*What book are you reading? (part 2)
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Yetman
Cheesecar Fucksquad #1
The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out of the Window and Disappeared
- that was a great adventure through the 20th century
The writer was Swedish, I didn't expect to like it, but it was fun enough for a holiday read, considering I found it falling apart in the bookshelf in the hotel bar.
The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August
- another holiday read (managed 2 books in a week) which was a bit more heady than the first one, but a much deeper read with plenty of pretty much everything any book would have (except romance) in it. Recommended.
- that was a great adventure through the 20th century
The writer was Swedish, I didn't expect to like it, but it was fun enough for a holiday read, considering I found it falling apart in the bookshelf in the hotel bar.The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August
- another holiday read (managed 2 books in a week) which was a bit more heady than the first one, but a much deeper read with plenty of pretty much everything any book would have (except romance) in it. Recommended.
Against Theory - Steven Knapp & Walter Benn Michaels (1982)
Not a book but an early reactionary paper worth reading for those interested in Critical Theory.
Not a book but an early reactionary paper worth reading for those interested in Critical Theory.
Reno
The In Kraut
Edgewise: A Picture of Cookie Mueller by Chloe Griffin.
Sometimes a person doesn't need to have been particularely famous to warrant a great biography, they just need to have lived and an interesting life and that Cookie Mueller did. She started out as one of the Dreamlanders in Baltimore as one of John Water's repertory company and then moved into the NYC punk scene where she became a writer and artist. She was a frequent subject on Nan Goldin's photographs and appeared in Subway Riders by Amos Poe before becoming one of the first semi-famous people to die of AIDS.
The book is compiled from hundreds of interviews by those who knew her and really imerses you in the counter culture art scene of the East Coast in the 70s and 80s. I never knew much about her apart from the basics but have always been attracted to the scary/sexy don't-fuck-with-me quality she has in photos. She lived the life I was fantasising about as a teenager (apart from the early AIDS death thing)
Sometimes a person doesn't need to have been particularely famous to warrant a great biography, they just need to have lived and an interesting life and that Cookie Mueller did. She started out as one of the Dreamlanders in Baltimore as one of John Water's repertory company and then moved into the NYC punk scene where she became a writer and artist. She was a frequent subject on Nan Goldin's photographs and appeared in Subway Riders by Amos Poe before becoming one of the first semi-famous people to die of AIDS.
The book is compiled from hundreds of interviews by those who knew her and really imerses you in the counter culture art scene of the East Coast in the 70s and 80s. I never knew much about her apart from the basics but have always been attracted to the scary/sexy don't-fuck-with-me quality she has in photos. She lived the life I was fantasising about as a teenager (apart from the early AIDS death thing)
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Steel Icarus
ersatz maven
Just finished a book called Into the Black, about the history of the space shuttle. Recommended if you like that sort of thing.
Just started Will Gompertz's What do you think you're looking at?, a whistle-stop history of modern art.
Just started Will Gompertz's What do you think you're looking at?, a whistle-stop history of modern art.
I'm reading Lisa McKenzie's book Getting By: Estates, Class and Culture in Austerity Britain.
I like McKenzie, I've read a couple of pieces by her that I thought were very good but I have to admit I've been disappointed by this. I'm not sure what I was expecting from it, and it may be the problems I have with it are more problems with the type of book it is. I'm interested in the views of the people on the estate who she interviews wherever they're quoted and as you'd expect they have plenty of inteligent and thoughtful things to say on these issues. Aside from those direct quotations though it is to be honest fairly obvious and not terribly interesting.
I feel like if I was to just read the quotes and skip the bits in between I'd come away with just as much as reading the whole thing. I don't really know who the audience is for a book like this, maybe its a problem of sociological books in general I'm not sure. Part of it is maybe the distance that the format of the book creates - the people she talks to speak perfectly clearly but it then has to be sort of translated in the following text but to what end and for whose benefit? As I said, I can't really understand who the book is for or even really what it's trying to say. What I would have liked is much fuller and detailed interviews and much less explanatory writing I think.
It also has a pretty nauseating afterword by the ghastly Owen Jones, but that's probably not McKenzie's fault given that she is an anarchist as far as I know.
I like McKenzie, I've read a couple of pieces by her that I thought were very good but I have to admit I've been disappointed by this. I'm not sure what I was expecting from it, and it may be the problems I have with it are more problems with the type of book it is. I'm interested in the views of the people on the estate who she interviews wherever they're quoted and as you'd expect they have plenty of inteligent and thoughtful things to say on these issues. Aside from those direct quotations though it is to be honest fairly obvious and not terribly interesting.
I feel like if I was to just read the quotes and skip the bits in between I'd come away with just as much as reading the whole thing. I don't really know who the audience is for a book like this, maybe its a problem of sociological books in general I'm not sure. Part of it is maybe the distance that the format of the book creates - the people she talks to speak perfectly clearly but it then has to be sort of translated in the following text but to what end and for whose benefit? As I said, I can't really understand who the book is for or even really what it's trying to say. What I would have liked is much fuller and detailed interviews and much less explanatory writing I think.
It also has a pretty nauseating afterword by the ghastly Owen Jones, but that's probably not McKenzie's fault given that she is an anarchist as far as I know.
DotCommunist
So many particulars. So many questions.
Complete works of Edgar Alan Poe. Bog book. There's a couple of shorts near the start where he tries humour. No edgar, just no.
Murder in Auschwitz. It's an okayish read so far about a Jewish by birth lawyer ending up in the death camp (wife and daughters in Birkenau) marred by one glaring anachronism. It's the time of the Weimar republic, and a gypsy accused of theft claims to have sold a horse in Mauerpark. Mauerpark didn't exist before 1989.
flypanam
Sausage to fortune
Ismail Kadare's Broken April. Seriously good, seriously short book concerning the Kanun laws of northern Albania
With it
Granta magazine's edition of new Irish writing (one of my mates help select some of the pieces.) I've only read Kevin Barry's memoir of Cork city so far but the edition seems promising.
With it
Granta magazine's edition of new Irish writing (one of my mates help select some of the pieces.) I've only read Kevin Barry's memoir of Cork city so far but the edition seems promising.
The Lais of Marie de France
Puzzling, and quite strange as a collection of short tales.
Puzzling, and quite strange as a collection of short tales.
tangerinedream
Density of Sound
I just read two sci do things, James Smythe's 'the echo' and the first one I can't remember the name of. First one was pretty good, about a disastrous space mission. The sequel was ok, but it felt like it was unnecessary. Quite well written, tight in a way that often sci fi isn't.
The Odyssey - Homer (Fagles)
I'm making a start on The Slave's Cause: A History of Abolition by Manisha Sinha
I'm intending to read this to complement a couple of other books I've read this year, The American Slave Coast by the Sublettes and the Counter Revolution of 1776 by Gerald Horne. The former covers the slave breeding industry and the latter the fears of abolition and slave revolt driving the formation of the US, while this book I'm hoping will be a good account of the abolition movement with a focus on its radicalism and wider connections. That's what it claims to be anyway so I'll see.
It's off to a decent start, showing early opposition to the transatlantic trade and how the formation of a racist ideology was contested from the beginning. There's already been some mention too of the role of St. Augustine and Fort Mose in Spanish Florida in slave resistance and its significance in arguments for abolition which figured heavily in Horne's book but hopefully here as it's a pretty massive lump of a book there will be a broader overview around the topic.
I'm intending to read this to complement a couple of other books I've read this year, The American Slave Coast by the Sublettes and the Counter Revolution of 1776 by Gerald Horne. The former covers the slave breeding industry and the latter the fears of abolition and slave revolt driving the formation of the US, while this book I'm hoping will be a good account of the abolition movement with a focus on its radicalism and wider connections. That's what it claims to be anyway so I'll see.
It's off to a decent start, showing early opposition to the transatlantic trade and how the formation of a racist ideology was contested from the beginning. There's already been some mention too of the role of St. Augustine and Fort Mose in Spanish Florida in slave resistance and its significance in arguments for abolition which figured heavily in Horne's book but hopefully here as it's a pretty massive lump of a book there will be a broader overview around the topic.
weltweit
Well-Known Member
Hrmpf I ordered three nice books from my library, got them and have almost finished the first but now I have a renewal warning and I can't renew the two that I have not yet read because some other bugger has reserved them! So I have 3 days to read two books or face fines! Very vexed!
DotCommunist
So many particulars. So many questions.
its a good story, the tv adapt was unmissable. I only read 1st chapter on epub but its solid writing on a prose level
catinthehat
Failed VK = Replicant
LoveStar – a novel | Andri Magnason Rereading Lovestar by Andri Magnason. I recently re read his Dreamland book and it prompted me to re read this. He was one of the candidates in the Presidency elections - I was torn between him and the eventual winner, a History Professor. Lovestar is a bit PhillipK Dick like.
D'wards
IT'S YOUR DECISION DANIEL
Why did you abandon it?
DotCommunist
So many particulars. So many questions.
prose was solid and the story great but I shit you not, the TV adapt was so good the prose would have to have been at level 11 to top it, I may well revisit at some oint but it was as though I'd seen the story told once so well the writing couldn't compete, which is a rare thing indeed.
Also I had just taken delivery of a cache of physical history books so I was curled up reading a photo history of late tsarist era architecture.
D'wards
IT'S YOUR DECISION DANIEL
Fair do's. These days i cannot read a book if i've seen the film or tv series. Glad it wasn't like that in the old days mind you or else i would have missed out on some crackers.
'Im not with the band - A writers life lost in music' by former Smash Hits journalist Sylvia Patterson. As a kid that grew up living and breathing music, I used to read Smash Hits religiously. I am about 30 pages in and enjoying this memoir immensely, especially since she has a fiercely critical eye of those she encounters.
I'm Not with the Band: A Writer's Life Lost in Music: Amazon.co.uk: Sylvia Patterson: 9780751558685: Books
I'm Not with the Band: A Writer's Life Lost in Music: Amazon.co.uk: Sylvia Patterson: 9780751558685: Books
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Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
aleister crowley, the world's tragedy (paris: privately printed, 1910)
you can find it online at The World's Tragedy - Aleister Crowley
you can find it online at The World's Tragedy - Aleister Crowley
Society Must Be Defended (Lectures 1976) - Foucault
weltweit
Well-Known Member
I know I complained about my library not letting me have books long enough to read them. Partly because they all arrived for me at the same time. Well I went to return two books unread but reserved by another. I explained my situation and they kindly extended my time so I should now be able to read them. Yay!
weltweit
Well-Known Member
Reading a book for a few hours a week can add two years to your life
Perhaps my reading will offset my former smoking, one can live in hope
Perhaps my reading will offset my former smoking, one can live in hope
DotCommunist
So many particulars. So many questions.
Orwells poverty tourism. Try 'Down and out in Paris and London' next.
I've been taking some light relief with 'the tin princess' from Pullman (he of His Dark Material fame). He's a good touch but at the same time I sort of hate that Great Powers pre-revolutionary grand european adventure vibe you get from it. Its only a bog book though so I am not going to cast it aside
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