books, books, books

[Who Shot Sam?]

Our friend Ben gave this to my boy as an early Christmas present and we spent time looking through it on the way home on the train last night. Very cool.

[Otis Westinghouse]

That's what he gets for being such a slave to the literal.

Is that a clever pun on 'literal'? If so, I only just got it, but am impressed. Literally yours, Otis.

[Otis Westinghouse]

1,001 books you must read before you die:

http://attitudecounts.blogspot.com/2007 ... u-die.html

I enjoy such lists, and this one does seem to have an interesting range to it. I decided to work my way through it by pasting it into Word (as one huge para - it ceases to be a list!) and colour coding:

Bold = ‘I’ve read it’
Blue = ‘I’ve got it, but haven’t read it yet’
Red = ‘I’ve not got this one, but have read or at least own others by this person’
Green = ‘No books by them in the house, but am aware of this writer and know something of what they’re about’
Purple = ‘Who’s this?’

I was particularly interested in the latter category, e.g.:

5. Adjunct: An Undigest – Peter Manson


Who's this?

And perhaps also reflecting on why other ones by writers I have read are omitted here. Or being outraged at writers/books that are omitted entirely. I haven't read him yet, but Michael Chabon is on my 'must read' list. Why is he not here? The list appears to have healthy inclusions of other US writers.

Source of list:

1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die: A Comprehensive Reference Source, Chronicling the History of the Novel
Preface by Peter Ackroyd, General Editor Peter Boxall
ISBN 1-84403-417-8

http://www.amazon.co.uk/1001-Books-Must ... F8&s=books

There's a kind of companion title for 1,001 albums (reffing Kraftwerk on the cover as this refs Clockwork Orange).

Any list smells like this smells a bit of Leavis and the sense of a 'canon', but it's a good reference point, and will no doubt lead to a new category: 'I must get hold of this'

As I head into the second half of my life, if I'm lucky, that is (I realise with time that having 102 year old relatives on both sides of my parents' families is no guarantee of anything), and if I do live to double my age and remain able to read coherently, I'll be a very happy person indeed, I start to think of the books I need to read and the songs I need to hear. But you don't know what you don't know. Many of my most treasured songs are not so widely known, e.g. Ron S or Lloyd C solo work. Perhaps I should start by reading all the Roth's here I haven't read. And I've never read any Coetzee - I'm a disgrace!

I realise that reading through Pynchon's 1,000 page + Against The Day at a rate of a few pages a day precludes about 10 other books being on my life's list, but you gotta prioritise. All five of his previous novels are included, which makes me warm to the list straight off.

Finnegan's Wake is included, but Dubliners is not. I love Joyce to pieces, but I will never, I am sure, read all of FW as it's essentially unreadable.

Any big omissions for you?

[mood swung]

Interesting to see Anne Rice included.

I forgot! Santa brought me Love Is A Mixtape (Rob Sheffield) - I've been wanting it for some time, so big ups, Santa.

[BlueChair]

My brother-in-law was nice enough to grab a copy of A Simple Twist of Fate: Bob Dylan and the Making of Blood on the Tracks, which I've just started reading. The book was written by Andy Gill, a contributor to Uncut and other publications, and Kevin Odegard - a Minneapolis musician/journalist who actually played on the record.

[so lacklustre]

Got this as an xmas gift, anyone read it?


Currently reading a collection of short stories by Irvine Welsh, the first of which is very funny.

[bambooneedle]

Got this as an xmas gift, anyone read it?

It's pretty good. It was the first book on Waits I think. Lots of quotes from lots of interviews up to that point and little-known facts. Does a good job of pieceing together a story of what was known about Waits up until then, up to Big Time (my copy is up to '89, anyway).

The writer (I think it's that same writer that inspired the scathing letter from EC (Patrick Humphries), who has written several other books on other musicians) may annoy a bit with his tendency to try to ape Waits' humour and wit in an attempt to give the book a Waits-like flavour, but he does tell good stories (eg. when Waits met Francis Coppola and got involved in One From The Heart) and manages to put Waits into context pretty interestingly with many cultural references (beat poets, other songwriters, writers, filmmakers...) and parallels.

[Bad Ambassador]

Got this as an xmas gift, anyone read it?

It's pretty good. It was the first book on Waits I think. Lots of quotes from lots of interviews up to that point and little-known facts. Does a good job of pieceing together a story of what was known about Waits up until then, up to Big Time (my copy is up to '89, anyway).

The writer (I think it's that same writer that inspired the scathing letter from EC (Patrick Humphries), who has written several other books on other musicians) may annoy a bit with his tendency to try to ape Waits' humour and wit in an attempt to give the book a Waits-like flavour, but he does tell good stories (eg. when Waits met Francis Coppola and got involved in One From The Heart) and manages to put Waits into context pretty interestingly with many cultural references (beat poets, other songwriters, writers, filmmakers...) and parallels.

It's not the same as Humphries' first attempt. This is a new book. Read it over the summer and really enjoyed it. Unlucky his stuffy book on Nick Drake, his clear love for Waits infuses his writing in a positive way. A decent read, and it'll send you scurrying back to the albums.

[VonOfterdingen]

Jonathan Lethem - The Fortress of Solitude

I find it rather overrated with too much of the authors thoughts about everything spoken through the characters. Elvis Costello is mentioned (so is about 200 other musicians) when a kid buys himself "some Elvis Costello kind of glasses".

I much prefer Michael Chabons 'The Amazing Adventures of Kavelier and Clay' if one wants to read a modern novel inspired by superheroes.

[johnfoyle]

Just read and hugely enjoyed What Was Lost by Catherine O'Flynn ; murder mystery combined with biting commentary on deficiencies of mid20 century U.K. town planning. I'm now reading Homecoming by Bernhard Schlink ; not as good (so far) as The Reader but then little is.

[Otis Westinghouse]

murder mystery combined with biting commentary on deficiencies of mid20 century U.K. town planning.

Sounds like a page turner, with a social history treatise in the middle of it! Seriously, it sounds worth checking out. Love that description though!

Today I've been sorting out the (fiction and memoir) book collection, having recently got the CDs all sorted. I guess there's 4-500 books, all at present piled up on the dining table, and now I have to put them back. There was a lot of crap round the back of those cases. It's both depressing and exciting - all the books I haven't read yet, and therefore all the books I still have to look forward to. I'm crawling through Pynchon. I love it, but it's the slowest book to read ever.

[alexv]

The Journals of Arthur Schlessinger, Jr.-- A great American. He kept an idiosyncratic personal journal which his sons have now published, probably because their dad never made it through the second volume of his projected autobiography (I recommend the first volume). The journal is a treasure: this man was in the middle of American politics as few others have been, all through the second half of the 20th. He knew everyone. He was a long-standing liberal democrat who combined historical scholarship with political activism and an unhealthy (for his reputation) Kennedy fixation. But the journals are fun on a whole other level. He was an extraordinarily witty writer, with a voracious appetite for fun, mostly political, and for life, mostly of the NYC high-life kind. Names like Adlai Stevenson, JFK, RFK, Jackie, Nixon (his bete noire who much to my delight, though not AS's, ends up living in NYC next door to our author), Nixon, Carter, Bubba, Gore are all brought to life in vignettes that capture them in ways that, even for these now well-known characters, seem somehow new and fresh. But that's not all: there's also gold on Mick and bianca, on Norman Mailer/Vidal/Capote, Betty Bacall, Gina Lollobridgida, bill Buckley etc. This man had the life I dream of. Oh, and in the 30s and 40s, when so many proved to be wrong on so many of our key issues, he was on the right side, on race and communism, in particular. He was a liberal of the finest kind. When, in the 60s and 70s, the left took over the liberal democratic wing he recoiled, but never left his essentially liberal instincts behind. I don't agree with everything he stood for, but can't argue with his instincts. In the 90s, while in his 80s, he led the fight against Bubba's impeachment and made a memorable appearance before Congress, where he showed the smug pack of hypocrites that, as he put it, "any man would of course lie about cheating on his wife". Maureen Dowd, a character herself, had a field day with him in The Times, hammering him for coming across in the journals as the card-carrying limousine liberal of the Wasp school that he clearly was (elitist and smug, even while fighting for the little guy). She's just jealous. Highly recommended.

Visions of Jazz by Gary Giddins-- A book of essays on major jazz musicians, by my favorite jazz critic. You get the usual suspects, but also pieces on lesser known figures, at least to me. You can read it straight through or just pick pieces at random. A little heavy on musical analysis (musical notation is rampant), which is unusual for jazz critics, but if you are musically ignorant, as I am, you can ignore those bits. If you can read music and know your stuff I envy you because you get a lot of stuff to dig in on. Highly recommended.

Walter Isaacson's biography of Einstein-- What do you know, I finish reading a biography of Mr. E=mcsquared and this Time magazine guy comes out with his own biography, and all this as I near the end of my quest to master relativity without math. How could I pass it up. Not a great book. Neither was the German's.

[Who Shot Sam?]

Visions of Jazz by Gary Giddins-- A book of essays on major jazz musicians, by my favorite jazz critic. You get the usual suspects, but also pieces on lesser known figures, at least to me. You can read it straight through or just pick pieces at random. A little heavy on musical analysis (musical notation is rampant), which is unusual for jazz critics, but if you are musically ignorant, as I am, you can ignore those bits. If you can read music and know your stuff I envy you because you get a lot of stuff to dig in on. Highly recommended.

That is an awesome book alex. Best book of jazz criticism available IMO.

Leonard Feather's Encyclopedia of Jazz is good too, but very dated.

[BlueChair]

I've enjoyed the 33 1/3 series in the past, and was intrigued by this title. Rather than gush about a undisupted classic, The Globe & Mail rock critic Carl Wilson has selected an album by one of the most-hated (and yet, also most commercially successful) recording artists of all-time as a springboard for a discussion on taste. A very entertaining read, even if you actually like Celine Dion (the author doesn't, and neither do I, but he still manages to be pretty civil throughout the book and leaves us understanding the complexities of music criticism and commercialism).

[miss buenos aires]

Von O-- I wasn't thrilled with Fortress of Solitude either; I felt like nothing happened over the first half, and then lots of stuff happened, but it still felt like nothing was happening. Is that a roundabout way of saying it was boring? Maybe. I did like Motherless Brooklyn, though.

[VonOfterdingen]

I'm glad to hear I'm not alone. I liked the first half with the childhood stuff. Rather streetwise I guess. But from the ring on reality gets too blurred in a very annoying manner.

I've good things about Motherless Brooklyn but for now I'll give Lethem a break

[Otis Westinghouse]

Lethem eat cake...

[ice nine]

After seeing the movie Midnight in the Garden of Good & Evil I wanted to read the book. Last month after seeing the film on cable I finally bought the book. I was surprised that the murder, which the whole film is about, only fills half of the book. The book is divided up into two smaller books and the first book is about indivicual character's stories. Lady Chablis is quite a character. So now some of my favorite literary characters are Chablis, Ignatius J. Reilly, and Don Quixote.

[alexv]

" A Splendid Exchange: How Trade Shaped the World" by William J. Bernstein-- A historical tour of trade. Not the yawner one would imagine. There's lots of good stuff on trade in the Middle Ages, with a particular emphasis on trade in the Eastern world. I take his point, and found out stuff I did not know, but this is another example of revisionist history where the author takes particular pleasure in emphasizing the barbaric nature of European life in the middle ages and contrasting it with the more advanced ways of the Moslem and Chinese cultures at the time. It's true that when I was in school this point was omitted from most accounts, but the new way of looking at the issue seems to me, and it's evident in this treatment, to be going too far in the opposite direction. Who knows what tale will be told to my grandkids. Columbus, poor fellow, takes a hit here. Vasco gets better treatment, but it's the Chinese eunuch and maritime hero something He who gets the real credit for maritime magic.

"Shakespeare Unbound" by Rene Weis--No Elvis Costello allusions in this one, unfortunately. The more you read about Will the more you realize that writing about his life is nearly impossible unless you take liberties. Greenblatt's book was great that way. This book is marred by the author's thesis that everything Will wrote is autobiographical. Imagine the stink EC would raise if we all trolled through his lyrics for clues to his daily life. This author mines the plays and concludes, among other things, that Anne Hathaway had an affair with W's brother; that W was lame; that the Dark Lady was a Venetian tart; and more and more. Sometimes his suppositions are plausible, but when page after page is spent ferreting out W's daily concerns on the basis of text the irritation index rises and rises. Not recommended.

[mood swung]

Imagine the stink EC would raise if we all trolled through his lyrics for clues to his daily life.

We're not supposed to do that? Jeez Louise.

*boring alert!*

I had to demonstrate my idea - or take, shall we say since I don't really have ideas - on literary criticism for one of those classes at the not quite basketball#1 U of T. My idea was to slice an onion and fling pieces at the class.

Ok, so this created A Stink, ha ha.

Ha, ha.

Anyway, it was kind of news to me that writers PLANNED all that stuff. And I think the best ones don't really; they may have an idea, but they don't really know, if you know what I mean. I guess that I want to believe in magic, or transcendence (and there's a big word that I might have spelled right!), so like alexv (in a z-list way) I find these attempts to nail the literary to the factual (in 3 part harmony) interminable.

End of alexv similarity. But it is fun to play Name the Harlot!

I am currently reading The Kite Runner, and I have described it as supple and languid. So far.


Please god, keep me away from the keyboard after 11...











beers.

[verbal gymnastics]

Not sure if this counts but I've just read the 58 page judgement of the Paul McCartney/Heather Mills McCartney divorce. She doesn't come out of it very well eg "devoid of reality" in one of the Judge's paragraphs.

I tell you, if that woman told me it was night I'd have to look out of the window to make sure.

[Otis Westinghouse]

You read the whole thing? Did someone pay you to? A bet? For charity?

[verbal gymnastics]

I read employment law reports as part of my work but this one interested me mainly because of what was reported in the media. I was aware of the true meaning of certain phrases so I wanted to read the judgement for myself. Funnily enough I enjoyed reading it.

My opinion of the Wife (as she is referred to in the judgement; Paul is the Husband) did not improve.

[mood swung]

Is this publicly available? I thought stuff like that was usually sealed.

[verbal gymnastics]

It's here:

http://www.judiciary.gov.uk/docs/judgme ... 180308.pdf