Author Topic: Fave Books / Currently Reading  (Read 947355 times)

Christina

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Re: Fave Books / Currently Reading
« Reply #1335 on: June 09, 2010, 06:20:24 PM »

I'm wrapping up Casares' The Invention of Morel

Like, don't like? Wha? this is in my to-read pile.
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emma

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Re: Fave Books / Currently Reading
« Reply #1336 on: June 09, 2010, 11:04:51 PM »
I have an hour-and-a-half-long streetcar ride to work every day, so I got the collected stories of Guy De Maupassant out of the library and am plowing through them during my commute, because a friend recommended I do so. So far I'm liking them okay, but I gotta say I like his moustache way better:
 

DoodleJump!

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Re: Fave Books / Currently Reading
« Reply #1337 on: June 09, 2010, 11:53:37 PM »
I have an hour-and-a-half-long streetcar ride to work every day, so I got the collected stories of Guy De Maupassant out of the library and am plowing through them during my commute, because a friend recommended I do so. So far I'm liking them okay, but I gotta say I like his moustache way better:
 

Maupassant is one of my favorites. He got me into short stories like whoa...
and the mustache is rad///
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AllisonLeGnome

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Re: Fave Books / Currently Reading
« Reply #1338 on: June 10, 2010, 12:56:07 AM »
I have an hour-and-a-half-long streetcar ride to work every day, so I got the collected stories of Guy De Maupassant out of the library and am plowing through them during my commute, because a friend recommended I do so. So far I'm liking them okay, but I gotta say I like his moustache way better:
 

My French lit prof's big thing about Maupassant last semester was passion as a fatal disease. (In case anyone was wondering if I can defend Histoires vraies as « une vision cruelle, tendre et désespérée de l’humanité », the answer is yes- at risk of sounding like said essay, I liked how even when the stories themselves were repetitively cruel there's really an underlying humanity to everything.)

Kublakhan61

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Re: Fave Books / Currently Reading
« Reply #1339 on: June 10, 2010, 07:59:45 AM »

I'm wrapping up Casares' The Invention of Morel

Like, don't like? Wha? this is in my to-read pile.

Read it! I picked it up because Casares was connected to Borges, a top 3 writer for me, and was very pleased. I highly recommend not reading any reviews, the introduction, or the wiki for the book - most places give away a plot key element. Hell, the book was spoiled for me when I wiki'd Louise Brooks!

I'd like to say more but it isn't a book that offers neat little details to discuss in advance of reading it. It's very good and it's a quick read.

Shaggy 2 Grote

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Re: Fave Books / Currently Reading
« Reply #1340 on: June 13, 2010, 01:48:02 PM »
I'm wrapping up Casares' The Invention of Morel

I dug this one a lot.  Great fun HG Wells-style novella with just enough postmodernism (or whatever you want to call it) to make it interesting.

Since I last posted on this thread, I read 2666 and thought it was worth it, though it's not exactly a crowd-pleaser.  The part about the crimes is particularly hard to get through.  Since then I've read JG Ballard's The Atrocity Exhibition, which further reinforced my opinion on his work (namely, I like the idea of it more than the work itself).  Currently slogging through John Truby's The Anatomy of Story and not liking it.  Made a couple of pitstops to read one of those collected Little Lulu editions, which was great, and a truly filthy Jodorowsky/Manara take on the Borgias, which was not as interesting as any of Jodorowsky's films.
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sparkatus

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Re: Fave Books / Currently Reading
« Reply #1341 on: June 13, 2010, 05:04:01 PM »
More Auster for me, currently reading The Brooklyn Follies and enjoying, although as others have noticed it is a little Auster-lite.

Looking for something different to read next, can anyone recommend some good rock writing/(auto)biography?

I've got the two Lester Bangs anthologies already, both excellent, and on the autobiog side, Julian Cope's Head On/Repossessed is my favourite in that field... Was thinking about picking up one of the Nick Kent books or The Longest Cocktail Party about Apple Records.

Any opinions on any of those, or recommendations of other stuff to try?

Also, keep meaning to read Nixonland after Tom talked it up so much a couple of years ago. As I have only a limited understanding of US politics, how would I get on with that?

Shaggy 2 Grote

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Re: Fave Books / Currently Reading
« Reply #1342 on: June 13, 2010, 06:00:09 PM »
Looking for something different to read next, can anyone recommend some good rock writing/(auto)biography?

One of the dudes from New Bomb Turks just wrote a book on contemporary garage punk and it looks great.
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crumbum

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Re: Fave Books / Currently Reading
« Reply #1343 on: June 13, 2010, 07:57:51 PM »
Looking for something different to read next, can anyone recommend some good rock writing/(auto)biography?

I liked Stone Alone by Bill Wyman a lot when I read it about five years ago. It's long and full of minute detail (he kept extensive diaries) but I found well written and pretty engrossing. No big surprises but if you're interested in the inside story of their rise it's all there.

By the way, I remember another Stones book I came across years ago in a friend's recording studio. I've since fallen out of touch with him and can't remember what the title was. It was a compilation of Sixties and Seventies newspaper clippings and tabloid stories about the band that got into the sleaziest details about the sex and drugs side of things. Anyone know it?

fonpr

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Re: Fave Books / Currently Reading
« Reply #1344 on: June 13, 2010, 08:06:02 PM »
Looking for something different to read next, can anyone recommend some good rock writing/(auto)biography?

I liked Stone Alone by Bill Wyman a lot when I read it about five years ago. It's long and full of minute detail (he kept extensive diaries) but I found well written and pretty engrossing. No big surprises but if you're interested in the inside story of their rise it's all there.

By the way, I remember another Stones book I came across years ago in a friend's recording studio. I've since fallen out of touch with him and can't remember what the title was. It was a compilation of Sixties and Seventies newspaper clippings and tabloid stories about the band that got into the sleaziest details about the sex and drugs side of things. Anyone know it?

If your talking about Up And Down With The Rolling Stones
Tony Sanchez, I own it.

Read it many years ago.  I remember the Stones being asked about the book and the reply was "We know who Tony is."
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masterofsparks

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Re: Fave Books / Currently Reading
« Reply #1345 on: June 13, 2010, 09:29:21 PM »
Currently reading Dan Epstein's Big Hair and Plastic Grass: A Funky Ride Through Baseball and America in the Swinging 70s, and so far it's great. If you long for the days of crazy, drug-addled, loud-mouthed baseball players with afros and villainous facial hair, you should pick this book up.
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fonpr

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Re: Fave Books / Currently Reading
« Reply #1346 on: June 13, 2010, 09:35:31 PM »
Currently reading Dan Epstein's Big Hair and Plastic Grass: A Funky Ride Through Baseball and America in the Swinging 70s, and so far it's great. If you long for the days of crazy, drug-addled, loud-mouthed baseball players with afros and villainous facial hair, you should pick this book up.

I lost interest in baseball after that era passed.  Moved on to Rock and Roll. 
"Like it or not, Florida seems dedicated to a 'live fast, die' way of doing things."

Christina

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Re: Fave Books / Currently Reading
« Reply #1347 on: June 14, 2010, 01:53:57 AM »
Looking for something different to read next, can anyone recommend some good rock writing/(auto)biography?

I liked Stone Alone by Bill Wyman a lot when I read it about five years ago. It's long and full of minute detail (he kept extensive diaries) but I found well written and pretty engrossing. No big surprises but if you're interested in the inside story of their rise it's all there.

Was his expression ... I wanna say "lost in fog"?
Remember how he couldn't stop his leg?

Shaggy 2 Grote

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Re: Fave Books / Currently Reading
« Reply #1348 on: June 14, 2010, 09:53:07 AM »
Currently reading Dan Epstein's Big Hair and Plastic Grass: A Funky Ride Through Baseball and America in the Swinging 70s, and so far it's great. If you long for the days of crazy, drug-addled, loud-mouthed baseball players with afros and villainous facial hair, you should pick this book up.

I lost interest in baseball after that era passed.  Moved on to Rock and Roll. 

Ditto for me.  I'm assuming you guys heard Epstein on EFD's show -- that was a great one.
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Bryan

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Re: Fave Books / Currently Reading
« Reply #1349 on: June 14, 2010, 10:12:28 AM »
Since then I've read JG Ballard's The Atrocity Exhibition, which further reinforced my opinion on his work (namely, I like the idea of it more than the work itself).  

Ballard's one of my favourites, though I haven't read all of his stuff. My sense is that The Atrocity Exhibition is an unusual one, for him. I especially like the novels he wrote in the last couple of decades: Cocaine Nights, Super Cannes, Millennium People, etc. They are all quite similar, and tend to be apocalyptic detective stories that focus on the societal ailments caused by too much civilization.

I just finished Empire of the Sun, which I'd avoided because it didn't seem as "weird" as some of his other stuff (and because I distrust anything with Steven Spielberg's stamp of approval), but holy cow, it's great. His preoccupation with the savagery just below the veneer of civilization becomes much clearer in this one.