Now reading...

[Kalo]

I'm halfway through volume 2. My great great grandfather bought these books on a trip to Liverpool, in 1853.

I love Dickens. It must be a trip to read your great, great grandfather's books, Chris! I was just saying to someone today how much I love old books where you can see the impress of the metal type on the pages. I wonder why the Dickens volumes your g. g. g. picked up in England appear to have been printed in Germany.

[Kalo]

Just finished Always Magic in the Air: The Bomp and Brilliance of the Brill Building Era. Not bad at all, quite good actually, though not as good as I hoped (he's not the best prose stylist). I still plan on reading his book on Stephen Foster, though.

[Elissa]

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

Finished this last night. Slow going, but very good description of almost total disaster, with almost no signs of hope at the end.

MG

Have you read William Finnegan's brilliant Crossing the Line? I love that book. About a year he spent teaching in a "coloured" Capetown high school towards Apartheid's end. Insightful, full of heart and, as you'd expect from this NYer writer, at once personal and socio-historical in scope.

[Christiern]

I love Dickens. It must be a trip to read your great, great grandfather's books, Chris! I was just saying to someone today how much I love old books where you can see the impress of the metal type on the pages. I wonder why the Dickens volumes your g. g. g. picked up in England appear to have been printed in Germany.

They were published simultaneously in Germany. I don't know why they were on the English market. My gg (I made him greater than he was ) also traveled on the Continent, but I have a letter from Liverpool in which he mentions having picked up these 3 volumes there. And, yes, it is a special trip to read the very same books that someone enjoyed in a very different age. I'm close to finishing the 3rd vol. now. BTW, here he is with my great grandmother.

[jazzbo]

Gosh Chris, I can see a resemblance!

[Kalo]

Gosh Chris, I can see a resemblance!

Definitely! Thanks, Chris.

[AndrewHill]

term papers

[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

Finished this last night. Slow going, but very good description of almost total disaster, with almost no signs of hope at the end.

MG

Have you read William Finnegan's brilliant Crossing the Line? I love that book. About a year he spent teaching in a "coloured" Capetown high school towards Apartheid's end. Insightful, full of heart and, as you'd expect from this NYer writer, at once personal and socio-historical in scope.

No, I haven't. I'm waiting for two other boks on African history to turn up - one from library, the other from Amazon. But they're taking ages...

So in the meantime, I'm rereading

Mark Hudson - Music in my head - a kind of thriller set in the British and Senegalese music industries. Hudson is a "World Music" journalist, and lived in a Gambian village for about a year, so he does know his stuff when it comes to Senegal. But I didn't like his and the protagonist's attitude much when I read it several years ago. We'll see if I change my mind this time.

MG

[JohnS]

Gil Evans Out Of The Cool, His Life and Music by Stephanie Stein Crease.

Much more interesting than I thought it would be.

[BillF]

Gil Evans Out Of The Cool, His Life and Music by Stephanie Stein Crease.

Much more interesting than I thought it would be.

Yes, I agree. Read it about a month ago. My only grumble is about the quoting in full of some of Gil's incomprehensible, eccentric letters!

[porcy62]

PACO IGNACIO TAIBO II - PANCHO VILLA, UNA BIOGRAFIA NARRATIVA

http://www.amazon.com/Pancho-Villa-Una-Bio...719&sr=8-47

[BillF]

Stan Britt, Long Tall Dexter: A Critical Musical Biography of Dexter Gordon

[BruceH]

The Card: Collectors, Con Men, and the True Story of History's Most Desired Baseball Card, by Michael O'Keefe and Teri Thompson. Interesting and depressing in equal measure so far.

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

The Card: Collectors, Con Men, and the True Story of History's Most Desired Baseball Card, by Michael O'Keefe and Teri Thompson. Interesting and depressing in equal measure so far.

Is this the thing JSangry is on about never having got from Santa?

MG

[BruceH]

The Card: Collectors, Con Men, and the True Story of History's Most Desired Baseball Card, by Michael O'Keefe and Teri Thompson. Interesting and depressing in equal measure so far.

Is this the thing JSangry is on about never having got from Santa?

MG

You mean the book? I doubt it.

[BillF]

The Art Pepper Companion: Writings on a Jazz Original, ed. Todd Selbert

[sidewinder]

'Conrad and Lady Black' by Tom Bower. Not many people come out of this book smelling of roses.

[kh1958]

Jazz Masters of the 1930s, by Rex Stewart. What an engaging book filled with wonderful anecdotes and illuminations of the early greats of jazz.

[BruceH]

Jazz Masters of the 1930s, by Rex Stewart. What an engaging book filled with wonderful anecdotes and illuminations of the early greats of jazz.

An old favorite. I should reread this book.

[paul secor]

Brian Morton's novel, Starting Out in the Evening - enjoyed reading most of it, but I felt that it lost its focus near the end.

[Chuck Nessa]

Between the holidays I read Last Night at the Lobster by Stewart O'Nan. Sweet little read.

[Kalo]

Jazz Masters of the 1930s, by Rex Stewart. What an engaging book filled with wonderful anecdotes and illuminations of the early greats of jazz.

An old favorite. I should reread this book.

Ya took the woids outta my mouth! Nice book! I've had Stewart's autobiography, Boy Meets Horn, for years. I should get around to reading it.

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

I'm reading three little books by Patience Sonko-Godwin, a Gambian historian

Ethnic groups of the Senegambia

Social and political structures in the precolonial periods

Leaders of the Senegambia region

MG

[jazzbo]

Am concluding James H. Breasted's excellent "Development of Religion and Thought in Ancient Egypt." Got about halfway through in mid-December and set it down for a spell in favor of a few PKD novels, have taken it back up.

[paul secor]

Recently read David Fulmer's Rampart Street, the latest in a series of mysteries which take place in New Orleans in the early 1900's, and feature a Creole detective, Valentin St. Cyr, as the protagonist. Nothing special in terms of mystery plotting, and Fulmer's writing can occasionally be somewhat ordinary, but the N.O. atmosphere adds a lot. I'll probably read Jass and Chasing the Devil's Tail, Fulmer's earlier St. Cyr books.