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[sidewinder]

5 minutes ago, medjuck said:

Important book. (Even Miles cribbed from it.)  I wish someone would publish an update.  Scarecrow only let him add a chapter at the beginning. 

Remember buying both volumes in hardback on the spot when I saw them many years ago in Toronto. Other than Ian Carr's fine work, there wasn't much published about Miles up to that point. Devoured both volumes in a weekend !

[jazzbo]

Finally finished reading/studying "James the Brother of Jesus." Man what a book.

Back on Parker novels

[ejp626]

7 hours ago, Leeway said:

 

VANITY FAIR - Thackeray 

I put off reading this book for a long time, probably scared away by its bulk. Read it over the last week and found it to be the masterpiece it is reputed to be. Deft mixture of sentiment and satire,, and containing one of the great rascals of literature, Becky Sharp. 

Glad to hear you enjoyed it.  I have been meaning to read this for the longest time, but at my current pace, it will probably be late 2016.

This December I am going to tackle Middlemarch for the first time.

Before I get there, however, I need to get through Molly Keane's Time After Time (which I am enjoying so far) and Nabokov's The Gift.

[Brad]

Finished a couple of weeks ago Darcy O'Brien's A Way of Life Like No Other, a story of growing up in Hollywood with divorced parents who once were stars but are now on the down side.

I have almost finished with Georges Simenon's Act of Passion, my first foray into Simenon but definitely not the last.

[fasstrack]

My reserve order of James Kaplan's Sinatra: the Chairman just came in at the library.Can't wait to pile in.

[fasstrack]

3 hours ago, fasstrack said:

My reserve order of James Kaplan's Sinatra: the Chairman just came in at the library.Can't wait to pile in.

I did pile in, and don't like it much so far (P. 21). Reads like high-grade gossip. I'm at the library and might not even take it home...

[johnblitweiler]

In recent months reading had seemed more like a nervous habit than something very rewarding or memorable. Rereading "The Good Soldier" (for the 3rd or 4th time) was a necessary and great reminder of why literature exists at all, of why writing and books were invented. "It is queer the fantastic things that quite good people will do in order to keep up their appearance of calm poco-curantism....I think it would have been better in the eyes of God if they had all attempted to gouge out each other's eyes with carving knives. But they were 'good people.'" Ford's sentences, his structure, his characters, especially the ostensibly naive and innocent, but actually agonizingly observant narrator - it's all a wonder. And lately I learned that some Tory friends have been living a similar story (I mean the 2015 U.S. equivalent of actual Edwardian Tories).

[fasstrack]

Re: Kaplan's Sinatra tome, I put it back on the shelf. I was hoping for Kaplan to offer some insight into Sinatra's art. Instead, I got a lot of show biz name dropping about who was shtupping who in 1954. Who cares?

Back to Jack Chambers and Miles.....

[Joe]

Familair with much of this history, but still nice to read interviews with Subotnick, Oliveros, Buchla et al. I have learned one bit of trivia from this book, though. Tony Martin, the artist who basically invented the whole idea of a "psychedelic light show"... the son of David Stone Martin.

 

 

 

[crisp]

19 hours ago, fasstrack said:

Re: Kaplan's Sinatra tome, I put it back on the shelf. I was hoping for Kaplan to offer some insight into Sinatra's art. Instead, I got a lot of show biz name dropping about who was shtupping who in 1954. Who cares?

Back to Jack Chambers and Miles.....

 

I remember enjoying Will Friedwald's book on Sinatra from a musical perspective, although I expect you've read that one.

[fasstrack]

2 hours ago, crisp said:

 

I remember enjoying Will Friedwald's book on Sinatra from a musical perspective, although I expect you've read that one.

I haven't, but thought of it after shelving this one. Thanks for the reminder.

[sonnyhill]

I am looking to read a high quality mystery novel.  I am not interested in series or genre fiction -- any recommendations?  The last book I finished was Pamuk's My Name is Red. 

[niels]

2 hours ago, sonnyhill said:

I am looking to read a high quality mystery novel.  I am not interested in series or genre fiction -- any recommendations?  The last book I finished was Pamuk's My Name is Red. 

If you liked My Name is Red, I can also recommend The Black Book by him. Otherwise maybe some Haruki Murakami or Paul Auster?

[crisp]

FWIW I had a flip through my copy of the Kaplan Sinatra book today and it seemed pretty good. A little journalistic but enough balance between the private life and the work to build a portrait of the human being he was.

I'm reading two non-fiction books at the moment, both of which I'm enjoying:

 

[A Lark Ascending]

The grimmest thing I've read in a while. 

Dysfunctional, large Dublin family dealing with the suicide of a member. Told through the eyes of a sister whose life was seriously unhinged by half-remembered horrors in her childhood. Pretty brutal about the way families relate.

I nearly gave up after 30 pages but am glad I persevered. 

[Jazzmoose]

On 12/5/2015, 1:03:29, crisp said:

 

 

On 12/5/2015, 1:03:29, crisp said:

 

 

 

Gotta have it!

[Matthew]

Lost Horizon by James Hilton

[Matthew]

On December 5, 2015 at 10:44:08 AM, sonnyhill said:

I am looking to read a high quality mystery novel.  I am not interested in series or genre fiction -- any recommendations?  The last book I finished was Pamuk's My Name is Red. 

 

Kind of a different mystery is involved "who sold a person out", but I'd recommend The Untouchable by John Banville.  I think it's a great novel.

[jlhoots]

Lynn Cline: The Maverick Cookbook

[BillF]

A very good Highsmith, set in Tunisia. Not her usual crime novel, more a study of the effect of change of environment on a Westerner.

[Leeway]

Fine, but not quite as fine as Pride and Prejudice.

[ejp626]

Working my way through Nabokov's The Gift.  It seems a bit uncharacteristic of most of his novels, but that's a positive for me, as I generally don't care for them.  But I am enjoying The Gift so far.

[johnblitweiler]

On 12/5/2015, 12:44:08, sonnyhill said:

I am looking to read a high quality mystery novel.  I am not interested in series or genre fiction -- any recommendations?  The last book I finished was Pamuk's My Name is Red. 

Motherless Brooklyn by Jonathan Lethem

[ejp626]

I enjoyed Michael Chabon's The Yiddish Policemen's Union, which is sort of a mystery novel and also a bit of alternative history fiction (along the same lines as PKD's The Man in the High Castle).

[medjuck]

I loved this book despite the silly subtitle  and that it's more than I really wanted to know about Sam Phillips.  Amongst other things I learned:  Sam used Phineas Newborn on at least one of his early recordings.