Matthew Posted October 18, 2015 Report Posted October 18, 2015 Patti Smith: M TrainHow do you like it? I've heard very good things about the book, and I'm being very tempted... Quote
jlhoots Posted October 18, 2015 Report Posted October 18, 2015 Patti Smith: M TrainHow do you like it? I've heard very good things about the book, and I'm being very tempted...I like it a lot. Just Kids is good too. Quote
mjazzg Posted October 18, 2015 Report Posted October 18, 2015 Deborah Solomon - Utopia Parkway, The Life & Work Of Joseph Cornell Quote
Dave Garrett Posted October 18, 2015 Report Posted October 18, 2015 Patti Smith: M TrainA great story about an event that transpired at a reading in Illinois earlier this week:http://dangerousminds.net/comments/a_beautiful_story_about_patti_smith Quote
paul secor Posted October 19, 2015 Report Posted October 19, 2015 Patti Smith: M TrainA great story about an event that transpired at a reading in Illinois earlier this week:http://dangerousminds.net/comments/a_beautiful_story_about_patti_smithI'm not a Patti Smith fan, but that's a wonderful story. Quote
paul secor Posted October 19, 2015 Report Posted October 19, 2015 Robertson Davies: The Cunning Man Quote
Larry Kart Posted October 19, 2015 Report Posted October 19, 2015 Anecdote from Robert Craft's "Stravinsky: Discoveries and Memories": During a Stravinsky visit to London, Isaiah Berlin wangled seats for Stravinsky and crew to a new production of “Figaro,” orchestra seats that would enable Stravinsky to leave after the first act and rush to the Albert Hall for Monteux’s 50th anniversary performance of “Le Sacre.” "But when the second act of ‘Figaro’ followed the first without intermission, Isaiah had to extricate the Stravinskys from a fully occupied front row and hustle them off…. The departing composer apologized to his neighbors in a stage whisper: ‘Excuse us but we all have diarrhoea.’” Quote
jlhoots Posted October 19, 2015 Report Posted October 19, 2015 Timothy Hallinan: The Hot Countries Quote
Matthew Posted October 20, 2015 Report Posted October 20, 2015 (edited) robert laxpoems(1962-1997). This is a great volume from the very underrated poet Robert Lax. It's forcing me to re-examine how I read poetry. Edited October 20, 2015 by Matthew Quote
BillF Posted October 21, 2015 Report Posted October 21, 2015 (edited) The third Trevor novel I've read recently, this one echoing Felicia's Journey with its gothic content and Love and Summer with its small community setting. Edited October 21, 2015 by BillF Quote
ejp626 Posted October 21, 2015 Report Posted October 21, 2015 (edited) I'm just starting Alice Munro's Who Do You Think You Are?Her first two collections have a complicated, but largely positive view of growing up in rural Ontario. That's oversimplifying, but I was shocked when I came to "Privilege" where she is describing the situation in the rural school Rose attends. Munro makes this sound like some Hobbesian nightmare where the teacher turns a blind eye to all the terrors that the older kids inflict on the younger kids - and the younger kids inflict on each other. It's practically Lord of the Flies set in Hanratty, Ontario (she was actually writing about Wingham, Ont.). The relationship between Rose and her step-mother Flo isn't much better. It looks like the whole collection will be pretty dark. Edited October 21, 2015 by ejp626 Quote
BillF Posted October 21, 2015 Report Posted October 21, 2015 (edited) I'm just starting Alice Munro's Who Do You Think You Are?Her first two collections have a complicated, but largely positive view of growing up in rural Ontario. That's oversimplifying, but I was shocked when I came to "Privilege" where she is describing the situation in the rural school Rose attends. Munro makes this sound like some Hobbesian nightmare where the teacher turns a blind eye to all the terrors that the older kids inflict on the younger kids - and the younger kids inflict on each other. It's practically Lord of the Flies set in Hanratty, Ontario (she was actually writing about Wingham, Ont.). The relationship between Rose and her step-mother Flo isn't much better. It looks like the whole collection will be pretty dark.Was introduced to Munro's work on a short course on Canadian and Australian fiction which I took a dozen years ago. She impressed me more than any other writer on the reading list. Recall really liking her Progress of Love and Love of a Good Woman. Edited October 21, 2015 by BillF Quote
paul secor Posted October 21, 2015 Report Posted October 21, 2015 Simenon: The Dancer at the Gai-MoulinOne of the least satisfying Maigrets that I've read. More of a procedural which lacks the psychological aspects of other novels in the series. Quote
Brad Posted October 21, 2015 Report Posted October 21, 2015 (edited) Reading David Halberstam's Teammates about four players on the Red Sox (Ted Williams, Dom DiMaggio, Johnny Pesky and Bobby Doerr). Nice baseball book but more a book about four men. Edited October 21, 2015 by Brad Quote
paul secor Posted October 22, 2015 Report Posted October 22, 2015 Reading David Halberstam's Teammates about four players on the Red Sox (Ted Williams, Dom DiMaggio, Johnny Pesky and Bobby Doerr). Nice baseball book but more a book about four men.Read the book years ago. You nailed it with your comment: Nice baseball book but more a book about four men. Quote
king ubu Posted October 24, 2015 Report Posted October 24, 2015 Still not through with unum cypher's great book, but some things need to be tended to, so this one comes in between ... it's much less closely focussed on the actual music than Gioia, goes in bigger swipes, giving the "big picture" in a sense (also sometimes in a way that I think is not really accurate, but no biggies so far) ... anyway, if I had read this when growing up (and into jazz music at the same time), I'm sure it would have been about as helpful as Berendt's "Jazz Book" proved to be (and in some cases as mis-leading, since it's sometimes difficult to challenge views one has settled on in youth ... or rather, it's difficult to realise which parts of these views should be challenged in the first place). So this is not a full endorsement, but I'm not saying one shouldn't read this either ... Quote
Leeway Posted October 24, 2015 Report Posted October 24, 2015 Charlotte's book is far more accomplished that sister Emily's "Wuthering Heights," although I miss the sort of cracked intensity that WH exhibits. There are plenty of social, psychological, religious, and sexual ore to be mined here. One of the great lines: "Reader, I married him." Quote
paul secor Posted October 29, 2015 Report Posted October 29, 2015 Robertson Davies: The Rebel Angels Quote
ejp626 Posted October 29, 2015 Report Posted October 29, 2015 Robertson Davies: The Rebel AngelsDefinitely a great trilogy. I don't know when I'll have time to reread them, but I will try some day. I actually saw Robertson Davies on a reading tour at the 92nd Y in New York City. I'm pretty sure he was reading from The Cunning Man.Currently reading the sequel to Three Men in a Boat, Three Men on the Bummel, which is quite good. A few of the jokes are even better than the ones in the original, and I swear the Monty Python folks nicked one of the gags. On deck after this is Michael Ondaatje's The Cat's Table. Quote
BillF Posted October 30, 2015 Report Posted October 30, 2015 Love Highsmith. Read all the Ripleys, so now on to this - and very good, too! Quote
Matthew Posted October 30, 2015 Report Posted October 30, 2015 Concerning The Spiritual In Art by Wassily Kandinsky. Quote
A Lark Ascending Posted October 31, 2015 Report Posted October 31, 2015 Robertson Davies: The Rebel AngelsDefinitely a great trilogy. I don't know when I'll have time to reread them, but I will try some day. I actually saw Robertson Davies on a reading tour at the 92nd Y in New York City. I'm pretty sure he was reading from The Cunning Man.Loved those books when I read them back in the 80s.Hate to think how many books I've read on The Great War but this is as good as any. Covers the entire conflict but instead of writing a normal narrative or analytical history, David takes 100 key days (some obvious like July 1st, 1916, other in places more obscure like Mesopotamia or on the Home Front), contextualises them and uses them to give a sense of the overall conflict. Also weaves in some intriguing family history of his own. Highly recommended as a starter for anyone wanting an overview of WWI (or just as a good read for those familiar). I polished it off in 4 days. Read the Regeneration Trilogy back in the 80s which was grim but excellent. This is shaping up well, based around the Slade art school in 1914. I read Lyn Macdonald's superb oral history when I went on my first school visit to Ypres around 1981. Spending 5 days in the area without kids to look after finally gave me a real sense of the topography and where everything is sited so I've started this overview of 1917. Excellent so far - the Battle of Messines and the military preparations for Third Ypres itself clearly told with excellent first hand quotes. Quote
paul secor Posted October 31, 2015 Report Posted October 31, 2015 Robertson Davies: The Rebel AngelsDefinitely a great trilogy. I don't know when I'll have time to reread them, but I will try some day. I actually saw Robertson Davies on a reading tour at the 92nd Y in New York City. I'm pretty sure he was reading from The Cunning Man.Currently reading the sequel to Three Men in a Boat, Three Men on the Bummel, which is quite good. A few of the jokes are even better than the ones in the original, and I swear the Monty Python folks nicked one of the gags. On deck after this is Michael Ondaatje's The Cat's Table.For some reason I read What's Bred In the Bone and The Lyre of Orpheus some years ago and like both books, but not as much as some reviews would have led me to believe. (Actually, the reason why I read them first was that the local library had copies of those two and not The Rebel Angels, and I just grabbed them to read out of curiosity.) I never read The Rebel Angels until now. I enjoyed it so much that I'm rereading the two following books in the trilogy. Already I'm beginning to find what I missed by not reading the books in the order in which they were intended to be read. Quote
_forumlogo.png.a607ef20a6e0c299ab2aa6443aa1f32e.png)
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.