Now reading...

[BillF]

[ejp626]

  On 4/23/2017 at 2:28 AM, ejp626 said:

Murakami's 1Q84

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I thought it was pretty interesting but at 1/3rd in, it switches from having elements of magic realism and the uncanny to a full-on fantasy novel with supernatural beings involved.  At this point, I'll finish it, but I think it was a wrong turning point.  (Also, how many times does he need to reference Orwell's 1984? -- it comes up over and over and over.)

I just stumbled across Murakami's story "Town of Cats" in The New Yorker, which cleverly edits together some of the key events from 1Q84 and boils down 450 pages into 5 or 6!  Now if he had just done that for the second half of the novel!

After this, two Canadian novels: Callaghan's The Many Colored Coat and MacLennan's The Watch That Ends the Night.

Edited May 13, 2017 by ejp626

[Bluesnik]

Kim Gordon's autobiography. An interesting honest and bittersweet memoir recalling sixties California when she was growing up and her time with Sonic Youth.

Edited May 17, 2017 by Bluesnik
typos

[johnblitweiler]

  On 5/9/2017 at 7:26 PM, rostasi said:

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This was Art Lange's excellent litmag of the 1970s. Valuable poetry and jazz-musician interviews there, and of course scarce as hen's teeth by now. Two years ago in NYC I saw an issue on sale for $25. 

[rostasi]

Someone asked me for a John Cage interview that Art did
and so I pulled a few of these issues out and i'm enjoying
them again. One of them even has a handwritten letter that
Art was going to send to an "Andrei", but I guess never did.

Edited May 18, 2017 by rostasi

[ejp626]

I finished 1Q84.  It had a few interesting moments, but certainly nothing that justified its length.  In many ways, I consider the ending a cop-out.

I am almost done with MacLennan's The Watch That Ends the Night.  It's quite good.  I personally like it far more than his Two Solitudes or Barometer Rising.  It's mostly a love triangle with political overtones (one of the parties involved goes off to fight on the Republican side in the Spanish Civil War).  While it is a very different (and perhaps wiser or more forgiving) book, there are a few interesting parallels to Ford Maddox Ford's The Good Soldier (which I hope to reread this fall).

[erwbol]

  On 5/26/2017 at 2:18 AM, ejp626 said:

I finished 1Q84.  It had a few interesting moments, but certainly nothing that justified its length.  In many ways, I consider the ending a cop-out.

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If you read the English translation it was substantially abridged! Not that you were missing out on much of value imo.

[ejp626]

  On 5/26/2017 at 5:37 AM, erwbol said:

If you read the English translation it was substantially abridged! Not that you were missing out on much of value imo.

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It was already too long, so I don't feel cheated...

[paul secor]

Willa Cather: Youth and the Bright Medusa

[BillF]

  On 4/23/2017 at 7:06 AM, BillF said:

 

A best seller of considerable literary merit.

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... and another in the same genre:

[ElginThompson]

[rostasi]

[ejp626]

Qiu Miaojin Notes of a Crocodile (NYRB)  My impressions were very negative.  It was a boring, whiny tract, full of self-pity.  I really can't understand why this was a cult book, other than she wrote openly about homosexuality at a time her culture was not receptive.  And probably also because the author committed suicide, which always generates its own cult followers...  Anyway, I wouldn't recommend this at all.

I am now launching into Morley Callaghan's The Many Colored Coat.  I am cautiously optimistic.

 

[ghost of miles]

[BillF]

Fascinating! 

 

[jlhoots]

Reed Farrel Coleman: What You Break

Edited May 30, 2017 by jlhoots

[ghost of miles]

[jlhoots]

Jo Nesbo: The Thirst

[erwbol]

I'm about halfway through China Miéville's October: The Story of the Russian Revolution (Verso).

[paul secor]

Haruki Murakami: The Elephant Vanishes

[Brad]

  On 6/6/2017 at 3:18 PM, ghost of miles said:

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Great book, best of the trilogy. 

[BillF]

[ejp626]

A few books on the fantastical side.  I'm reading PKD's The Man in the High Castle.

Then Findley's Not Wanted on the Voyage.

[BillF]

  On 6/12/2017 at 9:35 PM, ejp626 said:

A few books on the fantastical side.  I'm reading PKD's The Man in the High Castle.

 

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For alternative history involving a Nazi WW2 victory, I can also recommend Robert Harris' Fatherland and Len Deighton's SS-GB. 

[EKE BBB]

Someone to Watch Over Me: The Life and Music of Ben Webster (Jazz Perspectives) by Frank Büchmann-Moller