Bibliomemoir

Skimming through an interview with the latest of these, which discusses the wider picture. Never read any myself, just come across a piece about them now and then. Contra Sutherland's book title I've never been very anxious on this notion of being 'well read' or reading it all.

(As an aside, as I type that could be because I consider myself to be not very well read, or certainly erratic. We certainly make our own map)

(iirc there was one where the woman read something like every 'classic', was interviewed and said she couldn't include Man Without Qualities even though it was great.)

They are weird things, not as impersonal as a jazz/rock/classical record guide you'd trawl through in your library. They can be as wide ranging as someone's highly personal experience of a book to a weird cross towards the dreaded self-development. Do you read any, or find it useful?

It reminds me of the My Husband's Stupid Record Collection blog:

"On to side two! The first song is called Permafrost from the band Magazine. I was kind of zoning out with no opinion but then he said “I will drug you and fuck you,” and I looked at Alex and he was all ewwww and I was like uh-huh. Alex said he likes this song other than the drug you and fuck you line, that it has a “sludgy synth,” but I was not feeling it."

I think there's some value even in naive and poor criticism like this, especially when it's someone inexpert choosing things truly at random (Phyllis Rose's selection isn't random - she chose her shelf too carefully and had all sorts of supplementary rules). Because (as the Graun article points out) the internet has confined us to little islands of taste and expertise in which algorithms make sure we never get shunted far outside our comfort zones.

What's remarkable is how many people seem to be blown away by what they read randomly, and to discover new favourite authors this way. It's liberating in itself to get off the promo hamster wheel, which suggests (implausibly) that only the newly-published is mind-blowing.

I like what Andy Miller has to say in the article: that literature is now counter-cultural, offering the kind of alternative take on reality (and fanatical enthusiasm from self-conscious, slightly-too-proud proponents and pioneers) that the music subculture might once have done.

This thread has a lot of lists, but also some good comments, some of them pretty passionate:
A museum has commissioned a major retrospective of your life and want a list of (x) must-read books to go with it. What is on that list?

That kind of music subculture is still around---see ILM----and increasingly, it seems, *actual books* parallel vinyl as a heady thing.

I can see the point of a book like this if it introduces you interestingly to stuff that is genuinely neglected but great. No idea if this particular book does that.