The Decline and Fall 2016 of gILBert the fILBert: What Are You Reading Now?

A successor to Spring and All 2k16 / what are you reading now?

I'm nearing the end of 1493, Charles Mann. He's done an excellent job of digging up little-known and under-appreciated pieces of history regarding the transactions between Europe, America, Africa and Asia in the century or two following the establishment of European colonies in the western hemisphere.

For example, he repeatedly emphasizes that for several centuries, from roughly 1500 to 1800, there were more people of African descent than Europeans in the Americas. Often five to seven times as many, and due to many successful escapes and revolts, and to a lesser extent manumissions, large numbers of African-Americans were not slaves. In Brazil, escaped slaves created a small independent empire called Palmares that lasted a century before it was conquered and destroyed.

Anyway, an informative book.

I'm still reading old magazines. I can't stop reading them. Encounter magazine from the 60's might be my fave. great essays. and poetry too. the essays making me want to read things i've never read. finished a cool essay about the industrial revolution and a connecticut yankee in king arthur's court. which i've never actually read. i even read a great essay about the charterhouse of parma that made me want to read THAT. lord knows when i ever will though. read a fun essay by kingsley amis about his time teaching at cambridge. everyone thought he was gay because he spent so much time hanging out drinking with students in pubs.

and when i'm done with those i have about 50 original newsprint copies of the new york times book review i want to dig into that are from the height of the depression. so many books reviewed in those that are lost to time.

i don't know why the Twain and i never meet. so much stuff of his i haven't read.

Came to thread to notify ilxor wins that he has the rest of the day to order audiobook of Simon Vance reading complete Sherlock Holmes for $4.95, I think.

Robert Caro's LBJ bios

also Joby Warrick's "Black Flags: the Rise of Isis" but honestly I had to stop reading because it was just making me so angry, all the Bush admin idiocy. Idly re-reading Moorcock's Pyat quartet, which is a total joy.

About half way through Groucho and Me which is pretty good. Less wise cracky than I feared.

About 30 pages from end of book on Grateful dead that's skipped a lot so not been the best.

I've been reading Helen Dewitt's The Last Samurai (which is idiosyncratic and delightful and fairly subtle in how it keeps moving around Sibylla's preoccupation with the problem of suicide; I loved Lightning Rods, so I don't know why it's taken me so long to come around to this novel), Kevin Barry's short stories in Dark Lies the Island after James Morrison's recommendation in the last thread (Barry's subject matter is a little conventional and his focus on pathologies of masculinity occasionally wearying, but I like the mercurial quality of his style), Yuri Herrera's bleak and dimly lit Signs Preceding the End of the World, probably too many X-men books of varying quality, Tom King's unsettling and strangely moving comics series The Vision, and Ivone Margulies's study of Chantal Akerman's work, Nothing Happens, which is as dry as a dissertation (which it originally was) but is probably the most perceptive and thorough book we'll have on Akerman for the near future.

I read The Last Samurai this summer and loved it.

Currently in the relatively active pile:

Letters from Russia, Astolphe de Custine, an 1839 travelogue of Imperial Russia, referenced in Franz Nicolay's The Humorless Ladies of Border Control which I read this summer
Red Cavalry, Isaac Babel, quiet little grotesques that I don't know how to feel about, in attractive Pushkin Press edition
Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong, JL Mackie, an originating work of moral error theory, a metaethical framework I find appealing

A Rebours, by Huysman, which I'm sorry to ay is a little more of a bore than I thoguht it would be, but you just need to accept its aesthetic i suppose

Galileo's Finger by Peter Atkins

Better Never To Have Been, by David Benatar, in which he argues for anti-natalism and voluntary extinction

Been reading in chunks of stuff for a good month. This week: 70 pages of Crime and Punishment while waiting at the hospital (its great), Petrarch's Canzionere, Speaking of Siva (ancient Indian devotional poetry, actually making my way through the detailed intro). Now going to read Kipling's The Eyes of Allah

Its getting chillier this weekend so hope to finish some more soon and get some concentration.

quiet little grotesques that I don't know how to feel about

nor did babel imo

I'm not ready for Lispector's Complete Stories, so where should I start? Think I'd like some of hers.

If you haven't read any Lispector, I'd start with the last novel she published in her lifetime, The Hour of the Star; if you're interested in her work in short forms, I'd start with her story collection Family Ties (which you can find either in the Collected Stories or as a separate volume) or her brief, quirky newspaper essays and sketches in Selected Cronicas.

*Complete Stories, rather

Thanks---Lispector and Dewitt, soon, soon (trying to budget, but)

Short Stories isn't the ideal start but if you have that to hand have a read of "Egg and Chicken", best short story I am likely to read all year.

you can also sometimes find that in collections of elizabeth bishop's writing--she did a few lovely translations of lispector stories

Started Walter Benjamin's THE STORYTELLER collection which was kindly given to me by ilx poster CONRAD.

Just read Barrington Bayley's The Fall of Chronopolis. mind=blown. May post more on the SF thread.

I kept picking up and putting down a copy of his gateway omnibus. Sounds as though i need to commit.

khlebnikov: the king of time

Just read Barrington Bayley's The Fall of Chronopolis. mind=blown. May post more on the SF thread.

please do - I think I've only read "The Four Colour Problem"...? never thought to track down his novels or other collections before, but the praise from others in his wiki entry make me curious

Done.

you can also sometimes find that in collections of elizabeth bishop's writing--she did a few lovely translations of lispector stories

― I hear from this arsehole again, he's going in the river (James Morrison), Monday, 3 October 2016 Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I'll need to get that, I'd rather have a curated collection of Lispector shorts..

I have been ill in bed with a chest infection, reading Voices from Chernobyl today. It is reasonable to expect some very uncomfortable reading about people dying from radiation sickness, but nothing prepares for some of the older interviewees talking about the bestial cruelty + casual genocide occuring during the war. I like first hand accounts of history a lot though, and will read all the rest of Alexievich's books on the strength of this one.

nor did babel imo

The feeling I get from the Red Cavalry stories is more of a sensation of emotional numbness - like he saw so much horrible shit that he kind of couldn't remember how he was supposed to feel about it - and maybe didn't really want to try. There's also a feeling akin to gallows humor, but less funny - more like a cynicism that bleeds into machismo - as if to say: this is the way the world is and it doesn't matter how you feel about it.

a cynicism that bleeds into machismo

yeah the stories are largely about machismo, i think? like a subtler and more conflicted hemingway maybe. sloppy thoughts: there's also a friction between the revolutionary harshness in whose necessity babel/"babel" genuinely believes, and the empathy/revulsion he can't purge. but over the course of the cycle, as it becomes clearer that the polish war might be just another cossack rampage[*] (which implies that he might be just another jew, and a traitor no less) this friction is in a weird, sad way resolved?

thinking of the difference between "my first goose", where the mundane violence babel's squadmates initiate him into (overriding his "creampuff" intellectuallism, which is also his jewishness) blurs into the rhetorical violence of lenin's words (this time enabled by the creampuffery because babel is the only one who can read them); and the one where he argues with the old man in the pawn shop, who recognizes no difference between the revolution and the counterrevolution. babel's character still believes in the revolution of course but the contrast in the latter story (between idealized+real violence) is plainly sad whereas the unity in the former (between same) seems to me full of cloudy dread (even though it is superficially a coming-of-age story w a triumphant ending)

highly recommend the diaries if you have em? same experiences but filtered neither thru politics nor aesthetics. not better or anything just illuminating. the arc from true believer to numb cynic is much clearer, blunter. and once it reaches the latter it's the bleakest thing you've ever read: "soon we will die. man's brutality is indestructible."

also recommend his odessa plays because those are actually fun for a change.

[* this is not really fair, btw, at least not ethnographically. the konarmiia was mostly peasants; most of the cossacks were not reds as they had been a privileged class under the tsars. babel iirc calls all the soldiers "cossacks", even in the diaries, so the word becomes a projected macho unjewish ideal, admired+feared, attractive+repulsive. however "rampage" is definitely fair.]

halfway through murakami's "what i talk about when i talk about running" (readable but really slight, regret spending money on this rather than getting it from the library, feels sort of like if murakami had a livejournal). just started mark landler's "alter egos" (book by NYT reporter on obama/clinton relationship and foreign policy goals, overall excellent, but keep putting it down b/c it's hard to sustain interest in this after a day of reading news articles about the election). kind of in that depressing phase where i really really want to get the books i'm reading over with so i can get on to something else.

oh hey j.d. i'm reading jonathan schell's the time of illusion on some ancient archived recommendation of yours; finding it totally pellucid so thanks. keep reading bits out loud for pleasure.

At some point in his first two years of office, the President had apparently had one of the most irresistible and irreversible experiences the human mind can undergo. He had been struck by a vision of the world that seemed to bring it all together, into a single pattern. He had concluded that a wide array of apparently disparate evils were branches of one large evil...

lovely accidental pre-echo for me here of the line from the shining i'm obsessed w as metaphor for basically any mental breakage or possession: at some point, over the winter...

mostly narratology, genette, cohn, a bit of the first chapters of novels as parallel research, so i did 'portrait of the artist', 'effi briest', 'the magic mountain', 'for whom the bell tolls', 'gil blas', 'manon lescaut', 'jealousy' (robbe-grillet), i dunno, just reading around

hey glad to hear it DLH -- i've never picked up anything else by schell but that book sticks in my mind. can't quite describe the tone, but it feels so different from anything else i've read about politics. reminds me that you recommended a bunch of soviet history books a couple years back and i've been meaning to get around to almost all of them, espec "three who made a revolution" which has been on my desk waiting to get read for months. (the one i did read was sheila fitzpatrick's short-ish history, which was great.)

oh v glad! that fitzpatrick book's still my favorite primer, not great-man-focused like the rest i probably recommended, so a good one to have picked. on the great-man front (great as in groznyi) everyone's since flipped for kotkin's stalin.

I picked up another Simenon from the local library, The Widow. It is interesting enough. He has a keen eye for the telling detail and a firm grip on human psychology. The emotions he explores are generally subtle ones.

Finished Petrarch's Canzoniere - had only read excerpts and not the full cycle before, and the full thing is tough or incomprehensible (depending on your experiences in life). Incredibly single-minded, it seemed aware of its own place in history as the cycle closed with Petrarch's death and contemplation of re-unification with his Madonna

Now finishing a book of free-verse Indian poetry/devotional sayings from around 12th century dedicated to the goddess Siva.

Took a break from Barrington Bayley to read the latest from Domenic Stansberry, The White Devil, which is based on a Renaissance play of the same name based on a true story, all news to me. It was up to his usual high standard of cool, intelligent noir. I need to go back and read the two books of his I haven't read yet.

But I know, he is on that list of writers that are only read by James Redd, at least ILB-wise.

I enjoyed his book for Hard Case Crime, though that is all of his i have read. Enjoyed the original webster white devil play, too, and would love to read a noir redo of it.

The Confession was the HCC one. It won an Edgar, although there was some kind of strange controversy about that. Seems to be out of print, maybe one offer belongs on that one other thread.

i read Kwaidan. unusual ghost stories. sad that it ends on an essay that seems to advocate eugenics.

Started this last night, am half a dozen stories in: https://cdn.penguin.com.au/covers/original/9780141395722.jpg
and there's some astonishing stuff so far, especially Nescio's 'Young Titans' and Ferdinand Bordewijk's 'The Briefcase'.

Sorry, huge fucking image!

Should add that Joost Zwagerman, the editor, put this book together and then committed suicide before its publication.

K(w)Aidan the film is one of my favourites. I think 2 of the 4 parts are taken from the book and another from another story collected by Hearn but in another book and it's visually stunning.

(The method of converting Japanese to English changed sometime between the book and the film and the w is no longer there which is why the film title has the odd brackets in it)

I saw the film a while ago but I don't remember much of it. I should watch it again.

(It mentions the change to the way they Anglicise Japanese in the intro to my copy so that's where I saw that. And all 4 stories are from Hearn collections)

Everything available here - http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/368

One Way Out the Allman Brothers Oral History . Pretty fascinating so far but I just got up to Berry Oakley dying so not sure if it will sustain for teh other half of the book.

I hadn't realised that Gov't Mule were directly related to the ABB until I was looking through the discography recommendations at the back of the book. Looks like it's later members' side project.

Groucho and Me by Groucho Marx.
Pretty satisfying read. Not all wisecracks like i had feared when I first started it. Just got as far as Groucho having retired from films after hanging on the ladder at the end of Night In Casablanca for longer than comfortable.
Quite insightful in places while pretty funny throughout.

Robert Remini - Henry Clay: Statesman for the Union
Lorrie Moore - Like Life

How'd you like the Moore?

Irvin Yalom's Love Executioner. I'm a sucker for this kind of stuff, whatever you call it: case study-driven popular psychology, the literature of recovery, therapy devolved into folk wisdom, voyeurism-as-self-help... Yalom is very human (at least his self-portrayal is) and you can tell he's a novelist of some skill in the way he channels these dramas into universal themes. And as much as I'm cynical, there's wisdom in here, too. I stayed up way too late with it last night.

That should be Love's Executioner, of course.

The prior version was the working title of the demo version of one of The Cult's biggest hits.

<Flails about for an Ian Astbury/wolfchild/Freud gag.>

Dark Back of Time - Javier Marias
Pack my Bag - Henry Green
The Driver's Seat - Muriel Spark

Maggie Nelson - The Argonauts. Really good and love the way theory and practice (in her own life) are meshed in together. The balance of theory/life is finely held over a number of pages. The life tends to feel almost fictional, its so grounded in living with books and writing and other people's thoughts. The painful loneliness is there, you'd think it could lead to a simple existence which could just be an endurance test too, but she is agile enough to grab other people by the hands and doesn't walk away when their lives and complications are presented to her.

1/3 of the way through so far and immensely enjoying it.

Gang Leader For a day Sudhir Venkatesh
The Indian born sociologist who first came to widespread notice through the chapter in Freakonomics about how gang members lived at home went onto write a full book on the experience he had in the Chicago Ghetto with the gang the Black Kings.
I just found this in a charity shop yesterday, thought it was the same story I read 5 years back in that shorter form and am finding it pretty fascinating so far.

wonderfully put xyzzz

Yeah, been curious about that

reread we & now reading zamyatin's short stories for what must be the 3rd time.

The Dragon collection? That's good stuff.

Looking online for cover of the old Penguin ed of The Dragon I have http://pictures.abebooks.com/isbn/9780140037852-uk-300.jpg, I came across this weird We cover http://thumbs.ebaystatic.com/images/g/QdAAAOSw~oFXKuWM/s-l225.jpg, which makes it look a bit like a scifi sex comedy.

yep, the penguin as above. first read it quite sometime before finding a copy of we, which after the stories was somewhat underwhelming. decided to revisit after the khlebnikov collection as was wondering if zamyatin was maybe responding to some of khlebnikov's visions of the future (including glass dwellings/flying transportation!) and time/space theories (confusing as they are).

now need to find a copy of zamyatin's satire of england which i didn't know had been translated!

How'd you like the Moore?

― rhymes with "blondie blast" (cryptosicko),

I loved it.

now need to find a copy of zamyatin's satire of england which i didn't know had been translated!

I didn't even know this existed!

finishing up the time of illusion. this is the best book i've ever read about... what? the nixon administration? vietnam-era foreign policy? power? hell? idk.

i've never picked up anything else by schell but that book sticks in my mind. can't quite describe the tone, but it feels so different from anything else i've read about politics.

something like nixonland works hard to vividly recreate the feeling of living through the period, but its "thesis", not that this is everything, is pretty basic: the southern strategy created the political world we live in now (obvious); the national mood that accompanied the southern strategy created the culture we live in now (works fine).

schell book on the other hand looks modest -- just one more analysis of the usual documents -- but is audacious. starts as a lucid, dry book of political analysis -- mostly just quotes from speeches -- and step by well-reasoned step passes into metaphysics. by the time you get to the description of nixon at his fanatically stage-managed convention, every applause line and cheer scripted and timed, standing at the center of this three-dimensional projection of mass praise for a projection of a president, unable to actually deliver a speech or a presence worthy of the projection -- The image had eclipsed its object. The script had swallowed up its author. -- you are basically reading a horror story. a horror-comedy tho: at one point the watergate coverup/investigation is described as the spectacle of a man following his own footsteps in circles while taking care never to discover where they lead. and then this paragraph which i am amazed felt earned:

The Nixon men used the language of the theatre--"scenario," "script," "players," "orchestration"--to describe the way they ran the country, but perhaps the most apt analogy would be to the state of dreaming... A waking person confronts a world that is given, but a dreamer confronts a world that is of his own creation. He is the author not only of his own actions but of the world in which he acts. In him are united subject and object. It is he who arranges to be attacked from behind and he who jumps in surprise. The beast that chases after and the "I" who runs away are the products of a single mind. President Nixon, using the great powers of his office, organized his waking life on the same principle... The President was becoming the author of his own environment. He manufactured events and then he "responded" to them. He invented enemies and then he went to war against them. He gave the speeches and then he applauded them. He threw the rocks and then he ducked. He invented crises and then he made "great decisions" to resolve them. As for the rest of us, it became our fate to live for half a decade inside the head of a waking dreamer.

A+ would trip again. made me wonder if the best nixon movie is 2001.

(was also impressed that the psychological analysis is not just of nixon but of cold war thinking, which it portrays nixon's sickness as an expression of even as the early-70s version of cold war thinking becomes an expression of nixon's sickness. so eerie and satisfying.)

(like a well-argued adam curtis. if you can imagine such a thing.)

If we had waited a bit to roll this thread it could have had a whole different title.

I've waded into the dark waters of Caro's fourth LBJ volume, Passage of Power. Thus far, the most interesting pieces are his descriptions of John and Bobby Kennedy, pre-1960 campaign.

Southern Strategy was also taking back the country, via the contingent of Southern Democrats, descendants of those who came to commerical etc turf agreements with Repubs as Renconstruction was halted/rolled back---re Woodward's The Strange Career of Jim Crow. Some Southern Dem voters (also some Mayor Dailey Democrates and others) were there to be welcomed and nurtured as they fled alliance w post-New Deal Dems after Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights,crossing over in '66 midterms. Yadda yadda Trump as Repubs' Frankenstein monster, this election as slo-mo version of '68 Dem Convention, bad publicity-wise.
Schell quote reminds me of Forbidden Planet(1956), where ideal spectacle generated by the Mercutio figure's rational process is eventually undermined by creatures from his depths (spoiler).

Has anyone read Cortazar's Hopscotch? After four years of postponing, I've decided to give it a go. It's fun and anticipates much of the literary experimentation running through the rest of the 60s/70s. Interestingly contemporaneous with Nabokov's Pale Fire. Both weirder and more fun than I expected so far.

Reads better in Spanish imo. Not that I've ever finished it, mind you.

finishing up the time of illusion. this is the best book i've ever read about... what? the nixon administration? vietnam-era foreign policy? power? hell? idk.

I read it at clemenza's recommendation several years ago and loved it. I appreciate its contemporaneity -- what good reporters knew the Nixon administration was already doing before Pentagon Papers + Watergate that made it risible.

Weapons of Math Destruction by Cathy O'Neill

I appreciate its contemporaneity -- what good reporters knew the Nixon administration was already doing before Pentagon Papers + Watergate that made it risible.

yes -- the realization that you don't actually need much beyond the early-70s public record (tho the book has certainly absorbed the pentagon papers and the early tape disclosures) to make a clear argument that nuclear strategy brought 1) the u.s. to the as-they-say "brink" of dictatorship; and in downright literary analogy 2) richard nixon to the brink of madness

Until [the Watergate investigation] intruded, the President lived in a closed world in which he rarely had any experiences he had not arranged for himself. As in a dream, some of these experiences were pleasant and some were gratifying and some were frightening. What he could not endure were unplanned experiences that came from without, and it was these that his television set brought before his eyes.

Had he remained in power much longer, he would surely have put an end to such disruptions once and for all. Then no unexpected sights would have offended his gaze... His communion with himself would have continued uninterrupted, and the world he saw would have become co-extensive with his thought processes. There would have been only the sound of the programmed enemies and the sound of the surrogates praising him in words of his own devising. And, at the center, a perfect closed circle, in which he talked to his tapes and his tapes talked to him.

since i'm on something of an early soviet lit kick, decided to finally start on the complete isaac babel (this may take a while)

finished the groucho and Me and One Way Out Allman Brothers Oral history so have moved onto couple of other things.
I got as far as page 558 of Wolf Hall before mislaying the book and getting into something else so will finish that and possibly read Bring Out The Bodies to follow it up.

Want to read that Gangleader For A day book by the iNdian sociologist who has a chapter in Freakonomics. It's about his time spent with the Chicago gang the Black kings.

wish I could osmose through a pile of books that I've been accumulating. Keep picking things up in charity shops thinking they look fascinating and then getting into other things.But don't want to miss things either.

xpost The Selling of The President 1968 is another Nixonlandmark---from the Associated Press obit for Joe: McGinniss:

McGinniss was a columnist for the Philadelphia Inquirer in 1968 when an advertising man told him he was joining Hubert Humphrey’s presidential campaign. Intrigued that candidates had advertising teams, McGinniss was inspired to write a book and tried to get access to Humphrey.

The Democrat turned him down, but, according to McGinniss, Nixon aide Leonard Garment allowed him in, one of the last times the ever-suspicious Nixon would permit a journalist so much time around him. Garment and other Nixon aides were apparently unaware, or unconcerned, that McGinniss’s heart was very much with the anti-war agitators the candidate so despised.

The Republican’s victory that fall capped a once-unthinkable comeback for the former vice president, who had declared six years earlier that he was through with politics. Having lost the 1960 election in part because of his pale, sweaty appearance during his first debate with John F. Kennedy and aware of his reputation as a partisan willing to play dirty, Nixon had restricted his public outings and presented himself as a new and more mature candidate.

McGinniss was far from the only writer to notice Nixon’s reinvention, but few offered such raw and unflattering details. “The Selling of the President” was a sneering rebuttal to Theodore H. White’s stately “Making of the President” campaign books. It revealed Nixon aides, including a young Roger Ailes, disparaging vice presidential candidate Spiro Agnew; drafting memos on how to fix Nixon’s “cold” image; and debating which black man — only one would be permitted — was right for participating in a televised panel discussion.

“If White was the voice of the liberal consensus, with its sonorous even-keeled wisdom, McGinniss was an emissary from the New Journalism, with his countercultural accents, youthful iconoclasm, and nonchalant willingness to bare his left-leaning political views,” historian David Greenberg wrote in “Nixon’s Shadow,” published in 2003. “McGinniss sneaked in under the radar screen, presenting himself to Nixon’s men as such an insignificant fly on the wall that they never thought to swat him away.”

“The Selling of the President” was published in 1969, spent months on The New York Times’ best-seller list and made McGinniss an eager media star.

Big cortazar fan over here - hopscotch is good fun and really feels like a mid-60s Dylan mise-en-scene to me (been awhile since i read it, maybe it was just all the bohemians sitting around drinking wine/mate and having melodramatic arguments). I prefer his short story collections and poetry though, something about brevity brings out the best in his writing.

Xxp

Yeah, I prefer the short stories as well.

Am interested to read one of these extensively researched novels about the settlement of Texas by Paulette Jiles.

In the Woods, Tana French. So far, an involving crime procedural slash character study with lots of tactile detail and jokes.

started A Month in the Country today

As in the old joke, "last week I spent a month in the country"?

Jiles wrote an SF novel which looked interesting, bur i have not read it yet: Lighthouse Island.

She's apparently a huge Jack Vance fan.

Cool, thanks Οὖτις, I'll have to check out the stories - I knew he wrote Blow-Up, but aside from that have no idea what the rest of his work is like. 1/4 into Hopscotch, I can see how the constraints of a short story/poem would be a good thing.

My fave short story of his us probably Axolotl (sp?). Fave collections are Cronopios et Famas and Around the Day in 80 Worlds. As far as poetry goes Save Twilight is excellent. He also did some comic book in the 70s that i would v much like to read an english translation of, i forget the title.

He was IN a comic in the 70s, unauthorised, an experience which he turned into this: https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/fantomas-versus-multinational-vampires

Did not know he had written them too

"Axolotl" is a good one. The main English collection which is called something like Blow Up and Other Stories is full of good stories. I like the Spanish collections Bestiario, Las Armas Secretas and Ceremonias. I guess the last one is just a combination of the first two. He has a great story about Charlie Parker called "The Pursuer," told by a clueless music critic narrator.

Much as I like his short stories, I've never actually made it through a single one of his novels.

i think i even read hopscotch both ways? possibly?

yet all i remember is mate

I read that first as the English word "mate" and not the Spanish word for the herb beloved by the Argentines. /bilingual puns that you had missed

every story in the Blow-Up short story collection, er, blew my mind. my favourite was the one about the family that live in a big house with a tiger. also the newest edition is very pretty imo
https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/612R7sXddlL.jpg

it's only a hundred and some pages so i'm trying to savour every page of A Month In The Country as long as possible. such a dream

ah yes sorry James yes the Fantomas thing is what I was thinking of

The Cortázar story you are referring to is Casa Tomada/House Taken Over and yes, it's a good one. Think the English collection is comprised of the collections I mentioned already plus those from Final del Fuego.

Truth be told, I know he is the poster boy of Boom translators, but Gregory Rabassa's work leaves me kind of cold and I don't have the skill and stamina to read a long novel in Spanish. Maybe I should look for which Cortázar novels were translated by Paul Blackburn and read one of those.

Cool, thanks all! Will seek out the Blow-Up collection, perhaps after finishing Hopscotch. I'm enjoying it - all of the jazz is a pleasant surprise (apparently Cortazar played trumpet himself), although the Latin-Franco machismo and La Maga as a manic-pixie-dreamgirl avant la lettre grates a bit (I guess it could be read parodically? but that seems quite charitable. . .)

I do wish my Spanish were good enough to read in the OG. Maybe one day.

Every time I read Balzac I wonder why we read Dickens.

You and Joyce.

That reminds me, I need to read more Balzac. I enjoyed the two I've read: "Cousin Bette" and "Pere Goriot". I've yet to read any Dickens novels. I started "Bleak House" once.

I recently finished Nicholson Baker's "Vox". A pretty fun, smutty and occasionally sexy novel. Of course the concept of a phone sex chat line is very dated, but in some ways it seems ahead of its time - Internet, mainstreaming of porn, yadda yadda.

I finished Franco Moretti, THE BOURGEOIS

then Muriel Spark, THE DRIVER'S SEAT

Flann O'Brien - The Best of Myles

That reminds me, I need to read more Balzac. I enjoyed the two I've read: "Cousin Bette" and "Pere Goriot". I've yet to read any Dickens novels. I started "Bleak House" once.

― o. nate

I'm reading Cousin Pons and laughing almost every page.

i read a little burton, 'anatomy of melancholy'

sometimes his prose really does seem to be like a word dump, every so often he reaches a point where the commas just start piling up and it's as if expressing a whole thought is a distraction

Flann O'Brien - The Best of Myles

― xyzzzz__, Friday, October 21, 2016 2:10 AM (thirteen hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

would like to read that, never read any of the Myles na gCopaleen stuff

katherine dunn - geek love

I just got a copy of that Best Of Myles a couple of weeks back.
Found it in a charity shop and had enjoyed the novels I'd read by him .
Saw a copy of a book of the same title but different cover today and wondered if the contents were the same since I've seen books of the same or similar title with about 4 or 5 different covers

https://es.pinterest.com/pin/257127459952367990/

ooooooooookay...

I've had Blow-Up on my 'get' list for a couple of years now, and I keep finding other things to read. Will need to bite the bullet at some point.

(re-)Reading Jock Colville's diaries (I'm a sucker for 30s-40s British political diaries), and about to start Loque's War Music.

Flower Confidential about commercial production of flowers by Amy Stewart.

Gang leader For A Day is my transport book.

Boutique is my bog book. Think it's by Melanie Fogg.

Sorry, somebody just happened to tell me last night that there was a recent ballet based on "Casa Tomada" (and a few other Cortázar stories as it turned out) which is what those Pinterest photos are about.

The invention of morel might work as a play (I think reading that, and Sylvia ocapmpo is why someone recommended Blow Up to me)

Lorrie Moore's Anagrams. I'm laughing after every other sentence.

There was indeed at least one play of a The Invention of Morel which generated some interesting photos I came across once, let's see if I can find.

No can find, it has gone off the Internet, I'm afraid.

Good to know, regardless!

Judge Dredd: BLOCK MANIA

Anagrams is lovely. Was about to say more, but do not wish to spoiler.

Just finished Wolf hall. Sublime writing. May move on to Bring Out The Bodies since I have that lying around.
May finish off Ford Maddox Ford's March Of Literature since I have that about 200 pages from the end.

you guys, reading... it's just, so swell :')

Robert Bothwell - The Penguin History of Canada
Derek Parfit - Reasons and Persons, part III: "Personal Identity"

you guys, reading... it's just, so swell :')

currently reading:

J.R. Ackerley - We Think The World Of You

just got few a couple dozens pages on my commute but so far so good. I love british novels with bracingly smart narrators, of which this is one

Started reading the Vivienne Westwood autobiography last night when I couldn't drop off to sleep. Had picked it up cos I found it cheap in TKMAxx. Just at a time that I was reading about her in The look by paul Gorman.
just picked up a load of new stuff today too.

But hoping Vivienne might be inspiring in garment making.

The only JR Ackerley I've read is My Father and Myself, which is fantastic. An autobiography that takes in being gay in Edwardian London, fighting in the trenches in WW1, and a central mystery about his father that only comes to light after his death... it's a really compelling read.

His memoir about his dog, My Dog Tulip, is also great: the non-fictional treatment of the experiences he also fictionalised beautifully as We Think the World of You.

I've more than half-finished Caro's LBJ volume 4, The Passage to Power, JFK is dead. The whole gang is headed to DC on Air Force One with the coffin on board. As the most dramatic moment of the story, the day of the assassination and Caro's accompanying observations occupies a very substantial number of pages. 100 or so? I haven't counted them. Caro does a good job of convincing the reader that LBJ's tasks in the days and months following JFK's murder are nearly impossible to pull off, so that when Johnson manages to pull it off we'll be suitably awestruck.

Does he comment on the Paul Krassner story of what happened when LBJ was left alone with JFK's body.

finished 2000AD: THE APOCALYPSE WAR

Toni Morrison, SONG OF SOLOMON

the dialogue between Ackerley's stand-in and his in-laws is fantastic

Paul Beatty's The Sellout won Man Booker. Anybody here read it?
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/26/business/media/paul-beatty-wins-man-booker-prize-with-the-sellout.html?_r=0

comment on the Paul Krassner story

nope

The nobel went to a musician, now the UK book prize goes to an American. Does anything make sense anymore? ANYTHING?

Did it make sense before?

I finally finished volume 1 of "The Demons" by Heimito von Doderer, which took ages* and felt like a shapeless first draft of "A Dance To The Music of Time" (or something) set in inter-war Vienna. I am genuinely torn about whether to follow up with vols 2 and 3, it's such a swirl of character and event that6 I found it hard to keep up with and often even a slog. Very little happens in the course of the 470 pages of volume 1, but somehow I want (all of a sudden) to know more about what happens to these people.

*Admittedly, and slightly confusingly, I slipped in a concurrent read of "The Emperor's Tomb" by Joseph Roth which follows a similar milieu at a not-so-different point in history in the same geographical location, albeit to very different ends. A few times I expected character from one to turn up in the other.

THat Krassner story is in the bottom right corner of this page of the Realist from their Archives
http://www.ep.tc/realist/74/18.html
Looks like there's a stack of the 60s satirical magazine on that site.

Apparently the rumour started there was believed by a load of people at the time that came out. It's presented as an unpublished part of the Manchester book on the investigation into The Death Of The President.
I thought if they went into 100 pages on the flight they might have mentioned that somewhere.

why would a serious historian reference a story like that in his book?

Tim - at this rate you are going to make me read The Demons. I've read nearly everything by Joseph Roth.

What he said

something wicked this way comes - what a lovely book, enjoying this a lot. i waited until it got cold to read it and then on monday the chapter i was reading had a few lines about it being the 24th of october, which was good.

also dreamland sam quinones still, and just finished young skins by colin barrett, which i liked apart from some stupid indulgences, eg some dreadfully named characters, and calling the local chipper "carcettis" presumably due to liking the wire, almost unforgivable that one.

i just loaded Dreamland to my iPad! have you liked it?

Yes it is great! I don't think it's amazing writing and he sometimes repeats his own invented similes, but it is a brilliant story well-investigated. So sad and wrong, especially the stuff about OxyContin. my mum is a pharmacist and she saw my copy and bought it, should be interesting to hear how much she likes all the gang stuff in it.

Some recent readings:

Jo Nesbø: Blood on Snow -- never read any by him before, and this was perfectly OK, 1970s Oslo-set noir pastiche with hitman and femme fatale; won't be rushing to read more

Sjón: Moonstone -- this is the 3rd by him I've read, and probably my favourite: teenaged cinema-obsessed rentboy in Reykjavík gets job as body-lugger during the post-WW1 Spanish Flu outbreak

Nina Allan: The Art of Space Travel -- SF novella that gains almost nothing from being presented as SF, despite being well-written and thoughtful

Alexis Smith: Glaciers -- sweet, sad novella about a day-ish in the life of a woman in love with a fellow librarian who is about to go back to fight in the Gulf for no easily articulated reason

Georges Simenon: The Hand -- another excellent, harsh non-Maigret, apparently newly translated and published because David Hare has based a play on it

Ferenc Békássy: The Alien in the Chapel -- selected poems and letters by Hungarian poet who studied at Oxford was a sort-of friend of Rupert Brooke (they were both after the same girl) and was killed by Russians on the Eastern Front in 1915 at age 22

Reminds me, I just found a library shop copy of Simenon's Aunt Jeanne---is it good?

I've never even heard of that one, tbh. But you're probably pretty safe getting it!

I also recommend The Emperor's Tomb, which has some of the quietest pathos that's ever moved me in a book.

something wicked this way comes - what a lovely book, enjoying this a lot. i waited until it got cold to read it and then on monday the chapter i was reading had a few lines about it being the 24th of october

looking forward to listening to november rain every day next month

Reading Good Morning, Midnight by Jean Rhys. Not to diminish her, but her sentences give very easily to poetry - chunks of this are positively Prufrockian.

I've had enough of these streets
that sweat a cold, yellow slime,
of hostile people, of crying
myself to sleep every night.

I've had enough of thinking,
enough of remembering.
Now whisky, rum, gin, sherry, vermouth, wine
with the bottles labelled 'Dum vivimus, vivamus. ... '
Drink, drink, drink.
As soon as I sober up I start again.

John Jeremiah Sullivan - "Pulphead". Just finished reading the piece about the Christian rock festival. Excellent stuff and not as sneery as you might expect

just finished Moby-Dick

there's a good story in there, probably 30 chapters of the entire thing. the rest of it reads like an afternoon hopping around on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Cetology

(and then there's the buzzfeedy '10 worst depictions of whales in art')

i really want to read it after chatting to mark s about it. i love the other melvilles i've read but i don't expect it's like bartleby or the confidence man.

just started reading a collection of horror stories by e nesbitt, having finished something wicked this way comes. i am really loving the tone and rhythm of these and the posh british settings are v different from a lot of what i've been reading. also just great scary yarns.

after that i've got an in-tray of jon mcgregor, jl carr's a month in the country ( as recommended itt), and no doubt some more i'm forgetting.

Just finished Vivienne Westwood autobio and the book on Boutiques by Marnie Fogg which were both really interesting.
About half way through the Gangleader For A Day book and things are becoming a bit complicated for the sociology student since he's becoming involved with several sides of a community that the Black kings are living in.

Just started Wedlock by Wendy Moore about shenanigans in the 18th century concerning a conman and his conned bride.

Need to work out what the next book I read in bed will be. have several lined up. Possibly A man called Destruction the Alex chilton biography though I've read a lot of rock bios recently, so not sure.

I read another few Bradbury shorts after Moby dick (he did the screenplay for the film). Had read most of them before but it's never a chore to reread Bradbury. The one about the astronauts in the aftermath of the explosion. Marionettes Inc is a fantastic little thing. The city.

(Am 10% into the first of the two 1000 page omnibuses)

I'm reading The Professor's House, Willa Cather, and I'm halfway through it. It is definitely a weaker effort than O, Pioneers! or Death Comes for the Archbishop. She assembles her modest cast of nine or ten characters, but she seems barely acquainted with them in comparison to her deep understanding of the characters in those two other novels.

Structurally it's too neat by half, but the Tom Outland section is fascinating, and I like the homoerotic undertones.

going to Buenos Aires on friday so I'm reading...

Alfredo Bioy Casares - The Invention of Morel

it's weird as hell so far. with a great introduction by Borges

Moby-Dick is so good. Held out against reading but raced through it last xmas. The story is just a skeleton to hang stuff, and his prose.

Been reading Empson's complete poetry. The author's notes are absolutely hilarious and brilliant. Needs a reissue, a very peculiar book (like the man) (sorta want to read Haffenden's biography)

going to Buenos Aires on friday so I'm reading...

Alfredo Bioy Casares - The Invention of Morel

it's weird as hell so far. with a great introduction by Borges

Nice, Casares looks like another one to add to the list - am almost finished Hopscotch and am interested in The Invention of Morel, too. More weird-as-hell Argentine literature, pls!

Yeah, Morel is great. And a great example of SF for people who think they don't read SF.

Vladislav Vančura: Summer of Caprice -- this must be the most Irish novel ever written by a Czech; priests and lifeguards and soldiers hang around and have convoluted arguments in unlikely language, and a magician comes to town and everything goes mad

W.B. Yeats, MICHAEL ROBARTES AND THE DANCER (just 20 pages of poems)

back to OSCAR WAO which I don't rate

and started Jonathan Coe, NUMBER 11, which I'm finding really engaging; sort of pure pleasure of narrative fiction with little idea yet quite how the many pieces he'll orchestrate will come together.

picked up a copy of the Pancatantra yesterday cos I saw it in a charity shop. Don't remember hearing of it before but now would be surprised if i hadn't come across at least mention of it.
A series of interlinked fables told to 3 lazy royal brothers to hopefully help them along the path to wisdom. Seems to date back to the 4th century BC and has been translated into European languages since about the 6th Century AD.

I'm seeing it compared to Aesop's fables. Looks like it could be very interesting.

collection of horror stories by e nesbitt

shamefully replying to my own post, but i'm enjoying this so much. each story has that first person grand english confessional tone that's so classic for horror, and they all address the reader in a sort of over-written way - like "you shan't believe what i am about to tell you, but i swear that it is true, even though i cannot, not even in darkest moments, begin to fathom how". i'm three or four in and they're all these quintessential english ghost stories, all the tropes are perfectly delivered. like in nearly every story somebody will move in to a house or say they're visiting a person, and a stranger they meet, usually a maid or someone else in the serving classes will raise an eyebrow or briefly refuse to take them there, like a victorian version of "the animals are always the first to know". somehow all of these tropes just make the stories kind of rich and familiar, and there is some beautiful writing in there.

I've been reading Mr. Sammler's Planet by Saul Bellow. It's probably not anyone's idea of top-drawer Bellow, and some of the musings on contemporary culture (this is the early 1970s) seem reactionary if not racist, but perhaps that's the character talking and not Bellow. On top of that, the plot seems like rather a rickety afterthought to hang Sammler/Bellow's ethical (in the Aristotelian sense) musings upon. Despite all that, it's not unreadable, and the reader feels the comforting sense of being in sure narrative hands.

I keep putting down novels from that Bellow era (inc. MSP).

In some ways it seems like Bellow by the numbers, but there is guilty pleasure to be had for instance in the narrator's deeply un-PC generalizations about women, and as usual with Bellow there is the occasional particularly fine sentence.

2/3 done Casares and I still have nfi what's going on lol

It all has a pleasantly unambiguous explanation, flopson, don't worry

The end of the book, that is, not life in general

Hey, LocalGarda, is the Nesbitt collection that new Penguin one with the 1970s-style skull cover? Because based on your posts here I just bought it.

Inspired by o. nate, I picked up Henderson the Rain King again, which I put down, bored and bemused, in 2008.

james - yes that exact one. i hate the cover! it looks so facile and childish, which would be fine if it was actually a children's book. there is some confusing prose at times, and one or two iffy stories as i get through it, but the standard is generally very good and there is some beautiful writing.

one of the stories begins with this, which i thought was just brilliant:

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CwR5cnCWAAAbBnd.jpg

oops sorry, a bit big

I'm spending too much time online, had a double-take at 'button-hole'.

Accidentally posted this in the books you've bought recently thread:

Millhauser, Edwin Mullhouse: The Life and Death of an American Writer 1943-1954, by Jeffrey Cartwright

Jumped back into reading today and read Cold Comfort Farm, delightful and made a nice change from heavy Hamilton sci fi and Pratchett guff.

o god fuck Hamilton sci fi

Is that one of the stories in The Last Dangerous Visions?

Ha, I also just finished Cold Comfort Farm. So fun. Anti-misogyny and video chats - it felt astonishingly of the moment. The end is a bit wimpy, but a deserved happy ending all the same.

Trying to work out whether I should read Middlemarch or LaBrava next

"Inspired by o. nate, I picked up Henderson the Rain King again, which I put down, bored and bemused, in 2008."

my least favorite of his by far. roth or elkin could have done the same thing and made it great and hilarious.

i'm almost embarrassed to say that i'm reading a really bad ben bova book. it's called Voyagers. don't ever read it. unless you are looking for a very rudimentary lesson in boiling pots.

i swear i've read things by him that weren't terrible. i kinda loved the Exiles Trilogy. mostly for the last book.

With your vast collection of pulpy SF paperbacks why are you wasting your time on that,?

sometimes i just do things that make no sense....

it's what makes me me...

i'll read something better next.

i might read this 60's collection of stories by pierre boulle next. looks cool. i never actually read planet of the apes.

I'm about 1/4th of the way through "Between the World and Me" by Ta-Nehisi Coates. It's almost a book you could read in one sitting. The parts about growing up in a tough neighborhood in Baltimore were quite vivid.

Ah I really loved Exiles Trilogy, I think it's because it was the first sci fi books I ever read. I've yet to read any other Ben Bova books yet though.

re Cold Comfort Farm: The end is a bit wimpy
Yeah totally agree, the ending just abandonded all the great humour that had come before.

Yes i said 'yet' twice in one sentence

Started reading that punk Rock Blitzkrieg after thinking I'd leave it a while since I had a few other books ahead of it.
BUt have started and finding it quite compelling, like the voice but dos ee that it's got a co-writer so wonder towhat extent the voice actually is Marc Bell's.
So far got up to him being a Voidoid. I think they're about to go to the UK.

Had forgotten he was in the Wayne County backing band the Backstreet Boys. Not seen my cd compi of Wayne in a while so not sure if I have anything with them on.

I am reading "Palladian" by Elizabeth Taylor - it's only her second novel and I don't like it as much as the two or three others of hers I've read, it has some of that character-spearing piquancy I love so much, but only in flashes. Still good, though.

I accidentally picked up two books to read next, and will have to decide on "The Elephant's Journey" by Jose Saramago or "Happy Easter" by Jose Rodrigues Migueis (about whom I know nothing). Which Jose: a Portuguese problem.

stayed up until 2 a.m. reading de tocqueville and mencken last night. had to force myself to stop reading mencken. also reading parts of e.m. forster's abinger harvest. love the lit stuff in that. his thing on sinclair lewis is great and totally nails why SL was so amazing early on and so bad later. and he wrote it in the 20's! and he even predicted the badness to come. (lewis was an amazing photographer - not an artist or writer - and amazing photographers can lose their eye as they age and have nothing to fall back on. their eye was all they had. that's the gist of it.)

Got pretty into Lewis's 1947 Kingslood Royal, although it's been a long time since I read it, and wouldn't swear it wasn't more the subject matter, incl. mention of the Duluth lynching and other civic matters also referenced in "Desolation Row."

Abinger Harvest has lots of sharp bits around passages that are too cute for words (the Forster flaw). I remembered the photographer analogy and it's OTM. The Eliot essay gets to the problem of his misanthropy and crabbed vision of faith.

OSCAR WAO so obnoxious that I took a break with ... Katherine Mansfield, whom oddly I'd never properly read before, but always wanted to.

I have only read about 8 stories so far. Overall: I quite like it but slightly disappointed, maybe having built up for years an idea of how good she must be.

The obvious comparison is Woolf -- 'The Garden Party' feels like average or sub-par Woolf, rather than a good or more interesting version. But 'Bliss' more interesting - the bliss itself kept quite mysterious; the fashionable setting that feels interwar rather than earlier (as it is); the shifting sexual ambiguity that develops and seems unresolveable.

'The Daughters of the Late Colonel' seems to manage to mix poignancy with black comedy, satirical tone.

And IN A GERMAN PENSION so far is more purely satirical - less interested in sensitivity and more in digs and barbs - so a different mode from the ones I first read.

I would be happy to read all of KM's stories; am unsure what variety I might yet find.

(Maybe this is a not a good idea to ask: but do you guys know what went into this thread title?)

Malice.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/2/20/MaliceAforethought.jpg/220px-MaliceAforethought.jpg

I recently bought a small secondhand tranche of books by Penelope Fitzgerald, so am now reading her first novel, The Golden Child (published in 1977, when she was sixty - love a late starter). Amusing, so far.

She gets better. Although I never actually read that one, only know it by reputation.

James Redd, no, I've no idea really, do you?

(2 parts E. Waugh + 1 part proto-Bertie Wooster)

http://madameulalie.org/vfus/The_Knuts_O_London.html

Ha! In the back of my mind I assumed it was probably a Leicester City mascot reference that I didn't understand.

That Wodehouse link reminds me of "The Freaks Of Mayfair" by EF Benson which I picked up for free off a local book-sharing thing, and which I've only skimmed so far.

I have been reading it as reference to:

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-a-VxAeCG1Es/UqF8t4dd6sI/AAAAAAAASz4/omnD3ckfOyw/s1600/GILBERTS+FRIDGE+WINTER+88+DAN+ABNETT+PAUL+HARDY.jpg

Amazing. Hadn't thought about Mr Green Gilbert in ages. Tropical Ken: he's so small.

This GILBERT'S FRIDGE is very new to me.

I think Tim was thinking of FILBERT THE FOX.

Hi pinefox---toward the end of the most previous What Are You Reading, I posted several comments on Stories By Katherine Mansfield (Vintage Classics, with an intro by Jeffrey Meyers, which is informative, though I often disagree with his interpretations). It's a handy trade paperback, but slips in 28 stories, in chronological order of their writing, 1908-23. Pattern recognition gets to be a little off-putting in some of the early stories, especially when she can seem too personally compulsive and too derivative at once (sometimes self-derivative) or too merely snarky---but when she hits her stride, all the by-now familiar elements reconfigure in amazing ways, with, as you say, dark comedy, satire, fearlessly navigated social observations flying around the room, almost endlessly fueled by crazy situations re gender roles, and curious individual responses to same. Died at 34, a creative peak. I miss her.

The very last story, written soon before she died, is especially moving and chilling, with what came to be her recognizable blend of unblinking observation and empathetic, sublimated suffering: judicious, yeah.

keep meaning to revisit mansfield. one day.

finished the complete babel (great!) only to discover puskin press have put out a newly translated collection with at least one story that doesn't appear in the complete :-/

starting on bashevis singer's satan in goray, chronicling the effects on a small polish village of reports about the doings of sabbatai sevi. would be interesting to follow this up with gershom scholem's study of sevi but don't think i could face another 1000+ page book just yet.

Thanks Dow for your reading of Mansfield.

I started reading Lucretius' didactic poem, On the Nature of the Universe last night (Melville translation). It's a mix of surprisingly modern ideas with occasional reminders that he wrote it circa 50 BC. The amount of astute deduction about the atomic foundation of physics, all while having no instruments at all, not even a magnifying glass, is pretty impressive.

I've been reading a book of the Mass Observation Report for George VI's coronation in 1937. It's an interesting read - doubt I'll go cover to cover, though. Polling is discredited - maybe we need to reintroduce MO?

Bright Magic: Collected Stories by Alfred Doblin
A Beautiful Young Wife by Tommy Wieringa

finished Casares. loved it, despite my utter confusion documented unthread I ended up anticipating some of the sci-fi ending, but still a great twist. one of the novels I've read that most made me feel I could write something worthwhile. maybe be of its simplicity

I have been too depressed and anxious to read since the election. I tried reading some stuff I packed for my trip, but I just read a few lines and then snap into a catatonic state, apocalyptic visions take over. sucks cause it's one of the things that gives me true joy and peace of mind in life the past year. hopefully I will be able to soon

oh I also wanted to ask what other Casares I should read. I saw that there was another that nyrb put out, which I'll likely get. are those the only 2 that are accessible?

If it is Plan of Escape, yes, read it! Very similar style and mood.

the dream of heroes is the sole casares novel i've read... & was okay. had a vaguely les grand meaulnes/lost domainish vibe with added south american machismo. would like to read morel (was one of the many allusions in perec's avoid, i think?)

les grand meaulnes that is

Think he had a serious drop off in quality at some point. Collection of stories in La trama celeste, such as "Memories of Pauline" also great.

Still reading Between the World and Me. (I know, I know, but there've been other things distracting me this week.) I must say, it does live up to the hype, and some of Coates' more apocalyptic statements about the rottenness at the core of the American dream are resonating quite strongly this week in particular, not that those statements are the best part of the book. What really grabs me is the vividness of the language and the unmediated encounter with someone wrestling openly with deeply conflicted emotions.

Just started that Phillipe Sands East West Street: On the Origins of Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity. So far it is quite gripping and evokes more the fragile cosmopolitan and almost civilised interwar atmosphere of Eastern European locations, rather than the killing fields they became.

Hi, is this a good place to ask for lit recommendations?

Yes.

Read My Antonia by Willa Cather.

Yes. But unless we have some idea about what sorts of lit might be of interest to you, our recommendations will be based more on our own tastes than on yours. H

ave you read anything lately that appealed to you? Do you have thoughts about what makes an enjoyable reading experience?

Or you can just troll around ILB a while soaking in the ambience and checking out the odd book that sounds intriguing to you.

Back to Coe's NUMBER 11. Readable, fun, nice number of different things going on. Big section set on a reality TV show.

Just finally got his What A Carve Up!, which i have been meaning to buy for ages, having been very entertained by The Rotters' Club.

Does the reality tv stuff work? Novelists doing reality TV usually seem as unconvincing as novelists doing invented pop music.

Flann O'Brien - The Best of Myles

― xyzzzz__, Friday, October 21, 2016 2:10 AM (thirteen hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

would like to read that, never read any of the Myles na gCopaleen stuff

― harold melvin and the bluetones (jim in vancouver), Friday, 21 October 2016 Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Just finished -- really left it for long periods with most of it in a couple of days really addictive once you get into it. Think my main impression is of a Kafka (not a writer I'd compare anyone to really). I'd read this alongside K's Dairies as they both do quite a lot of sketching; sketches that are better than most stories and novels by other ppl. Very different as writers on the one. Otoh both of them were technocrats looking at the absurdity of those systems so that's another point of comparison although O'Brien has these firecracked bursts of langauge and humour (which would take more reads to get a handle on). Kafka (and you are reading in translation) is a totally different shape and arrives at humour from a depressive state.

speaking of, am currently rereading the kafka diaries (had forgotten it was this that pointed me in the direction of von kleist!)

love the flann novels but have barely even looked into the myles stuff, despite having at least 3 of the collections to hand. will remedy.

Hi, is this a good place to ask for lit recommendations?

― viborg, Sunday, November 13, 2016 10:53 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I get all my lit recommendations from this board/thread now. mostly just from reading the thread and making notes of stuff ppl are reading, but occasionally by straight up asking. everyone here's super friendly & helpful, and more well-read than I can ever hope to be

^otm

James M: I think WHAT A CARVE UP! is his most important book - if you discarded all Coe's other work, that would still deserve to stand. NUMBER 11 is the sequel to it. It contains references to the earlier novel, but so far they're fleeting. I think the connections will become heavier.

Reality TV: a short answer might be no. He writes it the same way he writes most of his major narrative. I haven't actually watched the kind of reality TV he's writing about here so might not be best placed to compare novel to TV. One thing he does (surprisingly?) well, though, I think, is ... abusive twitter comments.

Julio and NLT: BEST OF MYLES is as great a comic text as I know, save perhaps MYLES BEFORE MYLES. The Kafka comparison could be pretty rich and a good one because not totally intuitive and obvious.

Cheers, pinefox

Started reading Last Night A Dj Saved my life when I woke up this morning. Think I've seen it reccommended or did so when it came out.
The style seems pretty compelling and I'm interested in the subject matter. Covering the history of Djing from the start etc.

Wedlock How Georgian Britain's Worst Husband Met His Match by Wendy Moore as my bog book. Story about an Irish conman who barry Lyndon is based on cons his way into marriage with an intelligent heiress by pretending to be near death. Interesting, turned up cheap in a charity shop locally.

Pancatantra Indian classical work as my transport book. I'm not getting overly into the verse taht this is heavily punctuated by and the treatment of women verges on the mysoginistic but this is interesting.

I Lick my Cheese and other notes from the Frontline of Flat-sharing by Oonagh O'Hagan a book of largely passive aggressive notes reproduced from real ones left in real flatshares with some explanations given. Thought it would be worth a €1 and it is pretty captivating.

I hugely enjoyed Carve Up and House of Sleep, for the dense plotting as much as anything - I don't really remember the characters or the jokes. Struggled with most of his pre- and post-books (esp Dwarves of Death, which I hated) but kind of hopeful that Number 11 could be return to form (or at least return to form of the kind of Coe book I enjoy).

started reading Bruce Sterling's Involution Beach and enjoying it. his first novel and a homage to Moby Dick. apparently it wouldn't exist if it weren't for Harlan Ellison. or at least that's what Harlan says in his intro. it was a short story that Bruce brought to a workshop and everyone hated it except Harlan and he told Bruce if he made it novel-length he would publish it in his Harlan Ellison Discovery Series. the same thing happened with Bruce's first published short story. everyone hated it and Harlan published it in his last Dangerous Visions collection. Sterling was 21 when he wrote this novel.

you can definitely see the genesis of so many cyberpunk antiheroes in the main character. cooking up drugs in the galley of a ship that is sailing a sea of dust.

Harlan has yet to publish his Last Dangerous Visions collection

oh gosh that's right, i forgot about that tortured story. well, he was gonna publish bruce's story and make him famous. but he at least published the novel. though i don't know if that first novel made him famous. he probably would have done okay without harlan.

he even says in the intro that the collection is coming your way in 1978.

he paid him 60 bucks for the story. he does mention that.

Yr posts made me look up the wiki entry for LDV - they've got a table of contents from 1979 (including the Sterling story), when it was going to be published in three volumes, that sounds like it could've be amazing - unpublished stories by Moorcock, Bester, Simak, Sheckley, Herbert, William Kotzwinkle etc etc. Would read!

The House of Sleep is so embedded with a particular period of my life, I can recall whole sections, all of which trigger a whole collection of sense impressions. And I'm still reasonably convinced 'the book' is on the shelf of the pub I was working in at the time. I just need to find it.

Found an April Fools LDV publication post someone linked to whilst looking through the archives the other day.

Byron Coley mentioned that the last he'd heard, Ellison was still accepting submissions for the final Dangerous Visions---this mention was in a Forced Exposure interview, seems most likely the one with Rudy Rucker, published in 1990, I think--of course he might not have heard lately, but I took it that he was referring to some time way past the original publication date. I hope all those stories finally got published elsewhere, if they deserved it.

Hold on now! Just saw this, with link (which I haven't checked) to Christopher Priest's take-down, and says here that Ellison was still talking about impending publication as recently as 2007, at least (also says that some stories were indeed left in limbo):
http://dangerousminds.net/comments/harlan_ellison_and_the_last_dangerous_visions_saga

Thought Priest's takedown had gone off the net because of HE@

xxxpost

The stuff with the film critic I remember pretty clearly - a lot of very effectively sinister foreshadowing

Will try and chase up Myles Before Myles.

James - how is Bright Magic? Came across this exceprt from it today.

I have officially broached The Man Without Qualities. Any further observations on this endeavor will probably be placed in the dedicated thread. At least it is shorter than the three volume Civil War history I read, by Shelby Foote, but it is bound to bring down the total count of books I've managed to finish this calendar year.

Bright Magic is alternately fascinating/funny and startling in its nastiness to women

er, #okCool :)

reading Great Granny Webster by Caroline Blackwood. so far it is an hilarious portrait of an implausibly austere old upper-class scottish lady, as told by a convalescing teen. brilliant stuff

Finished Hopscotch last week. It was good, although I found it lost a bit of steam a bit 2/3 of the way through (before picking up again towards the end). Can better appreciate how Cortazar would be best suited to short stories.

Picked up Casares' Invention of Morel thanks to the post upthread, which I look forward to starting soon.

After it, I'm hoping to finally end my break from Robert Caro's Power Broker and finish the second half. For anyone interested in the history of New York, urbanism, the inner workings of state/local politics, it's amazing but can be exhausting. If you know him from his books on LBJ, this was his first book - about Robert Moses and his role in - literally and figuratively - shaping NYC through the 20th century.

NUMBER 11 continues in interestingly diverse form and returns to Coe's old obsession with film. There's possibly a direct intertextual connection with THE HOUSE OF SLEEP whose film character someone (I can't find who) mentioned upthread.

Don't know how anyone reads those huge LBJ books. Was about to say can't imagine being THAT interested in a historical figure, but then again I did read the 12 volumes of Casanova's memoirs, so I should shut up. More shagging in Casanova than LBJ though, I suspect.

Wow, this thread is going strong! I thought my request for rec's would need some time to get a response by apparently not.

Yes. But unless we have some idea about what sorts of lit might be of interest to you, our recommendations will be based more on our own tastes than on yours. H

ave you read anything lately that appealed to you? Do you have thoughts about what makes an enjoyable reading experience?

Or you can just troll around ILB a while soaking in the ambience and checking out the odd book that sounds intriguing to you.

― a little too mature to be cute (Aimless), Monday, November 14, 2016 5:46 AM (three days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I'm definitely willing to lurk and learn, but I do feel a little underwater here sometimes since so many of you seem to read SO MUCH. Plus tbh I'm not that interested in non-fiction.

Lately I've read Flood of Fire by Amitav Ghosh (outstanding!), Nutshell by Ian McEwan (meh, really?), and caught up on some of David Mitchell's works that I had previously missed. Regarding Mitchell imo he just isn't consistent. No other work of his that I've read has come close to impact of The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet. And then, I guess inspired by Bob Dylan's Nobel prize, I picked up V.S. Naipaul. On the whole he's just superb, I especially liked A Bend In The River and In A Free State.

So in general, I guess right now I like kind of escapist fiction. Books that are somewhat naturalistic maybe but also exotic or historical. Obviously I'm a big fan of Haruki Murakami too. I tried reading something from Yasunari Kawabata (based on a mention in David Mitchell) but it seemed a bit repressed to me, I had a hard time relating to it at all. I can get into some genre fiction (eg mystery) if it has an interesting setting, I was on a big Walter Mosely kick for a little while. These days I'm not so interested in reading much set in America though.

If Kawabata is too repressed, may i recommend Junichiro Tanizaki, maybe starting with 'Naomi'? Similar atmosphere, but much more feverish sexual energy busting out.

Also, VS Naipaul's dead brother Shiva Naipaul is even better!

I've heard from multiple people that despite all appearances the LBJ books are like crack

Federico, our reading lists have dovetailed in an interesting way! I recently attempted hopscotch (but found it too pretentious and grandiose for my current mood and attention span), just finished Morel, and last week put The Power Broker on my iPad :)

wait is there an official power broker ebook?

nah it's a pretty shitty pdf scan from l1bg3n

ah. i am familiar with that one

xpost

Thanks, Mr. Morrison. I'll check out both of those authors. I didn't specifically mean that Kawabata's is only sexually repressed, just repressed in general -- emotionally, whatever. I just don't know if there's much I can relate to in pre-war Japanese society, but I'm curious and I will give Tanizaki a try.

Anything in particular by Shiva Naipaul you suggest?

Re Shiva Naipaul, leaving aside his (excellent) non-fiction, I'd go with A Hot Country (a great short political novel) or A Man of Mystery (short stories).

Depending what country you're in, 'A Hot Country' may be called 'Love and Death in A Hot Country'

flopson, you're right - what a funny coincidence!

Good call with the eBook of The Power Broker - my only complaint about it would be that I don't ever feel like lugging it with me on the subway or to a cafe to read. I've thought about slicing it in half but haven't been able to bring myself to do it...Interestingly enough - but not surprising given the length of the LBJ series - the Power Broker was almost twice its length when Caro initially submitted to it to his publisher. Apparently there was a long chapter on Jane Jacobs and Robert Moses' battle, which I would have loved to read...

I may re-read a few Borges stories after Casares before going back to The Power Broker and continue riding this Argentine wave a little longer.

Maybe you can read something they wrote together, like Seis problemas para don Isidro Parodi.

I can confirm the intertextual connexion between THE HOUSE OF SLEEP and NUMBER 11 which means there is also a connexion between the former and WHAT A CARVE UP!.

NUMBER 11 has a bit of nice play on ambiguous sequels.

started A Month in the Country today

really enjoying this - reading it based on flopson's comments itt. feels like a soothing balm in the context of world events.

I bought a copy of that last week also, based on recs here and elsewhere; was going to read it next but Jenn was looking for something brief to read and it seemed like just the job.

Instead I've picked up "Insect Summer" by Knut Faldbakken, a Norger I've likely spoken about before on here ("Adam's Diary" is good and bitter, classic Scandinavian people-twisted-out-of-shape-by-society business; "The Sleeping Prince" deals with mental illness and I found it a bit disappointingly pat). This one's a coming-of-age-in-the-countryside number, which starts like this:

ONE: ONAN

Chapter one

It was my sixteenth birthday that summer.

They said I was to spend the holidays in the country, at Aunt Linn and Uncle Kristen's, who had written an invitation..."

This gives every indication of being right up my street. ONAN!

i'm fairly sure you'll love it tim.

The Digger's Game - George V Higgins. His second novel, told almost entirely in dialogue. The genre elements - Boston criminal underworld milieu, a couple of robbery set pieces - disguise or obscure just how abstract this book is, with so much of the action taking place off-stage and often only obliquely referred to later in dialogue. It seems like a fast read, but if you're not following the thread of the dialogue you can soon get lost, or miss an important detail (it didn't help this English reader that a fair bit of the chat is about 1970s American sports gambling). The chapter where the main character describes a long and disastrous trip to Vegas is a stand alone tour-de-force.

sounds amazing

yes that sounds good, Ward.

xx-post

I binged on GVH a few years back, The Digger's Game was definitely best-in-show and everything you said.

started A Month in the Country today

really enjoying this - reading it based on flopson's comments itt. feels like a soothing balm in the context of world events.

― Bein' Sean Bean (LocalGarda), Friday, November 18, 2016 6:02 AM (three hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

had I anticipated the cruel twist world events would have taken, i would have saved this heavenly daydream of a book for now! :(

i started the morning after agent orange won the vote : /

Finished "Pulphead" last week and I loved it. Reading this now - http://www.irishtimes.com/culture/books/the-ponzi-man-by-declan-lynch-review-magnificent-grand-guignol-horror-1.2677129

His writing could do with a bit more style but I think its worth persevering with. I liked his last book "The Rooms" a lot

Ward - sounds amazing.

Auden - Dyer's Hand. Inevitably whenever Auden talks so warmly around German culture and writing -- Wagner or Kafka or what have you -- its good but depressing given the current climate, but you hold onto it in hope. People will hopefully be like this again.

that collection has some of my favorite aphorisms

Ok, Digger's Game and Insect Summer going on the BUY list

Just saw that for any CLARICE LISPECTOR fans, the current issue of the Scofield (a free 300p PDF literary magazine) is all about her: http://thescofield.com/issues

Speaking of aphorisms, by bathroom book atm is a collection of Gaelic sayings and proverbs, which is pretty great. (my current username is from it, meaning 'the lazy man's great burden'.)

I finished "Insect Summer", it was pretty good, as unpleasant as I'd come to expect from Faldbakken.

After a brief sojourn with "Grief is the thing with Feathers" (as covered on the contempo lit thread) I am now getting on with "A Month In The Country" as advertised; yes I am already loving it.

Isaac Asimov: I, ROBOT.

thought it would be a good idea to ease my way into the work of walter benjamin by way of the first volume of his selected writings harvard put out... at the moment struggling through the early youth movement polemics and pieces on linguistics.

Apologies for the misuse of this thread but my guess is it's the one most ILBers read and I'm interested to hear any thoughts.

I'm in the process of lining up projects to print once this Pessoa thing is over (it's here if you don't know what I'm on about, it's very close to being finished). I'm thinking of doing a series of small hand-sewn pamphlets with short stories - short short stories fwiw, three or four pages max I think.

Here's my question: do you have any favourite short stories which are out of copyright (and, ideally, also out of print)? I'm particularly interested in modernist / experimental stuff but I'm interested in anything excellent.

Well, not suitable for that, but in my slow, ongoing quest to unpack and categorise my books I just found my complete Saki! So I'm reading that right now.

Saki might work! Lots of great short things there. That pessoa box looks amazing, Tim.

I could probably think of good short stories, though I wouldn't much presume to know many more than you already do yourself, Tim. But I should 'think on'.

No Lime Tangier, I don't, to be honest, think that that is a good way to 'ease' oneself into WB. I can think of one or two ways, relatively* -- but the earlier work, prior to 1925 or whatever, strikes me as possibly often the most obscure.

*sample ways eg:
UNDERSTANDING BRECHT - almost all relatively lucid
ILLUMINATIONS - often lucid compared to much of what you are reading
'One Way Street' the piece not exactly lucid but certainly engaging and interesting (ONE WAY STREET the book contains some more of that non-lucid stuff)

I suspect the later Harvard volumes are easier to read than the one you are reading.
But, to be honest, have not looked at what you are reading for a while, might be misjudging it all a bit.

do you have any favourite short stories which are out of copyright (and, ideally, also out of print)?

Off the top of my head, I'd suggest some H.P. Lovecraft, though he's baroque rather than modernist.

M R James springs to mind, probably from that other thread.

And Dickens, lots of short, interesting, London-centric things in Sketches by Boz.

The out-of-copyright / out-of-print thing is hard this days because any old t, d or h can publish anything in the public domain - I have a 2.99 copy of all of mrjames for instance, there are about 200 others in the same series collecting Victorian stores by author or subject. And literally everything on archive.org is available on Amazon via expensive print-on-demand (usually expensive, usually full of OCR errors - https://www.amazon.co.uk/English-Short-Story-Writers-Introductory-Essays/dp/1150723165 )

The Boz has a penguin classics edition that nobody stocks

any old TIM, DICK OR HARRY

James Joyce's DUBLINERS is out of print. The shortest story in it is about 6pp so still probably too long for this project, unfortunately.

How about a Kafka parable?

Well, I thought Saki might be out because of the out of print criterion. Would you like something fairly obscure, that might be genuinely out of print?

Thanks you all for the ideas! Will have a rootle around. Absolute ideal ideal for this would be something genuinely out-of-print; the idea is to produce beautiful but not-too-expensive hand sewn pamphlets with letterpressed or screenprinted decorations. If the pamphlet is pretty enough, authorial obscurity shouldn't be too much of a problem (even less of a problem if that obscurity comes with a story that people can catch on to ("contemporary of X, greatly admired by y", you know the kind of thing). Really very good writing is also preferred!

I don't suppose I'll find anything which perfectly fits the above criteria; was thinking about maybe one of the shorter Mary Butts stories; have been riffling through the Modernist Journals project http://modjourn.org/ trying to find something appropriate (there are some lovely short Gertrude Stein pieces in there which might work).

There is SO MUCH amazing non-English lit which would fit the bill if only the translators had not lived so long!

^would buy stein. from the early nineteenth century and not a modernist (though he had plenty of modernist fans) johann peter hebel produced a whole bunch of very short pieces that are a nice read. penguin did put out a collection circa mid-nineties... not sure if there are any earlier out of copyright translations available.

xpost re w. benjamin: ha, yes didn't take me long to realise this probably wasn't the best place to start with him, but i shall persevere. one way street is the last piece in the selection so i have that to look forward to (& thanks for the suggestions, will keep them in mind for the future)

Gérard de Nerval would be good, but again you have the translator/copyright issue.

Tender buttons looks ideal - some of the chapters are only a few words.

(Plus it's called tender buttons)

I can't stand it! (or any Stein)

Never noticed the Gertrude Stein Buddha in Bryant Park until I walked by it just now.

I am with pinefox here, i have to admit. Even the title is annoying.

really enjoyed kate christensen 'blue plate special' ~ have always liked her fiction and this autobiography is well told and idk not what id expected her life to have been really

Just finished Nathan Hill's The Nix, bought it a couple months ago when the Times compared it to DFW and Pynchon, and I had just finished Infinite Jest, so I thought what the hell and it sat on my shelf for a while. Tore through it in a week, thought it really sucked - lots of bad writing, bizarre metaphors, loose ends, interesting characters left unexplored. He's clearly aping DFW a lot of the time, especially whenever he goes into that OCD pedantic 'describe the addict's behavior so meticulously you too will begin to have a panic attack' thing. in terms of cultural observation he's 10-15 years behind the curve, there's a particularly egregious section where they're in an airport and he's describing how disappointing and disgusting it is to have foreigners' first impression of the USA be this noisy ugly scary airport terminal with a line for McRibs twenty people deep, everyone depressed but they don't know why, and then - graf break - "This is who we are." Oh, please! Managed to get through it because it's pretty funny for the first 300 pages but it somehow just gets worse and worse as it drags on. Saw that it was his first novel and I assumed he was in his early 20s, maybe a teenage prodigy, and that'd be one thing, but dude's 41, this is some seriously sub sub sub Franzen level shit. and fyi I love Franzen and especially Freedom, so take this all as you will.

Thanks. This is exactly the kind of thing I come to ILB for. Something about the cover art and blurbs of that book appealed to me-years ago I would surely have purchased it- but I have so far managed to hold off, especially since I had seen nothing yet from any trusted reviewing source.

>>> they're in an airport and he's describing how disappointing and disgusting it is to have foreigners' first impression of the USA be this noisy ugly scary airport terminal <<<

Most people's first impression of a new country is arriving at an airport. He shouldn't really worry about that.

>>> Managed to get through it because it's pretty funny for the first 300 pages <<<

!!

It sounds dire, thanks for the incisive condemnation fb.

This is who we are.

Just read Broken Harbour by Tana French after the writeup in the New Yorker. Man, it is sad - but very memorable, if overlong. Has anyone read any others in the series, would recommend?

As predicted, I loved "A Month In The Country" - it seems just about perfect.

I am now having a go at "Journey To The Real" by the intriguing and mysterious Victor Segalen. I am enjoying it, though it's quite demanding and by no means page-turner. Will it turn out to be as intriguing and mysterious as the other book of his I've read, "Paintings"? We'll have to see.

Currently reading a biography of Ribeiro de Mello, a Portuguese editor who published Sade, Engels and Barthes during the Salazar dictatorship and gave press conferences in a bathtub. After the revolution his contrarian streak got the better of him and he ended up publishing an edition of "Mein Kampf", 's what happens when provocateurs get overtaken by the times. :/

Just read Broken Harbour by Tana French after the writeup in the New Yorker. Man, it is sad - but very memorable, if overlong. Has anyone read any others in the series, would recommend?

― Chuck_Tatum, Monday, November 28, 2016 3:43 AM (five hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I picked up the first in the series, In The Woods, after seeing the same writeup, and it was also very sad. Gripping mix of crime procedural and…character-driven emotional drama, I guess? idk I read it late into the night, so I think I liked it.

I'm reading more Emerson and also digging into The Varieties of Religious Experience for the first time. Fantastic stuff.

The Varieties of Religious Experience is that rarity, a genuinely great book.

>>> Managed to get through it because it's pretty funny for the first 300 pages <<<

!!

― the pinefox, Monday, November 28, 2016 4:50 AM (nine hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah i was surprised how quickly i got through 600 pages of this thing. back in the refuse pile

before that, I read Lewis Lapham's The Age of Folly and loved it, great collection of essays from 1990 - 2016.

reading malcolm lowry's "under the volcano" -- very strange book. beautiful, but strange.

I'm reading more Emerson and also digging into The Varieties of Religious Experience for the first time. Fantastic stuff.

― jmm, Monday, November 28, 2016 12:07 PM (four hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

The Varieties of Religious Experience is that rarity, a genuinely great book.

― a little too mature to be cute (Aimless),

both so serene too

I just bought a collected Emerson a couple of weeks ago. Haven't really looked at it yet though.

"Self-Reliance" and "The Poet" changed the course of my life when my junior English teacher introduced them.

a friend loaned me Lethem's "A Gambler's Anatomy". Which is fairly stupid but in an enjoyably vacant way. Maybe it's just the bay area setting that's keeping me engaged. His prose is still fun, I just wish he wrote about more interesting things.

after seeing the same writeup ... idk I read it late into the night, so I think I liked it.

haha, yep same

Also I was just binge-browsing at the amazing Skoob and picked up "Leg To Stand On" by Oliver Sacks, which I've never heard of before but am super excited to read. It's a short memoir about recovering from a serious nerve injury - he goes mountain walking in Norway, gets chased by a bull and falls off a cliff (!). I love Sacks, and I also have a severe nerve injury, so it's a pleasantly niche find for me.

Wrote a good one about migraine too, I'm told.
Any recommended books about Putin, bio, methods of governance, etc? Seems like a good time, since he's the only living head of state (other than Assad, maybe) that I've heard T. approve. Books about Assad?

haven't read all the essays in it but this guy is great on contempo Russia

https://www.amazon.com/Nothing-True-Everything-Possible-Surreal/dp/1610396006

Loved this one:

http://www.lrb.co.uk/v33/n20/peter-pomerantsev/putins-rasputin

Mindblowing, but also it figures, the slave-boss type---maybe Bannon eventually, or will he jump ship, and go back to being the the CEO of Bbart etc., more comfortable with that (although he indicated to one journalist that he was supposedly dismayed/bemused/upstaged by the runaway racism of his posting readers, so maybe he's already the sassy twitchy slave-boss). Thanks, flopson!

I second the 'Nothing Is True and Everything Is Possible' rec.

Just started Harry Mulish: The Assault, which is very good; downbeat exploration of war horrors and their aftermath. A look at living with the aftereffects of Fascist collaboration seems topical now tooo.

Now that we've sorted The Nix, can someone please do The Terranauts?

Yeah, I'm kind of drawn to that by the subject matter, but the size of the thing and Boyle's spotty track record is keeping me away

If that is the case then I recommend -once again! need to go to that other thread- that you read the much shorter Martian Dawn, by Michael Friedman.

Have had that one in a wishlist for a while, and will now BUY IT

Wait! Before you do that, let me see if I can, um, reread it and see if it holds up.

Nah, just go ahead and get it.

Its only $5 as an ebook with 2 other novels included, so probably not much of a risk

Speaking of ebooks, I finally realized I could download the free app from Amazon and read 'em on my laptop (via the Cloud, I think), without buying a Kindle. So got Atomsk by Carmichael (AKA Carmichael) Smith for $2.99, but haven't read much of it yet because all that scrolling makes it seem work-related.

AKA *Cordwainer*, that is.

How awesome a name is cordwainer? I was thinking of this a few days show while alphabetising books.

> via the Cloud, I think

there's the cloud reader thing, read.amazon.com, which is an online reader which requires a lot of scrolling (but works on all platforms capable of running a decent web borwser). you can also download books there so you can read them offline, but it uses the same reader thing, which is a bit rub.

there's also 'kindle for pc' which you have to install and the reader on there is a bit more advanced and allows page flipping (iirc, doesn't work on linux). also allows downloads for offline reading.

it's worth keeping an eye on kindle daily and monthly deals. and various spot deals. and the various permanently discounted titles.

Otm about teh deals. Just got two things you might be interested in don: the recent Charlie Parker bio by Stanley Crouch and a well-reviewed academic book called Please Please Me: Sixties British Pop, Inside Out for $1.99 and $2.99 respectively.

I thought Cordwainers was a London design school that specialised in footwear. Does the app name somehow relate to taht

finished a month in the country. what a beautiful book. the subtlety and restraint of the narrator's voice shifting to a time further away from the depicted events is really effective, a hint here and there and then a sucker punch on the last page. honestly moved me more than most other books, not that being emotionally moved is the be all and end all.

anyone got similar recommendations? i've noticed my own writing becoming a bit more rounded and less guarded as i read it.

which means i probably shouldn't be moving on to...

william gass - the tunnel/in the heart of the heart of the country
barry hannah - long last happy (continuing this collection after reading one or two a few months back)

Thanks for the tips yall---kindle for pc is indeed the app I have, with forward and back carats, no scrolling required, false memory implant sorry. Will check about the music books and regular deals, though not every day, please god. Stevo, Cordwainer Smith is the name usually given by the artist also occasionally known as Carmichael Smith, among other by-lines.

I thought Cordwainers was a London design school that specialised in footwear. Does the app name somehow relate to taht

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cordwainer_Smith

oh xpost to dow sorry

great name, not impressed w his writing tbh

I've only read 'the Rediscovery of Man'...which I think I liked? It's been a long time.

Think that title was once used for a Best Of, but mainly for his complete science fiction stories (other than Norstrilia, a novel): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rediscovery_of_Man What I've read of it is very worthwhile, though very idiosyncratic (registered outsidery cult figure, like PKD).

Or even more so.

Shakey is official ILX Cordwainer Smith loyal opposition.

Everybody reading 'A Month in the Country' is a heartening development round these parts

Reading a collection of Irene Nemirovsky short stories that has Barbara Stanwyck on the cover.

finished a month in the country. what a beautiful book. the subtlety and restraint of the narrator's voice shifting to a time further away from the depicted events is really effective, a hint here and there and then a sucker punch on the last page. honestly moved me more than most other books, not that being emotionally moved is the be all and end all.

anyone got similar recommendations? i've noticed my own writing becoming a bit more rounded and less guarded as i read it.

Feel like Penelope Fitzgerald might suit you if you don't already know her stuff. Just don't start with the deeply unrepresentative The Golden Child.

snatched a copy of Jay McInerney Bright Lights, Big City from a pathetic little take-a-book-leave-a-book pile above the microwave in the kitchenette at work. it's one of those Now A Major Motion Picture Starring Michael J. Fox editions, so i've never noticed it before even though I've looked at the pile a thousand times

I spent 2014 finishing Penelope Fitzgerald. If you've ever read Muriel Spark, Waugh, and other masters of slim English fiction she'll kill you.

I was too young for it last time read Waugh (17 or thereabouts), might be time to revisit. I remember adoring the first bit of Brideshead Revisitied, the narrator's beautiful relationship with the son, but as he moved through the rest of the family I lost interest. i also read Decline and Fall but had that awful feeling the whole time that there were lots of jokes i wasn't getting. love Sparks obvs

We should start a thread about novelists whose most famous book is their weakest.

I read my first Spark this year also. I read Waugh once in a reading group but it was some really tedious autobiographical outlier I think - I should probably try more.

I guess A Month In The Country wasn't a million miles away from To The Lighthouse.

Where's a good place to start with Penelope Fitzgerald?

I doubt anyone would be interested but that Declan Lynch book was rubbish. The guy needs to write about something other than addiction. Its getting boring. He seems to be totally indoctrinated into the whole AA culture too.

Reading the Bruce Springsteen autobio, I'm a fan but the guy can certainly write, its very impressive and touching so far

Good beginner P-Fitz might be The Bookshop or Offshore.

Have read a little of the Springsteen bio and agree with post right above.

Almost hesitate to say it, but it seems like the Robbie Robertson book might be well-written as well.

That last reminds me (re reviews mentioning Robertson's childhood in Toronto working class Jewish neighborhoods, incl. some gangsters in the family, and on Indian Rez with the other side of the fam): what are some good books re Canadian culture, fiction and nonfiction? (Dimly recall enjoying the screen version of The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz, starring ambitious young Richard Dreyfuss, compulsively scratching his tits 'til they bled).

Scott Young, Neil's Dad, was a pretty good writer, right?

I'd recommend Alice Munro over Mordecai Richler as a good entry into Canadian fiction. I think she lives up to hype for the most part - there are lots of good collections of her stories and I would say she captures a certain part of Canada in them (smaller-town, especially). Michael Ondaatje, of English Patient fame, is another who has also set a few of his novels in older Toronto.

As a Torontonian, as far as I know, Toronto hasn't produced a major Jewish novelist a la Philip Roth, Mordecai Richler, Bernard Malamud, Saul Bellow, etc., etc. from that generation. There are a few contemporary ones I haven't read, but from a more recent period of Canadian history.

Re: Penelope Fitzgerald, is The Blue Flower a good starting point? It sounds right up my alley....

that's the one I read first and liked least (it's also her least characteristic work)! I'd say start with The Bookshop or Human Voice.

The Blue Flower is not a good starting point for a lot of readers, and it is well-established in ILB that Alfred dislikes it, but if you think it is something you are drawn to, definitely give it a try.

have you guys been mocking me in the bathroom and hallways

I don't dislike it. "Like it least" is more accurate.

xpost I like Munro, but have barely gotten started on her, ditto Ondaatje, whose early, fairly amazing Coming Through Slaughter is about the legendary, apparently unrecorded New Orleans jazz musician Buddy Bolden. Has he written any novels set in Canada?

Encountered Margaret Millar's novella "The Iron Gates" in a Hitchcock anthology: urban Canada, mid-WWII, everybody's either underage or middle-aged, mostly indoors, overheated, overfed, mostly upper middle class: sometimes stuck, teetering, anyway several degrees removed from the Big Time, and Canadianess seems part of that. She pretty much shows you whodunnit, but distracts, like a stage magician. Wife of Kenneth Millar, AKA Ross MacDonald. Judging by her Amazon page, an attempted revival is in the works, following her inclusion in the Library of American "domestic suspense" (olde-time code for "female-written, female lead characters") noir collections.
Where should I start with nonfiction from and about Canada?

The Bookshop is definitely the best PF.

i mentioned this on here somewhere else, but i loved The Bookshop so much that her other books were letdowns to some degree. which makes me sad. and this is true of christina stead books that are not The Man Who Loved Children and paula fox books that are not Desperate Characters.

I third the Munro recommendation. To date, I've only read her stuff from the 70s, though, so others here will have to speak about her later work.

A few of my other go-to Canlit recommendations:

Robertson Davies, The Fifth Business
Thomas King, One Good Story, That One (short fiction), The Truth About Stories (non-fiction)
Alistair MacLeod, No Great Mischief

And some younger Canucks:

Lynn Coady, Play the Monster Blind (short fiction; at least read "In Disguise As the Sky")
Alexander MacLeod, Light Lifting (short stories; the son of Alistair; and--full disclosure--a family friend, but still incredible)
Sean Michaels, Us Conductors

Munro wrote her best fictin in the '80s and '90s imo ("The Moons of Jupiter," "The Albanian Virgin," "Save the Reaper!", almost the entirety of 2000's Hateship...).

Re: Margaret Millar, her suspense novel Beast In View is pretty wild. Somewhat in the same vein as Patricia Highsmith or Dorothy Hughes.

Also voting for The Bookshop or Human Voices (set at the BBC during WW2, where lots of the staff are sleeping on-site during bombing raids, etc): both just lovely, wonderful books.

Thanks for the Fitzgerald recommendations all, I think I will try and seek out The Bookshop as well as Blue Flower!

Yes, Ondaatje has written novels set in Canada. I haven't read it but In the Skin of a Lion is set in Toronto at the turn of the 20th century and the city is supposed to very prominently feature in it (a piece of trivia for Torontonians - he apparently wrote the bulk of it at Jet Fuel on Parliament St). Another Canlit author whom I haven't actually read, but have had recommended to me many times by people whose opinions on then matter I trust, is Joseph Boyden. His last book, The Orenda - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Orenda - is supposed to be great. I do mean to get around to it.

xpost Sean Michaels' Us Conductors - if memory serves, he used to post here back in the day (or at least on ILM threads)? The book is supposed to be fun, too. Theremins!

dow, what kind of non-fiction are you interested in? or historical eras/geographical regions, etc.?

Oh yeah, I like Boyden too, or at least I liked Through Black Spruce (the only thing of his I've read).

And yes, Sean was/is(?) an ilxor.

At this point I guess mostly 20th Century urban, can be East, West Coast, or most urban-to-urban-ish points in between. No moose, reindeer or cows, for now. Maybe a few coyotes; they started getting citified in the 20th (spotted in NYC, so maybe Canadian cities too)

Another very Torontonian book is Hugh Garner's 'Cabbagetown.' It's a depression-era portrait of that neighborhood. It's a little melodramatic. But fun! Hard left politics, too.

My favorite parts of 'In the Skin of a Lion' deal with the construction of the Bloor Viaduct and the R.C. Harris Water Filtration Plant. Infrastructure is an underrated literary topic imo.

Has there been any discussion about Atticus Lish's 'Preparation for the Next Life'?

why are you so into lions

Don't forget Mavis Gallant!

I haven't gotten far into Munro, but "What is Remembered" and the title story from "Hateship, Loveship..." are both really, really good. Many are online at the NYer site, e.g. http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2001/02/19/what-is-remembered. Obvious to state: the film of "Hateship" is terrible and nothing like the book.

I lived in Canada for about six years and read very little good CanLit (lots of good poetry, music, comedy & journalism though). The scene is pretty old school clubby and full of non-entities (Martel, Marche, Boyden, Henderson, Bergen, Toews ...).

Some stuff I liked (at the time):

* All My Friends are Superheroes - Andrew Kaufman (short and whimsical, probably a bit dated and 2003 now)
* Blackouts - Craig Boyko (misanthropic short stories, again, I probably wouldn't stand by this anymore, seems kind of wannabe Sam Lipsyte in retrospect)
* Natasha - David Bezmozgis (connected suite of short stories)
* The Chairs Are Where the People Go - Sheila Heti (this is nonfiction, a set of rambling anecdotes of a friend of hers - I think it's her best book)
* Scott Pilgrim, natch

The first Penelope Fitzgerald I read was the Beginning of Spring, and its still my favourite, but I loved them all, I'm planning on re-reading them in order next year before starting on the biography. (also haven't read the Golden Child yet although I bought it recently out of curiosity).

xpost on the clubby non-entities, lol, of Canada's literary scene. I can't think of any great books on any of the individual cities in Canada off the top of my head, unfortunately. Many of the ones I know haven't aged well or just weren't great. As an aside, I will mention that Jane Jacobs did live in the 6ix for the second half of her life and I wouldn't be surprised if living in the city influenced some of her later writing (as another random aside, she helped found my food co-op, interestingly enough). Will see if I can think of more books to recommend, though.

Also re: Russia upthread, Tony Wood, who writes occasionally for the LRB on Russian history/literature (and imo is very good, though less fun and surreal than Pomerantsev), takes on the Putin-as-puppetmaster myth in his review of a new book that argues the same. http://bookforum.com/inprint/023_04/16815

have you guys been mocking me in the bathroom and hallways

― The burrito of ennui (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, November 30, 2016 5:18 PM (two days ago)

Naw. I suppose a could have instead said either that there are a few ilx dislikes/pet peeves/underestimations that I keep track of such as

_* You with respect to George Harrison and The Blue Flower

• Chachi Aerosmith vis-à-vis Paul Simon and The Kinks

or I could simply said that as far as I knew, nobody on ILB rated The Blue Flower apart from me.

Let me practice that bullet point format one more time:

• You with respect to George Harrison and The Blue Flower

• Chachi Aerosmith vis-à-vis Paul Simon and The Kinks

• Shakey versus Samuel Delany and Cordwainer Smith

Thanks Federico---thisGiven the challenge Zygar presents to the standard image of Putin as puppet master, it's ironic that he should then offer no credible sense of who or what might be pulling the strings instead...what's missing from Zygar's book: an understanding of the system over which Putin presides, one that could actually help us make sense of the Russian leadership's actions, both individual and collective. The figures Zygar interviews may plot and scheme in all manner of complicated ways, but they are not doing so for the fun of it, nor is it all that difficult to trace a logical pattern in their machinations: They are fighting to defend the material interests, assets, and privileges they have acquired over time. In that respect, their motivations are little different from those of elites in other countries... What's particular to Russia is the closeness of the relationship between private wealth and the state. That relationship, often depicted as one of domination by the Kremlin over capital, is in reality closer to a symbiosis, in which political and economic power are intertwined—and mostly concentrated within the same small group of people. seems like what the US has to look fwd to (and some of the above Russians may have studied the methods and tactics of American robber barons etc., though Wood notes some distinctive Russian touches, re truly hostile takeovers, for instance).

Note to Tim on modernist out of print short story possibilities - the original unrevised 1918 Tarr by Wyndham Lewis, with its brutal "=" marks rather than dashes and hewn character is not i think currently in print, although the revised version is. (They both have that great first line "Paris hints of sacrifice"). That 1918 version itself came out of a short story or novella iirr, centring around one of the incidents in the full novel, and was serialised. I'll dig out the details this weekend if you're interested.

The other Wyndham Lewis possibility is stories uncollected in the Penguin Classics version of The Wild Body, his Breton "Soldier of Humour" stories. It's been a while since I looked into the difference between the Penguin Classics collection and The Black Sparrow press edition, which I think again is out of print. Though I find it quite difficult to tell in these days of damned on demand publishing.

I think both are very good, which is more than can be said for some of Lewis' brutally tedious later writing. (Tho not for his very late writing like Self-Condemned).

I have never managed to get around to reading any Wyndham Lewis (I've a feeling I was put off by Mark E Smith going on about him in the 80s, though I may be misremembering that and even if I'm not that is probably the weakest ever excuse for not reading a writer) so I am interested in these; don't think they're out of copyright for another decade, mind, so that'd present an obstacle.

(Thanks all for the suggestions above, all of which I am following up in my slow way.)

ha, had thought about the crowd master from blast 2 as a possibility, but turned out to be longer than i remembered.

He's so variable, in criticism and lit, between v v good and sketchy and tedious. I think his "fine" is generally more evenly excellent.

On copyright - yeah I think I was misled by The Wild Body being on Gutenberg, but of course that's via other copyright laws...

"fine art" that shd be.

I mean I'm not sure how much latitude you want to give to your idea of modernism either, but obviously late Kipling, like Mrs. Bathurst, has strong modernist/mechanical elements in it, even if it's not formally dissonant.

Currently I'm all latitude! Will take a look.

got a good few short story collections on the go but always like to have a novel with me too - looking through the shelves i've decided to read michel tournier's the four wise men - seasonal reading, and i absolutely loved the erl-king. this looks a bit lighter.

Robert Silverberg Scientists and Scoundrels a book of Hoaxes.
A 1965 book of historical scientific hoaxes including an 1835 description of society on the moon seen from a telescope in South Africa, a 1908 expedition to the NOrth Pole, The Kensignton Stone the supposed 14th century relic of a 2nd Scandinavian voyage to the Americas supposedly found in Minnesota by a farmer.
Pretty interesting, I only realised when it was actually published when Silverberg mentions forthcoming attempts to reach the moon.
Picked it up in a €1 sale in a local Oxfam.

Still reading Wedlock by Wendy moore
Just got as afar as Paterson returning from his trip to the Cape i South Africa which was supposed to be being paid for bythe heiress who has been conned into marriage with Stoney who Barry Lyndon is based on. Because of the marriage and this heiress thereby losing control over her finances Paterson is left penniless. Not sure what was lost at the time but does sound like it's a really negative point for discovery. he was the 2nd European to go exploring in the territory so if he'd come back to his expected reception things might have gone differently.
Interesting book.

Also still got the Pancatantra going as my transport book though may not be the best book for it. Interesting though, a load of folktales nested inside other folktales.l An indian classical work.

Hey LG apropos of yr forthcoming trip to Paris and discussions this week it occurs to me that some of the wistful feelings in "A Month In The Country" can be found in Patrick Modiano's similarly brief "In The Cafe of Lost Youth", set in 50s Paris bars/cafes; I really liked it (though it's not much like AMITC obv) (though it kind of is like it also) (but not).

I must give that a go. I'm still kinda reeling from those last few pages of AMITC.

(There's a copy here you're welcome to borrow if you want.)

the four wise men looks really appealing. been dipping in and out of loads of things since last on ilb, but to pick a couple of things at random - enjoying The 30 Years War, which does continually raise questions about narrative history, which I guess i'll pick up on thread, but things like this are incontrovertible:

When Christian William was reinstated in his episcopal chair, a flight of ravens wheeled screeching over the town, and in the angry sunsets of succeeding nights strange armies fought among the clouds, while under the under the lurid reflections of the sky the Elbe ran blood-red[26. Zacharias Bandhauerso Deutsches Tagebuch der Zerstörung Magdeburgs, ed. P.P. Klimesch. Archiv für Oesterreichische Geschichte, XVI. Vienna, 1856, p.279] Europe applauded the splendid defiance, but at Magdeburg the people sulked, quarrelled and obstructed their defenders.

Enjoyed another ilxor recommendation - Marie Ndiaye's Self-Portrait in Green - or at least half of it, because I passed it on to a friend. Novella length set of non-chronological mental experiences about the appearance of 'green women' (usually clothes and eyes) in the narrators life. These appear in out of relationship fractures, or moments existential confused. The first episode, for example, really dials up sensory experiences - floral appearances and smells, intensely 'green thoughts in a green shade' as the narrator passes a house, the play of light on children's arms - and dials down a sense of being able to discriminate people including oneself: as if they are only ever dense patches or intersections of sensory experience, which have temporarily ceased to bond into a notion of 'identity', so that concepts such as 'friend' or 'name' float around. The second episode, far less impressionistic, but with a similar sense of fundamental bonds being broken, involves a childhood best friend marrying her father.

As I say, I passed it on to a friend, but now it's haunting me slightly, so will have to finish.

Tim - I think it was MES who put me on to W Lewis, I remember going to the school library after reading the NME to look for some. There wasn't any. Think there's a thread about deriving curriculums out of pop, somewhere, but that was certainly a habit at the time.

>>> (I've a feeling I was put off by Mark E Smith going on about him in the 80s, though I may be misremembering that and even if I'm not that is probably the weakest ever excuse for not reading a writer) <<<

love how Tim has discovered the weakest EVER excuse ! :D

I was thinking about MES the other night and people who say 'THE MIGHTY FALL ... you can keep your Morrissey and Bob Dylan - this fellow's a fookin GENIUS - he's better than your James Joyce or Wyndham Lewis - a working band made up of working-class Northern people - amazing what he does with language - "totally wired"? Fooking genius. THE MIGHTY FALL'

It's really fucking tiresome.

lol at teh pinefox's last two posts

Btw, i loved The Blue Flower too, so there.

State of CanLit 2016 here from the
Globe's boring backslapping book section: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/books-and-media/the-globe-100-the-best-books-of-2016/article33132356 - by percentages there must be some good stuff here somewhere

I might check out the first book on this list. I've been looking for books about the arctic. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/books-and-media/the-globe-100-the-best-books-of-2016/article33132356/#collection/smallfive2016/

just finished Coe's NUMBER 11.

Really enjoyable and readable, but a bit surprised that the strands didn't get tied together more by the end. There is a kind of fantasy / Gothic element which seems to be 'all in the mind' then maybe seems not to be. It's not really explained one way or another as far as I can tell.

I'm still moving slowly along in Man Without Qualities. I'm still good with it, but I've been too tired at night lately, which is my normal reading time, so the book keeps slipping out of my hands as my eyes close involuntarily.

just started Alfred Bester, THE STARS MY DESTINATION.

more going in the first 5 pages than most books have in 250.

Looking forward to reading your further impressions.

Hi Pinefox, you might also dig Bester's other best full-length sf, The Demolished Man.

Speaking of books about Putin, think I might also check Masha Gessen's The Man Without A Face: The Unlikely Rise of Vladimir Putin, mentioned at the end of this On The Media interview, where she considers ways to cover Trump, based on covering Putin (she also writes for NYRB): http://www.wnyc.org/story/masha-gessen-impulse-normalize

The Bester novel is remarkably well written and dramatic ... and I am still only about 15 pages in !

It strikes me as one of those possible instances that you could hold up to show that 'SF can be well written' (if that premise itself is not too controversial even to mention).

How to Talk Dirty And Influence people the Lenny Bruce autobiography.
Really interesting, funny read. I'm about 5 chapters in I think after starting it earlier today.

Finished Wedlock by Wendy Moore the last few chapters are pretty rivetting. Mary Eleanor the wealthy heiress that was conned into a hellish marriage by Andrew Robinson Stoney the real life model for Barry Lyndon, manages to escape and sue for divorce. That wasn't easy for a woman in the late 18th century anyway but she gets reabducted once she's got the divorce and Stoney has launched an appeal.

33 Revolutions per minute by Dorian Lynskey somehow not got around to reading this after getting it for Xmas last year.
Looks like it covers some interesting material.

One of the (many) things I love about The Stars My Destination - the way Bester uses English place names like Dagenham to add a touch of the 'exotic'!

I really like Bester - especially 'the stars...'. Iirc that was the one that was originally titled 'Tyger, Tyger'?

IIRC Tyger, Tyger was the alternate British title - was always Stars My Destination in the US.

Bester's 'Fondly Fahrenheit' has to be one of the most technically accomplished of all SF shorts stories, even sixty plus years later.

'the stars my destination' is a genuine masterpiece - the evolution of gully foyle's language over the course of the story is so beautifully realised and it's such an exciting, inventive story.

kinda unfortunate that the main female character is called 'jiz' tho

"Autumn" by Ali Smith. I like Ali Smith.

Emma Donoghue, Room. Unexpectedly gripping.

i have to say, all of these sound pretty darn interesting. maybe this will herald a new golden era where i read new books. it seems like there are a lot of interesting books out there right now. i was so blase about lit-fic for so long and also maybe the long long age of "quirky" autobios and "quirky" pop history/science/psych/social manifestos is over. i was sick of long quirky titles. heck, i think i started a thread about it ages ago. time for more serious.

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/books/review/best-books.html?hpw&rref=books&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region®ion=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well

^ I agree with all of this. I haven't read 'this year's best books' in so long. Has ILB ever tried to host a kind of book club? Would it even work?

Right now I'm reading that Murakami book about running and it's terrible. Just much more conceited than I was expecting. I was hoping he'd talk about technique and stuff but 60 pages in and he's still like 'the art of running is much like the art of writing - people seem to love me doing both'.

Yes - we have tried to host a book club. Of the books we did only The Last Samurai ever worked imo. You should be able to find our struggles in the ILB archives.

Just happened to read a really sniffy review of the Ali Smith in The Private Eye.

Finished the Selected Poems of Gottfried Benn.

Miroslav Holub - The Dimension of the Present Moment. Bunch of short essays on science and art, its boundaries and moments of intersection. Really works for me and communicates those things in a way that Dawkins or whoever else seems to be doing terribly because they are dicks or are not that good at the art bit (or don't engage with it in anyway because they spent so long at the lab or whatever the fuck), or leave the science bit of their brains at the door and simply spout off guff with a misplaced sense of authority.

Strugatsky Brothers - Hard to be a God. Picking this up again and if you liked the RIP thread (I liked it ok myself) then you gonna love this. Find it ideal accompainment for that.

RIP Castro thread

Is Hard to be a God as overwhelming entropic as the film? I almost never read sci-fi, but I somehow doubt it abides by many genre conventions.

I had a quick look through book club threads - it looked great fun despite setbacks. If you ever decide to revive it, I'm definitely in.

Strugatsky Bros do not bear much resemblance to western sf

Strugatskys are more in line with some Russian 20th century fiction that is fully conversant with the Soviet revolution. You'd read it alongside Serge (who wasn't Russian but he effectively was), or Platonov. Its nothing like the film - so far anyway.

I will leave the revival of ILB book club to the Next Generation tbh.

Book club threads have failed more often than not, it is true, but like to think the one for Open City worked well.

I ended up picking up Blue Flower from the library thanks to the posts upthread. So far, enjoying it - I read Buddenbrooks a few months ago and it has so far plunged me back into that world (maybe a century earlier, but still).

Funny, 'Hard to be a God' was just added to Mubi, a movie streaming service I sub to, and I was thinking about watching it in the next few days. Everything I've read about it sounds pretty crazy - wonder what the book is like.

Hard To Be A God, amen, also check their Roadside Picnic. Good story by the Bros i in the VanderMeers' Big Book of Science Fiction, along with Yefu Zozulya's scary, tragicomic "The Doom of Principal City" and Sevor Gansovsky's sinewy, incisive "Day of Wrath", which is also in Paths To The Unknown, an anonymously edited and translated collection of Soviet SF. (In her intro, pioneering US editor Judith Merril is amazed by the leap in quality from earlier Soviet SF to these 60s stories, though complains about some of the translations, which seem fine to me, just as an American reading English).
We talked about The Big Book of SF on the current Rolling Speculative etc. and Paths... on the previous RS thread.
Theodore Sturgeon edited a Soviet collection, but I haven't read it.

I like Ali Smith.

― Tim, Monday, December 5, 2016 3:46 PM (yesterday)

Me too, I'm surprised she's not mentioned here more often, looking forward to reading Autumn anyway.

For the record I didn't mean to imply that the Strugatsky's aren't any good, just that they belong to a distinct subset of sf that evolved independently of western sf traditions. I find these kind of offshoots (incl latin american sf, and eastern bloc sf) p fascinating.

Just happened to read a really sniffy review of the Ali Smith in The Private Eye

I don't like Private Eye.

the olden days:

Book club -- Flaubert's Parrot

this thread is about as close to a book club as we might want to get i guess?

this is definitely one of the best threads on ilx btw, imo.

lots of people on that old thread who are long gone from here. that book got me to finally read flaubert so that turned out to be a good thing. cuz flaubert rules.

ILB is 13 years young.

I'm Gonna Post Here All The Time-I Swear!

what i was reading in 2003 before my sci-fi awakening!

Breathing Lessons - Anne Tyler
Norwood - Charles Portis
Motherless Brooklyn - Jonathan Lethem
The Magic Barrel - Bernard Malamud
The Pursuit of Love & Love In A Cold Climate - Nancy Mitford
Coda - Thea Astley
Criers&Kibitzers,Kibitzers&Criers - Stanley Elkin
Amusing Ourselves to Death - Neil Postman
Waiting Period - Hubert Selby, Jr
Up In The Air - Walter Kirn
Lullaby - Chuck Palahniuk
The Professor and the Madman - Simon Winchester
The Wedding Group - Elizabeth Taylor
East Of Wimbledon - Nigel Williams
The Whore's Child & other Stories - Richard Russo
Reasons To Live - Amy Hempel
Almost Heaven - Marianne Wiggins
Nine Horses - Billy Collins
The Last King of Scotland - Giles Foden

Tempted to FP you for the Billy Collins.

i don't know what that is all about. i never would have bought something like that. maybe someone gave it to me? the first and last palahniuk i ever read too.

i honestly doubt that i read that whole billy collins thing. i have no memory of it. those nancy mitford books are tops though!

this is definitely one of the best threads on ilx btw, imo.

― Bein' Sean Bean (LocalGarda), Tuesday, December 6, 2016 7:57 AM (three hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yup

but let's not let word get out ;-)

The only problem I have with this thread is it reminds me of how little mental space I have left to read actual books.

you guys are waaaaay speedier than i will ever be at this late date. takes me a week or more just to read a paperback.

i read a ton online though. mostly interviews. i spent all last week reading old jazz interviews. 140 page smithsonian interview with benny carter for instance.

half of that was benny trying to remember stuff and failing though...

i'm working my way through them:

http://americanhistory.si.edu/smithsonian-jazz/collections-and-archives/smithsonian-jazz-oral-history-program

and i hate to look at a gift horse in the mouth - i'm really glad they took the time to do these - but the interviewers are not always the best at staying on-topic or asking the most compelling questions. also they are transcribed from audio with no editing or proofreading. wish some volunteer jazzbo would go through them and fix the hundreds of misspellings of names. sometimes it will just say "(phonetic?)" after a name.

ilb crew is/are the best

I missed this thread for ages because I didn't get to the end of the title, kept wondering why the last thread wasn't getting bumped

I've started teaching in the last 18 months, and I read less and less and less and it totally pains me. I've gone from being a 50-books-a-year person, to a four-fucking-books-a-year person. I mean I've *gutted* Jekyll and Hyde, Woman in Black and an Inspector Calls in that time (with varying degrees of pleasure and success), and am in the process of doing the same to Macbeth, but Christ I miss the simple decadence of reading.

Which is to say I get a stab of envy when I see the amount people read on here.

(That collection of jazz interviews looks brilliant, thank you.)

It's a brilliant thread, all the same.

you guys are waaaaay speedier than i will ever be at this late date. takes me a week or more just to read a paperback.

i take ages! i read slowly. i always stop and think or reread things, i need to rinse the meaning from every paragraph. sometimes itt people post like 100 books they read in a year and it mystifies me. i think this year was prob my most prolific, maybe read 20 books, at most 20.

i read a lot online too and i usually have one big project outside of my work, either acting or writing or something like that. i savour my reading time. a lot of my progress is on my 30-min commute to and from work. travelling generally is my favourite time to read, something about a long-distance train is like the perfect reading space.

a choice excerpt from the Buddy DeFranco interview i was reading:

DeFranco: Oh, boy. Well, Tommy Dorsey, somebody, we were in a train one time, a
young fellow that played, a young fellow I think he was a trumpet player. Tommy was
telling jokes, and when Tommy told a joke it was on cue, everybody would laugh on cue,
naturally. He’d tell a joke and everybody, “Yeah!” And this stupid kid decided to tell a
joke. “I have one.” And Tommy says, “Oh, you do, huh?” Ok, and he told this joke and
he stammered and it flopped, it was terrible, nobody laughed. And Tommy said, “Ha-ha-
ha, very funny. Tell you what you do. Get your stuff together and get off at the next
station, you’re through.”

Murphy: And fired him?

DeFranco: And fired him.

Murphy: Ah! Poor guy.

DeFranco: Poor guy, you know.

I vowed I would make it to 52 books this year and I'm racing to meet this resolution with every novella and graphic novel I can find. Usually I'm a 20-books-a-year person, really.

This thread is wonderful. Even though I'd relish a 'formal' book club-type outlet, I do tend to buy things I've seen raved about on here anyway. I am three Murial Spark books up in my collection on last year.

some ppl here are enviously speedy, while others have read seemingly everything ever read. and some do both. I'm young (25) and not particularly speedy (currently at about 30 books this year, including many slim novellas and a couple non-fiction things I didn't quite finish per se) but I'm still at a point where I feel that I'm losing the race to read All The Good Books before i croak. would prob be able to double my count if I read at night, but I tend to spend the last hours of the evening (after cooking and chores are done) watching films or tv with my gf. like Ronan I read most on my hour-long commute; i actually recently switched to a bus route that would take slightly longer but would provide for a more continuous reading xp :)

yeah a few years back my commute was on a tube line that meant i got a seat both ways - i was tearing through the books. these days it's a bit less certain - but i do try and take a good 30 mins at lunch if i can.

that sounds nice. I work in a big corporate office and there's no where i can go to read or eat alone without being seen by coworkers who would pity me and impose their company upon me. so i eat at my desk and read ilx :)

i used to have a shitty commute up a small mountain everyday and could finish a several hundred page long novel in a working week. now my commute is 20 minutes including walk and with no chance of reading a book - packed skytrain ride downtown in rush hour. and my reading has reaaaaaaaly fell off. i only take half hour lunches as well to shorten my day which is almost a shame because the lunch room here is always empty and quiet.

I'm losing the race to read All The Good Books before i croak

Do what I do and BUY all the great books and then end up like Leonard Bast, crushed under the collapsing bookcases

That NYT Best 100 is such bollocks, only 6 translations in the whole list. No wonder Americans don't know shit about the rest of the world.

Anybody here like audiobooks? I miss the Radio Reader, who was on the air for 50 years, starting in the pre-NPR days (kept it up even in hospice)--could keep listening to his home station, which maintains Michigan's Radio Reading Service (For The Visually Impaired or whomever), they read everything from Flannery O'Connor to memoirs of the Pawn Stars baldie---but away from/tired of streaming (mainly work-related) devices, was thinking of audiobooks on disc, which the local library still has tons of (for the moment).

I have started to like audiobooks but it turns out they take just about as long to read as regular books, if not longer.

american newspaper and magazine best of lists are always really parochial but is that not true around the world? there are probably tons of french books on a french newspaper's list. and so on. or am i wrong? most reviewers/newspaper people are pretty lazy too. they read what people send them.

but i still think that top ten list looked like it had cool stuff on it. i didn't look at the top 100 thing.

two translations on the washpost fiction list. and a picture of cake and pie on stacks of books. and the same publishers listed over and over. kinda like when pitchfork does a year-end list and half the records are on 4ad or matador. its just the stuff that everyone gets copies of. no need to dig deeper.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/books/notable-fiction-books-in-2016/2016/11/17/ed0b0580-9ddd-11e6-9980-50913d68eacb_story.html?utm_term=.892a19af3ac6

Not that its entirely representative but here are two recent end of year lists from the main literary critic for the Irish equivalent of the New York Times: (this year's hasn't been published yet)

http://www.irishtimes.com/culture/books/eileen-battersby-s-books-of-the-year-fiction-1.2468585

http://www.irishtimes.com/culture/books/eileen-battersby-s-books-of-2014-1.2018927

To be fair most other Irish end of year lists are probably a lot more predictable and mostly made up of Irish writers and your standard Booker shortlist type stuff. English speaking countries are still way behind lots of other countries when it comes to books in translation, it definitely seems to be changing a little for the better over the last while though.

Speaking of end of year lists (and literature in translation) this sounds fairly incredible:

"Yuri Rytkheu, A Dream in Polar Fog, Archipelago books, 2005. One of the best. This acclaimed book is translated from the Russian, the language in which the author, a Chukchi, wrote. Chukotka, his native place in the far north, is a federal subject of Russia. This unique book is a rare example of a literary aboriginal voice. The story concerns John, a.k.a. Sson, a Canadian sailor on an ice-bound ship in the Arctic Ocean in 1910. Sson’s hands are badly damaged by an explosion as the sailors try to break free from the clasping ice. The injured man is left with the natives who live on the frozen shore. Exquisite writing takes us from the moment of the explosion to the years of Sson’s intimacy with the local people and his gradual assimilation into the Chukchi culture — and eventually his efforts to teach the people reading, writing, and an outside language to bring them into the 20th century. We have so little intimate information about these Arctic people, and the writer’s deep emotional attachment to this landscape of ice (today melting away under global warming forces) makes every sentence seem a poetic revelation."

http://www.themillions.com/2016/12/year-reading-annie-proulx.html

fallen down a marxist theory rabbithole. reading, amongst other things, Grand Hotel Abyss: Lives of the Frankfurt School by Stuart Jeffries. Starts promisingly:

Outside, it is a wintry morning in Berlin in 1900. Inside, the maid has put an apple to bake in the little oven at eight-year-old Walter Benjamin’s bedside. Perhaps you can imagine the fragrance, but even if you can, you won’t be able savour it with the manifold associations that Benjamin experienced when he memorialised the scene thirty-two years later. That baking apple, Benjamin wrote in his memoir Berlin Childhood Around 1900, extracted from the oven’s heat

the aromas of all the things the day had in store for me. So it was not surprising that, whenever I warmed my hands on its shining cheeks, I would always hesitate to bite in. I sensed that the fugitive knowledge conveyed by its smell could all too easily escape me on the way to my tongue. That knowledge which sometimes was so heartening that it stayed to comfort me on my trek to school.

Got it from Verso who are running what seems to be their annual 50% off on all titles deal.

Also credit to them as they bundle the ebook with the hard copy purchase.

re: end of year lists I think most countries will have a lot of novels from that country and countries with a shared language, but also almost everyone will have a buncha brit/american books on their list, cultural hegemony innit

that being said there are countries with more robust translation industries and a stronger commitment to publishing stuff from all over

Rytkheu's The Chukchi Bible sounds really interesting.

The Chukchi Bible is a collection of the myths and tales of Yuri Rytkheu’s own shaman father. The stories compose both a moving history of the Chukchi people who inhabit the shores of the Bering Sea, and a beautiful cautionary tale, rife with conflict, human drama, and humor. We meet fantastic characters: Nau, the mother of the human race; Rau, her half-whale husband; and finally, the dark spirit Armagirgin, who attempts to destroy nature’s harmony by pitting the two against each other. The Chukchi Bible moves through Arctic tundra, sea, and sky—and beyond—introducing readers to an extraordinary mythology and a resilient people, in hauntingly poetic prose.

https://archipelagobooks.org/book/the-chukchi-bible/

(xpost, yeah I wouldn't want audiobooks to be shorter---plenty of abridged editions---but was thinking I might want to listen while walking.)
These posts re The Chukchi Bible remind me of this, recently on Rolling Speculative etc

I found a book of Inuit speculative fiction, Ajjiit: Dark Dreams of the Ancient Arctic. It's not bad, basically taking creatures from Inuit storytelling and rendering them in a fantasy-horror style.
― jmm, Tuesday, December 6, 2016 9:20 AM (eight hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
Sounds great, I was recently wondering if there was any writers doing that. It's a collaboration between two writers, Sean A. Tinsley and Rachel A. Qitsualik (she has the Inuit background)
― Robert Adam Gilmour

Fizzles, that WB vignette must just be taken from his BERLIN CHILDHOOD AROUND 1900? (A terrific book - about 5 years since I read it so I don't seem to remember that specific scene.)

I'm not sure whether I trust Jeffries on this material -- I suppose I have never been able to gauge how intellectual he is. Eg: by G2 standards he seems an intellectual, by Verso / Adorno standards he doesn't.

that being said there are countries with more robust translation industries and a stronger commitment to publishing stuff from all over

true, but the maddening thing is there is a huge amount of good stuff being translated into English, but even US papers that still have a lot of book coverage, like the NYT, won't review it

by Verso / Adorno standards he doesn't.

who among us

Fizzles, that WB vignette must just be taken from his BERLIN CHILDHOOD AROUND 1900? (A terrific book - about 5 years since I read it so I don't seem to remember that specific scene.)

I'm not sure whether I trust Jeffries on this material -- I suppose I have never been able to gauge how intellectual he is. Eg: by G2 standards he seems an intellectual, by Verso / Adorno standards he doesn't.

yep it's from berlin childhood. not too worried about the intellectual content of this particular one - i can get that elsewhere i think (other than primary sources any recommendations?) - this is more about the biographical context and detail + anecdotes about bedside ovens.

Fizzles, I think the best place to start would be Martin Jay's Dialectical Imagination. It's drier, but offers the best historical context for the Frankfurt School as a whole (though it only runs up to 1950).
http://www.ucpress.edu/book.php?isbn=9780520204232

For Benjamin, there's a cottage industry of WB scholarship, it seems. This came out recently to much fanfare - I haven't read, but want to - and it seems pretty exhaustive. Incidentally, a quick Google search shows me that Stuart Jeffries reviewed it for The Guardian and not only opens with the baked apple anecdote and complains about it being too linear and detail heavy, that "Benjamin drifts away from these pages like the fragrance of baked apple on a winter's morningnot http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674051867

Also, this https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/dialectics-seeing

Not sure there's been a great account of the Frankfurt School or its legacy in the second half of the 20th century, as opposed to monographs on individual figures (in English, at least). I would be happily proven wrong though, if there are.

If any of you are thinking of treating yourself to some of those cheery old Verso volumes while they're cheap, may I take the opportunity to remind you of this wholehearted recommendation from earlier this year: I'm back with a HUGE PILE OF ITALIAN BOOKS!!!!! (in which, if you can't be arsed to click, I say this:

"I just read "The Unseen" by Nanni Balestrini and it's a fierce novel of (and from) the Autonomia movement of the 70s/80s, brutal, angry, upsetting and highly recommended."

I finished the Ali Smith: it's really very good indeed, I think.

Now I am reading "Imaginary Letters" by Mary Butts. Any of you know anything much about Mary Butts? I ask (this time) out of something slightly more than idle curiosity.

I don't like Private Eye.

― Tim, Tuesday, 6 December 2016 Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Ambivalent about the whole business - sorta terrible yet liked the cynicism of that review for about five seconds, the last para is all "why is this thin manuscript bulked-out for? why are they charging £17 quid". Maybe more newspaper book revs need that kind of thing idk. In the same page there was a review of Zayn and its exactly what you'd expect. Not a shred of reason for that review's existence.

The Jeffries reminds me of At the Existentialist Cafe from earlier this year. Readable histories/gloss on the personalities involved from these movements that have never been away/due a revival. Its an interesting trend, real appetite for it given the whole (x) philosopher explains Trump/Brexit/fascism that you encounter. A lot of those articles are laughable (the notion is meh, as well as execution), this Alex Ross piece in New Yorker being the latest example, published just before Merkel said she would introduce a ban on the veil. The books are surely better than this poor show.

Mary Butts: I read her Armed With Madness when it was Penguin Classic-ed about 15 years ago, and liked it a lot, but have never seen anything else by her.

Long ago, I read something to the effect that she was Virgil Thomson's one true love---and now briefly googling I see that he supposedly called her his "storm goddess" and she called him her "unrest cure"---but also long ago read that supposedly she was sick and her family wouldn't call the doctor and she died of a burst appendix, I think---don't really care to google that---but also this long ago piece emphasized her literary talent and vibrant personality, at least where VT was concerned---seemed like a plausible muse.

Just finished Kidnapped by RL Stevenson. Was so dull I had to skim through the last half.

Now just starting In the Freud Archives by Janet Malcolm, feeling lighter and happier already.

Read a bit of Mary Butts years ago - pretty hazy now. A bit florid for my taste iirc, & the Grail stuff felt very 20s, a bit of a modernist period-piece.

Federico that's great - thank you (and likewise xyzzz__ and pf). I'm pretty well read on primary Benjamin (made my way thru the multi-volume selected a while ago, and read key texts at uni), I'm just on a bit of a project to connect up critical theory dots that float around in my head in a rather unstructured way. Also something about theory always feels slightly frivolous to me, like medieval scholastic hair-splitting or neoplatonist systems of being. enjoyment to be had in learning the rules of the game.

xps

Aw, sorry you didn't like Kidnapped, always loved it - rather gaudy cut-out characters dashing through the lowlands and striking gallant poses.

Yeah, I was disappointed that I didn't like it more. Too much chit-chat and not enough stabbing people in the mouth. Narrator and Alan both such dim bulbs. Treasure Island is still great, obviously.

(Actually, that's harsh - I did enjoy the book up until the ship crashes.)

one of the fascinating things about Treasure Island is you can spot when his first initial creative rush was ended by illness. never really picks up to the same level after that imo. still a cornerstone of my childhood tho, esp with the v effectively frightening m peake illustrations.

RLS such a strange writer - mechanical versatility wrapping a sort of central froideur. jekyll and hyde feels like it addresses a central personality problem (none of that edinburgh "domestic civility at the front/midden at the back" thing really imo)

also, bought the Javier Marias book on sight as an xmas present for my mum but i need to read it first right? *gingerly half opens pages*

er bought Javier Marias book on *Venice* on sight.

I never liked Kidnapped either, but I haven't read it since I was 13 or 14, I think.

Earlier, in fact. But I liked lots of RLS's other works. I don't even like film adaptations of Kidnapped.

RLS such a strange writer - mechanical versatility wrapping a sort of central froideur.

I did notice while I was reading - the two lead characters are pretty awful people (even to each other, as friends)- but they're rarely presented as anything other than heroic.

There's a few Twain books like Treasure Island - you can tell almost to the chapter where Twain runs out of gas

From Janet Malcolm's Wiki entry:
Masson case (edit)
Articles published in The New Yorker, and in Malcolm's subsequent book In The Freud Archives, triggered a $10 million legal challenge by psychoanalyst Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson, former project director for the Freud Archives. In his 1984 lawsuit, Masson claimed that Malcolm had libelled him by fabricating quotations attributed to him; these quotes, Masson contended, had brought him into disrepute.
Malcolm claimed that Masson had called himself an "intellectual gigolo", and that he had slept with over 1,000 women. She also claimed that he said he wanted to turn the Freud estate into a haven of "sex, women and fun"; and claimed that he was, "after Freud, the greatest analyst that ever lived." Malcolm was unable to produce all the disputed material on tape. The case was partially adjudicated before the Supreme Court, which held, against Malcolm, that the case could go forward for trial by jury.[6] After a decade of proceedings, a jury finally decided in Malcolm's favor on November 2, 1994, on the grounds that, whether or not the quotations were genuine, more evidence would be needed to rule against Malcolm.[7] (For the opinion of the Supreme Court that allowed the case to proceed to trial, see the opinion at Masson v. New Yorker Magazine, Inc. (89-1799), 501 U.S. 496 (1991).)
In August 1995, Malcolm claimed to have discovered a misplaced notebook containing three of the disputed quotes. As reported in The New York Times, the author "declared in an affidavit under penalty of perjury that the notes were genuine."[8]
The Journalist and the Murderer[edit]
The thesis of The Journalist and the Murderer is contained in its first sentence: "Every journalist who is not too stupid or too full of himself to notice what is going on knows that what he does is morally indefensible."[9] So, she says she's innocent, but also, we all do it. As a journalist of sorts (reviewer, occasional feature writer), also as a reader of same, who has on occasion checked out the sources of what I'm reading, as much as possible---also as someone who distrusts omniscient generalizations---I disagree.

But I guess if I were to keep in mind that she says she's as full of shit as everyone else, I might not mind reading more of her lofty breezing.

Although judging by later quotes, she doesn't always keep it in mind.

Taking a break halfway through Robert Gordon's tome-like "The Rise and Fall of American Growth" to read John Williams' "Stoner". Kind of relevant because it's set in the same time period I was reading about, and even dramatizes the radical change from late 19th century rural life to early 20th century urban life pretty well. Main character is oddly colorless, but book is psychologically acute in its depictions.

Just finished Magda Szabo's The Door. Really excellent, mysterious, unnerving, but man. Some books leave me feeling worse about humanity, the future, the world, this is the rare book that left me feeling worse about myself.

Fizzles, I like your attachment to RLS.
I remember when we talked about your thought of visiting the Edinburgh Writers' Museum.

re: theory, etc, yes, I see, and I see now that you have already read much of the material. It does seem to make sense to approach Benjamin et al via a more grainy, real-life way, like a group biography.

I just still wonder a bit about Jeffries as the person to do this - he belongs somewhat to a journo world that will tend to go for glib bathos and bad one-liner pay-offs ('Adorno wouldn't have been great at online dating' or whatever) that don't feel apt to the occasion; even though he is relatively at the high intellectual end of that world. I'm just judging from a distance, not having looked at this particular book.

xp Not sure I want to feel worse about myself but after reading a bit more about that (here: http://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/magda-szabos-the-door) it has shot to the top of my list.

I've just finished vol 1 of the knausgaard, won't be bothering with vols > 1.

you can bookmark a post on zing but to get the link

Fizzles, I like your attachment to RLS.
I remember when we talked about your thought of visiting the Edinburgh Writers' Museum.

re: theory, etc, yes, I see, and I see now that you have already read much of the material. It does seem to make sense to approach Benjamin et al via a more grainy, real-life way, like a group biography.

I just still wonder a bit about Jeffries as the person to do this - he belongs somewhat to a journo world that will tend to go for glib bathos and bad one-liner pay-offs ('Adorno wouldn't have been great at online dating' or whatever) that don't feel apt to the occasion; even though he is relatively at the high intellectual end of that world. I'm just judging from a distance, not having looked at this particular book.

i would still like to go there! and i appreciated your thoughtful posting of special rail deals to Edinburgh. in fact i was in Edinburgh at the beginning of this year, rather drunk, and proclaimed "I must go to the writers museum!" but it was closed and the person whose birthday it was wasn't so enthusiastic.

if i'm hoping anything from jeffries i guess it's something a bit gossipy. but i suspect it won't be this as modern day biographers, when i read them, tend to be v soberly inclusive of things like laundry lists, but not more generally fond of anecdote. some history and a collective sense of place and time wd be fine too.

not sure what that first line's doing there.

Several things at once:

Lorrie Moore - A Gate at the Stairs
David France - How to Survive a Plague
H.W. Brands - The General vs the President

also - benjamin yes, others less so. i'm still not sure i really understand commodity in terms of lit, but that's a different discussion for a different place xp.

I like A GATE AT THE STAIRS a lot because it's by Lorrie Moore, though I also think it's one of her more obviously flawed books.

Fizzles what a pity that having made it to Edinburgh you were still not able to visit the museum! :O

If you've read all 5 (?) vols of Benjamin's selected writings then you are way ahead of most people! (Including Jeffries I am tempted to say.)

was more attentive to some than others - but will report back. and yes not sure if 4 or 5 actually. the material is slightly oddly distributed which makes me think in terms of "the thin ones and the fat ones" :/

Gate At The Stairs would have made three or four really good short stories. don't know why she didn't just do that....but she's the genius, not me.

I'm a hundred pages in and it's cohering better than her previous novels, both of which strike me as novels by a born short story master.

It - the moore - has one awfully illconceived subplot.

I loved The Door, but it was by a hungarian, so i was already on board

Reading a Pauline Kael anthology. Some of it feels quaint (the "this entertainment almost rises to the level of art" stuff feels so timid in our era of high/low collapse; felt the same reading Graham Green's literary criticism), some of it very much still resonant (early piece on the collapse of plot as a driving factor in both mainstream spectacle and serious art cinema).

Reading Alexander Baron's The Lowlife. I'm not sure what I was expecting, but not this level of existential scouring, this level of humour and melancholy, not to mention the window into London of the 1950s. I don't know enough about Baron; I'm already intrigued enough to want to read more.

Finished Fitzgerald's The Blue Flower - a nice, subtle and moving book. Thanks for the rec upthread, all. I'll be sure to get around to the Bookshop, soon.

Will now actually make good on my long deferred return to Caro's The Power Broker, which I'll be lugging along on vacation along with Tim Lawrence's Life and Death on the New York Dance Floor, a history of NY's downtown music scene in the early 80s.

https://www.dukeupress.edu/life-and-death-on-the-new-york-dance-floor-1980-1983

Rereading PKD's UBIK (1969).

Did you think The Stars My Destination delivered on its great beginning? Seems so, as I dimly recall, but need to reread that and all his other prime time stuff.

I am still only a fraction through it!

I will finish it, but had to return to PKD for practical reasons.

The world being a nightmare that makes no sense?

I am still only a fraction through it!

I will finish it, but had to return to PKD for practical reasons.

Was inspired by you to reread The Stars My Destination but also took a break because I have trouble finishing books these days. The beginning did indeed live up to and surpass my memory of it, interested to discover the answer to don's question about the rest.

JR, yes, I have to do a class on UBIK tomorrow. I don't think I have read Lem in full on UBIK, though do seem to remember a bit - if you can point me to it that would be good.

Will certainly go back to Bester when schedule clear.

As for UBIK itself, rereading it also provokes thoughts. The main one being that the whole first quarter (?) of the book is a sort of MacGuffin - massive plot points introduced that have almost nothing to do with what comes later. I wonder if PKD was eg bringing together 2 or 3 different book ideas.

I haven't abandoned a book for ages but I just abandoned "The God Of Chance" by Kirsten Thorup. It wasn't bad by any means but I was just so excited by getting to other books I have lined up that I put it in the "get rid" pile and started on "Pack My Bag" by Henry Green.

Here ya go, the pinefox: http://www.depauw.edu/sfs/backissues/5/lem5art.htm

Thanks JR -- I need to read this!

Off-topic, sorry, but some of you will be interested: I finished making this book.

https://c6.staticflickr.com/1/163/30760520653_4724d6a9a1_z.jpgResting on the sofa by hopkinstim, on Flickr

https://c1.staticflickr.com/1/533/31271298800_585eb2be66_b.jpgUnboxed by hopkinstim, on Flickr

wow

:) it's really amazing.

holy toledo what is all that stuff? it's very impressive even though i don't know what it all is.

wait, those are all the individual pages? that thing should win an award of some kind.

Looks fantastic, Tim

Each bit you see in there is a separate (complete) fragment from The Book of Disquiet. I think it's come out ok, thanks all for your kind words.

Just in time for xmas.

Wow! Is this something we can buy? I definitely want to buy this.

im reading 'in between days' by andrew porter...i like it, feels light-ish in a way, easy to read;

nearly stopped reading immed @ these 3 lines however:

Alone in her dorm room, she spent long hours reading Marxist theory, populist theory, books on French intellectual history. She read books by Francis Fukuyama and Friedrich Nietzsche and David Kolb. She tried to ingest these books in the same way that the girls on her hall ingested Jell-O shots, but she found little sustenance in their pages.

Library scores today:

Bresson on Bresson: Interviews 1943-1983

E.M. Cioran - On The Heights of Despair

László Krasznahorkai - Destruction and Sorrow beneath the Heavens

All breezy winter reads.

Yuri Herrera: The Transmigration of Bodies, followed by his Signs Preceding the End of the World -- noirish Mexican high pulp

Tangenttangent: yes they'll be for sale in a month or two I'll mention it in here when they are, but if you want an email alerting you drop me a line via the email you'll find here: http://thebookofdisquiet.wordpress.com

Parabéns Tim, those look amazing!

Decided to delve into Russian lit (one of the few big European ones than I can't read in the original, so have always stupidly avoided), and got:

Master & Margarita
Fathers & Sons
The Cossacks & Hadji Murat

Well. That is a fucking awesome start!

I barely look in this thread and am glad I did today because I've been wanting to read the Book of Disquiet for some time and that looks like a thing of beauty Tim

yeah have also intended to read it for some time.

I really love the book and I continue to be happy to talk about it (just as well) but I'm quite looking forward to not reading it for some time! I have a battered, somewhat marked-up and ink spattered spare copy if anyone wants it.

Incidentally I'm told that Margaret Jull Costa, whose excellent translation I have used, has translated the rest of The Book of Disquiet and will be publishing a "complete" version in 2017.

Excellent, can't wait for it all.

started The Last Samurai today, likely the last book i will read in 2017 and i wanted to go out on a high note

er 2016

Same here, Flopson. Arriving home from the library, I just now got a call from the library that it's in (would go back, but would now mean a crosstown trek after dark through holiday shopping traffic).
While at library, I scored a free discard of The Old Wives' Tale ---is it good?
Thanks to ILB for making DeWitt's books your top recommendations, when I listed the other contemporary lit I've been getting lit with.
So now---where should I start with the books of Benjamin and Adorno?

william gass's the tunnel arrived at last today. what a large and intimidating tome. the single review quote on the deep black cover: "the most beautiful, complex and disturbing novel to be published in my lifetime" is pretty cool. feels like an "abandon hope all ye who enter here". i'll finish the four wise men first i guess.

dow, with Adorno, I would start with Minima Moralia, which represents Adorno at his most aphoristic: it's structured as a series of very short, essayistic fragments, along the lines of Nietszche's Beyond Good and Evil, and it's not quite as imposing as his major later books, which tend to be much denser in texture. Dialectic of Enlightenment is more forbidding, but I'd read that next, since almost all of his later work presupposes the arguments he and Horkheimer make there (especially in the opening chapter on the concept of enlightenment). Alternately, Adorno wrote a great deal on classical music, so you could start with one of his books or essays on a specific composer if there's someone you're particularly drawn to. (My favorite book in that vein is probably In Search of Wagner; don't start with Adorno's essay "On Jazz," which is important to Adorno's line of criticism on popular music, but which if read in isolation will make it harder for you to take him seriously.)

With Benjamin, I'd start either with the second and third volumes of his chronological Selected Writings (to get a historically contextualized sense of the variety of genres in which he worked), or with the highlights in Illuminations and Reflections (Arendt's introduction to Illuminations really undersells the materialist aspect of Benjamin's criticism, but as a collection of essays, it's still absolutely dazzling).

*Nietzsche's, that is

Thanks! Minima Moralia it is, then Illuminations. One more: Canetti? I'm guessing I'd like the memoirs more than Auto-da-Fé. given some of the responses to it on ILB (prob would like Crowds and Power, given some of my own impressions, but seems too obvious a first choice).

My own experiences in and near some crowds, that is.

i think i recall that tunnel blurb, never got around to trying that so im interested how u perceive it

I have never really heard of the Pessoa book or had any idea what it is about, but I agree with the view that Tim's is a marvellous achievement and, indeed, that its production genuinely deserves public acclaim, prizes and what Alan Hansen used to call 'plaudits and accolades'.

I have to agree that MINIMA MORALIA and ILLUMINATIONS are logical accessible places to start on those two.

I would add Benjamin's BERLIN CHILDHOOD as, in a way, even more accessible and personal. Also UNDERSTANDING BRECHT and the Belknap WORK OF ART collections are nice and relatively accessible collections.

I think I will have to stop THE STARS MY DESTINATION - the central character scares me too much.

I love Berlin Childhood, and the Diary in fact. The geographical and temporal symbolic mapping of an emotional space, which seems to me to produce a kabbalah that's personal, historical and political (while not excluding or allowing mystical approaches) is v compelling for me. I'm not sure if this is an orthodox interpretation though.

Just going into the notes I took when I was going through Benjamin reasonably intensively, two quotes I hope illustrate the above:

“I have long, indeed for years, played with the idea of setting out the sphere of life – bios – graphically on a map. First I envisaged an ordinary map, but now I would incline to a general staff’s map of a city centre, if such a thing existed. Doubtless it does not, because of ignorance of the theatre of future wars. I have evolved a system of signs, and on the grey background of such maps they would make a colourful show if I clearly marked the houses of my friends and girlfriends, the assembly halls of various collectives, from, from the "debating chambers" of the Youth Movement to the gathering places of Communist youth, the hotel and brothel rooms that I knew for one night, the decisive benches in the Tiergarten, the ways to different schools and the graves that I saw filled, the sites of prestigious cafés whose long-forgotten names daily crossed our lips, the tennis courts where empty apartment blocks stand today, and the halls emblazoned with gold and stucco that the terrors of dancing classes made almost the equal of gymnasiums.”

I think that's comparatively straightforward, though its implications are complex.

“.. today this point in space where we happened to open our Meeting House is for me the consummate pictorial expression of the point in history occupied by this last true elite of bourgeois Berlin. It was as close to the abyss of the Great War as the Meeting House was to the steep slope down to the Landwehr Canal." p605

this investigation in isomorphic places in time and space - ie where they can be mapped on to each other to form a sort of symbolic node - occurs throughout his writing. There's another bit which I haven't got a note for, where he talks about his teenage self being aware of a void in Berlin beyond a line marshalled by prostitutes, and also:

'This dead corner of the Zoological Garden was an image of what was to come, a prophesying place. It must be considered certain that there are such places; indeed, just as there are plants that primitive peoples claim confer the power of claivoyance, so there are places endowed with such power: they may be deserted promenades, or treetops, particularly in towns, seen against walls, railway crossings, and above all, the thresholds that mysteriously divide the districts of a town' p610

I think I will have to stop THE STARS MY DESTINATION - the central character scares me too much.

Re: Benjamin, I read this earlier in the year and quite enjoyed it despite what seems at first like a kind of cheesy or silly idea. I'm surprised I hadn't seen much discussion of it or reviews anywhere. It's carried off pretty well. http://www.sup.org/books/title/?id=23184

It's premised on the idea that Benjamin faked his death and emigrated to New York in secret. The novel is about the discovery of a follow up to the Arcades Project that he wrote in secret about NYC in the second half of the 20th century. The book is written in part as literary-criticism (offering analysis on this made-up work), part the story of its discovery and Benjamin's legacy, and part a speculative re-writing of the Arcades Project transposed into the 20th century (Robert Moses as Hausmann, Andy Warhol as a kind of Baudelaire, etc.).

It's a fun read , despite some potential issues one may find with it (philosophically, historically) - but, as a work of fiction, I think it can take some poetic license, which it uses (imo) to good effect. Also, its formal experimenting allows it a kind of narrative momentum that is otherwise absent from most conventional writing on him.

It seems like some of you may enjoy it - not just for those interested in Benjamin, but also as a kind of fully realized Borgesian exercise, and nice reflections on NYC in the second half of the century, etc.

Also, by the weird logic of coincidence, it came out at roughly the same time as the actually attempted re-writing of the Arcades Project by the poet Kenneth Goldsmith, which takes New York as the capital of the 20th century. I have no idea whether or not one another knew of each other's projects.

I have yet to read, so will withhold any judgment, but it seems like a heroically ambitious effort to pull off. https://www.versobooks.com/books/2168-capital

(My favorite book in that vein is probably In Search of Wagner; don't start with Adorno's essay "On Jazz," which is important to Adorno's line of criticism on popular music, but which if read in isolation will make it harder for you to take him seriously.)

I loved Adorno's In Search of Wagner at the time. Quite an attempt to map the contours of the music to the politics. Could never get into Wagner's music but I would like to re-read.

On Benjamin, this is a bunch of diary entries on Brecht. His impressions, arguments, debates. Really good.

One more: Canetti? I'm guessing I'd like the memoirs more than Auto-da-Fé. given some of the responses to it on ILB (prob would like Crowds and Power, given some of my own impressions, but seems too obvious a first choice).

Auto-da-Fé is a very good novel. I read the first two vols of his memoirs but because I had read/knew the background of almost everyone it was very good filler+, gossipy and fun, though not sure how that would work with someone who hasn't read much Musil or doesn't know Mann or Broch (not saying you don't but its something to consider). Probably my favourite thing by him is the short book-length essay on Kafka's letters to Felice. Nveer got around to Crowds and Power as from 2nd hand readings the book sounds a bit...dumb.

apropos of nothing, i wanted to share this hunky photo of James Laughlin, the founder of New Directions Paperback, that i stumbled upon while trawling Wikipedia

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/79/James_Laughlin.jpg

inspired by Last Samurai, and after being a big child with a poor attention span and training myself on short, sweet and simple novels and novellas under 400 pages, my new years resolution 2017 is to tackle some of the big complex tomes I've had on my list but keep pushing to the back of the queue

I have never found out what the novel THE LAST SAMURAI is about.

It sounds like it is about a samurai but I think people on ILB said it was not.

It is not about a samurai, it's about a very bright child, and books, and suicide

and dads, and Toshiro Mifune.

so far it's about a single mother raising a child prodigy. it's really, really good

i do want to read that. i will get to it eventually.

i doubt i would ever read adorno but i have been browsing through the penguin dictionary of critical theory today at work. i'm pretty sure every entry mentions freud and lacan.

I finished "Stoner" by Williams. Sometimes you want to yell at Stoner and tell him to snap out of it, because he can be so oddly passive and emotionally blank, but the elements of the book that seem frustrating midway through begin to have cumulative power. Since the book was published in the mid-60s I'm guessing it was written somewhat under the spell of existentialism, which might explain Stoner's oddly abrupt and implacable decisions, but you don't have to buy him as some kind of existential and/or stoic hero to find the book moving. The relentless tally of missed connections in his family life is thrown into sharper relief by the one love affair that does work out for him, however briefly, and there's even some steamy sex at about the 3/4 mark to liven things up.

It would be interesting to have some outside perspective on Stoner, because as he himself admits, he's not very good at introspection or self-awareness. I suspect that he shares more of the blame for the failure of his marriage than the book lets on.

Thanks for all of those responses, will certainly check Berlin Childhood, related Benjamin, and at least one of Canetti's memoirs.
deserted promenades, or treetops, particularly in towns, seen against walls, railway crossings, and above all, the thresholds that mysteriously divide the districts of a town' p610 Right, the only way to do it, along with the connective associations, the layers and so on, is to include this other stuff, esp. approaching, stepping over, or zigzag wandering memory's gaps, the divisions of the town you're mapping. If you don't remember, just briefly indicate that and go on to the next thing. Unless you want to write fiction about it, and I don't (maybe can't, but anyway don't).

Don't remember or didn't know at the time, being a child or spaced youth, and if it's not the sort of thing you could turn up now, feasibly. The guy who looked like that thirty years ago, on that street? Probably several guys like that. It was Collegetown.

I've had luck introducing Stoner to the unfamiliar.

I finished "Stoner" by Williams. Sometimes you want to yell at Stoner and tell him to snap out of it, because he can be so oddly passive and emotionally blank, but the elements of the book that seem frustrating midway through begin to have cumulative power. Since the book was published in the mid-60s I'm guessing it was written somewhat under the spell of existentialism, which might explain Stoner's oddly abrupt and implacable decisions, but you don't have to buy him as some kind of existential and/or stoic hero to find the book moving. The relentless tally of missed connections in his family life is thrown into sharper relief by the one love affair that does work out for him, however briefly, and there's even some steamy sex at about the 3/4 mark to liven things up.

i thought this book was terrible. i don't often discard a book after a quarter of the way but i did with this. when it got to the scene where the three buddies were discussing the guy who died in the war and were like "hell if he was here now he'd sure be laughing at us three dummies" or whatever, i just couldn't go on. there was a litany of really cliched shit besides this as far as i recall.

a friend of mine published a book. that i would want to read! so, i'm reading it. she's an academic but she writes in a nice readable style for slow people like me. all about the history of free black people of the north before the civil war and the political activism inherent in their travel by train. boat. etc, throughout the north. just walking down the street was no easy thing. which means this book is amazingly and sadly timely. in the first chapter alone you get the history and etymology of the n-word and the birth of jim crow and segregation.

it ties in with my jazz reading too. the countless first person accounts i have read this year by black musicians who toured the country during the 30's, 40's, and 50's could fill five-volumes with tales of woe, close calls, and chaotic conditions. but they were spreading the gospel to heathens and i'd like to think that their hard work paid off in some small way.

https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51WCc1yzwtL.jpg

loved Stoner

Hi Skot, do you know about the Negro Travelers Green Book series? Published 1936-64. Originals: https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/collections/the-green-book#/?tab=about&scroll=10 Those are a bit hard on my eyes, even with Chrome zoom, but several articles w excerpts are also online.

I'm reading Nostromo, part of a plan to read Conrad's three overtly political novels. Is this where the title and germinal idea for One Hundred Years of Solitude came from? From one of the first chapters:

"How old, I wonder," he murmured, looking at her with a slight smile. Mrs. Gould's appearance was made youthful by the mobile intelligence of her face. "We can't give you your ecclesiastical court back again; but you shall have more steamers, a railway, a telegraph-cable -- a future in the great world which is worth infinitely more than any amount of ecclesiastical past. You shall be brought in touch with something greater than two viceroyalties. But I had no notion that a place on a sea-coast could remain so isolated from the world. If it had been a thousand miles inland now -- most remarkable! Has anything ever happened here for a hundred years before today?"

"Hey guys, I'm reading Joseph Conrad!" doesn't seem like very good ILB fodder but I'm pretty swept up in this so far.

Just finished Jernigan and adored it. Lovable prick, him. Should probably read Stoner, I enjoy academics in books (not David Lodge so much) like Crossing to Safety. American lives, etc.

loved Stoner

not trying to troll any of you - i expected to like it but it was a real outlier as far as my dislike went. prob the only book i've abandoned in recent years, though i tend to know my own tastes well enough to avoid that.

Finished collections by Areny Tarkovsky and Cesare Pavese. Holub's essays mentioned upthread are great too. He writes about science in a very detailed way and lets the poetry happen, almost by accident - he know it can't be forced.

Now onto Carvantes - Don Quixote.

I loved Stoner, too. I found the end incredibly moving and have essentially adopted 'what did you expect?' as a mantra.

I did wonder about Stoner's passivity. I figured it was partly an existentialist thing, but also a kind structural or pathological passivity, handed down from his parents. There's also a stoical feel to him, a holy suffering - something like Michael K or Bartleby.

Okay, I've been sitting this one out for now, but I am another Stoner detractor. Because of that passivity you mention I just wanted to tell him something to the effect of "wake up, bro!"

Until now

I've never read any description anywhere by anybody that made me want to read it (the novel, not the description). But that's one of the things descriptions should be good for, so it's all good.

i would never begrudge anyone for giving up or not being sold on Stoner, it's an aggressively dull premise and it brings you into a very distant, cold world. yet, it is just magic. i read it in intense and somewhat unusual circumstances but the fact that many other ppl had a similar reaction (including Tom Hanks lol) assures me there's something there. i found the thesis defence scene thrilling, i think you liked it had you held on for long enough, Ronan.

^^^^