Leeway

I'll confess I'm both a George Eliot fan, as well as an Arnold Bennett fan (but to a lesser degree). I have enormous respect for Eliot, as a writer, thinker, critic. On most days of the week, I do think Middlemarch is her great work, but on other days I think it is Daniel Deronda, a flawed but great, neglected masterpiece. I had a Bennett binge once upon a time. Old Wives Tale is probably his best known work. I particularly liked Clayhanger, a coming of age story. Also, Anna of the Five Towns. Bennett also wrote a lot of odd miscellany, among which, Buried Alive, The Desperate Adventures of a Wise Man is amusing. Virginia Woolf pretty much smashed Bennett's critical reputation (at least in the US academic community), but he has his champions still.

NEW GRUB STREET - George Gissing - 1891. The title of this book probably comes up in a lot of literary chat, but I wonder how many have read it. I finally have got around to reading it myself and found it quite satisfying, in fact, surprisingly rich. Very basically, it is the story of how the literary marketplace sinks rewarding authors such as Edward Reardon (standing-in for Gissing), while literary hacks like Jasper Milvain thrive. Gissing skewers everything about the literary scene in late 19th-century England. The fact of the matter is that it is all still all very recognizable today, but maybe with the Internet the New New Grub Street. One of the things I wasn't expecting was that the other hot spot of the book was Gissing's intense feelings about marriage. In essence, he hated it. (His own marriages were not successful). The novel presents a number of portraits of marriages: failed, hostile, corrupt. Women, more particularly women's income, were treated as chattel. The wrong marriage would prove disastrous for a man's career. The fraud and back-stabbing of the literary marketplace are reflected int he fraud and back-stabbing of individual marriages. Gissing's attitude towards women struck me as ambivalent. He cited the recent passage of the Women's Property Act. which allowed women to keep money they earned or inherited for themselves rather than give it to their husbands or fathers . In some of the instances he describes, he notes, seemingly approvingly, how the women were able to stand up for themselves, to present a stronger, more independent posture. Yet Gissing also seems to resent that same sort of independence of wives in marriage. Gissing also shows women writing stories and miscellaneous pieces for the periodicals ("The English Girl" is one), benefiting from the separate income, but also feeding the commercial literary marketplace with insubstantial stuff. Gissing also takes a rather substantial interest in suicide, reflecting upon it in a number of places, and finally with one character enacting a beautifully staged suicide. I see this as part of Gissing's engaging, and sometimes startling, oddness and honesty. Lest this all sound too morose, the book is shot through with a 1,000 points of humor and satire. For example, Jasper's name. Jasper means "treasurer" in Persian, and Jasper is indeed obsessed with making money without regard to merit. "Milvain" suggests "vanity," maybe "Mil" indicating a huge abundance of vanity; it might also be taken as "Malvain,"for his vanity corrupts and harms. This is out of the Dickens' playbook of course, but Gissing doesn't play it for yucks. It's just one part of a satirical honeycomb. There is plenty of other grim and mordant humor, often catching one by surprise. Anyway, those are some first thoughts on this book: exceedingly well-crafted, socially engaged, unflinching honest, mordantly funny, terribly bitter.

Jonathan Livingston Seagull Steven Seagal Gal Gadot

Outlander Mars Williams Venus Williams

Adam West Saul Bellow Phil Upchurch

Maury Povich Connie Chung P.F. Chang

Hadrian VII Frederick Rolfe Baron Corvo

Rev Moon Moon Unit Zappa Leslie Moonves

Whittaker Chambers Alger Hiss The Snake Decides

Thanks Steve. Two things jump out. Even at that misfire with the New Quintet, Tony's playing is as tight and intense as I've seen it in, lo, these many years. He seems very very focused. Drummers make all the difference.I'd rather have a "straight" group with an "out" drummer than the other way around. I've seen out players trying to play with a straight drummer, and the results are quite deflating. The drummer is like the pilot on a boat: sets the course. Glad it worked out.

Yes. Self disqualifying.

Francois Beroalde de Verville Moyen de Parvenir Johnny Come Lately

I can recommend her The Book Shop. I read that Hermione Lee has completed a biography of Fitzgerald, and that it is quite fine. Fitzgerald didn't start writing until her mid-40s believe. Nice to get your comments, Leeway. Got The Bookshop from Manchester University library this morning and am ready to go. Will probably have to buy Lee's biog, as neither the university or public libraries have it. According to Wikipedia, Fitzgerald published her first book at the age of 58! 58! I say! There's hope for us yet, old boy Rounding out my top 5 read in 2014 are Iris Murdoch's Under the Net ... Oh no, do I feel another round of Murdoch re-reads coming on for 2015?

There's a sale going on over at Catalytic Sound, 10-20% off. Picked up the Mad Dogs box/rickety sheet of paper with rubbery pegs that might or might not work/ set @$45, which I think is a good price. And, Vandermark's two Audio One discs, @$12 each. SO much more there, but I'm trying to hold to a budget. BTW, when you first look at your cart, you might see some staggering shipping and tax charges, but open up the shipping section and the charges become much more reasonable, and tax disappears (unless you are in one of the states that require it). The high charges one sees initially are just defaults but they almost scared me off.

Not to get too heavy about it, but the "Mister" and other forms of address that indicate respect can be important to individuals or groups that typically faced a lot of disrespect (and maybe still do).

I can recommend her The Book Shop. I read that Hermione Lee has completed a biography of Fitzgerald, and that it is quite fine. Fitzgerald didn't start writing until her mid-40s believe.

Up above us on the famed Org Board, lists of Best Jazz of 2014 are busily being compiled. Despite all evidence to the contrary, I thought it might be fun to do the same for books, Best Book(s) of 2014. The book need not be published in 2014, only read during this year. In my case, the general level of books I read this year were rather uniformly high. Yet, somewhat to my surprise, only a few books rose above the merely very good and registered a strong impact. Like a Pierre Bezuhof, I seek enlightenment where I may, but only a small coterie of books might be said to deliver on that promise. First, the best of the rest: Anthony Burgess - The Malayan Trilogy & A Clockwork Orange Isak Denison - Seven Gothic Tales Muriel Spark - Loitering With Intent and Aiding and Abetting Henry James - The Awkward Age My Book of theYear: Phil Klay - Redeployment - 12 fictional stories of US soldiers at war in the Middle East and in a peace that looks much like war back home. From the Aeneid, "I sing of arms and the man," to Tolstoy's "War and Peace," to Hemingway's "Men at War," soldiers and their battles, both external and internal, have been the subject of some of the greatest fiction. Klay's book is worthy of the tradition. These stories are powerful, compelling, deeply affecting. They join Tim O'Brien's Vietnam fiction as the best contemporary war fiction. I'd also Kevin Powers' "Letter Composed During a Lull in the Fighting," a collection of poems that also examine contemporary warfare, and the decayed peace that seems its concomitant. Best Poem: "Improvised Explosive Device."

Billy "Piano Man" Joel Joelle "Bass Lady" Leandre Leann "Country Girl" Rimes

Peter Sellers Inspector Clouseau Pink Panther

I've made a practice over the last 5 years of keeping a log of the music I've listened to, the books I've read, and the film I've watched. Not easy, since I tend to be undisciplined in such ways, but once I started, I've kept it going. It's really interesting, and sometimes edifying/dispiriting as the case may be, to review the year in music, books, or film. I just keep the jottings in a student-type spiral notebook. Anyone else do so?

Frodo Baggins Flannery O'Connor Hugger Mugger

when I asked my undergraduate Russian lit teacher who he preferred between Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky, he said for the Russian people it was an easy choice: Pushkin! I can totally believe that! But I think after Pushkin, it is Tolstoy. Lord knows I met met enough real, putative and claimed descendants of the novelist (my wife is Russian). Funny that, but none that claimed to be descended from Fyodor D.

Not a bad choice . Last year it was raining really hard so we parked ourselves at Subculture and were pretty happy. I think that Minetta is one of the smaller venues, so park early. I need to work on an itinerary. I might be checking in at Minetta too. BTW, kudos to you for trekking to the Festival.

Just a quick skim of the lists (and thanks for posting them), my "can't miss" sets: ICP Orchestra David Murray Clarinet Summit Myra Melford Snowy Egret Trio 3 with Iyer Not saying these are the only good ones, just that they would likely form the core of sets I would try to wrap others around.

Saigon Lunch Lady Hanoi Hannah Tokyo Rose