BOOK STRUT
Mad Drama Teacher
1,985 Posts
I searched for the old thread to no avail.I recently finished two books, Huysmans's A Rebours and Bellow's Seize the Day.I thought A Rebours was an incredible book up until Des Essentes's physical illness and inbreeding caught up to him. When it got all Biblical, I was turned off. I thought that Huysmans got caught up in his encyclopedic knowledge and lost the creative voice that had started out the novel. It degenerated into 1s and 0s.I thought Seize the Day was pretty pointless. Yes, I know what was trying to be said, but, yet again reinforcing my dislike for the anti-hero novel I started with Camus's The Stranger, I can't get into these types of books.I read a review somewhere praising the "nobility of failure" in this book. What the fuck does that even mean?Anyone else have thoughts on these books or would like to plug a different one?
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Finished off Bob Woodward's State of Denial. Started it when it first came out, but never had time to read the rest until now.
Then I read New Directions in California History by James Rawls. Had some good info that I might be able to use in my California Studies class.
Currently reading
Which is a history of the changing nature of whiteness in the U.S.
*i love how cheap you can get books on amazon
anyone got suggestions on any other good books about film and/or hollywood nuttiness?
MCF
recently I've been into Freddy & Fredericka by M. Helprin.
not quite done though
UP NEXT:
If you like Biskind's style then you should probably check out his history of modern indie film "Down and Dirty pictures". It doesn't have the same level of gossip as Easy Rider but is still an enjoyable read for the Weinstein tales alone.
Also try The Kid Stays In The Picture as well for more tales from the same time period as Easy Rider.
Back on topic, recently read two books given to me as gifts:
Lanark - Alasdair Gray
This is one hell of a book and one I can't believe I'd never even heard of till now. It's basically a thinly veiled autobiography of growing up in Scotland bookended by two science fiction novels. It undoubtedly loses steam by the end but for the most part it blew me away.
After that read this
The story of an immigrant and his friends lives in America which couldn't help but feel light after the epic Lanark but was still enjoyable (the game involving dictators was nicely woven into the story) and would be enough for me to check out future novels by Mengestu.
If you're a big Elevators fan this book is
I'm on a big post-apocalyptic kick
just finished this
and this
and I'm currently in the middle of this
Eco's well-documented 'sampling' of Jorge Lois Borges is evident, not just in ideas, but figures of speech, tropes etc. (Eco does give some credit, as there's mention of a character called 'Louise De Borge')
The other obvious influence is not so much Conan Doyle's Holmes, rather Basil Rathbone's screen Holmes for the central character William of Baskerville[/b]. The opening description of the Franciscan walked straight-off the screen for me. Haven't fniished this yet, but so far it's very good.
I interviewed Michael Veal on my old radio show shortly after this book was published. It's a great book. It looks at Fela's work from a variety of different angles and remains quite readable throughout. And Michael is a great guy. He actually played with Fela (for a short time) in the mid 90s and has his own afrobeat project (though I'm not sure if they're playing at the moment).
Weird... based upon your description, I read what I believe to be the same book about a year ago, only it had a different title:
More recently, Veal published a book on dub, which I picked up a few months back, but have yet to read:
Here's a link to material from it on Google, but I can't find it available for sale or preorder anywhere online.
Yeah looks like the same book - don't quite get the change for the UK. That original title seems much more appropriate to the mood of the story than the rather glib title we got.
I read this and enjoyed it, although not 1/2 as much as his Fela book. This is a very academic book -- a little history, a few biographical sketches, and a LOT of theorizing (none of which made me think of dub music in new ways), all in a much drier tone than that of the Fela book.
I liked the Fela book--and it filled a real void at the time--but I felt that it was a touch dry.
I mean, how you gonna make a biography of Fela boring?
i'm going to go ahead and predict that you're not going to like this one, then. it's very dry relative to the Fela book!
About a Cheyenne high schooler who accepts a challenge to spend 3 months in the Beartooth Wilderness in Montana living as his anscestors did.
The second in a series about the lost continent of Mu and where its inhabitants ended up post-deluge.
Love this book. Picked up a copy for a quarter not so long ago and been meaning to re-read.
Compared to the others I mentioned it's a little bit pulp-y and action packed. Very fast read for 600+ pages.
I've read every other Saramago I can get my hands on chasing that first high, and while they've all been fine, nothing comes close.
Kinda going simultaneously on these two at the moment.
Same here.
Just finished these:
Re-read
Re-read
And after Drown, I got to start on C McCarthy's The Road.
My favorite Toni Morrison book...
Her death are some of my favourite pages ever written.
Yeah, I liked Sula, too. I turned it onto a student last Monday and she said she's almost finished it.
Isn't Beloved considered her masterpiece? Am I going to be let down when I finally read it?
Yeah, that's the consensus--although I think I prefer her (earlier?) smaller books.