Now reading...

[Nate Dorward]

Michael Chabon: The Amazing Adventures Of Kavalier & Clay

...

Foer has his share of critics, but I've liked both of the novels I've read.

The Chabon is excellent, ditto Wonder Boys. On the other hand, I found Foer's Everything Is Illuminated sufficiently nauseating I couldn't get past the first thirty pages.

Current reading: a stack of Colette novels/novellas; the 1957-1958 volume of the Complete Peanuts; Lem's Solaris; Jim Harrison's Sundog.

[jazzbo]

"Darkness at Dawn," a collection of the first "suspense" stories from Cornell Woolrich written between 1934 and 1935. I'm on a Woolrich kick.

Not good for your mental health!

Don't find that he affects my mental health at all! But I love the way he writes, just fascinates me.

[TheMusicalMarine]

Just finished William Manchester's The Last Lion Alone: 1932-1940. For admirers of Churchill, this and its preceding volume are indispensible. The book is a fascinating read and Manchester was a brilliant writer.

[ejp626]

Brockmeier's A Brief History of the Dead. I enjoyed this, but the reviews are mixed. The main set-up is that there is a city in which the newly dead reside, until everyone who knew them is dead, at which point they pass onto another, even more mysterious location. The next major plot point is that terrorists have released a virus that gets so completely out of hand that it decimates the entire global population, except for a handful of researchers at the South Pole. The chapters then alternate between the city of the dead and the South Pole. Some people wanted more of one setting rather than the other. I found the city of the dead chapters a lot more interesting and somewhat agree that aspects of it aren't really fleshed out or thought all the way through. My favorite bit from an Amazon reviewer is about how the dead eat burgers, so does that mean there is a small army of newly dead cattle kept for the sole purpose of being eaten a second time.

But it was certainly an entertaining read. For a slightly more coherent metaphysical headtrip, take a look at James Morrow's Towing Jehovah about a captain who is given the task of towing God's dead body to the equator to atone for his past mistakes, most notably rupturing an oil tanker and spilling crude oil all over the Alaskan shore.

[Matthew]

Stephen Ambrose's D-Day June 6, 1944: The Climactic Battle of World War II. It's a very interesting read. I never realized how complex the invasion was (kinda thought, a couple of boats and there they were!), also a lot of sadness involved in reading the book -- the soldiers were so young, it's heartbreaking to read an excerpt from some GI's letter home, then read the footnote that he died in action . I know someone who was a GI and was part of the D-Day invasion (received a Purple Heart), I'm going to see if he cares to talk about it or not.

[paul secor]

Oxford American 2003 Music Issue - courtesy of a good friend; articles on and appreciations of artists ranging from Memphis Minnie to King Pleasure to The Collins Kids to Chris King, a young 78 record collector, to Swamp Dogg to Otis Blackwell to P.J. Proby and on and on.

[BruceH]

Rainbow's End---Vernor Vinge

[paul secor]

"Meeting E.P." by Samuel Hynes in the June 12, 2006 New Yorker - A Marine pilot seeks out Ezra Pound.

and

Michael Dirda's essay on Guy Davenport in Readings.

[jlhoots]

Kent Haruf: Eventide

Llosa: Aunt Julia & The Scriptwriter

[paul secor]

Guy Davenport's essay "Ezra Pound 1885-1972" in The Geography of the Imagination"

[jazzbo]

That "Mayflower" book.

'Salright.

[Matthew]

Finished Eric Ambler's The Light of Day, and again, I'm disappointed. Ambler is able to create great situations for a "thriller" novel, but he does nothing with the given situation. Maybe it's just his later novels, but it's beginning to get irratating.

Edited June 24, 2006 by Matthew

[ghost of miles]

Nelson Algren, NONCONFORMITY.

[Kalo]

Myself When I am Real, Gene Santoro's biography of Charles Mingus.

Anyone else read this? It felt very disjointed. Santoro keeps repeating certain phrases, such as "Mingus was feeling the Zeitgeist." He obsessively and tiresomely lists exact amounts that Mingus was paid or that he paid for things, interesting in some cases, but enough already.

Mingus is so fascinating that the book was worthwhile for that alone and for the quotes from contemporaries (I'd rather have read a compilation of the interviews, really).

Also, some things in the book were just plain wrong. "Chateau Neuf du Pape" for "Chateaneuf-du-Pape" could be an editor's mistake. But to assert that cumbia is to Columbia as bossa nova is to Brazil is just plain wrong. Shouldn't he have compared it to the samba rather than bossa nova?

Oh well. Has anyone read Brian Priestley's Mingus book? It looks like it has a lot more about the music in it, which Santoro was surprisingly light on.

[kinuta]

Elizabeth George - Playing For The Ashes

[BruceH]

Myself When I am Real, Gene Santoro's biography of Charles Mingus.

Anyone else read this? It felt very disjointed. Santoro keeps repeating certain phrases, such as "Mingus was feeling the Zeitgeist." He obsessively and tiresomely lists exact amounts that Mingus was paid or that he paid for things, interesting in some cases, but enough already.

Mingus is so fascinating that the book was worthwhile for that alone and for the quotes from contemporaries (I'd rather have read a compilation of the interviews, really).

Also, some things in the book were just plain wrong. "Chateau Neuf du Pape" for "Chateaneuf-du-Pape" could be an editor's mistake. But to assert that cumbia is to Columbia as bossa nova is to Brazil is just plain wrong. Shouldn't he have compared it to the samba rather than bossa nova?

Oh well. Has anyone read Brian Priestley's Mingus book? It looks like it has a lot more about the music in it, which Santoro was surprisingly light on.

Guess I can give that one a miss.

Haven't read the Priestley, but it's one of those books I've been "meaning to" read for years.

(Actually, it may have been one of those books destroyed in a basement/garage flood a few months back. Oh well.)

Edited June 26, 2006 by BruceH

[jazzbo]

I've read both of the Mingus books. You'll like Preistley's. They both are good in my opinion for what they are. As is Sue Mingus's book. I think there could be twenty books about Mingus and not one would be "true" or maybe even ultimately satisfying. What a spirit, what a character, what a composer, what a player.

[Kalo]

Myself When I am Real, Gene Santoro's biography of Charles Mingus.

Anyone else read this? It felt very disjointed. Santoro keeps repeating certain phrases, such as "Mingus was feeling the Zeitgeist." He obsessively and tiresomely lists exact amounts that Mingus was paid or that he paid for things, interesting in some cases, but enough already.

Mingus is so fascinating that the book was worthwhile for that alone and for the quotes from contemporaries (I'd rather have read a compilation of the interviews, really).

Also, some things in the book were just plain wrong. "Chateau Neuf du Pape" for "Chateaneuf-du-Pape" could be an editor's mistake. But to assert that cumbia is to Columbia as bossa nova is to Brazil is just plain wrong. Shouldn't he have compared it to the samba rather than bossa nova?

Oh well. Has anyone read Brian Priestley's Mingus book? It looks like it has a lot more about the music in it, which Santoro was surprisingly light on.

Guess I can give that one a miss.

Haven't read the Priestley, but it's one of those books I've been "meaning to" read for years.

(Actually, it may have been one of those books destroyed in a basement/garage flood a few months back. Oh well.)

Ouch! Sorry about the flood.

I've read both of the Mingus books. You'll like Preistley's. They both are good in my opinion for what they are. As is Sue Mingus's book. I think there could be twenty books about Mingus and not one would be "true" or maybe even ultimately satisfying. What a spirit, what a character, what a composer, what a player.

Good point! Mingus is so deep that the possibilities for illumination/elucidation are endless... I had the good fortune to meet Sue Mingus recently. I'll put her book on the list.

I'll definitely read Priestley's book soon, as well as getting around to reading Mingus's own Beneath the Underdog. I also need to beef up my Mingus collection, though I flatter myself that I've been holding and listening to the "meat" of his music for quite some time. (Though I have none of his 1970's stuff...)

[ep1str0phy]

I'm presently trying to digest Jost's Free Jazz, Russell's Lydian Chromatic... textbook (Vol. 1 of the--supposedly--'final' edition), and Teodoro Agoncillo's A Short History of the Philippines. The latter represents an attempt to reclaim my ethnic origins well beyond the (infinitely more) factually relevant bases of the family circumstances. Also--reading my girlfriend's copy of The Unbearable Lightness of Being. Ugh...

[ghost of miles]

Really eager to read AMONG THE DEAD CITIES, a new book about the Allied bombing of population centers during WWII--in the meantime, alternating between CONVERSATIONS WITH NELSON ALGREN and Dave Oliphant's TEXAN JAZZ.

[jazzbo]

Oliphant is a very nice guy. . . . He's a stone cold Kenny Dorham freak. He's retiring in a few months I believe.

That book is hard work. . . but a good one.

[Christiern]

I am about halfway through this biography of John Hammond. So far, I was glad to see that the author has not totally tried to whitewash John, but he does avoid much of his less appealing side. That may not be deliberate, for it is obvious that Prial knows little about the music business and that he is working in the dark when it comes to jazz history. Still, at least from what I have read, there is a lot here that John Himself left out of his autobiography. Considering some of the people he interviewed, I find it difficult to believe that he wasn't told some of the things I know--things that ought to have been in this book.

I'll come back when I've read it all, but not here--someone already started a thread on this book.

[BruceH]

I recall that the late, lamented Otis Ferguson had some reservations about Hammond.

[paul secor]

Peter Pouncey: Rules for Old Men Waiting

[B. Clugston]

Myself When I am Real, Gene Santoro's biography of Charles Mingus.

Anyone else read this? It felt very disjointed. Santoro keeps repeating certain phrases, such as "Mingus was feeling the Zeitgeist." He obsessively and tiresomely lists exact amounts that Mingus was paid or that he paid for things, interesting in some cases, but enough already.

Mingus is so fascinating that the book was worthwhile for that alone and for the quotes from contemporaries (I'd rather have read a compilation of the interviews, really).

Also, some things in the book were just plain wrong. "Chateau Neuf du Pape" for "Chateaneuf-du-Pape" could be an editor's mistake. But to assert that cumbia is to Columbia as bossa nova is to Brazil is just plain wrong. Shouldn't he have compared it to the samba rather than bossa nova?

Oh well. Has anyone read Brian Priestley's Mingus book? It looks like it has a lot more about the music in it, which Santoro was surprisingly light on.

Is Santoro's book the one that is full of errors? Like the description of Mingus at Monterey where he gets the personnel really wrong and describes solos by musicians who do not even appear on the album.

nr: The Count of Monte Cristo, Dumas