Now reading...

[Brad]

11 hours ago, T.D. said:

Just finished this.

Did you ever read this?

Great little book. 

Edited July 3, 2020 by Brad

[jlhoots]

Sarah Broom: The Yellow House

[jazzbo]

Just started my Dad's latest book "Father Taylor: Boston's Sailor Preacher, as seen and heard by his Contemporaries." Fascinating book that my father worked on researching and compiling for years, and finally has printed via amazon publishing.

 

[ghost of miles]

Al Hibbler makes an appearance on pg 126!

[Brad]

An article by Joan Didion about Hemingway (from the New Yorker archives, October 26, 1998).

Last Words: Those Hemingway wrote, and those he didn’t.

[jlhoots]

On 6/23/2020 at 11:56 AM, ejp626 said:

In queue at the library.  Let us know what you think.  Thanks.

Finally buckling down and finishing Camus's The Plague.  Probably will wrap up tonight.

Finished A Burning. Excellent IMHO.

[ejp626]

2 hours ago, jlhoots said:

Finished A Burning. Excellent IMHO.

 

Good to know.  Should be able to borrow it soon.

Reading Kundera's Life is Elsewhere.  Also have an e-book version of Kevin Brockmeier's The Brief History of the Dead, which incidentally features a man-made virus that wipes out humanity.  Good times...

Not sure what will be after this.  Maybe Joyce Cary's first trilogy or Don Quixote.

[Brad]

1 hour ago, ejp626 said:

 

Good to know.  Should be able to borrow it soon.

Reading Kundera's Life is Elsewhere.  Also have an e-book version of Kevin Brockmeier's The Brief History of the Dead, which incidentally features a man-made virus that wipes out humanity.  Good times...

Not sure what will be after this.  Maybe Joyce Cary's first trilogy or Don Quixote.

I’m taking an open course on Don Quijote through Yale. I’m waiting for the other required books to be delivered. If you’re interested, here’s the link, https://oyc.yale.edu/spanish-and-portuguese

They have lots of other courses in a variety of disciplines. 

[ejp626]

6 minutes ago, Brad said:

I’m taking an open course on Don Quijote through Yale. I’m waiting for the other required books to be delivered. If you’re interested, here’s the link, https://oyc.yale.edu/spanish-and-portuguese

They have lots of other courses in a variety of disciplines. 

Thanks.  I'll check it out.  Way, way back when I took a course that centered on Rabelais and artists of his time.  That was neat, though I don't remember all that much from it.

[jlhoots]

Needed a police procedural so reading a Bosch book - The Last Coyote.

[Brad]

How a young Ernest Hemingway dealt with his first taste of fame

[ghost of miles]

Baldwin’s No Name In The Street from this collection:

And rereading this entry in the 33 1/3 series:

Edited July 25, 2020 by ghost of miles

[jlhoots]

Elizabeth Wetmore: Valentine

[Matthew]

Jayber Crow: A Novel. Starting on Wendell Berry's Port William novels.

[Brad]

On 7/25/2020 at 0:39 PM, ghost of miles said:

Baldwin’s No Name In The Street from this collection:

 

Eddie Glaude has a book out about Baldwin that may interest you. 

Edited July 26, 2020 by Brad

[mjazzg]

Mary Golia - Ornette Coleman, The Territory And The Adventure

[felser]

[ghost of miles]

3 hours ago, Brad said:

Eddie Glaude has a book out about Baldwin that may interest you. 

I actually ordered it last night! Darryl Pinckney had recommended it during the online talk he gave recently about No Name In The Street for the Library of America.

[jlhoots]

Brit Bennett: The Vanishing Half

 

[Brad]

Interesting article in the Washington Post: Readers have many opinions on how to cull your book collection — and also why you never should

[Brad]

Here’s the original article, which I should have posted first, In turbulent times, culling my book collection gave me the illusion of control. Then the dilemmas began multiplying

[Matthew]

10 minutes ago, Brad said:

Here’s the original article, which I should have posted first, In turbulent times, culling my book collection gave me the illusion of control. Then the dilemmas began multiplying

Culling books is important. I was asked recently to go through the books in a monastic library, and in a couple of days, over 3,000 useless books were gone (I found a good home for them, and not the dumpster!). No reason to keep something that's not going to be read.

[ejp626]

Apparently there is a high-profile anti-library op-ed piece in the Globe and Mail from a publisher (behind a paywall, so I won't link), and somewhat discouragingly, the Globe and Mail didn't let the Toronto Public Library respond.  Publisher's Weekly posted the response instead: https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/libraries/article/83996-canadian-libraries-respond-to-globe-and-mail-essay-attacking-public-libraries.html

To some extent, the publisher seems to be a bit of professional contrarian.  One of his pieces mentioned that crises are good for journalists and publishers alike (so I don't know why he is complaining about TPL at the moment): https://sutherlandhousebooks.com/new-gold-rush/

I think he's a bit of a knob, and I am certainly less likely to order any books from Sutherland House in the future, but hey, it's a free country and he can say what he likes...

I have several of Melville House's Art of the Novella coming in at the library, and I'm most interested in Pushkin's Tales of Belkin and Benoît Duteurtre's The Little Girl and the Cigarette.

I'm about halfway through Kundera's Life is Elsewhere (also a library loan...).  It has its moments where Kundera is parodying romantic poets, though it also drags in places.  I'm definitely not as entranced by this as the novel's ardent admirers, but I'll go ahead and finish it.

[Brad]

[danasgoodstuff]

On 8/3/2020 at 1:31 PM, ejp626 said:

Apparently there is a high-profile anti-library op-ed piece in the Globe and Mail from a publisher (behind a paywall, so I won't link), and somewhat discouragingly, the Globe and Mail didn't let the Toronto Public Library respond.  Publisher's Weekly posted the response instead: https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/libraries/article/83996-canadian-libraries-respond-to-globe-and-mail-essay-attacking-public-libraries.html

To some extent, the publisher seems to be a bit of professional contrarian.  One of his pieces mentioned that crises are good for journalists and publishers alike (so I don't know why he is complaining about TPL at the moment): https://sutherlandhousebooks.com/new-gold-rush/

I think he's a bit of a knob, and I am certainly less likely to order any books from Sutherland House in the future, but hey, it's a free country and he can say what he likes...

I have several of Melville House's Art of the Novella coming in at the library, and I'm most interested in Pushkin's Tales of Belkin and Benoît Duteurtre's The Little Girl and the Cigarette.

I'm about halfway through Kundera's Life is Elsewhere (also a library loan...).  It has its moments where Kundera is parodying romantic poets, though it also drags in places.  I'm definitely not as entranced by this as the novel's ardent admirers, but I'll go ahead and finish it.

I'm recently retired from library work and currently pissed at management at my former employer, But the writer of that G&M piece is more than a bit of a knob, he's a 'net loss' to literature and life.  The library response was more than reasonable.

Edited August 6, 2020 by danasgoodstuff