Oh, I forgot to list authors in a couple of cases: Agents of Dreamland is by Caitlin Kiernan, and The Trip to Echo Spring is by Olivia Laing.
― one way street, Friday, 22 December 2017 14:53 (six years ago) link
less this yr than most also, resolving to read more in 2k18
Eugene o'neill - moon for the misbegotten, mourning becomes electra, iceman cometh, beyond the horizon, anna Christiejoyce carol oates - take me, take me with you; the fabulous beasts (poetry); we were the mulvaneys; them; soul at the white heat; heat david Susskind - a televised lifeMuriel spark - the prime of ms jean brodieRobert Anderson - I never sang for my fatherStanley alpert - the birthday partyKaren Russell - swamplandiaupdike - centaur; couplesjohn darnielle - universal harvesterClaudia roth Pierpont - roth unboundrafa nadal autobiojames blake autobiocal trillin - American storiesmark medoff - when you coming back, red ryderEleanor perry - blue pagestony talathimatte - private citizensnick bilton - American kingpinmonica hesse - American fireadam haslett - imagine me gonejoan barthel - death in canaanotessa moshfegh - Eileen; homesick for another worldjoseph losey biography
― johnny crunch, Friday, 22 December 2017 14:55 (six years ago) link
I also forgot a couple lolMartin Johnson, Robert Mcfarlane's OrphansAllen Carr, The Easy Way to Control Your Drinking 😂😂😂
― sonnet by a wite kid, "On Æolian Grief" (wins), Friday, 22 December 2017 14:56 (six years ago) link
Here's what I read this year. I've found I average about 15 books a year, so this was a very good reading year for me:
Zadie Smith, Swing Time (cont.)William Goldman, The Princess BrideElena Ferrante, The Story of the Lost Child (cont.)Jace Clayton, Uproot: Travels in 21st Century Music & Digital Culture (cont)John Darnielle, Universal HarvesterLesley Nneka Arimah, What It Means When a Man Falls from the SkyAli Smith, Public Library and Other StoriesGeorge Saunders, Lincoln in the BardoDavid Grann, Killers of the Flower MoonLaurent Binet, HHhHRachel Cusk, OutlineJeff VanderMeer, BorneRachel Cusk, TransitNathan Englander, Dinner at the Center of the EarthOrhan Pamuk, The Red-Haired WomanDave Hutchinson, AcadieBill Bruford: The AutobiographyJennifer Egan, Manhattan BeachClifford D. Simak, CityAli Smith, Autumn (reading now)
― change display name (Jordan), Friday, 22 December 2017 15:04 (six years ago) link
o i also did read the supahead bio
[img]https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51fWXut2ppL._SX331_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg[img]
― johnny crunch, Friday, 22 December 2017 15:05 (six years ago) link
https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51fWXut2ppL._SX331_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg
Best book I read this year was "The Savage Detectives"
other books:
three men in a boat - jerome k jeromeback from the brink - paul mcgrathbreakfast of champions - kurt vonnegutless than zero - bret easton elliskill all normies - angela nagleagainst nature - husymanshow to watch football - ruud gullitislam: a short history - karen armstrongboys will be boys - jeff perlmanhow music works - david byrnecapitalist realism - mark fishermin kamp 1 - knausgaardthe problems of philosophy - bertrand russell
― Well bissogled trotters (Michael B), Friday, 22 December 2017 15:25 (six years ago) link
I'll probably manage to fit one more in before New year's Day, but here's the list as of today:
Man Without Qualities Vol. 2, Robert Musil (nb: I read Vol. 1 in Dec. 2016)The Thirty Years War, C.V. WedgewoodOn Trails: An Exploration, Robert MoorMartin Marten, Brian DoyleThe Blue Flower, Penelope FitzgeraldThe Count of Monte Cristo (abridged), Alexandre DumasThe Big Burn, Timothy EganThe Only Question, Muriel SparkThe Coming of the French Revolution, Georges LefebvreOne of Ours, Willa Cather The Secret Voyage of Sir Francis Drake, Samuel BawlfMalgudi Days, R. K. NarayanJunky, William BurroughsSagas of Warrior Poets, (by many hands)Cyropaedia, Xenophon (Loeb Library translation) (a re-read)The Road to Little Dribbling, Bill BrysonDeep South, Paul TherouxAmulet, Roberto BolanoThe Post Office Girl, Stefan ZweigStamboul Train, Graham GreeneAngels on Toast, Dawn PowellThe Seven Storey Mountain, Thomas Merton (a re-read)Trask, Don BerryThe Undoing Project, Michael LewisThree Tales, Gustave FlaubertThe Public Image, Muriel SparkHuman Voices, Penelope Fitzgerald Seven Viking Romances, Translator: PalssonConcluding, Henry GreenA Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies, Bartolome de Las CasasThe Custom of the Country, Edith WhartonTo Build a Ship, Don BerryCat's Foot, Brian DoyleFishcakes and Courtesans, James Davidson (about ancient Athens)Dark Money, Jane MayerBrunelleschi's Dome, Ross KingAutobiography, Benvenuto Cellini (a re-read)A Way of Life, Like Any Other, Darcy O'Brien Ministry of Fear, Graham Greene Three Bedrooms in Manhattan, Georges SimenonMarco Polo: From Venice to Xanadu, Laurence BergreenLeave It to Psmith, P.G. WodehouseThe Last Samurai, Helen DeWittThe Greek Alexander Romance, translator: Richard StonemanWaiting for Aphrodite, Sue Hubbell (essays on invertebrate biology)Voltaire in Love, Nancy Mitford
― A is for (Aimless), Friday, 22 December 2017 17:09 (six years ago) link
alfred doblin - berlin alexanderplatzhugo ball - flight out of time: a dada diarytristan tzara - 7 dada manifestos & lampisteriesmarinetti - selected writingswyndham lewis - blasting and bombardieringwyndham lewis - journey into barbarywyndham lewis - the complete wild bodywyndham lewis/naomi mitchison - beyond this limitlaura riding - anarchism is not enoughnathalie saurrate - age of suspicionnathalie sarraute - portrait of a man unknownivy compton-burnett - a family and a fortuneivy compton-burnett - elders and bettersdenton welch - fragments of a life storyhenry green - blindnesshenry green - livinghenry green - party goinghenry green - lovinghenry green - nothinghenry green - dotingcyril connolly - the rock poollawrence durrell - the black bookrayner heppenstall - saturninerayner heppenstall - four absenteesjulian maclaren-ross - selected storiesedward dahlberg - the edward dahlberg readerpaul goodman - don juan: or, the continuum of the libidofelipe alfau - locos: a comedy of gestureswitold gombrowicz - ferdydurkerobert walser - jakob von guntenalfred kubin - the other sidegeza csath - the magician's gardenremy de gourmont - angels of perversityoctave mirbeau - the torture gardenblaise cendrars - moravagineapollinaire - the poet assassinatedaragon - paris peasantandre breton - nadjarene crevel - babylonithell colquhoun - goose of hermogenesleonora carrington - the debutante and other storiesleonora carrington - the house of fear: notes from down belowanna kavan - asylum pieceanna kavan - eagles nestrex warner - the aerodromerex warner - the professorjb priestley - blackout in gretleywyndham lewis - the vulgar streakwyndham lewis - the revenge for lovewyndham lewis - the apes of godwilliam gerhardie - futilitydavid garnett - lady into foxdavid garnett - a man in the zooangus wilson - the old men at the zoodoris lessing - briefing for a descent into hellpaul ableman - i hear voicesjohn clute - the disinheriting partyper wahloo - the lorrystig dagerman - the snakeandrey platonov - soul & other storiesandrei biely - the silver dovetf powys - mr weston's good winejc powys - wolf solentjc powys - after my fashiongeorge meredith - the egoistthomas love peacock - nightmare abbeythomas love peacock - crotchet castlethomas love peacock - headlong hallthomas love peacock - the misfortunes of elphinlaurence sterne - life & opinions of tristram shandy, gentleman
― no lime tangier, Friday, 22 December 2017 17:14 (six years ago) link
To everybody who wants to check out Gerard Reve's The Evenings: tonight's the night to start, as the book covers the last ten days of the year, one day per chapter.
― ArchCarrier, Friday, 22 December 2017 17:24 (six years ago) link
Wait John Clute wrote another book?
― Burru Men Meet Burryman ina Wicker Man (James Redd and the Blecchs), Friday, 22 December 2017 17:28 (six years ago) link
Oh. It’s an old book, I see
― Burru Men Meet Burryman ina Wicker Man (James Redd and the Blecchs), Friday, 22 December 2017 17:29 (six years ago) link
I like this cover.
https://littledutchbook.files.wordpress.com/2015/02/091021_251518_avonden.jpg
― jmm, Friday, 22 December 2017 17:34 (six years ago) link
Yeah, that's a beauty.
― ArchCarrier, Friday, 22 December 2017 17:36 (six years ago) link
interesting selection of wyndham lewis, nlt (and by 'interesting' i mean, certainly wouldn't be everyone's go to pieces). How did you find them? Apologies if you've already covered this on the ILB rolling threads, i must have missed it.
― Fizzles, Friday, 22 December 2017 17:41 (six years ago) link
also, er, i can never remember what i've read. i'm going to follow Ward's example of using goodreads more assiduously. as much as anything the marking is interesting! (I too liked Dr Johnson and Mr Savagae by Richard Holmes -he's good).
― Fizzles, Friday, 22 December 2017 17:43 (six years ago) link
The year's not over yet, but this is what I've read so far:
Fiction:Alexandre Dumas, The Count of Montecristo (unabridged, beeyatch!)Laura Ingalls Wilder, Little House in the Big WoodsThomas Olde Heuvelt, HEXJesús Carrasco, Out in the OpenHaruki Murakami, Norwegian WoodAldous Huxley, Brave New WorldNikos Kazantzakis, The Last Temptation of ChristSarah Gailey, River of TeethPer Olov Enquist, The Royal Physician's VisitErnest Hemingway, The Sun Also RisesAgatha Christie, Murder on the Orient ExpressDaniel Cole, RagdollMohsin Hamid, Exit WestTommy Wieringa, Joe SpeedboatChris Brookmyre, Want You GonePhilippe Claudel, Grey SoulsStephen King, The GunslingerStephen King, The Drawing of the ThreeJohn le Carré, A Legacy of SpiesGeert Krimpen, The CabbalistJennifer Egan, Manhattan BeachGerbrand Bakker, The TwinSayed Kashua, Second Person SingularMagda Szabó, The DoorSebastian Barry, Days Without EndEmmanuel Carrère, The Class Trip
Non-fiction:Richard Restak, Think SmartDmitry Orlov, Shrinking the TechnosphereLarry Korn, One-Straw Revolutionary: The Philosophy and Work of Masanobu FukuokaTim Ferriss, Tools of TitansBrad Dukes, Reflections: An Oral History of Twin PeaksAngela Duckworth, Grit: The Power of Passion and PerseveranceLeila Guerriero, A Simple Story: The Last MalamboJosh Waitzkin, The Art of Learning: A Journey in the Pursuit of ExcellenceLesley M.M. Blume, Everybody Behaves Badly: The True Story Behind Hemingway's Masterpiece 'The Sun Also Rises'Richard A. Clarke and R.P. Eddy, Warnings: Finding Cassandras to Stop CatastrophesTristan Gooley, How to Read WaterLizzy Goodman, Meet Me in the BathroomWil Derkse, The Rule of Benedict for BeginnersBruce Springsteen, Born to Run: The Autobiography of Bruce SpringsteenArnold Bennett, How to Live on 24 Hours a DayStefan Zweig, Montaigne
― ArchCarrier, Friday, 22 December 2017 18:13 (six years ago) link
xposts: last time i read any w. lewis was in my early twenties (apes, revenge, vulgar streak are rereads) but keep picking up his books when i see them, so catching up with that. there are some quite powerful visual descriptions in journey which are easier to take than some of his, er, opinions in same (think this work ties into snooty baronet in some way?). wild bodies was interesting as a template for future endeavours (art/life dichotomy)... the mitchison collab is a short post-life fantasy full of mythical refs with, from what i understand, the prose at times responding to lewis's illustrations. i don't know, think i was more receptive to his prose/pose earlier in my life (though still have the latter parts of the human age to read at some point).
― no lime tangier, Friday, 22 December 2017 18:35 (six years ago) link
yep, ok. journey into barbary as you say is definitely a real mixture of his superb visual capabilities and his strained and strenuous moral vision. p certain journey and snooty baronet were from the same period (periods are important with lewis i think, as with those others from that period - pound and eliot - maybe 'period' is just a way of handling moral-aesthetic unease). i like wild bodies v much, and hadn't heard of the n mitchison collab at all, which surprised me. latter parts of the human age are v different from the childermass but i think are v worth reading (i really like monstre gai).
― Fizzles, Friday, 22 December 2017 19:20 (six years ago) link
wrote a bit towards the end of this thing about Self-Condemned fwiw.
― Fizzles, Friday, 22 December 2017 19:36 (six years ago) link
ingeborg bachmann / the book of franza *ingeborg bachmann / elegy for fanny goldmann
I didn't know her unfinished works were published - will look into it. How did you find it, ows?
― xyzzzz__, Friday, 22 December 2017 19:41 (six years ago) link
weird year of reading; got a data plan (boo) in february, quit my 1.5 hour-long commute job in may, started a phd september. all of which left me reading less and less. read more short stories, and left more novels half-finished, than ever. best discoveries were donald antrim, william hope hodgson, otessa moshfegh
ted chiang - story of your lifeottessa moshfegh - mcglueottessa moshfegh - eileenottessa moshfegh - homesick for another worldmary beard - spqrpatricia lockwood - priestdaddyeric foner - a short history of reconstructionpaul beatty - selloutwilliam hope hodgson - house on the borderlandjeff vandermeer - annihilationraymond carver - cathedralgeorge saunders - civlwarland in bad declinegeorge saunders - tenth of decemberherman melville - moby dick (unfinished)thomas pynchon - crying of lot 49rick perlstein - before the storm
― flopson, Friday, 22 December 2017 23:20 (six years ago) link
They're well worth reading, xyzzzz__, although they are somewhat fragmentary and as a result feel like preparatory studies for Malina, which Bachmann intended as an overture to the Ways of Dying novels, and which continues the fragments' focus on the continuities between fascism and the patriarchal structures of postwar Austrian life. Peter Filkins's translation seems serviceable, although I can't really evaluate his editorial choices without having gone over the drafts in the German editions.xp
― one way street, Friday, 22 December 2017 23:32 (six years ago) link
I read Hunger either this Year Or last. Now have the next Hamsun waiting. Read Elijah Wald on delta blues and development of the style in escaping the delta.Didn't get around to reading the version of Crime and Punishment I bought at the start of the year. So hope to get into it this year. Hope tobget into Simon Schama on geopolitics.reading several things on punk in the UK at the moment. Not been keeping a list. Need to finish Tin Drum which wasn't great for stopping and starting on buses. But I got about half way through.will probably remember more later.
― Stevolende, Saturday, 23 December 2017 01:08 (six years ago) link
Read 20 or 30 books picked up quite s few more. Which just go on the to read pile and may be picked up over the next couple of years. May not.
Think I finally got into Goodbye to Berlin this yearafter getting it from FOPP a couple of years back. Need to read more isherwood.
got to work b through the backlog of things I picked up over the last few years.
― Stevolende, Saturday, 23 December 2017 01:32 (six years ago) link
Doesn't look like I read as much as I thought I did. In my defense, the Osterhammel was like 1000+ pages.
Wislawa Szymborska - MapD.H. Lawrence - D.H. Lawrence and ItalyMary Beard - SPQRRenata Adler - SpeedboatCarlo Collodi - The Adventures of PinocchioHonore de Balzac - The Human Comedy: Selected StoriesMiguel de Unamuno - Tragic Sense of Life*Max Scheler - RessentimentJ.L. Carr - A Month in the CountryRobert Graves - Goodbye to All ThatSteven Sherrill - The Minotaur Takes a Cigarette BreakJurgen Osterhammel - The Transformation of the WorldDave Hickey - Air GuitarJ.G. Farrell - TroublesJ.D. Vance - Hillbilly ElegyThomas Berger - Little Big ManSarah Bakewell - At the Existentialist Cafe
*re-read
― o. nate, Saturday, 23 December 2017 01:33 (six years ago) link
1. Jorge Luis Borges - Total Library* What and how is this so far??2. Fizzles has another blog3. Women of Wonder - edited by Pamela Sargent 4/5 Hi Ward, was this the same volume I read, The Contemporary Years? Great stuff, must get the previous.
Can't remember what I read in Jan-Feb, but March-Sept In Search of Lost Time, Penguin Deluxe. Lydia Davis's translation of Swann's Way is wonderful; ditto the whole series overall, but suspect would have been even better if cut by a third---I know I know, the increasingly eternally outsidery insider and vice-versa is learning to write,because everyone has a book of life inside---the best and worst of autofiction, and I mean to read much or all of it again.Kelly Willis, Get In Trouble: not cyber, but plenty punk science fiction, speculative (expolatory, opinionated), from a certain woman's POV (prob a childhood fan of EAW Magazine). Short stories, Jack. Rich Kienzle, Southwest Shuffle: Pioneers of Honky-Tonk, Western Swing, and Country Jazz They scuffled through the Depression, some went to war, some stayed on the radio (mostly live for quite a while), most eventually hit a wall in Nashville after the Hollywood harmonic convergence ran out of trend cred with the suits. Also could have used a copy editor along the way, but very readable and lots of twists, something like Four Lives In The Bebop Business, except three out of those four made it big later. Ernest Hemingway, Collected Stories: some too slick and/or snide, but quite a few work in unusual ways, more about this another time maybe. The aforementioned Women of Wonder: The Contemporary Years, Science Fiction by Women from the 1970s to the 1990s: "Bloodchild" does not eclipse most of the rest, which is saying a lot.Currently Hound Dog: The Lieber and Stoller Autobiography(with David Ritz): two Jewish kids from tricky East Coast circumstances make it to Hollywood and the world before they're out of their teens, kick it back and forth here.
― dow, Saturday, 23 December 2017 03:40 (six years ago) link
Meant to say, "Fizzles has another blog!" Enjoying it!
― dow, Saturday, 23 December 2017 03:42 (six years ago) link
That should have been RAW Magazine, sorry.
― dow, Saturday, 23 December 2017 03:44 (six years ago) link
Master & The Margarita, BulgakovMatilda, DahlThe Penguin History Of Russia: From Tsarism To The Twenty First Century, ServiceWays Of Seeing, BergerI Love Dick, Chris KraussWorking, Studs TerkelForbbiden Lovers:Hollywood's Greatest Female Stars Who Loved Women, Axel MadsenSueurs Froides, Boileau-NarcejacRebecca, Daphne Du MaurierAbraham's Valley, Augustina Bessa-LuÃsHrabal short story collectionMy Europe, Maria Filomena MónicaJean De Florette, Marcel PagnolProfessor Moriarty:The Hound Of The D'Ubervilles, Kim NewmanPapini short story collectionSense Of An Ending, Julian BarnesOsso, Rui ZinkSpooks: Science Tackles The Afterlife, Mary RoachManon des Sources, Marcel PagnolArtful, Ali SmithThat Ruy Belo Bossa Nova bookTeresa Veiga short story collectionThe Buried Giant, He Who Shall Not Be NamedGreenmantle, John BuchanHunger Makes Me A Modern Girl. Carrie BrownsteinDiary Of A Provincial Lady, E.M. Delafield
Have a flight today so hoping to finish off some more before the year's over.
― Daniel_Rf, Saturday, 23 December 2017 09:38 (six years ago) link
They're well worth reading, xyzzzz__, although they are somewhat fragmentary and as a result feel like preparatory studies for Malina, which Bachmann intended as an overture to the Ways of Dying novels, and which continues the fragments' focus on the continuities between fascism and the patriarchal structures of postwar Austrian life. Peter Filkins's translation seems serviceable, although I can't really evaluate his editorial choices without having gone over the drafts in the German editions.xp― one way street, Friday, 22 December 2017 23:32 (yesterday) Permalink
― one way street, Friday, 22 December 2017 23:32 (yesterday) Permalink
Thanks - I seem to remember you were critical of some of Peter Filkins' other translations of Bachmann but as you describe it this is very much my jam. I'll have a look at Three Radio Plays if I can as well.
1. Jorge Luis Borges - Total Library* What and how is this so far??
This collects all of Borges' non-fiction and I'd say that apart from Labyrinths this is the other one to get, but I only got through about a 1/3 before I put it down.
― xyzzzz__, Saturday, 23 December 2017 12:34 (six years ago) link
Thought this 'un was 2016! It occasions a lively exchange:
The Collected Stories of Elizabeth Bowen starts with one about a bachelor boarder, who pays extra for home-style comforts, which incl. very close attention by females across the breakfast table; the simple male mind thinks they all want to marry him (well maybe not the venerable Aunt Willoughby, maybe) and senses as much as he is able--in the familiar, always edgey morning drills---the shifting within the pecking order, the political significance of their comments and questions for him, comments and ripostes for each other among them. Just a few pages---he has to eat fast, leave for work---but already, in her late teens or early 20s, she's killing it.Maybe a little too imagery-happy in the one about the antsy young unmarried teacher who impulsively invites her wary hungry teen girl students to tea, but only at the beginning, which does crank things up for the spring fever spin.These could be the beginnings of good novels, ditto the one about the vicar and his disconcertingly aspiring benefactor, while "The Confidante" and "Requiescat" could be satisfying endings (could also see all of these as plays). This last is the most complex so far, as a man receives a letter requesting help with "some papers" from the recently widowed wife of someone who was apparently more than a friend. He dreads and feels compelled, by duty and rivalry, to go see her; she apologizes for demoting him---"I tried to play the game." He leads and leaves her to this, then responds in several ways, changing masks and letting them slip a little.
― dow, Wednesday, January 11, 2017 6:44 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink"
Oddly enough I bought the collected stories a few years ago, read all the stories you described here but no more, then sort of forgot about it except for reading a story I saw a reference to somewhere recently. I must go back to them!
― .robin., Wednesday, January 11, 2017 8:02 PM (eleven months ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
Believe Eudora Welty liked every one of the stories. I know the WWII stories are the most famous, such as the ones from Ivy Gripped The Steps
― The Magnificent Galileo Seven (James Redd and the Blecchs), Wednesday, January 11, 2017 8:31 PM (eleven months ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
There was a version of the Collected Stories which led with an introduction by Angus Wilson. One with a green, kind of boring cover. Current version in the US with the nice painting lists the Angus Wilson intro in the TOC but it has in fact gone missing.
― The Magnificent Galileo Seven (James Redd and the Blecchs), Wednesday, January 11, 2017 8:38 PM (eleven months ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
Mine has an Angus Wilson introduction (boring cover but its navy blue). Were you looking for it? I'm sure I could take some photos and upload it somewhere, its only a few pages long.
― .robin., Thursday, January 12, 2017 5:12 AM (eleven months ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
Thanks, but I read it recently in a library copy so no need right now. Not sure exactly why its absence irks me. Maybe I am missing the brick and mortar bookstore where I bought his Anglo-Saxon Attitudes.
Also just remembering that somewhere I have the intro she wrote herself to Ivy Gripped the Steps and Other Stories.
― The Magnificent Galileo Seven (James Redd and the Blecchs), Thursday, January 12, 2017 9:29 AM (eleven months ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
I'm reading the navy blue doorstop edition with Angus Wilson's intro, but you're not missing much without that. Makes a few good points I guess but he's very hats-off to what he beholds as her robust country heiress grace, Conservative but fair-minded (also claims she's better than Woolf etc). But she seems to be full of mischief from the get-go, initially in a way maybe fairly familiar to yer more sophisticated sort of magazine readers, but increasingly pushing against and around gender norms, as female characters, especially (but not only) test power factors and divine secret codicils in their heritage---along with the money and status, always useful, and you can't get away from any of the expectations and possibilities; even if you don't have much yourself, you're downwind of Someone who does. Also, you might be a good little wife secretly lost, re-entering the clutches of the Helper (as she says her friends on the Continent call her), for instance.Wonder what Woolf, Mansfield, Jane Bowles thought of her? Wonder what DH Lawrence thought, for that matter---prob mixed emotions: here's a "secret" sister, but an suavely uppity woman too.
― dow, Thursday, January 12, 2017 11:12 AM (eleven months ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
So far the stories are still pretty short, brief encounters, hit and run. See you soon.
― dow, Thursday, January 12, 2017
― dow, Sunday, 24 December 2017 16:24 (six years ago) link
ust finished Gavid Grossman's A Horse Walks Into A Bar: it's only 194 pages, but so dense, so action-packed a monologue that I only read for an hour each night at bedtime this past week, with no loss of momentum. The old comic, the expert at long-game set-ups is leading his audience and himself off the trail of zingers, off the rails too, but toward the inside-out hobo jungle of psychodrama, revelation, confession, testimony, what maybe the final bit---meanwhile the audience, incl. the narrator, becomes known by quite the range of reactions, in a rowdy Israeli pitstop one frickin' night: "You wanna clear your head, and this guy gives us Yom Kippur!" Others are like, "No, he's still giving us jokes too," even counting them, a bit shell-shocked, others are drawn into the serious cobweb moonlight, at least for a while. And yet the monologist (who has to react to all this, of course) doesn't try to explain *every* fucking thing, the author doesn't try to spoonfeed us: revelation leads to room for speculation.Even more interesting to read so soon after In Search of Lost Time.
― dow, Friday, September 22, 2017
― dow, Sunday, 24 December 2017 16:31 (six years ago) link
Been thinking about reading that /vmic
― Steely Rodin (James Redd and the Blecchs), Sunday, 24 December 2017 16:39 (six years ago) link
From Rolling Science Fiction Fantasy Speculative Fiction etc.
In the aforementioned Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2016 (Karen Joy Fowler, editor/John Joseph Adams, series ed.), I was struck by what I mentioned somewhere else as the "initial snappy patter shifting to different tones and levels", very hard to do, and it's a cosmic-but-plausible story about cancer, by Adam Johnson---countered by S.L. Huang's cancer story, where there's no out-of-body-experience, no revelation, no transcendence, just adaptation, getting through it and going on with life. Huang says it's autobiographical---shifted into near-future treatments, and the character only has cancer once, so far, unlike the author (both are now cured, or in remission). Also unlike this author, Johnson doesn't provide a comment on his story, but his female narrator has a seemingly Johnson-like husband---I hope his story is not based on his actual wife's experience; it does seem more imagined than Huang's account---in a way that seems almost foolish right after first reading Huang, but no, they're just---two ways of looking at it, writing about it. I think. Anyway, can't recall coming across such a juxtaposition in an anthology before.
― dow, Friday, March 3, 2017 12:24 PM (nine months ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
Not that Johnson's story is Inspirational, it's about moving between past, present, future, commuting.
― dow, Friday, March 3, 2017 12:28 PM
― dow, Sunday, 24 December 2017 16:40 (six years ago) link
Leave us not forget to give it up for Richard Price, one more time:]Mention of Greenmantle as thriller richly evocative/pungent re time place worldview, reminds me of this, from ILE's Crime Fiction S,D:Thank yall for getting me to read Richard Price, finally! Lush Life is tremendous, the way he expertly steers us through the multi-dimensional convergence of class, race, age, gender, other, in Lower East Side Post-9/11 Giuliani York* (the Quality Of Life Squad greets us at the kick-off and reappears like a reverse ice cream truck: you better have what they want, cause they got quotas). The author dispenses a lot more acerbic compassion, a lot more justice, than his people are likely to find anywhere else.(*Wiki:"The experiences of Bratton and New York Deputy Police Commissioner Jack Maple were used as the inspiration of the television series The District." Never saw that, but this isn't a cop show thread; we got one of those?)
― dow, Sunday, November 12, 2017 10:49 AM (two weeks ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
Well, it's whatever justice can be dispensed via said convergence, rather than sermonizing or gratuitous manipulation.
― dow, Sunday, November 12, 2017 10:53 AM (two weeks ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
The cop show thread is just called "police procedurals what are your faves" iirc
I loved clockers, want to read more price at some point
― The Suite Life of Jack and Wendy (wins)
― dow, Monday, November 27, 2017
― dow, Monday, 25 December 2017 02:23 (six years ago) link
Add Naomi Alderman's The Power to my list. Finished it yesterday.
― ArchCarrier, Monday, 25 December 2017 21:28 (six years ago) link
This year started brightly, I had four hours of commute each day and a job I could leave behind at the end of the day. That changed in May with (a) a new job and (b) Legend of Zelda, so I didn't read as much as I wanted to. Plus, I abandoned a lot of books which were too hard / too rich for my brain.
Read:Thomas Pynchon - Against the Day. This was a re-read and it felt significantly less ragged than the first time around. I don't think I'll read this again, though it hung together better, I can't see the pickings being any better on the third go round.JL Carr - A Month In The Country. Chosen for its brevity, it was a nice segue from Against the Day, made all the neater by "against the day" turning up as a phrase towards the end. Probably the best thing I read all year. Yusunari Kawabata - Snow Country / A Thousand Cranes - Glad I read these together, they felt complementary. Peter May - Lewis Man. Not good at all. This is the second Peter May book I have read. This one also features people falling silently to their deaths. The word "decaying" was used more than any other. The only positives were family connections: my brother in law's home village (Ludaig) got a mention, as did the SS Politician, which my Grandfather did salvage work on. Sheila Fitzpatrick - The Russian Revolution 1917-1932. This was brisk and clear. It was a second hand copy. A previous owner had diligently underlined every occurrence of "All power to the soviets!"Benedict Anderson - Imagined Communities. I enjoyed this and as usually happens, was persuaded by the arguments, which makes my ambitions for break up of the UK harder to hold on to. I'm moving onto Balkanisation along non-traditional nation-lines (People's Republic of my Back Garden etc). Joy Williams - The Visiting Privilege. Excellent. Starts off with glimpses of human situations, deteriorates / develops into consideration of Great Unknowables and ends with a car crash which led me intoJG Balllard - Crash. The Ballard I have enjoyed the least, too fevered, not chilly enough. It teetered on the brink of knitting its themes / concepts together and then didn't (or maybe it did too subtly for me). I enjoyed JGB letting rip in the acid trip at the end. Also, I learned the word binnacle, which is something.Dumas - The Count of Monte Cristo. Fat and slight. Lots of plot, loads of supposedly loving people giving each other histrionic ultimata, kind of wanted it all to come crashing down on Dantes at the end, tbh.
Abandoned (selected highlights):Patricia Highsmith - The Blunderer. Clarice Lispector - too intense for getting through without a break. I will finish this.Adorno - Minima Moralia. Clearly some leagues beyond my mind horizon. Adolfo Bioy Casares - The Invention of Morel. I will never finish this.
― calumerio, Wednesday, 27 December 2017 14:58 (six years ago) link
Dava Sobel - The Glass UniverseZadie Smith - Changing My Mind: Occasional EssaysZadie Smith - Swing TimeZadie Smith - The Autograph ManUlysses S. Grant - Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant Volumes 1 & 2Tana French - The LikenessDawn Powell - A Time To Be BornDawn Powell - Angels on ToastDawn Powell - Turn, Magic WheelJan Willem vänder Wetterling - Hard RainAndrew Lownie - Stalin’s Englishman: Guy Burgess, the Cold War, and the Cambridge Spy RingNathan Hill - The NixDavid Hepworth - Never A Dull Moment: 1971 The Year That Rock ExplodedElena Ferrante - My Brilliant FriendElena Ferrante - The Story of A New NameElena Ferrante - Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay BehindElena Ferrante - The Story of the Lost ChildNorman Podhoretz - Making ItMichael Ruhlman - GroceryMary Gaitskill - The MareMary Gaitskill - Somebody With A Little Hammer: EssaysPeter Mayle - A Year In ProvenceJeff Guinn - The Road To Jonestown: Jim Jones And Peoples TempleShiva Naipaul - Journey to Nowhere (reread)Shiva Naipaul - Beyond The Dragon’s Mouth: Stories & EssaysPhilip Roth - The Ghost WriterPhilip Roth - Zuckerman UnboundMichael Connelly - Chasing The DimeMichael Connelly - The Late ShowMichael Connelly - Two Kinds of TruthJo Nesbø - NemesisJo Nesbø - The Devil’s StarJo Nesbø - The ThirstStefan Ahnhem - Victim Without A FaceJohn Williams - StonerJ. Robert Lennon - Broken RiverDon Winslow - The ForceZeynep Tufecki - Twitter & TeargasRichard Boch - The Mudd Club (twice)Karin Fossum - The Drowned BoyKarin Fossum - Hell FireEmma Clines - The GirlsJohn le Carre - The Night ManagerHakan Ostlundh - The IntruderMalin Persson Giolito - Quick SandAdam Gopnik - At The Strangers’ Gate: Arrivals In New York (HATEread)Pauline Kael - I Lost It At The MoviesArne Dahl - MisteriosoJD Vance - Hillbilly Elegy Jussi Adler-Olsen - The Scarred WomanJennifer Egan - A Visit From The Goon SquadColson Whitehead - The Underground RailroadAdam Sisman - John le Carre: The BiographyJohan Theorin - The Darkest Room
almost finished: Dawn Powell - The Diaries 1931-65about to begin: Roberto Bolaño - The Savage Detectives
seasonal word-up y'all! cheers
― Amazing Random (m coleman), Thursday, 28 December 2017 15:14 (six years ago) link
Lots of comfort reading this year. Wonder why that was. Usually I breakup difficult stuff with easier reads, but this year was the other way around.
Many thanks to ILB for introducing me to Penelope Fitzgerald, my hot young find of 2017.
The Bookshop, Penelope FitzgeraldThe Ballad of Peckham Rye, Muriel SparkA Month In The Country, JL CarrPatience, Daniel ClowesGoldfinger, Ian FlemingThe Love Affairs of Nathaniel P., Adelle WaldmanJudaism: A Very Short Introduction, Norman SolomonThe Crossing, Michael ConnellyThe Beiderbecke Affair, Alan PlaterThank You, Jeeves, PG WodehouseCrooked House, Agatha ChristieKillers of the Flower Moon, David GrannSuperman: Phantom Zone, Steve GerberConclave, Robert HarrisA Little History Of The World, E.H. GombrichLive and Let Die, Ian FlemingSwag, Elmore LeonardWe Have Always Lived in the Castle, Shirley JacksonUbik, Philip K. DickFuneral in Berlin, Len DeightonIn Therapy, Susie OrbachStar Trek: New Frontier Books 1-4, Peter DavidThe Ghost Writer, Philip RothAngels Flight, Michael ConnellyDarkness Visible, William StyronThe Long Goodbye, Raymond ChandlerHoles, Louis SacharHuman Voices, Penelope FitzgeraldThings Fall Apart, Chinua AchebeCounselling for Toads, Robert De BoardHow to Write Groundhog Day, Danny RubinThe Adversary, Emmanuel CarrereLeave It to Psmith, PG WodehouseLord Edgware Dies, Agatha ChristieThe Sense of an Ending, Julian BarnesDiamonds Are Forever, Ian FlemingNorthern Lights, Philip PullmanThe Subtle Knife, Philip PullmanSmile, Raina TelgemeierThe Making of a Therapist, Louis CozolinoJames Bond: My Long And Etc., Len DeightonSisters, Raina TelgemeierFeet of Clay, Terry Pratchett
― Chuck_Tatum, Friday, 29 December 2017 02:53 (six years ago) link
The only books I quit this year were Middlemarch (which I loved but wasn't in the mood for) and the Brexit book All Out War, which was well-written, but I realised I'm still too angry to read about these dangerous arseholes in a book that portrays them as characterful eccentrics
― Chuck_Tatum, Friday, 29 December 2017 02:58 (six years ago) link
my favorites have asterisks. no re-reads this year.
fictionVoltaire - Candideanonymous - Sir Gawain and the Green KnightJeff VanderMeer - Annihilation*Jeff VanderMeer - AuthorityMark Frost - The Secret History of Twin Peaks (2016) -- boring writingSophie Kinsella - Finding Audrey (2016)GRRM - A Game of ThronesDenis Johnson - Jesus' SonStrugatsky bros. - Roadside Picnic (audiobook)*PKD - A Scanner Darkly (audiobook)*Kim Thúy - RuEmma Cline - The Girls (2016)*Gloria Ann Wesley - If This is Freedom
about 1/3rd of The Big Book of Science Fiction (eds. VanderMeers)around half of Love in the Time of Cholera (decent but a slow read)abandoned: Michael Robbins - Alien vs. Predator -- shit
uncollected shortsGilman - The Yellow WallpaperBob Shaw - Light of Other DaysChiang - The Merchant and the Alchemist's GateCoetzee - The Dog (2017)Roupenian - Cat Person (2017)
non-fictionMario Livio - Brilliant BlundersBeryl Markham - West with the Night (audiobook)Patton Oswalt - Silver Screen Fiend (audiobook)Kory Stamper - Word by Word (audiobook) (2017)*Errol Morris - Believing is SeeingJanet Maybee - Aftershock -- local interest, regarding Halifax Explosion
comicsVaughan and Whedon - Runaways V1-V8Vaughan - The Hood: Blood From StonesVaughan - We Stand on GuardTezuka - Black Jack V2Atwood - Angel Catbird V1 -- 1/10, awfulDitko et al. - Iron Man Masterworks V1Kirby et al. - Thor Masterworks V1Ellis - Transmetropolitan V1Claremont - X-Men: God Loves, Man KillsStarlin - Infinity Gauntlet #1-#6*Starlin - Thanos QuestStarlin - The Death of Captain MarvelJared Axelrod - The Battle of Blood & Inkvarious - Iron Man: Demon in a Bottle
― Einstein, Bazinga, Sitar (abanana), Friday, 29 December 2017 03:39 (six years ago) link
abandoned: Michael Robbins - Alien vs. Predator -- shit
yeah i fucking hate this guy. even the title of this book pisses me off.
― (The Other) J.D. (J.D.), Friday, 29 December 2017 05:41 (six years ago) link
Surprised by so much dislike for Robbins’s poetry. I thought he was fun to read. Kind of a sleazier millennial Ashbery.
― o. nate, Friday, 29 December 2017 14:02 (six years ago) link
What I read in 2017.
― morning wood truancy (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 1 January 2018 13:12 (six years ago) link
I aimed to read 52 and I don't think I finished a single book. I probably bought 100 though.
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Monday, 1 January 2018 14:33 (six years ago) link
quick, unchallenging reads for the most part:
Harlan Ellison ® - Angry CandyJack Vance - Cugel's SagaStanislaw Lem - The InvincibleStanislaw Lem - Memoirs Found in a BathtubStanislaw Lem - The Futurological CongressSamuel Delany - Tales of NeveryonUrsula Le Guin - The Beginning PlacePenelope Lively - A Stitch In TimePenelope Lively - The House in Norham GardensPenelope Lively - The Wild Hunt of HagworthyJoan Robinson - When Marnie Was ThereMary Downing Hahn - Mister Death's Blue-Eyed GirlsUrsula Dubosarsky - The Golden DayRobert Marasco - Burnt OfferingsFritz Leiber - Our Lady of DarknessFritz Leiber - The Green MillenniumFritz Leiber - Night MonstersMargaret St. Clair - The Best of Margaret St. ClairAmanda Petrusich - Do Not Sell At Any Price
― jesus and figs and science and the foo fighters (unregistered), Monday, 1 January 2018 18:09 (six years ago) link
How was The Best of Margaret St. Clair? Always refreshingly different in old anthologies---when there were *maybe* six or seven female writers permitted to be semi-regulars in fantasy and science fiction mags---but I've never come across a whole book of hers. A Wiccan of the 50s, right? But attutude more subtle than such a tag implies.
― dow, Monday, 1 January 2018 19:16 (six years ago) link
xxp - I aimed to read 52 as well and managed to read 49.
― ArchCarrier, Tuesday, 2 January 2018 13:41 (six years ago) link
Books I read in 2017 that I can remember upon returning to work after a week off with a brain that not work so good no more:James Baldwin - Collected Essays (Library of America)Susan Wise Bauer - The History of the Ancient World: : From the Earliest Accounts to the Fall of RomeTaylor Branch - Parting the Waters: America in the King Years, 1954-63Taylor Branch - Pillar of Fire: America in the King Years, 1963-65Robert W. Chambers - The King in YellowJack Handey - What I'd Say to the Martians: And Other Veiled ThreatsWilliam Hope Hodgson - The House on the BorderlandSean Howe - Marvel Comics: The Untold StoryStephen King - RevivalSteven Mithen - After the Ice: A Global Human History, 20,000-5000 BCRick Perlstein - Before the Storm: Barry Goldwater and the Unmaking of the American ConsensusJohn Semley - This is a Book About the Kids in the HallReed Tucker - Slugfest: Inside the Epic, 50-year Battle Between Marvel and DCIsabel Wilkerson - The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration
Books I started reading in 2017 and am still reading in 2018:Robert Bellah - Religion in Human Evolution: From the Paleolithic to the Axial AgeWm. Theodore de Bary, Wing-tsit Chan - Sources of Chinese Tradition: From Earliest Times to 1600Mircea Eliade - The History of Religious Ideas Vol. 1
― Bobby Buttrock (Old Lunch), Tuesday, 2 January 2018 14:20 (six years ago) link
Oh, I somehow missed that people were including comics in their lists. I'll just say that I also read approximately four times my body weight in comics and leave it at that.
― Bobby Buttrock (Old Lunch), Tuesday, 2 January 2018 14:30 (six years ago) link
only read 30 books last year, kinda slacked in the middle of the summer and never really hit a stride again. didn't have one big book like i did in 2016 (infinite jest), i'd like to do at least one this year but not sure which. have anna karenina sitting on my shelf but idk, haven't even read notes from the underground yet...
On Bowie — Rob Sheffield Listen, Liberal: Or, What Ever Happened to the Party of the People? — Thomas Frank The Master Plan: ISIS, al-Qaeda, and the Jihadi Strategy for Final Victory — Brian FishmanHomesick for Another World — Ottessa MoshfeghUniversal Harvester — John Darnielle Collected Poems & Stories — Mallory WhittenThe Broom of the System — David Foster Wallace American Pastoral — Philip RothFirestarter — Stephen KingGod Box — Mallory WhittenBlitzed: Drugs in Nazi Germany — Norman OhlerA Colony in a Nation — Chris Hayes literally show me a healthy person — Darcie Wilder It — Stephen King How the Hell Did This Happen?: The Election of 2016 — P.J. O’RourkeShattered: Inside Hillary Clinton’s Doomed Campaign — Jonathan Allen & Amie ParnesCujo — Stephen King The Handmaid’s Tale — Margaret AtwoodMeet Me in the Bathroom — Lizzy GoodmanPrivate Citizens — Tony TulathimutteTouch — Courtney Maum The Sarah Book — Scott McClanahanEileen — Ottessa MoshfeghKill All Normies — Angela Nagle Capitalist Realism: Is There No Alternative? — Mark FisherAll the Dirty Parts — Daniel HandlerNo Is Not Enough — Naomi Klein Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? — Philip K. Dick The Original Face — Guillaume Morissette Sticky Fingers: The Life and Times of Jann Wenner and Rolling Stone Magazine — Joe Hagan Hit So Hard — Patty Schemel
favorites were both books by Ottessa Moshfegh, It, Meet Me in the Bathroom, Universal Harvester, and Shattered.
― flappy bird, Tuesday, 2 January 2018 22:43 (six years ago) link
lol sorry im mixing up my dour russians
― flappy bird, Tuesday, 2 January 2018 22:44 (six years ago) link
oh American Pastoral was absolutely amazing but I read the majority of that on a trip in September 2016 but didn't finish until February
― flappy bird, Tuesday, 2 January 2018 22:45 (six years ago) link
think i'll try to read 365 short stories this year.
― Einstein, Bazinga, Sitar (abanana), Tuesday, 2 January 2018 23:38 (six years ago) link
gotta set yourself a microfiction rule
― j., Wednesday, 3 January 2018 01:03 (six years ago) link
yeah i was thinking that reading stuff from flash fiction: very short stories would not satisfy. my first rule is that anything in a collection of short stories not devoted to flash fiction counts.
― Einstein, Bazinga, Sitar (abanana), Wednesday, 3 January 2018 01:48 (six years ago) link
Maybe a Chekhov a day? Wouldn't keep the doctor away, since he wss one, but prob good for what ails you (if nothing ails you, even better I say)
― dow, Wednesday, 3 January 2018 02:37 (six years ago) link
won't keep the typos away, nothing will.
― dow, Wednesday, 3 January 2018 02:38 (six years ago) link
ooh i should do that too
― flappy bird, Wednesday, 3 January 2018 04:25 (six years ago) link
in a chaotic and confusing world, programmatic reading can remove the heavy burden of too much choice
― A is for (Aimless), Wednesday, 3 January 2018 04:28 (six years ago) link
Old Lunch, what is the Mircea Eliade like? I have enjoyed his fiction a lot.
― Mince Pramthwart (James Morrison), Saturday, 6 January 2018 00:03 (six years ago) link
Fairly dense but elucidating if (like me) you're relatively ignorant of where/how various religious ideas originated. Reading now about the variety of theological constructs from across Europe and India that sprang from the same proto-Indo-European origins. I had no idea.
― Bobby Buttrock (Old Lunch), Saturday, 6 January 2018 00:14 (six years ago) link
Took me a little while to write this lot up but:
Fyodor Dostoevsky – Crime & PunishmentMuriel Spark – The Prime of Miss Jean BrodieKevin MacNeil – The Brilliant and ForeverAngela Carter – The Magic ToyshopRay Celestin – The Axeman’s JazzPaul Beatty – The SelloutYaa Gyasi - HomegoingJohn Cheever – The Complete StoriesJoan Didion – Slouching Towards BethlehemJohn Dos Passos – USAMichaelangelo Matos - The Underground Is MassiveAnita Brookner – Hotel du LacGabriel Garcia Marquez – Love In The Time of CholeraElmore Leonard – Freaky DeakyEimear McBride – The Lesser BohemiansBarney Norris – Five Rivers Met On A Wooded PlaneSana Krasikov – The PatriotsJulian Barnes – The Noise of TimeRob Duncan – Psychedelia and Other ColoursAlan Sillitoe – Saturday Night and Sunday MorningGeorge Saunders – Lincoln In The BardoJohn Darnielle – Universal HarvesterNaomi Aldermann – The PowerZadie Smith – On BeautyDon DeLillo – Mao IIJohn Le Carre – Smiley’s PeopleDavid Stubbs – Future DaysMariana Enriquez – Things We Lost In The FireStephen King – The StandDanilo Kis – HourglassEmile Zola – La Bete HumaineTom Wolfe - Bonfire of the Vanities
Good year!
― Matt DC, Sunday, 21 January 2018 20:13 (six years ago) link
Some of you people are machines. The poster 'one way street' reading 129 books in 2017 is both awesome and insane. I think one year I read 52 books (one a week), but I was unemployed for half of the year. Now I barely average two books a month.
― Rod Steel (musicfanatic), Tuesday, 23 January 2018 17:44 (six years ago) link
A chunk of those 129 appear to be graphic novels, if that makes any difference.
― Matt DC, Tuesday, 23 January 2018 17:47 (six years ago) link
i only read 30 books last year & i feel like i was slacking
reading the Michael Wolff book now, v good fan fic
― flappy bird, Tuesday, 23 January 2018 17:48 (six years ago) link
No more than 40. That's counting honest books only. Would have been more but July was lost.
― alimosina, Tuesday, 23 January 2018 18:31 (six years ago) link
(This month looks to be unimpressive too.)
― alimosina, Tuesday, 23 January 2018 18:32 (six years ago) link
By participating these "What did you read" threads for the past five years or so, I now know I recently average about 45 books a year.
― A is for (Aimless), Tuesday, 23 January 2018 18:34 (six years ago) link
I read >cough< about 250 books, no way am I typing all those up
― Mince Pramthwart (James Morrison), Wednesday, 24 January 2018 00:51 (six years ago) link
How much time do you read per day, James?
― jmm, Wednesday, 24 January 2018 00:55 (six years ago) link
Maybe 3-4 hours if it's a work day (public transport, lunch break, insomnia)
― Mince Pramthwart (James Morrison), Wednesday, 24 January 2018 05:34 (six years ago) link
I believe I read much slower than the average person, which is depressing. There's no chance I'm reading a whole book in one sitting, no matter how light or easy it is.
― Rod Steel (musicfanatic), Saturday, 3 February 2018 00:46 (six years ago) link
I fear I might be incapable of reading as fast as the people I hope to catch up with.
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Saturday, 3 February 2018 01:02 (six years ago) link
I will read no more for ever
― Some Dusty in Here (James Redd and the Blecchs), Saturday, 3 February 2018 01:53 (six years ago) link
There's no chance I'm reading a whole book in one sitting, no matter how light or easy it is.
I seldom finish a book in one sitting. Its fine, this is not a competition.
― xyzzzz__, Saturday, 3 February 2018 12:50 (six years ago) link
read Hard to be a God this week, the translation was iffy and the conversion to ebook was shoddy but it's a fine piece of work
― drugs don't kill people, poppers do (Noodle Vague), Saturday, 3 February 2018 12:53 (six years ago) link
put it in your 2018 list :)
― xyzzzz__, Saturday, 3 February 2018 12:54 (six years ago) link
haha wasn't even checking thread titles :)
― drugs don't kill people, poppers do (Noodle Vague), Saturday, 3 February 2018 12:55 (six years ago) link
how tf can you finish a book in one sitting unless it's like <150 pages i read Universal Harvester in two sittings in one dayread Noah Cicero's new (excellent) poetry collection in two sittings over two days, but that's one I could've easily read in one sittingDarcie Wilder's book last year, I think that was three sittings?idk
what have y'all read in one sitting? genuinely curious. and impressed. my bum would go numb
― flappy bird, Saturday, 3 February 2018 22:43 (six years ago) link
This one, as orig. posted on an ILM Eagles thread, think it's A Good Day In Hell:
Also I picked up Felder's hefty Between Heaven and Hell in the library, and read the whole thing that afternoon, which never happens. Gist: his father comes off as a self-made, self-righteous, self-torturing workaholic and skinflint, and Don follows suit during his Eagles years, with infinitely more bucks and perks than blue collar Dad ever had, of course. Furthermore, Dr. Phil, he somewhat recreates his own defiant-dependent teen relationship with Dad, now played by Henley and Frey.When he finally gets his ass fired, after having papers served in the studio, he actually calls back, all crying---"Try to seek some higher ground in this, Fingers," Frey counsels, and the ex-Mrs. Felder fervently seconds.So he does, with this book of excellent anecdotes (also careful references to ongoing litigation), from early years in Florida---girlfriend accuses him of stepping out with blondes, who turn out to be pre-facial hair, though tressed-for-success Gregg and Duane)[;"Tommy" Petty is his guitar student; Stephen Stills is "the funniest kid I ever met," passing through town while running away from military school, back to his parents (though every kid I knew back then who was sent to military school, was sent for a good reason); Bernie Leadon is his local connection to the budding El Lay country rock scene.Also lots of good stuff about "The Gods," as everybody who worked with and for the Eagles called Henley and Frey; supposedly many of these--even the Gods themselves, individually---called Felder up to trade the latest atrocity stories.But I also get, in terms of more perhaps unintended reveals, that the Gods were trying to keep their associates' and their own assholes-with-money tendencies somewhat in line, at least for the sake of making even more money (by keeping up the musical standards, for instance). Nevertheless, Felder and I are somewhat respectful of, for instance, Joe Walsh's working out his frustrations on whole floors of hotels (and he lasted longer than any non-God in the line-up, I think, so maybe the mayhem helped).
― dow, Sunday, 4 February 2018 02:30 (six years ago) link
When he finally gets his ass fired, after having papers served in the studio, he actually calls back, all crying That is, Felder had papers served on Frey (for the first time).
― dow, Sunday, 4 February 2018 02:32 (six years ago) link