Now reading...

[BillF]

Philip Roth's first novel - or should I say novella? Beautifully done.

 

[Leeway]

Very few can do the drunken crack-up like Fitzgerald can; after all, he was drawing from his own life experiences. 

[Big Beat Steve]

Did James Cagney pose for the cover artwork??

[BillF]

Returned to this little gem after just a year, plus relevant sections of the Fitzgerald biography.

[A Lark Ascending]

Finished:

Recommended if you've more than a passing interest in Le Carre. As with many biographies it's most interesting in the first half - childhood, his brief role in intelligence, his emergence as a writer and first successes. The later part is a bit formulaic - gestation of a new book, reception, onto the next, with the occasional intervention of a controversy like the spat with Rushdie. Seems to be a very private man - apart from one major affair and a period of wildness there's not much salacious gossip. 

Sisman does not analyse the books, merely quoting the reviews of the same. Reading those just reinforces my view that most professional criticism is more projection than revelation. The Liter-a-tuh Darlings really are appalling. He's very good at pointing out where Le Carre has contradicted himself in interviews or probably fallen victim to what he calls a false memory. 

Interesting to see a contradiction within Le Carre that is worthy of his characters. Although from a modest background his rogue of a father constantly lived above his means so Le Carre seems to take the world of private schools, fine wine, posh hotels and international jet setting as the norm (the world his characters, especially in the later stories, are drawn from); yet his later novels are heavily critical of the establishment and he seems to regard himself as left-wing. 

Has the good sense to live in west Cornwall.

Just started:

Only previously read 'The Quiet American' which I loved. This has me hooked already. 

Edited August 18, 2016 by A Lark Ascending

[BillF]

Other favourites are Stamboul Train, A Gun for Sale, The Confidential Agent, The Ministry of Fear, The Heart of the Matter and The End of the Affair.

[A Lark Ascending]

Thanks. I will follow through on those. One of the nice things about Greene is his books are relatively short. You don't feel you have to commit yourself for a great length of time (a problem if you're not wildly enjoying the book). 

Edited August 18, 2016 by A Lark Ascending

[ejp626]

I particularly like a couple of the more offbeat Greene novels: Travels with My Aunt and Monsignor Quixote.  I recently picked up an enhanced version of The Quiet American, with some critical essays and such, but I don't know where I put it...

 

Anyway, I just read Quarrington's Whale Music, which is ostensibly about an early rock 'n' roll group, The Howl Brothers, but is really about Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys.  It didn't quite live up to its opening chapter but it had its moments.

I'm about to launch into Lawrence Hill's The Book of Negroes.

[fasstrack]

http://www.americanradiohistory.com/Archive-Bookshelf/Playing%20in%20the%20FM%20Band.pdf

Playing in the FM Band,  Steve Post. A 1974 memoir about the author's life in free-form radio.

The link is to a PDF file of the entire book...

[fasstrack]

9 hours ago, fasstrack said:

http://www.americanradiohistory.com/Archive-Bookshelf/Playing%20in%20the%20FM%20Band.pdf

Playing in the FM Band,  Steve Post. A 1974 memoir about the author's life in free-form radio.

The link is to a PDF file of the entire book...

I just finished this, in a mere few hours, and recommend it. Post tells the tale of his days at WBAI (also C.W. Post radio) with humor and in straightforward prose. Although former Organissimo member Chris Albertson called it a 'book of fiction'(and Post a 'slimebag') and I was not there, it seems a useful historical document of the early days of free-form radio and the wild-and-wooly environment of WBAI...

Edited August 20, 2016 by fasstrack

[rdavenport]

On 8/18/2016 at 8:29 AM, A Lark Ascending said:

Thanks. I will follow through on those. One of the nice things about Greene is his books are relatively short. You don't feel you have to commit yourself for a great length of time (a problem if you're not wildly enjoying the book). 

Good point, and at least part of the reason I never finished, among other fat books, Bleak House, The Brothers Karamazov and Atlas Shrugged. My copy of the latter went everywhere with me for about six months, until I could take no more and abandoned it in a hotel room in York.

To paraphrase the cricket commentator David Lloyd, "Start the car...short book's a good book"

[jlhoots]

Yaa Gyasi: Homegoing 

[A Lark Ascending]

7 hours ago, rdavenport said:

Good point, and at least part of the reason I never finished, among other fat books, Bleak House, The Brothers Karamazov and Atlas Shrugged. My copy of the latter went everywhere with me for about six months, until I could take no more and abandoned it in a hotel room in York.

To paraphrase the cricket commentator David Lloyd, "Start the car...short book's a good book"

I had my second attempt at Moby Dick a few months and had to give up after 300 pages or so. Still not found the bloody whale. 

As it happens, after my initial enthusiasm for 'Our Man in Havana' I'm now finding it very tiresome. The 'comedy' is lost on me and much of the dialogue seems quite wooden - I had a similar reaction to Waugh's 'Decline and Fall' when I read it a while back. Probably hilarious in their time or if you are able to re-enter that particular past universe. Determined to finish it as it's short but I'm only managing a chapter each day - 70 pages to go!

This, on the other hand, is fascinating:

 

Explains in a straightforward way what lies behind some of the major international issues of the day in geopolitical terms. Particularly interesting on Putin's reasons for his actions in the Ukraine and China's naval expansion; also does a very good job summarising that complexities of the various rivalries withing the Middle East.  

[Leeway]

interesting to see how far Fitzgerald traveled from "The Beautiful and Damned" (1922). A beautifully wrought taIe of decline. 

[BillF]

Continuing my return to Fitzgerald. A little masterpiece IMHO.

[Leeway]

Continuing my survey of F. Scott Fitzgerald novels, this is my 3rd or 4th time around with Gatsby, and I still find it a rewarding read. 

[ghost of miles]

[ejp626]

I finished Eileen Chang's Love in a Fallen City (NYRB).  The title story/novella was ok and I really liked the short story "Sealed Off."  The remaining novellas were fairly forgettable.

I'm midway through Taiye Selasi's Ghana Must Go.  It was certainly blown up in certain quarters, but in my opinion, it doesn't live up to the hype.  I'll probably finish it, though a bit grudgingly.

 

Edited August 28, 2016 by ejp626

[ejp626]

19 hours ago, ejp626 said:

I'm midway through Taiye Selasi's Ghana Must Go.  It was certainly blown up in certain quarters, but in my opinion, it doesn't live up to the hype.  I'll probably finish it, though a bit grudgingly.

 

I changed my mind.  It is just one damn thing after another.  Trouble follows this family from Africa to America and back to Africa.  Just too damn much for this reader to take.  Life really is too short to spent it reading books that you don't enjoy at least a little.

I should say that while there were certainly plenty of feel-bad events in Lawrence Hill's A Book of Negroes, it was better written and more compelling.

 

[Leeway]

One senses much posturing, or at least performing, in this work, but what a performance it is! The ending is eerie in that it presages the author's own end. It's been interesting to revisit these Lost Generation classics. 

[BillF]

2 hours ago, Leeway said:

One senses much posturing, or at least performing, in this work, but what a performance it is! The ending is eerie in that it presages the author's own end. It's been interesting to revisit these Lost Generation classics. 

Might return to that sometime, not least because I've been learning Spanish for six months! 

[BillF]

Continuing my review of the best of Penelope Fitzgerald ...

[paul secor]

John Dufresne: Love Warps the Mind a Little

[A Lark Ascending]

Fascinating book. Most books based on specific years tend to be music based. Lots of music in this but roams widely over all manner of cultural areas from the Beeching cuts through T.S. Eliot to Bridget Riley, the Moors Murders, 'Blow Up' and Roy Jenkins' (and others) social reforms. Argues that '65 was the year modernism found its foot in English popular culture (as opposed to being something that only the elite dabbled in). Also argues the point I first came across in Ian MacDonald's book on the Beatles that the counter-culture and the later Thatcherites, rather than being on either side of the 'permissive' divide, were actually part of the same cultural trend - the abandonment of collectivism in favour of more ego driven individualism. 

Does, unfortunately, go on a rant against the introduction of comprehensive schools, spinning the old Tory myths about how grammar schools helped poor children get a foot into the upper echelons. There's acres of evidence suggesting the opposite but that doesn't seem to have killed the myth (as it looks like we're about to see with our current government). Hardly surprising in a year that has demonstrated more than ever the power of emotively expressed notions over cold evidence.   

Edited September 3, 2016 by A Lark Ascending

[rdavenport]

That looks quite interesting. I remember reading a newspaper article a few years ago, dating the beginning of the demise of British society not to 1979 / Margaret Thatcher, as is often promulgated, but the year 1966. I wish I could remember the source..

Edited September 3, 2016 by rdavenport