Now reading...

[Ken Dryden]

The American nephew of Reichs Marshal Herman Goering was a US B-17 pilot, who bombed his homeland. I've just got started reading it.

[ghost of miles]

Philip Roth’s The Ghost Writer sparked me to finally start reading this book, which I’m rather embarrassed to admit I’ve never read before... but I did pick up a copy a few years ago as part of my longstanding penchant for vintage Modern Library editions with the dustjackets still intact:

 

On 11/28/2020 at 7:56 PM, Larry Kart said:

Kipling's'"Puck of Pook's Hill"

George Ade's "Chicago Stories"

Just by chance, Kipling and Ade were contemporaneous, the former 1865-1936, the latter 1866-1944. Not that well known anymore, Ade is quite something.

Ade, believe it or not, is still celebrated here by Indiana history nerds for his Hoosier heritage. I haven’t ever gotten around to reading him, but I’ll add Chicago Stories to my list. Always happy to read anything well-written about Chicago.

Edited December 3, 2020 by ghost of miles

[Larry Kart]

1 hour ago, ghost of miles said:

Philip Roth’s The Ghost Writer sparked me to finally start reading this book, which I’m rather embarrassed to admit I’ve never read before... but I did pick up a copy a few years ago as part of my longstanding penchant for vintage Modern Library editions with the dustjackets still intact:

 

Ade, believe it or not, is still celebrated here by Indiana history nerds for his Hoosier heritage. I haven’t ever gotten around to reading him, but I’ll add Chicago Stories to my list. Always happy to read anything well-written about Chicago.

Something I sent the other day to a friend about Ade:

 Been reading “Chicago Stories” by George Ade (1866-1944). Written in the 1890s for a predecessor of the Chicago Daily News, they earned Ade quite a reputation as a humorist,  and I can see that; but these “pen portraits” ( to use an old term that fits) of the denizens and neighborhoods and manifold colorful and often eccentric details of Chicago’s then past (e.g. the remains of the canal system that once was vital to transportation of goods/material  to Chicago, since almost wholly superseded by the railroad, and all the now mostly tumbledown buildings (taverns, hotels, etc. that were associated with it), alongside the city’s turbulent then present (new construction rapidly afoot). Ade’s sense of observation is very acute, and his sense of affectionate empathy is broad, extending to every “disadvantaged”  group one might think of — including immigrant Jews and their junk shops, Italian street peddlers, and perhaps rather surprisingly, given that Ade was a native of southern Indiana, the city’s burgeoning black population. See, for one, the piece "A Plantation Dinner at Aunt Mary's," Aunt Mary being the city's finest purveyor of "chidlins."  Ade was a very supportive Purdue graduate, and the school's Ross-Ade Stadium is named in part for him.

 

 

 

[ejp626]

5 hours ago, ghost of miles said:

Ade, believe it or not, is still celebrated here by Indiana history nerds for his Hoosier heritage. I haven’t ever gotten around to reading him, but I’ll add Chicago Stories to my list. Always happy to read anything well-written about Chicago.

If you haven't read Stuart Dybek then you will want to take a look at his short story collections.  I personally prefer The Coast of Chicago but I Sailed with Magellan also has some strong stories.

[ghost of miles]

5 hours ago, Larry Kart said:

Something I sent the other day to a friend about Ade:

 Been reading “Chicago Stories” by George Ade (1866-1944). Written in the 1890s for a predecessor of the Chicago Daily News, they earned Ade quite a reputation as a humorist,  and I can see that; but these “pen portraits” ( to use an old term that fits) of the denizens and neighborhoods and manifold colorful and often eccentric details of Chicago’s then past (e.g. the remains of the canal system that once was vital to transportation of goods/material  to Chicago, since almost wholly superseded by the railroad, and all the now mostly tumbledown buildings (taverns, hotels, etc. that were associated with it), alongside the city’s turbulent then present (new construction rapidly afoot). Ade’s sense of observation is very acute, and his sense of affectionate empathy is broad, extending to every “disadvantaged”  group one might think of — including immigrant Jews and their junk shops, Italian street peddlers, and perhaps rather surprisingly, given that Ade was a native of southern Indiana, the city’s burgeoning black population. See, for one, the piece "A Plantation Dinner at Aunt Mary's," Aunt Mary being the city's finest purveyor of "chidlins."  Ade was a very supportive Purdue graduate, and the school's Ross-Ade Stadium is named in part for him.

 

 

 

In terms of subject matter, he sounds in some ways like a forerunner of Joseph Mitchell.

[Larry Kart]

3 hours ago, ghost of miles said:

In terms of subject matter, he sounds in some ways like a forerunner of Joseph Mitchell.

Kind of but less dark (Mitchell could get pretty grim and haunted at times), more folksy humorous, not unlike a more genial Ring Lardner. Mencken, a great admirer of Ade,  said of him: "Here are brilliant flashlight pictures of the American people, and American ways of thinking, and the whole American Kultur.... Ade himself is as absolutely American as any of his prairie-town traders and pushers, Shylocks and Dogberries, beaux and bellles."
  

 

[jlhoots]

Michael McGarrity: Head Wounds

[ghost of miles]

Great read, highly recommended (so to speak ) for anybody with a love of this movie:

[Matthew]

Collected Poems of W. H. Auden. Very good, a first time reading of Auden for me. Auden has been referenced in so many articles I've read recently that I had to see what the fuss was about.

[Dave James]

Larson is a terrific writer.  He has a real talent for personalizing history.  His latest book is no exception.

 

[Joe]

Gilbert Sorrentino, Lunar Follies. 

[jazzbo]

Lost power a few days and read two books in two days. First

Then

 

And now

[Matthew]

An interesting article on the "hot" investment app Robinhood

[jlhoots]

Phil Klay: Missionaries

[Matthew]

Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh. Third time for me to read this book, and I'm enjoying much more than the other two time. I think I got caught up in looking for the "Catholic Symbolism" that is supposed to be running wild throughout the novel. Eh, I've never noticed all that much in my previous readings, so I'm just enjoying the luxurious writing of a great story.

[ghost of miles]

Just finished Leonard Gardner’s Fat City, a beautifully-written novel set in the Steinbeck-meets-Bukowski milieu of 1950s/60s skid-row Stockton, California. Highly recommended. Gardner adapted it for the 1972 John Huston film (available for free if you have Amazon Prime), which I intend to watch at some point. 
 

[ghost of miles]

Another one from NYRB Classics (can't praise that series enough)--have read only the title story so far, which vividly evokes the vibe of mid/late 1940s Brooklyn for culturally-aspiring twentysomethings.  Looking forward to the rest:

[BillF]

14 hours ago, ghost of miles said:

Another one from NYRB Classics (can't praise that series enough)--have read only the title story so far, which vividly evokes the vibe of mid/late 1940s Brooklyn for culturally-aspiring twentysomethings.  Looking forward to the rest:

Cover illustration looks like a still from John Cassavetes' great movie Shadows with music by Charles Mingus!!! 

[soulpope]

[ghost of miles]

18 hours ago, BillF said:

Cover illustration looks like a still from John Cassavetes' great movie Shadows with music by Charles Mingus!!! 

I didn’t realize this, but you nailed it, Bill! I just glanced at the back cover for attribution, and that’s exactly what it is.

[medjuck]

On 12/7/2020 at 7:44 AM, jazzbo said:

Lost power a few days and read two books in two days. First

Then

 

And now

Is that Richard Stark as in Donald Westlake? I only know about the Parker novels. 

[jazzbo]

7 hours ago, medjuck said:

Is that Richard Stark as in Donald Westlake? I only know about the Parker novels. 

Yes, it's Westlake. There are four novels featuring Grofield, who is a supporting character in five or six of the Parkers, an actor who moonlights as a criminial and is part of the crew pulling off a caper. The Grofield novels have more humor than the Parker series does.

[medjuck]

3 hours ago, jazzbo said:

Yes, it's Westlake. There are four novels featuring Grofield, who is a supporting character in five or six of the Parkers, an actor who moonlights as a criminial and is part of the crew pulling off a caper. The Grofield novels have more humor than the Parker series does.

Thanks. Didn't know that.  There's a great introduction to one edition of The Hunter where Westlake explains  why he created Stark and Parker. I once worked on a magazine where we ran an interview with Westlake that was done via mail because the interviewer was in prison. (He'd been on the FBI's 10 most wanted list. )

 

[jazzbo]

Westlake was a prolific and multi-faceted writer who was almost always entertaining. I think you will enjoy the Grofield novels, the first three are pretty witty and the fourth is the grittiest being a revenge-driven spree.

[Larry Kart]

On 12/20/2020 at 10:15 AM, soulpope said:

The  Mick Herron Slough House series of which "Dead Lions" is a part is top notch. In the later novels of the series there is a nefarious character who seems to be based on Boris Johnson. I eagerly await the next Slough House book. The fiendishly scheming head of MI5 Diana Taverner (known as Lady Di, but don't say it to her face) is a great character, as is her frequent antagonist and head of Slough House Jackson Lamb.