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[Brad]

Interesting article in the Washington Post: Readers have many opinions on how to cull your book collection — and also why you never should

[Brad]

Here’s the original article, which I should have posted first, In turbulent times, culling my book collection gave me the illusion of control. Then the dilemmas began multiplying

[Matthew]

10 minutes ago, Brad said:

Here’s the original article, which I should have posted first, In turbulent times, culling my book collection gave me the illusion of control. Then the dilemmas began multiplying

Culling books is important. I was asked recently to go through the books in a monastic library, and in a couple of days, over 3,000 useless books were gone (I found a good home for them, and not the dumpster!). No reason to keep something that's not going to be read.

[ejp626]

Apparently there is a high-profile anti-library op-ed piece in the Globe and Mail from a publisher (behind a paywall, so I won't link), and somewhat discouragingly, the Globe and Mail didn't let the Toronto Public Library respond.  Publisher's Weekly posted the response instead: https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/libraries/article/83996-canadian-libraries-respond-to-globe-and-mail-essay-attacking-public-libraries.html

To some extent, the publisher seems to be a bit of professional contrarian.  One of his pieces mentioned that crises are good for journalists and publishers alike (so I don't know why he is complaining about TPL at the moment): https://sutherlandhousebooks.com/new-gold-rush/

I think he's a bit of a knob, and I am certainly less likely to order any books from Sutherland House in the future, but hey, it's a free country and he can say what he likes...

I have several of Melville House's Art of the Novella coming in at the library, and I'm most interested in Pushkin's Tales of Belkin and Benoît Duteurtre's The Little Girl and the Cigarette.

I'm about halfway through Kundera's Life is Elsewhere (also a library loan...).  It has its moments where Kundera is parodying romantic poets, though it also drags in places.  I'm definitely not as entranced by this as the novel's ardent admirers, but I'll go ahead and finish it.

[Brad]

[danasgoodstuff]

On 8/3/2020 at 1:31 PM, ejp626 said:

Apparently there is a high-profile anti-library op-ed piece in the Globe and Mail from a publisher (behind a paywall, so I won't link), and somewhat discouragingly, the Globe and Mail didn't let the Toronto Public Library respond.  Publisher's Weekly posted the response instead: https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/libraries/article/83996-canadian-libraries-respond-to-globe-and-mail-essay-attacking-public-libraries.html

To some extent, the publisher seems to be a bit of professional contrarian.  One of his pieces mentioned that crises are good for journalists and publishers alike (so I don't know why he is complaining about TPL at the moment): https://sutherlandhousebooks.com/new-gold-rush/

I think he's a bit of a knob, and I am certainly less likely to order any books from Sutherland House in the future, but hey, it's a free country and he can say what he likes...

I have several of Melville House's Art of the Novella coming in at the library, and I'm most interested in Pushkin's Tales of Belkin and Benoît Duteurtre's The Little Girl and the Cigarette.

I'm about halfway through Kundera's Life is Elsewhere (also a library loan...).  It has its moments where Kundera is parodying romantic poets, though it also drags in places.  I'm definitely not as entranced by this as the novel's ardent admirers, but I'll go ahead and finish it.

I'm recently retired from library work and currently pissed at management at my former employer, But the writer of that G&M piece is more than a bit of a knob, he's a 'net loss' to literature and life.  The library response was more than reasonable.

Edited August 6, 2020 by danasgoodstuff

[sidewinder]

[mjazzg]

15 hours ago, sidewinder said:

Interesting, how is it?

[sidewinder]

Pretty comprehensive and covering all the main bases, plus quite a few obscure sessions. Harry recorded with pretty well everyone over the years. I could have done with a bit more coverage of his life and career - much of it reads like lots of gig and LP reviews taken from old publications but having said that, there is a lot of detail in there, especially about the main LP releases and the BBC sessions. A labour of love for sure and Harry comes across as a lovely guy.

I think the book is now sold out - at least on the Jazz in Britain website. They can’t have printed that many copies !

By the way - ‘Joy Unlimited’ has just been reissued by Cadillac on CD. The story was that the master tapes are lost so must be an LP lift. Great that it is back out there after all these years, one of Harry’s best sessions.

Edited August 7, 2020 by sidewinder

[mjazzg]

6 minutes ago, sidewinder said:

Pretty comprehensive and covering all the main bases, plus quite a few obscure sessions. Harry recorded with pretty well everyone over the years. I could have done with a bit more coverage of his life and career - much of it reads like lots of gig and LP reviews taken from old publications but having said that, there is a lot of detail in there, especially about the main LP releases and the BBC sessions. A labour of love for sure and Harry comes across as a lovely guy.

I think the book is now sold out - at least on the Jazz in Britain website. They can’t have printed that many copies !

By the way - ‘Joy Unlimited’ has just been reissued by Cadillac on CD. The story was that the master tapes are lost so must be an LP lift. Great that it is back out there after all these years, one of Harry’s best sessions.

Thanks for the detailed review. It is still available through Amazon it seems.  I came across the Cadillac 'Joy Unlimited' reissue whilst looking for the book and ordered the LP

[sidewinder]

7 minutes ago, mjazzg said:

Thanks for the detailed review. It is still available through Amazon it seems.  I came across the Cadillac 'Joy Unlimited' reissue whilst looking for the book and ordered the LP

Must be a vinyl of a needle drop. Didn’t realise they are reissuing on CD and LP.

I have a copy of the original issue - heard this one when it first came out and over the years never saw it for sale second hand. I think the story was that the master tapes were returned to Harry and his Mrs accidentally disposed of them. Or maybe that story was wrong and they were left with John Jack?

Edited August 7, 2020 by sidewinder

[mjazzg]

11 minutes ago, sidewinder said:

Must be a vinyl of a needle drop. Didn’t realise they are reissuing on CD and LP.

I have a copy of the original issue - heard this one when it first came out and over the years never saw it for sale second hand. I think the story was that the master tapes were returned to Harry and his Mrs accidentally disposed of them. Or maybe that story was wrong and they were left with John Jack?

My needle will drop on a needle drop, all sounds a bit Escher to me

[sidewinder]

4 minutes ago, mjazzg said:

My needle will drop on a needle drop, all sounds a bit Escher to me

The samples sound OK so who knows, maybe they found the master tapes.

I’m tempted to pick up the CD.

[ghost of miles]

Highly recommended for anybody interested in late 1960s/early 70s UK psych-folk (Fairport Convention, Incredible String Band, Pentangle, etc), its roots, and its subsequent influence on later artists and bands such as Talk Talk:

[ejp626]

On 2020-08-03 at 4:31 PM, ejp626 said:

I have several of Melville House's Art of the Novella coming in at the library, and I'm most interested in Pushkin's Tales of Belkin and Benoît Duteurtre's The Little Girl and the Cigarette.

I'm about halfway through Kundera's Life is Elsewhere (also a library loan...).  It has its moments where Kundera is parodying romantic poets, though it also drags in places.  I'm definitely not as entranced by this as the novel's ardent admirers, but I'll go ahead and finish it.

Wrapped up Life is Elsewhere but it really didn't do much for me.

I really didn't like Duteurtre's The Little Girl and the Cigarette.  Even though it is short, I abandoned it 1/3 in.  The satire was just so obvious, and it wasn't remotely as daring as the author thought it was.

Tales of Belkin still looks promising and will probably be the next thing I read.  Probably some early Cheever stories after that (from Thirteen Uncollected Stories).

 

Then maybe on to Grossman's translation of Don Quixote, which I've been meaning to start for a while now.

[Brad]

My first time reading this classic and what a journey it was.

 

[jazzbo]

Re-reading these stories. I'm beginning to believe Cordwainer Smith is one of the very best writers. Period.

[jlhoots]

Don Winslow: The Kings Of Cool

[Matthew]

Sword of Honor Trilogy by Evelyn Waugh. First book is by far the best, the other are okay, but not earth shaking.

[Brad]

[ghost of miles]

Memoir by Sleater-Kinney guitarist and actress/writer Carrie Brownstein:

[ejp626]

On 2020-08-17 at 8:35 PM, ejp626 said:

Some early Cheever stories after that (from Thirteen Uncollected Stories).

 

 

About halfway through this.  Definitely some good stories in here.  It's been far, far too long since I read the canonical Cheever stories, but these early stories tread different ground (from what I can recall).  Mostly they are about men and women at the margins of society, either dancers in burlesque shows or quasi-professional gamblers and other grifters.  I guess it's arguable that Cheever came back around to writing about hard-luck types when he wrote Falconer (rather than this being a completely new direction). 

Technically 2 of these 13 stories ended up in the LOA volume of Cheever's Collected Stories, but one would be hard-pressed to track down the other 11.

Still likely going to read Don Quixote next, though I may sneak in The Pilgrim Hawk by Glenway Wescott, as it is supposed to be quite good and is fairly short.

[ghost of miles]

Excited to be reading the final volume in Rick Perlstein’s rise-of-modern-conservatism saga:

[BillF]

On 28/08/2020 at 4:11 PM, Matthew said:

Sword of Honor Trilogy by Evelyn Waugh. First book is by far the best, the other are okay, but not earth shaking.

Agree with your assessment of the trilogy. The first book is as good as EW got IMHO.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[jlhoots]

Michael Connelly: Lost Light