Now reading...

[Shawn]

[Swinger]

Excellent book! Much better than its 3 movie versions.

[Matthew]

The Damnation of Theron Ware by Harold Frederic. A naive Methodist minister is led astray by "Free Thinking," German biblical criticism, a Catholic priest, and a woman, in the late 19th century. An interesting read, especially to see how Frederic presents so many different currents that were floating around the intellectual world at the time.

[paul secor]

Some light reading on a mini-vacation:

John Dunning: Booked To Die - one of books from the Cliff Janeway, cop turned rare book seller, series

[Van Basten II]

Read about 100 pages so far. Not sure if we are supposed to take the main character at face value but griping and fascinating story nonetheless.

[BillF]

[A Lark Ascending]

Read about 100 pages so far. Not sure if we are supposed to take the main character at face value but griping and fascinating story nonetheless.

I really enjoyed those when I read them 15 or so years back. I think there's been at least one more since. You might enjoy this small series by David Downing - http://www.oldstreetpublishing.co.uk/AUTHORPAGES/david_downing.htm . Very evocative of the pre-war and early war era in Germany.

****************

I've just started:

I grew up on RAF bases and the sight of a Spitfire can still make me well up. Read loads of heroic pilot accounts as a kid. It's the 70th Anniversary so there's lots appearing in the media at present.

I'm very impressed with this so far. Well written, engaging, seems very thoroughly researched. Very aware of how much of 1940 is shrouded in our national mythology, yet anxious not to embark on a debunking exercise (there have already been a few sour comments about some revisionist accounts).

[Matthew]

The Birth of Bebop: A Social and Musical History by Scott DeVeaux. Interesting read, even throws in some Marxist perspectives on the economics of the music business.

[carnivore]

Just finished this - Ian McEwan's latest - and it was pretty good. McEwan's novels can be pretty slight, sometimes offering not much more that a good short story (his last, On Chesil Beach, was like this), but this one is far more substantial. Despite my misgivings about McEwan, I always find him readable and never miss one, so that this is the 13th I've read!

I enjoyed this tremendously....the first time, I think, that McEwan has written (intentionally) a genuinely funny novel. Some of the set pieces (the frozen 'object') - the packet of crisps incident - are as funny as anything in Kingsley Amis - and I mean that as a compliment. McEwan actually seems to be channeling a latterday Amis père in this book in his central character's world view, however there is, I perceive a serious substance to the story too. The characters are all well drawn - the serially randy Beard is particularly well done.

McEwan's observance of the New Mexico scene - with which I am well acquainted is spot-on as is the portrait of contemporary London.

Curiously, two intelligent women that I know, hated the book - but as I heard this second-hand I wasn't able to find out the reasons. Must have been Beard's behaviour.....

[Shawn]

The Birth of Bebop: A Social and Musical History by Scott DeVeaux. Interesting read, even throws in some Marxist perspectives on the economics of the music business.

Interesting book, love all the information about Hawkins.

[jazzbo]

One of my very favorite jazz books.

Me, I'm reading

[paul secor]

Nick Hornby's novel, How To Be Good

[Michael Weiss]

Bud Powell and Art Tatum get honorable mention.

(Retitled "Shoot the Piano Player after Truffaut's movie based on it.)

[Nate Dorward]

Yes, that's a great book. I was surprised how closely the Truffaut film follows it actually, both in terms of plot & in terms of the mix of tones--I think the only thing that wasn't there was the famous gag about the gangster's mom keeling over.

Oh yeah: currently reading: Colette's The Captive and the remaining Sjowall/Wahloo novels I haven't read before.

[paul secor]

Percival Everett's story, "The Appropriation of Cultures"

Watched part of Henry Louis Gates' documentary Looking for Lincoln on PBS last night, including a segment that included a black family carrying confederate flags attending a confederate celebration. A family ancestor had twice saved his master, and when asked why they were carrying the flags and attending the celebration, the response was that this was their heritage. My first response was what kind of craziness is this? Then I had the sense that whether it was intended or not, what I was seeing was subversive in the best sense.

Then I thought about Percival Everett's story, which deals with the same subject, and realized that the story had in some way come to life. Felt the need to reread it today.

Percival Everett is one of America's finest writers, whether America realizes that or not.

[BillF]

Personally, I think Friday holds up better than most of his stuff. The juveniles are okay, though I doubt any kids would be interested today; it's just too dated, and too simplistic. Most of the later unifying works like Cat, Number of the Beast, etc. were pretty much garbage when they came out IMO, so there's really nothing to hold up. The middle stuff (Double Star, Moon is a Harsh Mistress, etc.) is probably the best, but even there, it's more of a nostalgia thing than any great quality. Heinlein was a great influence on the field, but...

Yeah, I really can't stomach late-period Heinlein at all. He really kind of went off the rails. I'd agree with your opinion that most of the later books were garbage when they came out. Even Moon Is A Harsh Mistress is half-and-half for me, as the story is interlarded with a lot of lecturing from the author, of the know-it-all, hectoring, obnoxious-libertarian-asshole mode already familiar from Starship Troopers. Still, I have a sentimental attachment to many of his juveniles, and even managed to get my older son into some of them.

Well, you got me interested and I'm finding it a good read:

[jlhoots]

Luis Alberto Urrea: Into The Beautiful North

[Matthew]

Waiting For The Sun: A Rock And Roll History Of Los Angeles by Barney Hoskyns. Spent a lot of time on planes this week, so I read this LA history. I found that this was not a very insightful book, and Hoskyns does not even understand the culture he is critiquing. A glaring example of this is his treatment of "Surf Music," which he cannot mention with adding adjectives like Aryan, Nazi, or racist. I have yet to read a good treatment of Los Angeles or the whole surf music phenomenon from someone who did not grow up in SoCal.

[Elissa]

Just polished off Colum McCann's Let the Great World Spin, which I loved. Thinking I'll tuck in to another Irish-American novel next: perhaps Tom Kelly's Sandhogs.

[paul secor]

Big Picture - Stories by Percival Everett

[kinuta]

Seems like a good time to reread this.

[ejp626]

Took longer than I wanted, but finished Bradbury's Rates of Exchange. The ending was class.

I was actually disappointed by the Milhauser book, Dangerous Laughter. It's hard to explain. He was clearly inspired by the fables of Borges and Calvino, but then he tried to ground them in material reality (putting his own twist on them). Well, these stories kind of grind to a halt and crash down when you think too hard about an infinite library or building a city for the dead or what have you. So for instance, Milhauser writes about building a tower that literally reaches into heaven, that is so tall that if a family starts climbing it, then only the youngest children will be alive to reach the top. But he pushes at it for so long (and so much about the technical details of the tower) that you start to think about could they have brought enough dirt up there to farm and how could they possibly have enough water. So not only does it spoil the effect, it kind of spoils the Calvino and Borges stories he is sort of following. Thanks for nothing, Steven.

I'm in the midst of a number of novels but am making pretty good progress in working through them. Mahfouz's Khan al-Khalili. It's better than The Mirage, but the main character, Ahmad, is still awfully passive and unpleasant. However, it hits harder than The Mirage, since I recognize in myself at least a few traits that he has given to Ahmad.

Dawn Powell's The Locusts Have no King (enjoyable so far)

Ian McDonald's Cyberabad Days (short stories set in his future India, the setting of River of Gods). As an aside, if you like SF, you ought to check out McDonald's Desolation Road, which has been reissued.

Paolo Bacigalupi's Pump Six and Other Stories (short stories by the author of The Wind-Up Girl)

I was glad to see that this is being reissued, as the hardcover went OOP and sells for crazy prices (I am just reading the library's copy). I really thought the world of The Wind-Up Girl was interesting (a future Thailand in a post-carbon world) and actually in the same league as McDonald in terms of future world building.

Valerie Martin's A Recent Martyr (my current gym book)

I actually have some travel planned, so I should be able to wrap these up by next week, then read Metropole and probably mostly non-fiction for a while after that.

Edited August 12, 2010 by ejp626

[mellowT]

Just started reading this (took 2 months to get from the library). My first thought after a few pages: who wastes Harvard money on a CSC degree? MIT is more prestigious and just down the road. Great read so far!

[jazzbo]

[jlhoots]

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