Now reading...

[GA Russell]

[BillF]

[ghost of miles]

6 hours ago, BillF said:

I just finished reading that a couple of months ago.  Will be curious to hear your thoughts, Bill! 

[ghost of miles]

My NYRB summer sale shipment just arrived (the NYRB summer sale is practically an annual holiday at this house), and I'll be starting this one tonight.

Also picked up these.

[Larry Kart]

I went big on the sale too. Of the ones you bought, I can highly endorse "Troubles."

[BillF]

37 minutes ago, ghost of miles said:

I just finished reading that a couple of months ago.  Will be curious to hear your thoughts, Bill! 

I'm currently working my way through Zachary Leader's two-volume Life of Saul Bellow and pausing to reread each novel as the biography deals with it.

Re your question about Humboldt, there's so much in those 475 pages, you could design a background course of study encompassing everything from the philosophy of Rudolf Steiner to the city of Chicago, not forgetting of course Bellow's marital and legal woes! Fascinating stuff!

[Jim Duckworth]

[Brad]

[BillF]

16 hours ago, Brad said:

👍

Now reading:

[ejp626]

I have to admit that I am not feeling The Adventures of Augie March this time around.  It just feels like it drags, and I am almost completely uninterested in the doings of Augie's callow older brother, Simon.  I remember liking the novel very much in my 20s, but my tastes and tolerance for long novels have definitely changed...

Will try to stick to shorter novels for a while.  Next up are Reuss's Henry of Atlantic City and Desani's All About H. Hatterr (NYRB).

[Matthew]

Radical Wordsworth: The Poet Who Changed the World by Jonathan Bate.

[GA Russell]

I enjoyed this one.

[jlhoots]

Verghese: The Covenant Of Water

[BillF]

On 6/28/2023 at 7:06 PM, Matthew said:

Radical Wordsworth: The Poet Who Changed the World by Jonathan Bate.

Looks interesting.

Now reading:

 

[mjazzg]

Kyle Gann - No Such Thing As Silence, John Cage's 4'33"

As recommended here ages ago by @JSngry. Early pages but seems very readable, thanks

[BillF]

[ejp626]

On 7/8/2023 at 10:38 AM, BillF said:

Now reading:

 

This is my favorite late Bellow novel by far.  However, I'm a little worried that my tastes have shifted so radically that I won't enjoy it if I reread it (I just did not like The Adventures of Augie March at all this time around), but I suspect it will hold up whenever I get back to it.

I did enjoy Reuss's Henry of Atlantic City more than Horace Afoot.  I'm just now venturing into All About H. Hatterr (NYRB).  Hoping that it lives up to the buzz.

[ghost of miles]

Rereading after many years. I’d forgotten how funny Anne Lamott is in her remembrances and dispensations:

[Rabshakeh]

Currently really enjoying Nathaniel Mackey's Fro a Broken Bottle Traces of Perfume Still Emanate. Not sure whether this is a "jazz book" or not.

[mjazzg]

20 minutes ago, Rabshakeh said:

Currently really enjoying Nathaniel Mackey's Fro a Broken Bottle Traces of Perfume Still Emanate. Not sure whether this is a "jazz book" or not.

Meant nothing to me so just read a little about it, intrigued.

I see Oto sell it and their bookshelves normally intimidate me with their intellectualism...

[Rabshakeh]

10 minutes ago, mjazzg said:

Meant nothing to me so just read a little about it, intrigued.

I see Oto sell it and their bookshelves normally intimidate me with their intellectualism...

I bought it there. It is definitely an OTO book...

Really enjoying it though.

[jlhoots]

Colson Whitehead: Crook Manifesto

[Brad]

[GA Russell]

This is from a psychologist who suspects that many people have mental problems not because of what their parents did, but rather what their parents failed to do.  This may be because the parents are repeating the mistakes of their parents.  

 

[ghost of miles]

New bio of Connie Converse:

… and the book that was the basis for Christopher Nolan’s brilliant new movie Oppenheimer: