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[porcy62]

Georges Bensoussan - Europe. Une passion génocidaire : Essai d'histoire culturelle

[Tom Storer]

I'm reading James Ellroy's new one, "Blood's A Rover," the last of a trilogy that has included "American Tabloid" and "The Cold Six Thousand." The trilogy is a violent, jumpy look at America in the 50's and 60's, centering on conspiracies leading to the Kennedy and King assassinations and beyond. Cruelty, corruption, hate, deception, intrigue, murder, drugs, sex and perversion in wave after wave. The narrative style is a mercilessly staccato accumulation of repetitive, shorthand sentences interspersed with more discursive "document inserts" representing FBI reports, bugged conversations, etc. It's highly idiosyncratic and I've talked to several people who couldn't take it, but I find it brilliantly done--very tense and edgy but almost symphonic in the way the characters and themes all flow together. Not your average thriller.

[jazzbo]

I'm reading James Ellroy's new one, "Blood's A Rover," the last of a trilogy that has included "American Tabloid" and "The Cold Six Thousand." The trilogy is a violent, jumpy look at America in the 50's and 60's, centering on conspiracies leading to the Kennedy and King assassinations and beyond. Cruelty, corruption, hate, deception, intrigue, murder, drugs, sex and perversion in wave after wave. The narrative style is a mercilessly staccato accumulation of repetitive, shorthand sentences interspersed with more discursive "document inserts" representing FBI reports, bugged conversations, etc. It's highly idiosyncratic and I've talked to several people who couldn't take it, but I find it brilliantly done--very tense and edgy but almost symphonic in the way the characters and themes all flow together. Not your average thriller.

I've read several of his books. I agree there's a brilliance there, but ultimately the subject matter just drives me away, I have had enough!

Right now

[A Lark Ascending]

Outside of the British Isles I've always found this period of European history (roughly the fall of Rome to the start of the First Crusade) hard to get a mental map of...get all my Henrys, Ottos and Fredericks muddled up.

I really enjoyed Holland's 'Persian Fire' and this is certainly interesting, but I'm finding it somewhat breathless and overwritten. The characters come across like cartoon figures in a perpetual state of action, the events ever-momentous. He's trying to evoke the sense of fear and anticipation in Europe as the millennium approached and the Second Coming descended. But I'm a bit irritated by it.

Reminds me of quite a lot of recent TV history - high action to stop viewers switching over to special-fx films.

Edited January 4, 2010 by Bev Stapleton

[BillF]

Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid's Tale

Re-reading this fine novel!

[ejp626]

Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid's Tale

Re-reading this fine novel!

Of all the Atwood novels, I like Cat's Eye the best, which is so rooted in Toronto as a place. Haven't read that in ages and should give it a go, though it would have to go towards the bottom of the list. I have reasonably high expectations for Oryx and Crake and its follow-up, The Year of the Flood, but haven't read them yet.

I finally wrapped up The Master and Margarita (two different translations). For most of the time, the experiment worked well and I really got much more out of comparing the two. At the last 5-10% though, my energy was flagging, and I just wanted to be done. This also may reflect the structure of the novel, which is frenetic pretty much from start until the last 15% when the bacchanal ends and the devil and his retinue leave Moscow. If you aren't of a religious persuasion, the ending can feel like a bit of a let down. Still, a great novel that I would encourage anyone to read.

I am reading a very short novel by Voinovich called The Fur Hat, which is an ideal companion piece. There is this writer of turgid fiction who, upon hearing the Writers' Union is giving out hats, applies for one and instead of a fox (or even rabbit) hat is given a living tom cat as his hat. It is also very much in line with Gogol's The Overcoat, though marginally less surreal.

[BillF]

Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid's Tale

Re-reading this fine novel!

Of all the Atwood novels, I like Cat's Eye the best, which is so rooted in Toronto as a place. Haven't read that in ages and should give it a go, though it would have to go towards the bottom of the list. I have reasonably high expectations for Oryx and Crake and its follow-up, The Year of the Flood, but haven't read them yet.

I've read Cat's Eye too, but as my only experience of Toronto was to change planes once at the airport and given my fondness for science fiction, you'll appreciate that I like the others better. O and C is really good and the other very thought-provoking in what it has to say about humanity and the ecosystem.

[medjuck]

And David Hadju's The Ten Cent Plague is sweet too, in a funnybooks + social history kind of way. Also if you're so inclined

Then you should check out the DVD of Ron Mann's film "Comic Book Confidential".

[Teasing the Korean]

On a Raymond Chandler kick. Recently finished The Big Sleep, Lady in the Lake, and The Little Sister. Now I'm reading The Long Goodbye.

[mikelz777]

Stephen King - Under The Dome

[jazzbo]

On a Raymond Chandler kick. Recently finished The Big Sleep, Lady in the Lake, and The Little Sister. Now I'm reading The Long Goodbye.

Went halfway through the Chandler works this summer. Need to get to the other half. One of my alltime favorite things is to be in the middle of one of his novels.

[Brad]

Just started Nik Cohn's Awopbopaloobop Alopbamboom: The Golden Age of Rock, kind of like a stream of consciousness history.

[sjarrell]

And David Hadju's The Ten Cent Plague is sweet too, in a funnybooks + social history kind of way. Also if you're so inclined

Then you should check out the DVD of Ron Mann's film "Comic Book Confidential".

You know, I think I own one of those. I should watch it

[A Lark Ascending]

Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid's Tale

Re-reading this fine novel!

It is indeed.

Have you read Kazuo Ishiguro's 'Never Let Me Go'? Works in a similar sort of distorted near future. The title comes from the tune much beloved of jazzers.

[BillF]

Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid's Tale

Re-reading this fine novel!

It is indeed.

Have you read Kazuo Ishiguro's 'Never Let Me Go'? Works in a similar sort of distorted near future. The title comes from the tune much beloved of jazzers.

Indeed I have read it and liked it very much. I think Ishiguro must be into our sort of music. His recent story collection Nocturnes is based on the experiences of musicians, most of whom are in Great American Songbook mode, rather than classical or pop.

[Harold_Z]

Adolfo Bioy Casares: SELECTED STORIES

Casares is terrific. I'm looking for all the translations I can find but I've got an eye on some of the the Spanish editions. I need to learn more Spanish and Casares or Borges are the guys to keep me drawn in.

[carnivore]

'Against the Day' Thomas Pynchon. I've so far read about 100 pages, which is about a tenth of it and am totally enthralled. I just wish I could hold the damn thing for longer periods! It must weigh about 5 lbs.

The pastiche of various genres is spot on and his genius for devising 'lists' is extraordinary. I don't recall seeing any reviews.

[A Lark Ascending]

Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid's Tale

Re-reading this fine novel!

It is indeed.

Have you read Kazuo Ishiguro's 'Never Let Me Go'? Works in a similar sort of distorted near future. The title comes from the tune much beloved of jazzers.

Indeed I have read it and liked it very much. I think Ishiguro must be into our sort of music. His recent story collection Nocturnes is based on the experiences of musicians, most of whom are in Great American Songbook mode, rather than classical or pop.

He wrote the lyrics to some of the songs on the last Stacey Kent album.

[BillF]

Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid's Tale

Re-reading this fine novel!

It is indeed.

Have you read Kazuo Ishiguro's 'Never Let Me Go'? Works in a similar sort of distorted near future. The title comes from the tune much beloved of jazzers.

Indeed I have read it and liked it very much. I think Ishiguro must be into our sort of music. His recent story collection Nocturnes is based on the experiences of musicians, most of whom are in Great American Songbook mode, rather than classical or pop.

He wrote the lyrics to some of the songs on the last Stacey Kent album.

Good on yer, Kazuo!

[A Lark Ascending]

Second of Downing's 'station' books I've read. This one is set in Berlin (and various points beyond) in early 1939 from New Year to the invasion of Czechoslovakia. A good thriller by someone who has clearly studied the gazeteers of European cities in the 1930s. Would appeal to anyone who likes the writing of Phillip Kerr or Alan Furst.

[Jazzmoose]

During the time my computer was down this time around, I discovered that I read just as much as I ever did...when the computer is off. A disturbing discovery...

Anyway, I finally revisited the Zelazny Amber series. Nothing great, but fun stuff.

[Matthew]

The Glory of Their Times: The Story of the Early Days of Baseball Told by the Men Who Played It by Lawrence Ritter. A book of interviews of players who were in the Major Leagues in the early 1900s. I first read this book when I was eleven, and it was like reading a science fiction book, because it described a world that was so different and strange. Really? teams went to games in horse drawn carriages? No cars? People were allowed to be strange and different? Who is the world is this Rube Waddell character? John McGraw was the greatest manager ever? The America I was reading about was a strange and wonderful place that was so different then to what I was living, I was enthralled and entranced reading this book. I've returned to it many times over the years, and when I get to the last page of the book, with the great picture of Honus Wagner and John McGraw talking (click on picture for larger view), with the caption underneath: It seems like it all happened yesterday, a wave of emotion always comes over me. Truly, an amazing book of an America and of a way of baseball long gone.

[BillF]

Isaac Asimov, The Caves of Steel

Classic science fiction!

[Jazzmoose]

Isaac Asimov, The Caves of Steel

Classic science fiction!

Cool stuff; I went on a Foundation/Robot series binge a few months ago.

[paul secor]

Penelope Lively's novel Family Album