Now reading...

[The Red Menace]

Eric Hobsbawm -

The Age of Revolution - 1789 - 1848

The Age of Capital - 1848 - 1875

The Age of Empire - 18775 - 1914

The Age of Uncertainty: the history of the short 20th Century - 1914 - 1990

Haven't read these for about a decade.

MG

I knew you're a sleeping soviet agent in the forum.

I resemble that remark!!!

And now back to my mid-mid-morning nap.

[umum_cypher]

Andy Hamilton's biog/interview collection on Lee Konitz, out in April (for review in the Wire).

[porcy62]

Philip Roth's "Portnoy's Complaint". Absolutely Brilliant! One the funniest book, without being trivial, I read in the last years.

After this one I will head to the closest bookshop to buy some more of his works.

[jlhoots]

Philip Roth's "Portnoy's Complaint". Absolutely Brilliant! One the funniest book, without being trivial, I read in the last years.

After this one I will head to the closest bookshop to buy some more of his works.

Roth's body of work (IMHO) makes him a strong candidate for the Nobel in literature.

[porcy62]

Philip Roth's "Portnoy's Complaint". Absolutely Brilliant! One the funniest book, without being trivial, I read in the last years.

After this one I will head to the closest bookshop to buy some more of his works.

Roth's body of work (IMHO) makes him a strong candidate for the Nobel in literature.

The only other book of him I read is "The Plot Against America", good book, but I wasn't too much impressed by it.

"American Pastoral" will be next in my list.

As much I loved Henry Roth's "Call It Sleep" as much I couldn't end a book of Saul Bellow, and I tried, I really tried.

[ejp626]

Recently I read The Pickwick Papers for the second time. I don't know if it was because I read it over such a long period of time (several months) or I am just a different and slightly more sour person, but I didn't enjoy it as much the second time around. I found long stretches really boring. I did think it picked up a bit of steam in the last quarter, and that was enjoyable. It does seem true that you need to be in a different frame of mind to enjoy Victorian fiction (less pressed for time certainly). It took almost half the way through Trollope's first Palliser novel before I got into the rhythm. After that I enjoyed the series.

I am currently reading The Travels of Marco Polo, which I have never read before. Some parts are really interesting. A lot is fairly repetitive. I do find it amusing that Marco had quite an eye for the ladies.

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

I am currently reading The Travels of Marco Polo, which I have never read before. Some parts are really interesting. A lot is fairly repetitive. I do find it amusing that Marco had quite an eye for the ladies.

Afterwards, try Ibn Batuta; a Moroccan who travelled the world for about 30 years in the 14th C. He wound up with 4 wives (one a princess) all in different countries.

Actually, I think I could do with rereading that, now you've reminded me.

MG

[ejp626]

Afterwards, try Ibn Batuta; a Moroccan who travelled the world for about 30 years in the 14th C. He wound up with 4 wives (one a princess) all in different countries.

Actually, I think I could do with rereading that, now you've reminded me.

MG

I read that one a long time ago on the recommendation of a sociology professor. He was one of the earliest proponents of a cyclical view of history (rise and decline of kingdoms), writing centuries before Toynbee, Spengler or Gibbons.

I forgot the 4 wives part. Marco is a little coy about it, but I would infer from the detailed description of odd marriage customs in different parts of the world, that he didn't keep it in his pants until he got back to Italy and a good Catholic woman.

[BruceH]

More Than Night: Film Noir and Its Contexts, by James Naremore

So far I like it, but the photos in it are strange: many of them look second-hand, as if they were photographed from a video screen.

[ghost of miles]

The only other book of him I read is "The Plot Against America", good book, but I wasn't too much impressed by it.

I liked it a lot until the ending, which seemed to tip into the realm of the ridiculous. Either Roth should've gone with a different outcome, or invented something more logical to bring his plotline into sync with the eventual results of the war.

[ghost of miles]

More Than Night: Film Noir and Its Contexts, by James Naremore

Hey, that's the guy I interviewed for this show. He teaches here at IU; quite a jazz fan.

[Stefan Wood]

Salman Rushdie - Shalimar the Clown

[ejp626]

I guess this fits into the will be reading fairly soon category. Oprah has picked a very dark, dystopian novel for her book club. I think this will be one that a lot of people have trouble with. But it has been getting excellent reviews, and I am a lot more likely to pick it up now that it is being rushed into paperback.

There are many things that bug me about Oprah, but I think her book club is great. She has picked some amazing novels and brought them to a huge, huge audience. Here are just a few that caught my attention: A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry, One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez, The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner, Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison, The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver and Night by Elie Wiesel. Most of these are fairly well known (though I am sure Mistry benefitted from the additional exposure) but they are very challenging, and I think it is a good thing that her book club includes some true classics. The other thing is that she is truly passionate about these books that she has picked. You don't see that too much on tv at any rate. Too bad she never adopted a jazz musician or two.

I also think the books in the One Chicago, One Book program are generally pretty good. So maybe there's some hope that we don't all just shuffle off into a post-literate world dominated by iPods and Playstations.

Oprah Picks Cormac McCarthy's `The Road'

By MEGAN REICHGOTT

Associated Press Writer

Published March 28, 2007

CHICAGO -- Don't expect a lot of sunshine in Oprah Winfrey's latest book club pick. Publishing's leading hit-maker has chosen Cormac McCarthy's "The Road," a bleak, apocalyptic novel by an author who rarely talks to the media.

"It is so extraordinary," Winfrey said Wednesday. "I promise you, you'll be thinking about it long after you finish the final page."

McCarthy, 73, is known for novels such as "All the Pretty Horses" and "Blood Meridian," and has been widely cited as an heir to William Faulkner for his biblical prose and rural settings. Critic Harold Bloom, famous for his discerning taste, has called McCarthy one of the greatest living American writers, along with Don DeLillo, Philip Roth and Thomas Pynchon.

In coming weeks, the reclusive McCarthy, who did not appear on the show Wednesday and who lives in Santa Fe, N.M., will conduct his "first television interview ever," Winfrey said.

"Mr. McCarthy respects her work, admires what she has accomplished, has an awareness of her book club, and thought it would be interesting to participate in the conversation with Oprah," McCarthy's publicist Paul Bogaards of Alfred A. Knopf, told The Associated Press on Wednesday.

"He knew who she was when she called," Bogaards added.

"The Road," published last September by Knopf, is a sparely written story of a father and son trying to survive as they wander through a burned and bare landscape. It was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle prize and is considered a leading contender for the Pulitzer Prize.

"It's unlike anything I've ever chosen as a book club selection before because it's post-apocalyptic. (It is) very unusual for me to select this book, but it's fascinating," Winfrey said.

"The Road" is also one of McCarthy's most popular books, spending several weeks on numerous best-seller lists. According to Nielsen BookScan, which tracks about 70 percent of industry sales, it has sold 138,000 copies in hardcover. Thanks to Winfrey, that total should increase by hundreds of thousands. A paperback was not planned until September, but Vintage Books, understandably, is publishing one now, with a massive first printing of 950,000 copies.

Winfrey's previous choice was "The Measure of a Man," a "spiritual" memoir by one of her personal heroes, Academy Award-winning actor Sidney Poitier. But she has also taken on harsher stories, such as Elie Wiesel's Holocaust classic, "Night," and, notoriously, James Frey's "A Million Little Pieces," a memoir of addiction and recovery that turned out to be largely fabricated.

Edited March 29, 2007 by ejp626

[ejp626]

Actually, what I am reading right now is much lighter, though it does have some dark humor in it. It is Then We Came to the End by Joshua Ferris. It's very entertaining. Here are some reviews:

Review:

"In this wildly funny debut from former ad man Ferris, a group of copywriters and designers at a Chicago ad agency face layoffs at the end of the '90s boom. Indignation rises over the rightful owner of a particularly coveted chair ('We felt deceived'). ... Ferris has the downward-spiraling office down cold, and his use of the narrative 'we' brilliantly conveys the collective fear, pettiness, idiocy and also humanity of high-level office drones as anxiety rises to a fever pitch." Publishers Weekly (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)

Review:

"The Office meets Kafka. It's Seinfeld rewritten by Donald Barthelme. It's Office Space reimagined by Nicholson....nderneath the politicking and the sackings and the petty jealousies you can hear something else: the sound of our lives (that collective pronoun again) ticking away." Nick Hornby

Review:

"This debut novel about life in a Chicago advertising agency succeeds as both a wickedly incisive satire of office groupthink and a surprisingly moving meditation on mortality and the ties that band." Kirkus Reviews

Probably the most ironic thing is that I really wanted to see Ferris do a reading at a Borders in Chicago, but couldn't make it. Literally the day before the reading, Borders annouced that it was planning on closing that store.

[BruceH]

More Than Night: Film Noir and Its Contexts, by James Naremore

Hey, that's the guy I interviewed for this show. He teaches here at IU; quite a jazz fan.

Wow, I'm liking this guy more all the time.

[7/4]

Maybe Opera will choose PK Dick or WSB next time. Naked Lunch or Valis anybody?

[Tim McG]

I just finished reading Wild at Heart by John Eldridge.

It's a kind of "coming of age" novel for middle aged men, er...like me.

[king ubu]

Salman Rushdie's "Midnight's Children" - great one so far, but I'm only into it by 150 pages or so...

[Stefan Wood]

Susanna Clarke's "Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell."

[jazzbo]

[etherbored]

the revolution will be accessorized. a compilation of writings from BlackBook magazine.

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

the revolution will be accessorized. a compilation of writings from BlackBook magazine.

Past the post. Title should be "The revolution has been accessorised".

MG

[ghost of miles]

Along with Will Friedwald's STARDUST MELODIES, in an F. Scott rereading mode--picked up GATSBY again last weekend. I pretty much reread that one every couple of years. Going out tomorrow on the prowl for a copy of his Pat Hobby stories, which I read as a teenager... very short, satirical short stories about a failed screenwriter in Hollywood that Fitzgerald wrote near the end of his career.

[Harold_Z]

For some reason I think musicians and music people would dig this.....I LOVED it !

The Magician And The Card Sharp by Karl Johnson

From a blurb:

Dai Vernon, considered among the most influential magicians of the 20th century, could do just about any trick that called for sleight of hand. He was obsessed with learning the secrets of crooked card dealers. But there was one move he couldn't master.

In the The Magician and the Cardsharp, author Karl Johnson documents Vernon's quest to find the one man who was able to perform the holy grail of card tricks -- the so-called "center deal," dealing a specific card from anywhere in the deck, undetected.

Vernon's search took him from one sleazy dive to another: bars, nightclubs, pool halls, and smoke-filled back rooms. In 1932, the trail finally led him to a little white house in Pleasant Hill, Mo., where Allen Kennedy lived.

Kennedy didn't disappoint Vernon, showing him exactly how to perform the trick great gamblers had assumed was a fairytale.

Vernon died in 1992 at the age of 98. But at the Magic Castle, a Los Angeles club for magicians, there's a seat permanently reserved in his honor.

[ghost of miles]

I found a copy of Fitzgerald's Pat Hobby stories and spent much of last night reading them. Wonderful, short, incisive and funny takes on the Hollywood of the late 1930s--highly recommend them for any fans of FSF or of cynical fiction about Lotus Land. I'm not sure how many precedents there were for such writing when Fitzgerald wrote these stories; he was surely aware of his friend Nathanael West's DAY OF THE LOCUST, which had come out in 1939, but I'm hard-pressed to think of other examples before 1940.