Summer Reads
mallard
452 Posts
anyone read anything worthwhile lately?suggestions please
mallard
452 Posts
Comments
Turkish author Pamuk's homage/reflections to/on his beloved city...
Haruki Murakami - Kafka on the Shore[/b]
Probably my favorite contemporary author... I still revisit 'Norwegian Wood' from time to time...
Its a collection of essays, letters, etc. Its the cherry bomb. If youve never read Miller though, id start with Tropic of Cancer.
Post Office - Charles Bukoswki
Good albiet very short read. Had me cracking up the whole way through. Very funny, though a little on the dark side. Not exactely Oprahs Book Club material.
Contempt - Alberto Moravia
Incredible novel about a screenwriter convinced that his wife no longer loves him. It is the basis for Le M??pris, the Jean Luc Godard flic. Moravia writes the most realistically nuerotic thoughts for hsi characters. Amazing. Another Novel of his, Boredom, is every bit as good if not better.
Cant Stop Wont Stop - Jeff Chang
Never has hiphop history been so alive and interesting. The sections on NY gangs in particular had me rivited. I gotta check out some of the documentaries on this period. ANy reccomendations?
also
I recently found a bunch of books left over from a sci-fi class my girlfriend had in college these two were my favorite so far. Also 334 by Disch is good its all about new york in the future. Its not your typical sci fi stuff.
Read this mostly on the beach last week. Chill 400 page three perspective narrative novel. About a dude who paints only self portraits and his ex wife and his exwife's ex best friend who is his boyfriend. And their daughter. And a sort of secret that is actually kind of chill. Easy to read, lots of plot. Good book
I'm halfway with this, almost as long as the other book. About a chinese dad, white mom (Blondie) and their two adopted chinese kids and biological kid. Basically the dude has a douchey dead chinese mom whose will helped send over this woman Lan to nanny for their kids and be all "authentic" and it's really good. Gish Jen won this prize that you don't get nominated for they just give you if you are smart and good at writing and they're like "here's 300 grand go write a book" and this is the book. The cover and title of the book are kind of eh but take the dust jacket off and things are okay
Great story and not too heavy, perfect for the summer.
I was in correspondence w/ Jeff prior to the publication and we pretty much concurred on the canon that he hoped he would contribute to w/ his tome:
David Toop 'The Rap Attack' - I believe that this is currently available in the 3rd edition...
Steven Hager 'Hip-Hop' - this has been long out-of-print; copies of the former 'High Times' magazine editor-in-chief trade for around $ 400 to $ 500, but it's an essential read, especially on the involvement of NY gang culture as well as how the Hispanic/Puerto Rican contingent kept alive the art of B-Boyin' after the black audience had either grown older or moved to other genres of music popular @ the time such as disco...
Charlie Ahearn/Jim Fricke 'Yes, Yes, Y'all'...
right now i've been reading this: written by my son's mom's cousin (no joke). one of the funniest books i've read in a long time.
also, i re-read this every year so far... brilliance.
I'm currently reading 'The Historian' by Elizabeth Kostova, a 600+ page vampire epic (only about 100 pages in so far).
Spent some time with "Sonhos nao envelhecem" by Marcio Borges, subtitled "Historias do Clube da esquina." Basically chronicles Milton and the gang thru the classic Corner Club period. My Portuguese isn't that great though, so i didn't read the whole thing.
Now currently reading '4 Jazz Lives' by A.B. Spellman. This is the new edition of the out-of-print classic '4 Lives in the Bebop Business.' Really good book focusing on Cecil Taylor, Ornette Coleman, Herbie Nichols, and Jackie McLean.
Cosign, excellent book!
I'm glad to hear this is back in print. I've wanted to read it for years (especially the Herbie Nichols section)
i posted this same shit 2 months ago and only one person replied. anyway...
i'm not feelin novels at the moment.
for some reason my images aren't working:
haven't read that one yet but have about 4 lethem books under my belt. i would say motherless brooklyn is the best.
the last non fiction books i read were these:
chuck palahniuk-invisble monsters
although mine has a different cover. didn't like this at all either. in fact i'm not feeling any of dudes books other than fight club.
and this
raymond carver-call me if you need me
something about carver that is so great. sort of like a post modern hemingway.
i've been meaning to check out bukowski and henry miller but not feeling those barnes and nobles prices. i don't like to buy anything else unless it is like 2 dollars at my local thrift store.
Did you know that after Carrie and The Fury Brian DePalma was gonna complete his "psychic slaughter" trilogy with an adaptation of this book, but they couldn't get the money together. Still would love to see that happen.
Also a friend asked me to whip up a summer reading list so I did:
A couple of weeks ago my friend Aaron asked me for a list of books I thought he should read. It was flattering, but it also reminded me of the fact that reading's something I basically don't do anymore. Nowadays I read 20 books a year, tops, and that's counting bathroom titles like Edie: An American Biography and Lost in the Grooves, Scram's Capricious Guide to the Music You Missed. So I have to crawl back through my fucked up memory to high school, mostly, when I read most the books that have stuck with me. Here is a disorganized list of a couple of things I can remember.
Blue Movie by Terry Southern -- Just the illest, dirtiest book by my favorite writer ever. I actually missed out on an opportunity to meet Southern when my friend Adam was going into Columbia and got into his graduate-level screenwriting class on the the strength of a script we wrote together called Payback. I put off visiting throughout the entire first semester, and then in the spring Terry didn't come to class, and then he passed away. I will always regret that.
The Crying of Lot 49 by Thomas Pynchon -- Man, I liked this book so much I convinced myself Pynchon was to literature what Kubrick is to cinema, ie the definition. I even attempted in my high school television production class to make a little movie out of the scene where Doctor Hilarius flips out. Truthfully most of his books are bloated, stoned prattle, but this lean, focused mystery novel is about as engrossing as a story could be, and dude can write. More than once being able to identify the muted bugle has gotten me what I wanted.
The Sheltering Sky by Paul Bowles -- Read it when I was 15. Blew my mind with how evocative the written word can really be.
Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov -- I actually recommend the annotated version, which goes way beyond illuminating the ephemera and reveals layers of meaning and nuance beyond imagining -- one of the most humbling experiences of my life.
Hell's Angels by Hunter S. Thompson -- Such a tight, perfect little book; as much as I like Fear and Loathing this is really the highlight of his career.
Collected Stories by Tennessee Williams -- Easily my favorite playwright, dude also wrote some of the most insane short stories ever.
Ham on Rye by Charles Bukowski -- An adolescence so brutal and humiliating it gave me solace in my own. It's interesting to consider how hard it was for me to imagine (at least back in my teenage years when I read this) that anything Bukowski wrote might not actually be true.
Lizard Music by Daniel Pinkwater -- Pinkwater is a total asshole. Sorry if you're a fan and you googled this and whatever, but it's true. Listen close to one of his NPR stories and if you have any empathy at all you'll be able to suss out what a dick he is in real life. I'm not going to tell the whole story of how I tried with a producer to option the rights to this amazing little children's book (from 1975, a long time ago) about being home alone, eating TV dinners and watching late night television, and peeking into a hidden world, but trust me, the guy is a greedy fuck. But hey, how many people can say their favorite childhood author called them "the scum of the earth" because they didn't want to cough up "the price of a new Volkswagen Beetle"?
Travels With Lisbeth by Lars Eigner -- A lesser-known book, I think; a memoir from around 1993 about a fiendishly brilliant writer and iconoclast and his descent into homelessness. I don't even remember this book that well except that it captures the minor details of injustice that seem to be the least-remarked on main ingredients of existence. I think it must be to this age what Down and Out in Paris and London by Orwell was to the 30s.
Mr. T: The Man With the Gold by Mr. T -- This autobiography, written without anyone else's help, is rugged and no joke. Between all the priceless expressions ("It got so quiet you could hear a mosquito piss on cotton") and thugged out stories (at one point he -strongly- implies that he killed some people who fucked with his mom), there's a lot of deep wisdom in this book.
Hot Line: The Letters I Get... And Write! by Burt Reynolds -- While we're talking about ridiculous celebrities, let me give a big thumbs up to this amazing little paperback from 1973 or so. Burt takes his most ludicrous, oversexed fan mail and makes fun of it in a way that is simultaneously hilarious and just... so magnanimous and cool. Burt really flipped the script on stardom in general, and did the things people say they'd like to do if they ever got famous. Respect.
Lynch on Lynch by David Lynch -- This is the creative textbook. Whether or not you have any interest in the movies, this is like my "Chicken Soup For the Soul" or whatever for artistic inspiration. Basically Lynch outlines how ideas exist in the ether and a good artist is nothing more than a good antenna. It's a comforting thought, but it's true.
These are two I want to pick up:
"The Legenary Life Of A Rock Star Drummer"
http://www.johnybarbata.com/
"No Saints, No Saviors" by Willie Perkins
damn, what a woman...
man do I hate superstrings. read Roger Penrose's "Road to Reality," for the real shit.
If you're into science but not really a scientist, this book is as real as it comes. Five stars. One of the most beautiful books I've ever read.
I've been mostly reading vonnegut and this
this summer
The last two are both OG first press hard covers worth some loot. Biggups to bookstrut.
I'll def be reading this, looks sick. i love the fact that he's an "independent scientist." He's on some Zeno's paradox shit. thanks.
My reading is a lot lighter than you alls. Lots of kids books.
Liked the new Harry Potter. I think she does a great job with the whole school age dynamics of the 3 main charachters and their teachers and tourmentors. I have been told that it is a part of the British boarding school lit tradition. As far as all the wizard stuff goes I can't remember from one book to the other all his adventures.
Can't Be Satisfied - A Muddy Waters bio. The research was extensive, and his life is fascinating. The writing was poor. I remember another book I read years ago called Boss Men that was simultaniously about Muddy Waters and Bill Monroe, and showed how similiar what they did was as they worked in different universes.
I'm reading an Elmore Leonard western called Slingshot or something like that. I read a bunch of his mysteries back when I was reading mysteries. I've been told his westerns are good, but this one isn't doing it for me.
The rest of my reading this summer has been children books.
Dan