Now reading...

[paul secor]

4 hours ago, Joe said:

I think DEM might still be available via Coffee House... https://coffeehousepress.org/products/dem

Didn't know that. Thanks, Joe.

[HutchFan]

Finally got around to reading this. It's every bit as good as they say.

The best line in the book: "There is no trap so deadly as the trap that you set for yourself."

[ejp626]

I've moved things around a bit.  Still reading some of the stories in Tolstaya's White Walls but my main reading is Gaskell's Wives and Daughters.  It's essentially the story of how a middle aged doctor's second marriage impacts his daughter and step-daughter.  It's pretty slow, even for Victorian era fiction.  I like it better than Middlemarch, but that's not exactly a ringing endorsement.

After this Toews's A Complicated Kindness.

[HutchFan]

Richard Ford - Independence Day

[BillF]

2 hours ago, HutchFan said:

Richard Ford - Independence Day

[ejp626]

Wrapped up Wives and Daughters.  Did feel padded in many places.  Overall, I preferred North and South.

In the midst of Malamud's The Assistant.  Fairly depressing.  Will probably wrap up tonight or tomorrow.

Then onto Toews's A Complicated Kindness.

[jlhoots]

Chloe Benjamin: The Immortalists

[ejp626]

1 hour ago, jlhoots said:

Chloe Benjamin: The Immortalists

Let us know how it is.  I have it on request at the library, but probably won't get the book until the fall...

[jlhoots]

11 hours ago, ejp626 said:

Let us know how it is.  I have it on request at the library, but probably won't get the book until the fall...

I thought it was excellent.

[ejp626]

10 hours ago, jlhoots said:

I thought it was excellent.

Thanks.  Something to look forward to.

The Assistant was interesting, but it probably should have been called Crime and Suffering.  It's definitely a book with a bleak outlook on life.

[Brad]

I am almost halfway to reading 10 Russian novels to read before you die.  http://offtheshelf.com/2014/10/10-russian-novels-to-read-before-you-die/

[ghost of miles]

On 3/7/2018 at 2:11 PM, paul secor said:

William Melvin Kelley: A Different Drummer

That recent New Yorker article about Kelley was fascinating—I had never heard of him before.

[ghost of miles]

Also spending the afternoon perusing this beautifully-documented book, though it’s photographic in nature: 

[Brad]

13 minutes ago, ghost of miles said:

Also spending the afternoon perusing this beautifully-documented book, though it’s photographic in nature: 

[BillF]

6 hours ago, ghost of miles said:

 

"The White Negro" essay had quite an impact on us would-be hipsters of the era. 

[ghost of miles]

56 minutes ago, BillF said:

"The White Negro" essay had quite an impact on us would-be hipsters of the era. 

Yes!  My friend Phil Ford wrote about that essay at length in his book Dig.  I emailed Library of America to ask if a possible "prequel" was in the works (such as 1948-59, incorporating The Naked And The Dead, Barbary Shore, The Deer Park, and Advertisements For Myself) to the two-volume Mailer 1960s set they just published, but they replied that they can't get rights to any of his other books right now.  

[paul secor]

On ‎3‎/‎31‎/‎2018 at 10:35 AM, ghost of miles said:

 

That recent New Yorker article about Kelley was fascinating—I had never heard of him before.

Yes. the article was fascinating, and Kelley was a very fine writer - at least that's my take after reading his first book.

[ejp626]

More stories to go in White Walls by Tatyana Tolstaya.

Right now am focusing on shorter works.  Just finished Ethel Wilson's first novel (or really novella): Hetty Dorval.

Then Lyudmila Ulitskaya's The Funeral Party (from Brad's list of 10 Russian novels, bringing me to 5/10).

Also DeLillo's The Body Artist.

Then Pablo Vierci's The Imposters.

[jlhoots]

Mary Morris: The Jazz Palace

[ghost of miles]

[jlhoots]

Colson Whitehead: Underground Railroad

 

[Brad]

41 minutes ago, jlhoots said:

Colson Whitehead: Underground Railroad

 

I haven't gotten around to this one yet.  Have you read Lincoln in the Bardo? An unusual book but one I like a lot. 

[Kevin Bresnahan]

Horace Silver's autobiography, "Let's Get To The Nitty Gritty".

[BillF]

1 hour ago, Kevin Bresnahan said:

Horace Silver's autobiography, "Let's Get To The Nitty Gritty".

[jlhoots]

3 hours ago, Brad said:

I haven't gotten around to this one yet.  Have you read Lincoln in the Bardo? An unusual book but one I like a lot. 

Haven't read Lincoln In The Bardo. For some reason a few of the reviews scared me off. I'll reconsider.