Now reading...

[billyboy]

Just finished Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart, which I had never read before, and really liked. The writing style is unique and compelling, and it's a great story. Now starting

which I also have never read before.

[BruceH]

Who the Hell's In It: Portraits and Conversations---Peter Bogdanovich

For the audiobook version does he do all the voices?

Heh

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

"Mande popular music and cultural policies in West Africa", a PhD thesis by Graeme Counsel. I'm not expecting to learn anything much big, because I've been familiar with the general outline of this since the early nineties - but the detail! That's fascinating.

MG

Forgot - I'm reading it on the computer - here's the link

http://eprints.infodiv.unimelb.edu.au/arch.../PhD_thesis.pdf

Well, I've finished it. 218 pages of text, 110 pages of appendices, mostly discographies. The text is really interesting. The discographies, for a 2006 work, aren't nearly as good as he cracks on they are - some errors; LOADS of omissions. I'll have to write to him.

MG

[BruceH]

Lives of the Planets---Richard Corfield

[T.D.]

I got some Amazon gift certificates for recent birthday, and picked up some finance books. Finished the first, have skimmed parts of the others.

Nassim N. Taleb, Fooled by Randomness;

Taleb, The Black Swan;

Richard Bookstaber, A Demon of Our Own Design;

Benoit Mandelbrot and Richard Hudson, The (Mis)Behavior of Markets.

[AndrewHill]

Kahn's book on Impulse Records, a book of interviews about jazz and literature put together by a friend and ex-Bloomingtonian (ASK ME NOW... Sascha Feinstein), and DEADLY EMBRACE (sounds like a bad thriller, but it's actually a book about the 1939-1941 Nazi-Soviet alliance).

How is the Impulse Book then? I've had my eye on it for awhile.

Now reading: White on White/Black on Black edited by George Yancy.

[rostasi]

[7/4]

How is it? I never got around to reading those things.

[rostasi]

How is it? I never got around to reading those things.

The thing that I like the most about it is that each article is

a microcosm of each composer/musician's personality.

Some can go on inteminably with whatever they choose to talk about

but some are very precise analyses of a particular style of playing or compositional approach.

I'm experiencing first hand John Zorn's rather "hands-off" approach because he's asked me to submit to Arcana 3,

but is very flexible about content and size (within reason - there's quality, you know )

(I'm literally sitting here finishing the writing with graphics scanning to be completed after dinner).

Arcana 2 should be out now or very soon, but I don't know who's included.

If you need a listing for #1, I can tell you...and I've been given a temporary list for #3,

but we'll see what the final list brings. The collection of artists really is a great collection of

the artists of our time!

[7/4]

How is it? I never got around to reading those things.

The thing that I like the most about it is that each article is

a microcosm of each composer/musician's personality.

Some can go on inteminably with whatever they choose to talk about

but some are very precise analyses of a particular style of playing or compositional approach.

I'm experiencing first hand John Zorn's rather "hands-off" approach because he's asked me to submit to Arcana 3,

but is very flexible about content and size (within reason - there's quality, you know )

(I'm literally sitting here finishing the writing with graphics scanning to be completed after dinner).

Arcana 2 should be out now or very soon, but I don't know who's included.

If you need a listing for #1, I can tell you...and I've been given a temporary list for #3,

but we'll see what the final list brings. The collection of artists really is a great collection of

the artists of our time!

#2 has been out for a while. I should pick them both up and check them out. I was at DMG early this afternoon and Zorn was there with Laswell looking for CDs. I see Zorn around all the time, but I've never seen Laswell off stage.

Note: Laswell wasn't wearing a beret this time.

[rostasi]

#2 has been out for a while.

Oh, good to hear this. In June, I was told that it would be out sometime in September,

but I haven't taken the time to look yet - probably right now would be a good time.

If you see the two issues there, just take a while to thumb through them.

You'll notice that there's a nice variety (in #1, at least) - some score excerpts with explanations

for the composer in you...and some interesting views on music for the intellectually curious side of you.

[Jazzmoose]

Just finished Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart, which I had never read before, and really liked. The writing style is unique and compelling, and it's a great story.

That one has been on my "to read" shelf for almost three years now. Someday...

[BruceH]

Just finished Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart, which I had never read before, and really liked. The writing style is unique and compelling, and it's a great story.

That one has been on my "to read" shelf for almost three years now. Someday...

I read it back in the early 80's. I recall it being damn good, but a tad depressing.

[BruceH]

Shakespeare: The World As Stage-----Bill Bryson

[rostasi]

"I really don't know whether we'll be printing the Times in five years."

- Arthur Sulzberger, chairman and publisher of the New York Times, Davos, Switzerland, January, 2007

[gslade]

Patricia Highsmith

A Suspension of Mercy

[Matthew]

A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide by Samantha Power. This is a book that examines America's response to the various examples of genocide that occurred during the 20th Century. Very depressing to see American politicians turn their backs on so much suffering and death. I know we can't save the world, but when I think of the millions of lives that have been intentionally wasted and we've said and done nothing... well, I found it a very depressing book.

[Jazzmoose]

Patricia Highsmith

A Suspension of Mercy

I read one of her books a few months ago, and was really disappointed. I can't remember the title; it was about a man wrongly convicted of embezzlement and his life both in prison and after release. It was interesting in parts, but overall it seemed really amateurish to me. Perhaps it was one of her lesser efforts?

[ejp626]

Just finished Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart, which I had never read before, and really liked. The writing style is unique and compelling, and it's a great story.

That one has been on my "to read" shelf for almost three years now. Someday...

I read it back in the early 80's. I recall it being damn good, but a tad depressing.

Two African novels I read fairly recently might be of interest:

The Beautiful Ones Are Not Yet Born by Ayi Kwei Armah

I think this is pretty similar to Things Fall Apart, though I must admit not having gotten to that one yet. Certainly depressing but with flashes of humor.

This one is a fictionalized account of the Nigerian civil war. It is really well-written and disturbing.

Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

[ejp626]

I am reading Goffredo Parise's Abecedary and then the companion book, Solitudes.

These are very short stories based on a theme, like hunting, others, sweetness, etc. They were conceived as long prose poems essentially, so they tend to cut to the chase and try illuminate something about the human condition in a couple of pages. I'd say they are a bit like Raymond Carver stories refracted through a European (Italian) perspective. I enjoy them, but I haven't decided if I like them enough to buy the books to read later. I'm leaning towards it, however.

[T.D.]

I'm cycling between three books right now:

Alexandra Fuller, Don't let's go to the dogs tonight (memoir about growing up in Africa)

Gino Segre, Faust in Copenhagen (history of physics, particularly quantum)

Kahnemann and Tversky (eds), Choices, Frames and Values (collection of papers on "behavioral" economics/finance)

The first is definitely recommendable. The third is excellent, but a difficult read. Too early to tell on the second; exciting but maybe not technical enough for some readers.

In a more escapist vein, I recently read Barry Eisler's Requiem for an Assassin, which is worth checking out if you like the previous Rain books, though the earlier ones are stronger IMO.

[porcy62]

[sal]

"Che: A Revolutionary Life" by Jon Lee Anderson.

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

I'm about a third of the way through Paul Nugent's "Africa since independence"

Interesting academic study, complete with the usual arguments between academics. But well written and illumines just how constrained many (most) of the politicians were who took their states out of colonialism - many, even some of the bad hats, seem to have made the least worst decisions under the circumstances.

MG

[ghost of miles]

Tony Judt, POSTWAR: A HISTORY OF EUROPE SINCE 1945.