what are u reading right now? would u recommend it?

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It's been a while now since I last found a truly enjoyable novel and I'm wondering if someone out there can help me... I'm not hooked on a particular genre, so feel free to mention whaterver comes to your mind! Please don't come up with classics, I've read too many of them :-) (unless they are "obscure" in which case they are welcome)

― Simone, Tuesday, 20 August 2002 10:12 (twenty-three years ago)

Vanity Fair. really good for the first few chapters, but it's starting to drag. I just re-read What A Carve Up! and it's every bit as good as I recalled. Last fiction I enjoyed some was "My Little Blue Dress" by Bruno Maddox (i think). it starts out as a fake biography, and is very funny, but it descends into being about the life of a very very pathetic man. great.

― Alan (Alan), Tuesday, 20 August 2002 10:32 (twenty-three years ago)

Right now I am reading, Goodbye Tsugumi - Banana Yoshimoto. It's good, better than NP.

― jel -- (jel), Tuesday, 20 August 2002 10:35 (twenty-three years ago)

I am still reading "Pity The Nation: Lebanon At War" by Robert Fisk. I would recommend this book if you are interested in the Lebanon, in the reality of war, in international politics, or in the Middle East. Actually, I'd recommend this book even if you weren't, because you should be.

― DV (dirtyvicar), Tuesday, 20 August 2002 10:36 (twenty-three years ago)

i have just finished paul austers the music of chance, which i quite liked (not as good as new york trilogy though)

i'm about to start iain sinclairs lud heat and suicide bridge

― gareth (gareth), Tuesday, 20 August 2002 10:47 (twenty-three years ago)

Just read Saramago's Blindness, which was excellent, and LeGuin's Lathe Of Heaven, which seemed kind of blah in comparison.

― RickyT (RickyT), Tuesday, 20 August 2002 11:11 (twenty-three years ago)

I am reading one of those funny little illustrated 'Introduction to...' books about Wittgenstein (which caused much hilarity from my co-workers when I took it out with me on my fag break just now). I feel weirdly guilty about reading comicbook guides to major philosophers, but I think the series is really good. Although. admittedly, my understanding so far is still limited to: "Ludwig W - whatta guy! He went to school with Hitler, gave away all his money, healed the sick in war hospitals and was nuts about Carmen Miranda!"

(I'm also kind of reading 'Ada or Ador' by Vlad Nab [I dunno if I will finish this: oddly hard-going for such beautiful prose] and the David O Selznick biog by David Thomson, which is fascinating about Imperial Hollywood.)

― Jerry the Nipper, Tuesday, 20 August 2002 11:13 (twenty-three years ago)

I've been reading a lot lately, just finished 'Choke' by the guy who wrote Fight Club, forget his name.
Probably classed as classics, but the Terry Pratchett Discworld books are worth a venture, if you've not already. Also his 'Good Omens' novel which he wrote with Neil Gaiman is a cool comedy take on the 'Omen' film.

And non-fiction, 'The Search for Zero-Point' by Nick Cook is about Nazi-Germany and discoveries made in the area of science around that time of the century. its one of those books that you have to make your own mind up about really, but worth a look anyway.

― Secria, Tuesday, 20 August 2002 12:11 (twenty-three years ago)

i've got loads on the go, just finished Le Guin's "left hand of darkness" and O'Toole's "confederacy of dunces" and am just starting in on rose macaulay "told by an idiot", john humphrey's "the great food gamble" and mark s's LotR article-in-progress. and some book about feminism and popular culture, which is rekindling my interest/BRANE in the subject. and will also soon be re-reading lord of the rings. ALSO i have finally tracked down a second hand copy of "a sea grape tree" by rosamund lehmann which i can't wait to start!

― katie (katie), Tuesday, 20 August 2002 12:17 (twenty-three years ago)

Did you like LHOD?

― RickyT (RickyT), Tuesday, 20 August 2002 12:24 (twenty-three years ago)

'My War Gone By, I Miss It So' Antony Loyd.

As far removed from the conventional Bosnian war-correspondent's memoirs as you can get. Seeringly honest, highly personal account by an author who both vividly describes the slaughter in passages that stay with you for days, and attempts to account for his own troubled motivation for wanting to be there in the first place eg difficult upbringing, heroin dependency etc. Brutal, harrowing, vivid, chilling, shot through with dark humour. Highly recommended (especially for Dave Q who I think may find a kindred spirit in these pages).

'Blood and Belonging' Michael Ignatieff.
Smooth, urbane liberal intellectual's early nineties travels to various ethnic nationalisms, and the challenge they represent to post-cold war world. Thought-provoking and well written, but after Loyd's devastating account of actually being in the midst of the bloody consequences of ethnic nationalism gone mad it felt cold and academic.

― stevo (stevo), Tuesday, 20 August 2002 12:27 (twenty-three years ago)

"Ernesto Che Guervara: A Revolutionary Life" by Jon Lee Anderson. I like it, but I'd only recommend it if you want to read 750+ pages about Che.

― Dom Passantino (Dom Passantino), Tuesday, 20 August 2002 12:27 (twenty-three years ago)

Two review copies. "Where Dead Voices Gather" by Nick TOsches, which is a biography of one of the last 'blackface' minstrel artists, Emmett Miller. It's quite fascinating but he tends to go off on one a bit. I kind of like that tho. Also 'Do Not Pass Go' by TIm Moore, a London Travelogue/History told through the device of the Monopoly board - promising and funny. His publicist is keen on comparisons to Bill Bryson, who I don't like that much, but I'm not letting that put me off.

And the new series of 'THE LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN' by Alan Moore and Kevin O'Neill . HURRAH!

― misterjones, Tuesday, 20 August 2002 12:29 (twenty-three years ago)

oh i've only read ish 1 of LoEG -- is there another one out? must know NOW

― Alan (Alan), Tuesday, 20 August 2002 12:31 (twenty-three years ago)

I'm 3/4 of the way through LOTR again, on the 3rd chapter or so of "Thee Much Lamented Death ov Madam Geneva" - recent finished bookZoR include Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Mauve (Simon Garfield), The Meaning of it All (Richard Feynman), and current tube reading is 'The Doctrine of DNA - biology as ideology'.

― Sarah (starry), Tuesday, 20 August 2002 12:33 (twenty-three years ago)

RickyT How are you getting on with HTBAA?

I am currently reading various volumes from Serpents Tail's Extraordinary Classics series, the best of which so far are by Pessoa (The Book of Disquiet), Daniil Kharms and Juan Carlos Onetti (The Shipyard).

Also Devon and its People by the brilliant WG Hoskins (author of the unmissable "The Making of the English Landscape").

― Tim (Tim), Tuesday, 20 August 2002 12:33 (twenty-three years ago)

(left hand of darkness = k-brill cheers RickyT)
(also alang PERSERVERE with the thackeray, it's GREBT!)

― katie (katie), Tuesday, 20 August 2002 12:37 (twenty-three years ago)

Alan - I assume by ish one of LoEG you mean Series one. If so, then Series two is out and this time it's MARTIAN! Absolutely effin brilliant.

I love it the most.

― misterjones (misterjones), Tuesday, 20 August 2002 12:41 (twenty-three years ago)

no i did mean series 2. only 1 ish out so far then?

― Alan (Alan), Tuesday, 20 August 2002 12:42 (twenty-three years ago)

And the new series of 'THE LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN' by Alan Moore and Kevin O'Neill . HURRAH!

it's not very good though, is it? story a bit thin, you're just meant to get all excited at his ability to join up so many different victorian bits of Mars fiction. yawn, how clever.

― DV (dirtyvicar), Tuesday, 20 August 2002 12:45 (twenty-three years ago)

"Verschwende Dein Jugend" by Jürgen Teipel, which is an oral history of punk and new wave in Germany up to about 1985. It's a very, very good example of this sort of book, and I recommend it if you can read German at least as well as Biba Kopf can (and you probably can).

― Colin Meeder (Mert), Tuesday, 20 August 2002 12:48 (twenty-three years ago)

I finished HTBAA a couple of weeks ago. It was OK. Started out well enough but the last third or so felt a little aimless. Nice photographs though. I'll return it when I next see you, promise.

― RickyT (RickyT), Tuesday, 20 August 2002 12:51 (twenty-three years ago)

LoEG: guide to v2 ep 1

― Alan (Alan), Tuesday, 20 August 2002 12:52 (twenty-three years ago)

LoEG is absolutely brilliant. The clever-clever referencing is right up my alley (I buzzed for about a day that Moore got in a reference to Land Under England in the back bit, all of one sentence, cos it's been a fave book of mine for years). THe artwork is absolutely the best colour O'Neill stuff I've ever seen - the guy just gets better. And I loved series one, so it's a fair bet I'll love series two. My only fear is for the film... the Producers have already made Tom Sawyer join the League to appeal to a US audience....

― misterjones (misterjones), Tuesday, 20 August 2002 12:56 (twenty-three years ago)

Ricky, I thought it got better as the plan, such as it was, unravelled, but then I always like BD best when he's failing.

― Tim (Tim), Tuesday, 20 August 2002 12:59 (twenty-three years ago)

I've just finished Chinua Achebe's "Things Fall Apart" which I would thoroughly recommend - it took me a while to get into it because it's a little hard to relate to at first, but once you get into it it's a night's read (it's quite short). I thought at first it was going to be quite political, but it isn't at all.

― Steve.n., Tuesday, 20 August 2002 12:59 (twenty-three years ago)

The plan unravelling was fine, it was just that it sort of died and he ran out of interesting things to say/do about it, in contrast to the accounts of some of his other failures in 45. The photo cutting at the end felt like an unsatisfying cop out too.

― RickyT (RickyT), Tuesday, 20 August 2002 13:12 (twenty-three years ago)

Saramago's "Memorial del Convento" (no clue about the English title, RickyT to the rescue, perhaps..) Not that impressed: I really enjoyed "The Evangelicals according to Jesus" or whatever is called, but "Ricardo Reis' Death" failed to seduce me and I am just dragging all along this one.

Inbetween, finished in one hour Joseph Roth's 'The legend of the drunk saint" (again, sorry about the translation but perhaps it helps), and thought it was wonderful

― Arantxa, Tuesday, 20 August 2002 13:23 (twenty-three years ago)

Ah, sorry, Arantxa, I can't help with the translation, Blindness is the only one of his I've read so far. Gareth might know; he's certainly the Saramago expert here if his taste in tube passengers is anything to go by.

― RickyT (RickyT), Tuesday, 20 August 2002 13:29 (twenty-three years ago)

"Bubblegum Music Is The Naked Truth" edited by Kim Cooper and David Smay: a little inconsistent, but as good a book of essays on Bubblegum Music as we've got for now. It's begging for an edit and colour pictures, and the section on the 90's doesn't go as far as you want it to (like the girl in "1-2-3, Red Light").

"Shogun" by James Clavell - OK, yes, it's fucking embarassing to read a big tacky historical romance novel, but this has pirates, ninjas and samurai! And it's a pretty painless way to swallow a lot of basic Japanese history, something I'm keen to learn.

give me a break, you brainiacs, it's August!

― Fritz Wollner (Fritz), Tuesday, 20 August 2002 13:52 (twenty-three years ago)

don't be fooled, Fritz, we steal all our opinions off Amazon reader reviews. i swear 'Saramago' is a secret code that really means 'Ivana Trump biography'.

personally, i just finished 'V' - Pynchon, and am now working on 'Lipstick Traces' as i think it will be central to my thesis in some ways. although if i end up talking about the sex pistols any more than absolutely necessary, i authorize you all to shoot me.

― Dave M. (rotten03), Tuesday, 20 August 2002 13:59 (twenty-three years ago)

Gareth might know; he's certainly the Saramago expert here if his taste in tube passengers is anything to go by

*sigh*, why didn't i say something to her? :(

anyway, i've only read The Stone Raft, but i did like it

― gareth (gareth), Tuesday, 20 August 2002 14:13 (twenty-three years ago)

Just finished a Kristeva book. No, I would not recommend it. It wasn't bad perse but it seemed like she collected some bits 'n' pieces and just glued them together. More a collage than a well thought out theory. The Other As Self ... was that the title? I can't remembah. Just started a book by Simon Reynolds - it's really good but then I have only managed to read ten pages so far.

― nathalie (nathalie), Tuesday, 20 August 2002 14:15 (twenty-three years ago)

oi hopkins! what's in the kharms volume?

books I am 'reading' right now for different values of 'reading': wittgenstein's mistress - david markson; the noonday demon - andrew solomon; gravity's rainbow - thomas pynchon; molloy - samuel beckett; humanity - jonathon glover; thinking in jazz - paul berliner

would I recommend them? yep

― Josh (Josh), Tuesday, 20 August 2002 14:41 (twenty-three years ago)

Just got a slew of books over the weekend (including four -- FOUR! -- utterly out of print James Branch Cabell novels, woohoo!). But currently enjoying a reread through Bill Pronzini's merry Gun in Cheek, which does the Golden Turkey Award treatment to mystery fiction (Pronzini being a well known writer in the field, American division).

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Tuesday, 20 August 2002 14:43 (twenty-three years ago)

'Ere Kortbein, it's based around "Incidences" but has other stuff too including a play (name of which I've forgotten) and some of his letter. Bit more here.

I love how it's goofy, somewhere inbetween Pessoa and the Three Stooges. I don't love how it looks like a 4AD record. I phear the 4AD.

― Tim (Tim), Tuesday, 20 August 2002 14:49 (twenty-three years ago)

Josh "Would I recommend them?" Yep.
Will he finish them? Nope. ;-)

― nathalie (nathalie), Tuesday, 20 August 2002 14:51 (twenty-three years ago)

I just finished Joseph Epstein's Snobbery, The American Version and enjoyed it very much. The best parts were on higher education. I'm halfway through the Cons, Scams, and Grifts by Joe Gores and it's fine but a little less substantial than the earlier books in the series. The best thing I've read lately is the piece from the new Atlantic on cryptography/airport security, and it's right here.

― dan (dan), Tuesday, 20 August 2002 15:18 (twenty-three years ago)

nath I finished three books this weekend! and I'm gonna finish at least two more this week! and it's the fourth time I've read one of them! these things go in uh cycles I guess.

tim I think the only play he wrote was 'elizaveta bam'. maybe I missed it on the page you gave but I didn't see - are any of the 'erotic pieces' or 'philosophical pieces' listed here included?

― Josh (Josh), Tuesday, 20 August 2002 16:53 (twenty-three years ago)

I just read "CivilWarLand in bad decline" by George Saunders and am now reading "Pastoralia" by erm George Saunders. I would recommend the first, although, as always, the reviews and hype is way overblown.

― bnw (bnw), Tuesday, 20 August 2002 17:39 (twenty-three years ago)

I tried reading _Rock & The Pop Narcotic_, but damn if that ain't like running up the down escalator when you're barefoot and the steps are made of iced teflon. I nibble at the _Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract_ now and then - I'm up to the 1920s, and loving every little bit of minutae; the COMPLETE anthithesis of _Rock &..._ (in terms of writing style, readability, proper grammar, etc etc fucking etc). I THINK I finished Joan Didion's _The White Album_ collection (thanks to Mr. Daddino for the recommendation; it was quite good, but it was misplaced, and I think I've yet to get to the back cover); I know I left William Vollman's _The Atlas_ unfinished. Damn my small head.

As always, there are books on my shelves beckoning me, calling to me (Colson Whitehead's _John Henry Days_, Harlan Ellison & Theodore Sturgeon anthologies, _Comic Book Nation_, _Collecting: An Unruly something-or-other_), but most of my "reading" these days is in comic form - The Ultimates, The Incredible Hulk, Daredevil, Powers, New X-Men, Optic Nerve, Transmetropolitan, X-Static, Ruse, and so on down the hall. (DC SUX0R.) (Well, not really, but whatever.)

― David R. (popshots75`), Tuesday, 20 August 2002 18:01 (twenty-three years ago)

I'm reading a big boy did it and ran away, and it's rrather good in a non-taxing boy's own adventure sort of way, nice references in it though.

Next I aim to dig out a definitive history of the First world war after my time in France last week.

― chris (chris), Tuesday, 20 August 2002 18:02 (twenty-three years ago)

I'm reading "Chicago: City on the Make" by Nelson Algren and it's really good.

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Tuesday, 20 August 2002 18:55 (twenty-three years ago)

Rereading Life, the Universe and Everything (picked up a copy in anticipation of my beach vacation); not sure that I'd recommend it, as I don't think it's aged well.

― j.lu (j.lu), Tuesday, 20 August 2002 19:08 (twenty-three years ago)

nath I finished three books this weekend!
And the world was never the same again. ;-) Books I haven't finished: Zen and The Fart of Poop Maintenance, B. Russells book on philosophy, Beyond Good And Evil. Do you see a connection? I don't think philosphy and I were made for eachother. hehe Just kidding. BTW I am totally obsessed with Barthes.

― nathalie (nathalie), Tuesday, 20 August 2002 19:32 (twenty-three years ago)

I just read After the Quake short stories by Haruki Marukami. I'm not a big Marukami fan but I really liked these stories. Many of them have been published recently in the New Yorker and other places so chances are you've stumbled across one or more of them. The conceit is that the time frame is post Kobe earthquake and sets the backdrop for character's various disruptions. One reviewer mentioned that the can be read in anology to post-9/11; I hope Murakami and others weren't trying to cash in on this; I don't think so. Still on my shelf, well piled on my floor actully, is Underground, Murakami's non-fiction re the sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway, I bought this to read on a plane about 6 months ago and still haven't looked at it.

― Mary (Mary), Tuesday, 20 August 2002 20:25 (twenty-three years ago)

as you'll see in underground that kind of thing has been on his mind for a while

― Josh (Josh), Tuesday, 20 August 2002 21:08 (twenty-three years ago)

if I were interested in doing drugs though I wouldn't trust the 'addictions' chapter in the solomon book at ALL.

― Josh (Josh), Tuesday, 20 August 2002 21:49 (twenty-three years ago)

eco's "Kant and the Platypus", though it's more struggling manfully than readiin.

― Matt (Matt), Tuesday, 20 August 2002 23:31 (twenty-three years ago)

"Inside Music" by Karl Haas. I want to learn about music theory and history, and it's the best our library's got, but it sucks. The first half is descriptions of instruments, the second half is history.

"Shanghai Baby" by Wei Hui, which I am enjoying. I'm reading it slowly to get all the mental pictures, but it's still going to be over too soon.

― Maria, Wednesday, 21 August 2002 00:34 (twenty-three years ago)

Read Moon Palace. You won't regret it.

― bills, Wednesday, 21 August 2002 01:08 (twenty-three years ago)

i love, love, love pessoa !

now reading: "maldoror" (for the second time) by le comte lautreamont, "cahier d'un retour au pays natal" by aime cesaire, and the screenplays for "memento" and "following".

― mike (ro)bott, Wednesday, 21 August 2002 03:05 (twenty-three years ago)

Oscar Wilde by Richard Ellman. I recommend it. It's long, but it's a good way of learning about late nineteenth century thought organically, through things that actually happened - like Wilde's tour of America, his meeting with Whitman, his relationship with Pater and Ruskin, and so on.

― maryann, Wednesday, 21 August 2002 03:33 (twenty-three years ago)

Murakami's "Sputnik Sweetheart" (not his best but not his worst either - very readable in a non-perjorative way), Philip K Dick's "Clans Of The Alphane Moon" (grebt! & with possibly his best character ever!), Georges Perec's "Life : A User's Manual" (essential) & Edward Limonov's "His Butler's Story" (er, just started it but Limonov is generally hypnotic).

― Ess Kay (esskay), Wednesday, 21 August 2002 04:40 (twenty-three years ago)

Swan Song - Robert McCammon

http://www.forum2.org/tal/books/swansong.html

― William Whizz (William Whizz), Wednesday, 21 August 2002 05:47 (twenty-three years ago)

Swan Song is a cool book. An even pulpier version of The Stand perhaps. I loved McCammon back in my angry youth days.

― bnw (bnw), Wednesday, 21 August 2002 06:19 (twenty-three years ago)

Rediscovered book...
Rediscovered angry youth...
Got slapped by my mother for being angry youth !
Enjoyed the book again though (not too hard on the brain cells)

― William Whizz (William Whizz), Wednesday, 21 August 2002 06:27 (twenty-three years ago)

mmm yes maryann, that Ellman biography is definitely the best Wilde biog that i've read. though as i was telling anthony, it doesn't half make you want to KICK BOSIE'S ARSE!!

― katie (katie), Wednesday, 21 August 2002 07:28 (twenty-three years ago)

Oh, it's nice to hear of someone else reading a high-class biog, I thought it was kind of freakish!

― maryann, Wednesday, 21 August 2002 08:52 (twenty-three years ago)

i hate biographies: they all have the same ending

― mark s (mark s), Wednesday, 21 August 2002 08:56 (twenty-three years ago)

All the best books are about the weather.

― jel -- (jel), Wednesday, 21 August 2002 09:03 (twenty-three years ago)

Josh, yes. Table of contents here, here and here.

Just finished Nella Larsen's "Quicksand" and "Passing" in the same series, a book which consists of two much more traditional novellas but very fine all the same. Reminded me in an odd way of Edward Upward...

― Tim (Tim), Wednesday, 21 August 2002 09:12 (twenty-three years ago)

does no one else here read trash? (Speaking of which, if you're only going to read one biography of the members of Motley Crue this year, make it "The Dirt".)

― Fritz Wollner (Fritz), Wednesday, 21 August 2002 13:36 (twenty-three years ago)

*breaks down* OK Fritz I ADMIT IT i am also reading "Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring MOVIE GUIDE"!!! it was a PRESENT!! i am only reading for the PICTURES!! *gibbers* (it is grebt though thank you david!)

― katie (katie), Wednesday, 21 August 2002 13:57 (twenty-three years ago)

there is an extremely disturbing picture in it of a huge pile of prosthetic hobbit feet. i mean like ew!

― katie (katie), Wednesday, 21 August 2002 14:27 (twenty-three years ago)

I tried to read a Kathy Reichs bk but it was utterly godawful and then I got abt halfway through a Henning Mankell mystery which was ok in a gloomy scandiland alcho noir kind of way but nothing special so then I started 'Be Cool' by Elmore Leonard but I wasn't really that thrilled by it and then I had to read some lousy comics for some bk I'm contributing to and then I watched tv

― Andrew L (Andrew L), Wednesday, 21 August 2002 14:31 (twenty-three years ago)

that Ellman biography is definitely the best Wilde biog that i've read

It is great, indeed -- got it when I just graduated from high school and reread it every so often. Bosie was one hell of an evil little snot...

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 21 August 2002 14:50 (twenty-three years ago)

Josh: Wittg's Mist -- this actually sprang to mind for the "first lines" thread but I couldn't find my copy. Remind me how it kicks off?

Byron: would you really recommend CivilWarLand over Pastoralia? I have this thing with Saunders where I think it's lovely stuff and great reading but sometimes it seems a bit hollow, cynical, a little to easy -- I thought Pastoralia was a big improvement, insofar as it didn't give me that feeling nearly as much.

― nabisco (nabisco), Wednesday, 21 August 2002 15:42 (twenty-three years ago)

Nitsuh: I just started Pastoralia, but I agree with your assessment on CivilWarLand. It is a bit formulaic. As much fun as it is hearing our hedonistic culture get butchered, I think he might have been able to pull it off in one story instead of 7 or 8.

― bnw (bnw), Wednesday, 21 August 2002 16:07 (twenty-three years ago)

Gramsci's writings. Nothing else as as good as The Modern Prince, however. Also a decent biography of him. Also hemming and hawwing into Vollman's "Fathers & Crows" (the only book by him I haven't read. I expect it will be good). Also reread Less Than Zero which is still good and made me want to listen to Springsteen.

― Sterling Clover (s_clover), Wednesday, 21 August 2002 17:00 (twenty-three years ago)

"In the beginning, sometimes I left messages in the street."

― Josh (Josh), Wednesday, 21 August 2002 17:10 (twenty-three years ago)

does no one else here read trash?

I decided that my copy of Finnegan's Wake could wait rather longer before I make a serious assault on it and started Finnegan's Week instead - a cop novel by Joseph Wambaugh, and so far a disappointingly dull one, with pleasant, sober, responsible cops, unlike all his best fiction. I finished Pynchon's Mason & Dixon at the weekend, and that is a terrific novel, if a bit slow to gather pace.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Wednesday, 21 August 2002 17:27 (twenty-three years ago)

I read ILM, does that count?

― Josh (Josh), Wednesday, 21 August 2002 18:03 (twenty-three years ago)

What, as trash?

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Wednesday, 21 August 2002 18:07 (twenty-three years ago)

give the man a prize!

― Josh (Josh), Wednesday, 21 August 2002 18:15 (twenty-three years ago)

I finally finished the Dusty Springfield biography Dancing with Demons. Very depressing, she never bounced back from her dismal years in Los Angeles. Also re-reading James Purdy's In the Hollow of His Hand. Yes, I'd recommend it, it's very sexy.

― Arthur (Arthur), Wednesday, 21 August 2002 21:58 (twenty-three years ago)

Josh: I read Noonday Demon earlier this summer. What do you mean about drugs & addiction? or are you just being flippant?

― Mary (Mary), Thursday, 22 August 2002 01:13 (twenty-three years ago)

solomon doesn't quite say 'these drugs are ok to take and these aren't', but he's sort of enthusiastic about the ones he's felt better on when variously depressed. he cites (indirectly) a lot of research, but it sounds as if he only does so to support what he already thinks about the drugs. he thinks it's crazy to take e because studies have shown that it damages serotonin functioning, but studies have said otherwise, too. the prospect of other drugs damaging brain function doesn't seem to get him quite as excited.

― Josh (Josh), Thursday, 22 August 2002 01:56 (twenty-three years ago)

Do you mean "street "drugs or antidepressants? I found his mixture of his tales of personal experience combined with the more academic statistics to be a bit awkward. I was a little turned off the book bc I was turned off by his personality--overeducated Ivy Leaguer, overachiever New Yorker, New Yorker writer, etc etc though at the same time I found the book engrossing. But I think it was trying to be too many things all at the same time--memoir, investigation, factual synthesis, polemic... I think it's interesting that it met with such praise/rewards--is what he says (besides the personal bits) really news to anybody? I feel like he was rewarded for simply taking on such a deft overarching subject.

― Mary (Mary), Thursday, 22 August 2002 02:08 (twenty-three years ago)

I mean the stuff on illegal drugs (and alcohol). and I agree that the whole book is awkward. the non-personal bits are news to me, at times, but I've never read anything about depression before, and certainly not something with all that research. but his method of organizing the thing by the broad topics (addiction, populations, suicide, etc) doesn't quite work because he doesn't seem to have been able to get research, memoir, etc. to mix well together. I'm surprised it won a national book award. if it had actually been organized more like 'an atlas of depression' like the subtitle, I think it would've been a much better book: I can see it organized as hundreds of short parts kept separate with maybe some good indexing.

― Josh (Josh), Thursday, 22 August 2002 02:19 (twenty-three years ago)

five years pass...

Currently in my bag:

-Music for Chameleons:Truman Capote
-This is Your Brain on Music:Daniel J. Levitin
-Basketball Diaries:that one guy
-January 08 issue of Harper's

One of my classmates lent me his copy of Basketball Diaries unsolicited after I turned in a story about heroin addicts and he felt it "wasn't completely believable in parts, read Basketball Diaries, it's a junkie classic."

― BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Tuesday, 25 December 2007 00:29 (seventeen years ago)

Hey homeboy, Jim Carroll is his name! Put down that Harper’s and spend some time looking through back issues of Paris Review.

― Mr. Goodman, Tuesday, 25 December 2007 01:22 (seventeen years ago)

The Paris Review still hasn't sent me that damn rejection slip.

― BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Tuesday, 25 December 2007 01:43 (seventeen years ago)

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