books, books, books

This is for all non-EC or peripheral-EC topics. We all know how much we love talking about 'The Man' but sometimes we have other interests.
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mood swung
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Re: books, books, books

Post by mood swung »

Gotta agree with MBA re: Unless. Pretty bad. I should read all your posts much more carefully.

JF, you made The White Tiger sound so good I reserved it at the library.
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Re: books, books, books

Post by mood swung »

Got that White Tiger, but have to finish Trainspotting first. Had I realized Trains. was going to go native on me, I might have traded. :lol:
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miss buenos aires
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Re: books, books, books

Post by miss buenos aires »

Yes, mood, I agree (that you should take my advice on books to read).

Recent listies: The Radiant Way (okay, but I am not terribly interested in the characters, and can only tell them apart with the greatest of difficulty), La porte étroite (so, Gide won a Nobel Prize, eh? For literature, or something else? This book was terrible), Fall on Your Knees (outrageously soapy and melodramatic, encompassing rape (male on female and female on male), lesbianism, incest, drowning babies, a DIY C-section, interracial relationships, child abuse and other taboos I can't even remember—but compulsively readable)... Naked Lunch soon. Probably.
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Re: books, books, books

Post by pophead2k »

Recent 'List' books for (and by recent, I mean 2009!): The Collector, The Vicar of Wakefield, Watchmen, Cutter and Bone, Fingersmith, Under the Skin, Treasure Island, Tarzan of the Apes, Of Human Bondage, On Beauty, Everything is Illuminated, and a few other odds n sods.

Of these, my favorites were probably Of Human Bondage, Fingersmith, and Watchmen. All had something to recommend save Tarzan. Check my book blog (URL below) to share your thoughts on any of these or many others.
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Re: books, books, books

Post by invisible Pole »

Blimey! How do you do it, pophead ?! :shock:
Have you mastered speed reading or what ?

I've read two books this year. :oops:
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Re: books, books, books

Post by pophead2k »

Ha! I actually am quite a fast reader, with my poor retention being the result. I made a conscious commitment to read more last year and now I find myself watching less TV and spending less time online. I somehow manage to shake loose about an hour a day during the week and more on many weekends. Plus, when I travel, I get a lot of reading in as I'm an early riser and usually up a couple of hours before anyone else that I'm traveling with/visiting.
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Re: books, books, books

Post by Otis Westinghouse »

I've more or less stopped reading. The speed of decline of my eyes for reading has been shocking. AM getting varifocals, hopefully books will look legible again...
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Re: books, books, books

Post by johnfoyle »

I've just finished Stoner ( 1965) by John Williams. Very much in the Richard Yates tradition of disenchanted U.S. everyman , it's a very readable account of life in U.S. academia from the 1900's to 1950's. The central character endures a life of such tortuous awfulness that the story just wouldn't be believable except for the persuasive qualites of the writing. It's just crying out for a film version, featuring, preferably, Willem Dafoe.
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Re: books, books, books

Post by mood swung »

The White Tiger was pretty darn good, JF, but I'm taking a pass on Stoner.

Started The Sun Also Rises. Better than I thought it would be.


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Re: books, books, books

Post by mood swung »

Went to the library yesterday to return The White Tiger and they were having a book sale. I only had about 15 minutes to look around, but I found 4 books for the fabulous price of $2.50. I'd have paid that in library fines, no doubt, had I checked them out. Thursday is all-you-can-stuff-in-a-walmart-bag-for-$5. I will be back. And, baby, I can stuff a Walmart sack. :lol:

The four I found:

I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings - Maya Angelou
The Blind Assassin - Margaret Atwood
We Were The Mulvaneys - Joyce Carol Oates (I think I got this one - I picked up about 45 different books in that 15 minutes)
Larry's Party - Carol Shields (probably a mistake, after Unless)

And just for fun, I went in the library and checked out The Red Queen (Margaret Drabble) and Saturday (Ian McEwan).

So I have a whole shitload of books I haven't read yet.
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Re: books, books, books

Post by pophead2k »

I loved the Atwood book you got Moody!
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I'm looking forward to it - I've read 3 or 4 of hers now and enjoyed them all.
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Re: books, books, books

Post by alexv »

Off the non-fiction kick with a bang, checking out some old favorites:

William Boyd, "Any Human Heart" --Could not put this very long novel down. The hero's story is told through his journal which, though fictional, has him at Oxford with Waugh, in Bloomsbury with Woolf, then in Spain with Ernie, in New York with Jackson, etc. Beatifully written and paced. Highly recommended.

Graham Swift, "The Light of Day"-- Another exercise in style. This time the story is told from the point of view, and with the writing style, of a detective who falls in love with a client who's been very bad. In that great British generation of writers (Amis, Boyd, Barnes, Ishiguro, Rushdie etc.) Swift is, for me, the most underrated. There is an undercurrent of sadness in everything he writes, and that sadness overwhelms this book. The pacing of the book is masterful: the action takes place in one day in Wimbledon, but he interweaves many separate incidents from the past that all connect. He does have a thing about "knees" though.

Peter Carey, "The True History of the Kelly Gang"-- Only after I went on the web to learn more about this book did I realize that Carey had come upon some letters attributed to Ned Kelly and used some of the text verbatim in this tale, while aping the style in telling the story of Ned Kelly from a set of fictional letters. Not one comma in the whole thing. He takes Kelly's real writing style and crafts a wonderful alternative English style that hooks you so that by the end you end up wondering why we need commas and the like. A great, fun book.

John Updike, "Bech at Bay"-- Read it again in honor of his passing. Minor Updike, but a boatful of fun, as always. In every JU book there's always a sentence that sticks to me like that annoying hook in some pop confection. In this one, it appears smack in the middle of a literary party that JU is having some fun with. In honor of a great writer, the publishing house has put together a festschrift volume; Bech, who secretly hates the writer, attends and strikes up a conversation with the pretty editor he will soon bed. Casually, he tells her, "I'm all of sixty-eight and nobody fests my schrift".

Elmore Leonard, "Pagan Babies"-- Read it in one day. All dialogue. A character named Mutt (not Mutt Lange) was my favorite. The two best things to come out of Detroit: Elmore Leonard and Marshall Cranshaw, in that order.

Harold Brodkey, "The World is the Home of Love and Death". No, Harold, your stories are the home of pretentiousness and boredom. I've now tried to read a couple of this pompous ass's books and solemly vow never to deal with him again.
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Re: books, books, books

Post by Jack of All Parades »

Thank you, Alex- you have motivated me to consign "Stories in An Almost Clasical Mode" and "First Love and Other Sorrows" to the Strand sale pile. Have to concur with you regarding Swift- he is much under appreciated-despite two Bookers-I always think he is short shifted with the current quartet you have listed- and I would add McEwan to that group- every few years I return to "Waterland" for refreshment and I have always admired "Last Orders". Boyd's "A Good Man in Africa" never fails to make me laugh, as well.
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Re: books, books, books

Post by Otis Westinghouse »

Haven't read 'Light of Day' yet, but have only heard good things. 'Waterland' is superb, and just about the only novel of note set in the nearby East Anglian Fens. I read his latest book, 'Tomorrow'. Very disappointing. Made little impact.
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Re: books, books, books

Post by Jack of All Parades »

Alex, I forgot to suggest an addition to your "only two good things to come out of Detroit" list-in honor of the 'gloved one'-MOTOWN!!!!!
"....there's a merry song that starts in 'I' and ends in 'You', as many famous pop songs do....'
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Re: books, books, books

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Been on vacation and knocked out 3 list books in between celebrities dying.

Siddhartha - Herman Hesse. I dreaded starting it, but figured since it was short, I could plow through somehow. Enjoyed it, actually, to my surprise. Don't know if I'll go hunting another.

I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings - Maya Angelou. Don't know why I hadn't read this in school. Exceptional memoir. Gave me a new favorite paraphrase: she's so clumsy, she'd fall over the pattern in a rug.


The Sea - John Banville. Webbed feet! Cancer! Alcohol! This was ok, I guess. Made me wish I had a dictionary handy every other page - oh, who am I kidding? Every other paragraph. I don't think I've ever read a book so nose-focused. I read The Sea by the sea, ar ar ar.


Started Margaret Atwood's The Blind Assassin on the way home. Right now it ranks 2nd behind IKWTCBS.

If any of you other list readers ever want to swap, holler.
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Re: books, books, books

Post by Jack of All Parades »

Just finished "Twenty Thousand Roads" by David Meyer. Inspired to read by recent listenings to The Jayhawks. It filled in a lot of gaps in my Gram Parsons knowledge. Compellingly written- not your usual musical biography. Vibrant anecdotes and vignettes. I came away with a stronger feeling regarding the wasting of his life. More importantly, for the longest time I wanted to blame Keith Richards for his death-failing to keep up with the uber-hero figure-instead I have an appreciation for how Richards tried his best to help him- ultimately having to cast him out of his circle at Nelle Cote because Parsons would not help himself. What a waste.
"....there's a merry song that starts in 'I' and ends in 'You', as many famous pop songs do....'
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Re: books, books, books

Post by miss buenos aires »

mood - let's get together and compare notes on list books we are getting rid of. Or--do you do BookMooch?

I am reading Pat Barker's Regeneration, which I am finding very good, if disgusting (what is it about World War I? Was it really the most disgusting war ever? WWI novels always have so much grosser stuff than other war novels). Just finished Fear of Flying, which was... not good. Why didn't anything happen in that book? Why? Before that, it was The Secret Agent, which I liked a lot, and Hideous Kinky, which was not bad. I mixed it up with another mid-90s Winslet movie and kept expecting a Harvey Keitel type to show up.
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Re: books, books, books

Post by pophead2k »

I started with having read only a paltry 30 books on 'The List' as of April '08 and just recorded my 100th! Seriously, the list has really kicked my dormant reading gene into overdrive this year!

Recent:
Miss Lonelyhearts and The Day of the Locust by Nathanael West. One is New York, one is Hollywood, both are arresting reading, especially the latter.

The Turn of the Screw by Henry James. The mother of all ghost stories, but left famously (and for me) unsatisfyingly inconclusive.

The Hound of the Baskervilles by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Holmes at his best, and definitely eerie.

The Black Dahlia by James Ellroy. Amazingly skillful feat of mixing fiction and truth. LA noir at its finest.

If on a Winter's Night a Traveler by Italo Calvino. Experimental stuff from the 70s that I couldn't get a hook into. NOT summer reading friendly.
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Re: books, books, books

Post by Otis Westinghouse »

Coming both sides of the Atlantic the first week of August:

Image

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/ju ... erent-vice

Bridging Lot 49 and Vineland sounds good to me. Can't wait, even though I'm still miles off completing the dauntingly immense and dense Against The Day.

Didn't know that Pynchon's wife (and agent) was great-granddaughter of Teddy Roosevelt, nor that their son was Jackson Pynchon, Vonnegut-fan.

http://cityfile.com/profiles/melanie-jackson
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Re: books, books, books

Post by mood swung »

Why does that cover make me think Tom Robbins?
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Re: books, books, books

Post by Otis Westinghouse »

Tom Ruggles P, not Tom Robbins! I had to look up the latter. 'Ah, OK, Even Cowgirls Get The Blues' Same era?

The artist goes by the Pynchonesque name Darshan Zenith. Lives in Hawaii. 'Cadillac Hearse' aka 'Eternal Summer' is the title.

http://www.cruiserart.com/1959_hawaiian ... ng-art.htm

I highly recommend his home page, 'Personal Growth' and al.

http://www.darshanzenith.com/index.html
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Re: books, books, books

Post by Jack of All Parades »

I eagerly have anticipated this one since it was first announced- like you have been unable to finish "Against The Day"-have tried slogging through four different times-the pulp noir aspects of this one intrigue me-will be fun to see what he does with this genre.
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Re: books, books, books

Post by Otis Westinghouse »

Oboy, after 7 years of banging on about TP on the EC board in its various guises, I finally find someone who appears to be a fan (even if he shares my ATD plight, which makes me feel better as if you'd read it through twice, I'd feel even worse about it). Have you read them all? DO you have a fave? I started out as a student at 18 with GR and have never looked back. Nothing has astonished me more than GR, but I've loved them all, and found Mason & Dixon especially appealing.

Here's the cover of the Picador edition of GR that I had nicked from my car in Madrid.
Image
Funnily enough, I can't find an image of the one that replaced it anywhere.

This, I think, must have been the original cover. I recognise it from Prof David Lodge's (renowned comic novelist) shelves when he taught me at Birmingham:
Image

This companion interests me. As an undergraduate Pynchon obsessive, I decided that the only person who was ever going to love the American published and unavailable in the UK Reader's Guide to Gravity's Rainbow was me, and so I paid the loss fine at the uni library for it and made it mine. This was nicked alongisde the above copy of GR. Karma, you might say. Actually, it was stupid negligence. I'd spent three days driving from Brittany to Madrid to live there, and on arrival was so knackered, I left the car unlocked, after removing my suitcase. They left my coat and shoes, but stole my bag of books. Erudite thieves. ALways wondered where those books ended up.
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