat repetitive
a peoples' tragedy 'bout the russian civil war is grebt

― mookieproof (mookieproof), Friday, 6 January 2006 20:33 (twenty years ago)

Yeah, Easy Rider Raging Bulls was pretty good. Apparently that other book he wrote wasn't so great.

http://images.amazon.com/images/P/0060928832.01._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-dp-500-arrow,TopRight,45,-64_AA240_SH20_SCLZZZZZZZ_.jpg

Barzun - From Dawn To Decadence.

I absolutely loved it.

― Nathalie (stevie nixed), Friday, 6 January 2006 20:33 (twenty years ago)

Martin, that book is great! Enjoy. Read an essay of his after Low Life in which he wrote about having taken Rimbaud as his idol in childhood and how that admiration has weathered the years (or not). I should look up more Sante at the lib next time.

― Laurel (Laurel), Friday, 6 January 2006 20:36 (twenty years ago)

Apparently that other book he wrote wasn't so great.

I've read that! I liked it.

― [tuvan throat singer's profound lyric sheet-must read again] (nordicskilla), Friday, 6 January 2006 20:36 (twenty years ago)

Oh fuck, another book on my Amazon wishlist then. I think it's about 4 pages long now.

― Nathalie (stevie nixed), Friday, 6 January 2006 20:37 (twenty years ago)

Mine is 7 pages long!

― [tuvan throat singer's profound lyric sheet-must read again] (nordicskilla), Friday, 6 January 2006 20:38 (twenty years ago)

Crazy From The Heat by David Lee Roth
One Thousand Years of Nonlinear History by Manuel De Landa

― detoxyDancer (sexyDancer), Friday, 6 January 2006 22:48 (twenty years ago)

are you actually detoxing, detoxyDancer? I am thinking of doing that right now. If so, that's not very rock n' roll of you.

― [tuvan throat singer's profound lyric sheet-must read again] (nordicskilla), Friday, 6 January 2006 22:51 (twenty years ago)

did a nevada lime read the big con?

― s1ocki (slutsky), Friday, 6 January 2006 22:54 (twenty years ago)

Yeah! I liked it.

― [tuvan throat singer's profound lyric sheet-must read again] (nordicskilla), Friday, 6 January 2006 22:54 (twenty years ago)

I'll smoke the rock next week

― detoxyDancer (sexyDancer), Friday, 6 January 2006 22:56 (twenty years ago)

let me guess - you read Dr Phil

― [tuvan throat singer's profound lyric sheet-must read again] (nordicskilla), Friday, 6 January 2006 22:57 (twenty years ago)

don't get "the best of crime writing 2005". i love that series but james lunkhead ellroy edited it this year so it's extremely lunkheaded.

― Fritz Wollner (Fritz), Friday, 6 January 2006 23:11 (twenty years ago)

right now i am reading "lincoln's melancholy" by joshua wolf shenk. it is pretty interesting. i wonder if it will remain interesting throughout, though. i am only 80 pages in. hopefully it will remain engaging.

― Special Agent Gene Krupa (orion), Saturday, 7 January 2006 05:10 (twenty years ago)

http://www.theglobalist.com/images/books/Collapse/i170x240.jpg

― ath (ath), Saturday, 7 January 2006 06:04 (twenty years ago)

Check out "The Miracle Detective: An Investigation into Catholic Apparitions." Highly recommended read.

― Freud Junior, Third Cousin to Chuck Norris (Freud Junior), Saturday, 7 January 2006 06:18 (twenty years ago)

Blue Blood by Edward Conlon. Exceptionally well-written, clear-eyed, non-defensive memoir by a NYC cop. Changed the way I watch cop shows and movies (for starters).

Mistress to an Age: A Life of Madame de Stael by J. Christopher Herold. Enthusiastic but not blindly admiring biography of an over-the-top but brilliant character (His age of Napoleon is great too.)

Daniel Boorstin is kind of a neocon, but his The Discovers is inspiring, exciting stuff. A history of scientific innovation over the ages.

Incredible New York by Lloyd Morris. Dishy portrait of the liveliest scenes in NY- mostly 19th and early 20th century. Fun fun fun.

If diaries do count... the diaries of Kenneth Tynan were fantasticly entertaining.

I'm not finished yet but Kevin Boyle's Arc of Justice is proving to be amazing- the story of the hell that broke loose when a black doctor dared to move his family into a white neighborhood in Detroit in 1925- and the resulting trial.

(gah, back to lurkin')

― Fun Hater (reciprocitay), Saturday, 7 January 2006 08:06 (twenty years ago)

i was thinking about getting christopher booker's 'neophiliacs', but im just not sure

― calderdale in the 70s (gareth), Saturday, 7 January 2006 10:40 (twenty years ago)

An autobiography: The Big Sea, Langston Hughes.
A biography: Energy Made Visible: Jackson Pollock, HB Friedman.

― Freud Junior, Third Cousin to Chuck Norris (Freud Junior), Saturday, 7 January 2006 22:32 (twenty years ago)

two years pass...

Reading now and is pretty excellent: Kluge by Gary Marcus
Would highly recommend as a companion piece: Why Most Things Fail by Paul Ormerod

― TOMBOT, Friday, 12 December 2008 06:21 (seventeen years ago)

Someone will say "book selections v much in character" but it will not be me.

― HOOS wearing bitchmade sweaters and steendriving (BIG HOOS aka the steendriver), Friday, 12 December 2008 06:27 (seventeen years ago)

TURN OFF YOUR MIND by Gary Lachman

― sam york, Friday, 12 December 2008 06:37 (seventeen years ago)

The Owl of Minerva, by Gustav Regler. Holy shit is this beautiful. HOOS you're big on Hemingway, right? He shows up in here, hanging out with Regler during the Spanish Civil War.

― when I wake up I see my self bearfooted (clotpoll), Friday, 12 December 2008 08:19 (seventeen years ago)

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