Now reading...

[Kalo]

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.

I just finished his The Magic World of Orson Welles, which is excellent, despite the off-putting title, which was foisted on him by the publisher.

[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.

I just finished his The Magic World of Orson Welles, which is excellent, despite the off-putting title, which was foisted on him by the publisher.

You mean, you don't think it's a magic world???

[Kalo]

Maybe a magic act.

[medjuck]

I'm past the half way mark on Against the Day. Only 500 pages to go.

[Van Basten II]

The truce by Mario Benedetti, a major book that was written in 1959 that still rings true today.

Edited April 11, 2007 by Van Basten II

[paul secor]

Read a couple of short (but fine) pieces before going to sleep last night:

Eudora Welty's "Why I Live at the P.O."

and

Steve Voce's "Don't Shoot - We're American!" from Reading Jazz

[brownie]

Enjoying the first volume of 'Chroniques de la Montagne' by Alexandre Vialatte an excellent French writer who probably is unknown in non-French reading countries. Vialatte wrote almost daily chronicles for the central France newspaper 'La Montagne'. Love his style and his humor. An author for the 'happy few'!

Vialatte also is known for translating Franz Kafka into French from 1933 on.

[paul secor]

Percival Everett's story: "The Fix"

[BruceH]

James Naremore also has a book on acting that I found in a local library. Titled "Acting In the Cinema" it has some very good chapters on Jimmy Stewart and Cary Grant.

[ghost of miles]

Thomas Merton, LEARNING TO LOVE: V. 6 OF THE JOURNALS, 1966-67

[porcy62]

Putting some order in my library I stumbled in this book:

David Bordwell "The Classical Hollywood Cinema: Film Style and Mode of Production to 1960", a ponderous, but absolutely essential, reading for everybody seriously interested in Cinema. It was one of the texts at my History of Cinema courses at University.

Warmly reccomended to every patient cinephile.

Edited April 16, 2007 by porcy62

[Matthew]

Finished, for like the one hundredth time, my all-time favorite coffee table book: George T. Simon's Simon Says: The Sights And Sounds Of The Swing Era 1933 - 1955. It's a collection of a lot of his articles, interviews and reviews that he wrote for Metronome magazine. It really is a journey back in time and quite interesting. Of course, it's long OOP, but it comes up on Ebay every now and then, a couple of years ago I was able to get a copy in mint condition and it's traveled with me ever since. If you like the big band era, and kind of corny writing, this book is a goldmine. Just some excerpts from the book to give you a flavor:

The famous 1938 Benny Goodman Carnegie Hall concert is headlined with this. Benny and cats make Carnegie debut real howling success. Shorthairs Shag, Longhairs Wag, Walls sag, as Goodman's gang transforms ancient hall into modern swing emporium.

Love this from a review about Ellington at the Cotton Club: The Cotton Club draws many ickies who pester Ellington to play pop tunes that were hardly intended from him to attack. He plays them, and the fact that he plays them well enough to satisfy those ickies, and to draw there applause, should be added to the plus rather than to minus side when computing Duke's final score.

Just very interesting to read these "you are there" accounts of historic jazz bands and figures. Highly recommended.

[paul secor]

Joe Boyd: White Bicycles

[paul secor]

Ross Feld's Shapes Mistaken

[Van Basten II]

Anybody read le Tombeau de Marot by Douglas R. Hofstadter, as i was doing some clean up, i found it and remembered the pleasure i had reading it.

On another matter, currently reading Where They Ain't: The Fabled Life and Untimely Death of the Original Baltimore Orioles, the Team that Gave Birth to Modern Baseball

By Burt Solomon.

Edited May 1, 2007 by Van Basten II

[ejp626]

The Interpretation of Cultures by Clifford Geertz. I am sort of marking the recent death of Geertz by rereading some of his classic essays. I read about 1/3 of this book in grad school and decided to read all of it. I have to admit it is more of a slog now than it was then. I am sure this is partly because reading it on the train is hardly ideal for concentration, but I am just in a different place now and am not nearly as interested in grand or even middle-range social theory compared to where I was 5 or so years ago. I'm down to the last two chapters. Fortunately, these are some of the best in the book, dealing with thick description of Balinese customs.

I'll be glad to get back to some light entertainment after this.

[7/4]

[BruceH]

"Robert Cormier: Daring To Disturb the Universe"

[ghost of miles]

"Robert Cormier: Daring To Disturb the Universe"

Biography? I was quite a fan as an adolescent.

Right now: Gerald Clarke's Judy Garland bio, GET HAPPY.

[BruceH]

"Robert Cormier: Daring To Disturb the Universe"

Biography? I was quite a fan as an adolescent.

Yes, a bio. I just happened to glance at it in a library and was fascinated because all I knew about him was that he was the guy who wrote The Chocolate War and I Am the Cheese. Turns out he wrote a lot more than that, and he was from Leominster, MA! What a surprise!

[jazzbo]

The Lost Tomb of Alexander the Great, by Andrew Chugg. A beautiful book. My fourth book about Alexander in a row. Edited May 7, 2007 by jazzbo

[jlhoots]

Jonathan Lethem: You Don't Love Me Yet

[porcy62]

A biography.

[rockefeller center]

A biography.

What's wrong with biographies?

I just finished Ronnie O'Sullivan's autobio which I found quite entertaining.

[sal]

Jack Kerouac - "On the Road"