'I FALL upon the spines of books! I read!' -- Autumn 2014: What Are You Reading?

Fizzles, I have just finished THE GIFT OF STONES. It's only a short novel - you'd knock it off in a day. I think it is quite good. It is about the TWILIGHT OF THE STONE AGE.

corporate management and finance: sports and army theory. agro-bro bollocks.

― Fizzles, Thursday, 27 November 2014 17:41 (2 days ago)

http://www.militaryspeakers.co.uk/speakers/simon-mann.aspx

just starting the new marlon james and chris bohjalian novels (a brief history of seven killings and close your eyes, hold hands, respectively). still occasionally returning to americanah.

i want to try some different types of novels. any good sites that review indie/small-press books?

Michael Orthofer's site Complete Review covers a great deal of books in translation (and sometimes untranslated European fiction) that are often otherwise neglected , and its sister site, Literary Saloon, is useful for collecting international literary news:
http://www.complete-review.com/new/new.html
http://www.complete-review.com/saloon/index.htm

both of these sites seem great; i'm exploring them now. thanks.

There's also Rain Taxi, Bookslut, Three Percent, HTMLGIANT before it fell apart....

i saw a bookslut reviewer's twitter feed. looked interesting, but can't locate it -- or a bookslut twitter feed -- to follow.

don't need twitter, but it makes things easier to find these days.

I don't think Bookslut has a Twitter feed, but the editor, Jessa Crispin, has one here: https://twitter.com/thebookslut

finished infinite jest, my advice would be, dont bother.

yes! thank you. crispin's the feed i saw, then lost.

Rad!

generally found some interesting twitter feeds from authors i love and had kind of set-aside/forgotten about, like stephen elliott (@S___Elliott), author of happy baby. interesting feed. i went to see who he follows, and it's all basically dominatrix types, which shouldn't be surprising considering what he writes about. did find out he did a kickstarter campaign to make a (totally low-budget) movie based on happy baby! could be interesting.

Depending how slow work is tonight, I may be able to finish The Castle (about 90 pages left to get thru)

At the same time, I've been returning to Maurice Blanchot's The Space of Literature, which has some good insights into Kafka's, er... worldview? (outlook? significance?? 'whole deal'???)

Blanchot is also making me want to read K's diaries, which I didn't really anticipate, but if they're good...

What are your favorite criticisms/discussions of Kafka?

Read The Diaries (a real showcase of his intellect, a must), The Letters to Felice and Milena this year (as well as re-reading of his fiction although not The Castle) and its been really great.

I came across this review of the three volume biography.

As discussion there is the often cited Benjamin essay but I also like Canetti's Kafka's Other Trial a lot.

This looks quite interesting. I was also recommended this book by Deleuze and Guttari on here by woof but I haven't got around to any of it.

i want to try some different types of novels. any good sites that review indie/small-press books?

― Daniel, Esq 2, Saturday, November 29, 2014 Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

http://www.bookforum.com/

^ If you look at the Daily Review on the right hand side it pulls reviews from other places.

I scan the In Tanslation site now and then.

thanks, xyz. i like both those sites (and intranslation's parent site, brooklynrail.org; led me to discover there's a sister-site called miamirail.org).

I am still reading A GIRL IS A HALF FORMED THING.

The prose is original in being derivative of Joyce to an unusual degree (and also different from Joyce).
I think that the author has talent.
But I don't find that I like this book much. It is vulgar, repetitive, self-indulgent and perhaps tedious.

^^^posts very much in character. A+

(xp to xyz) I actually have the D&G book, though I've never made much headway with it, perhaps due to lack of familiarity with K's oeuvre (had only read short stories up until last month, when I decided to do all the novels at one go)

& I'll make sure to pick up the diaries ifbit's still at the used book store tomorrow

I'm reading Simenon's The Yellow Dog, which may turn out to be my favourite Maigret story so far. Very tense and atmospheric, and Maigret is extra grumpy and barely speaking. I read Night at the Crossroads last week and it was great, but not as taut or bad-tempered. I didn't realise Penguin was reissuing all of the Maigret novels. May have to collect em all.

pinefox otm for once

thomp otm for once

Sorry, that was perhaps unfair. It just that you take the contrarianism to the point where it is hard to know exactly what you are on about.

I've been reading Wise Blood, Flannery O'Connor's debut novel. So far I'm impressed that she doesn't bother providing any likable, or even sane, characters.

True. Good movie too.

Awesome description

I didn't realise Penguin was reissuing all of the Maigret novels. May have to collect em all.

I saw that they're putting out a non-Maigret Simenon in January, too, not sure if they have any more planned beyond that but between them and NYRB it's exciting to have all this stuff in print.

Just read Alberto Moravia's terrific Two Women. This book should be better known I think.

just read John Fowles' 'notes on an unfinished novel' (1969). Striking in a way how he, in Existentialist vein, seems far from us - alien and different in a way eg Tom McCarthy would like to be? (A tentative thought.)

On my hazy recollection of The Magus, The Collector, and The French Lieutenant's Woman he does seem of his time (though not derivative) in a way that I don't think is true of, say, Ann Quin--but I think that's a different kind of distance than you suggest.

james please remind me of an interesting thing you've ever said about anything

Let me get back to you on that

*crickets*

*wind through the trees*

*lonesome whistle whine*

plowing through every Penelope Fitzgerald novel.

*paint dries*

*grass grows*

I'm afraid I can't think of anything, thomp. I guess you win.

Please place your next aperçu here:_______________________________________________________

Ah, forget it.

Alfred, which have you read so far?

Also, do you know about her book The Knox Brothers, about her father and uncles?

Picked up the Archipelago translation of Blinding by Mircea Cărtărescu on the recommendation of friend recently. Up there with the best things I've read this year.

Archipelago is one of the small presses I'm most inclined to trust; I still need to read Blinding.

thinking also, if A GIRL etc was written straightforwardly it would seem banal
but written as it is, it seems literary and impressive

trying to figure that out, I mean is it that the style lifts the banal subject matter?
is the style really enough?
is the style that good anyway? It's derivative, of Joyce, but not identical to him and more relentless than anything in Ulysses because longer as a whole than any episode of Ulysses.
It is as much like Finnegans Wake at times, in its rhythm and flavour, though more evidently referential I suppose.

Picked up the Archipelago translation of Blinding by Mircea Cărtărescu on the recommendation of friend recently. Up there with the best things I've read this year.

― finn_the_scot, Monday, 1 December 2014 21:30 (26 minutes ago) Permalink

Archipelago is one of the small presses I'm most inclined to trust; I still need to read Blinding.

― one way street, Monday, 1 December 2014 21:34 (23 minutes ago) Permalink

I am just about to start on the Von Kleist volume on that same press! I was looking through a list of what's on it and googling some authors, gotta say its a solid collection of German authors and did notice they have people from countries that are poorly represented in other presses (like Romania) although I don't know, reviews of Blinding didn't make it sound too appealing. The one thing I felt like hunting down was Diaries of Exile and the Duras novel.

The Bookshop, Human Voices, The Gate of Angels, The Blue Flower. I don't get the fuss about the last; I preferred the first two titles.

Appealing take on Fitzgerald's life & works, as he reads new bio, maybe re-reads her books:
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/11/24/late-bloom

Hollinghurst wrote a nice review in the NYROB too.

I am just about to start on the Von Kleist volume on that same press! I was looking through a list of what's on it and googling some authors, gotta say its a solid collection of German authors and did notice they have people from countries that are poorly represented in other presses (like Romania) although I don't know, reviews of Blinding didn't make it sound too appealing. The one thing I felt like hunting down was Diaries of Exile and the Duras novel.

I love their edition of Büchner's Lenz (a bilingual edition including source materials by Goethe and Pastor Oberlin) and enjoyed their recent collection of Tsevetaena's poetry; they also have some solid Mahmoud Darwish translations, and I like Knausgaard's My Struggle more than most of the ILB regulars (at least judging from the dedicated Knausgaard thread).