Whatcha Readin' While ILB is on the Rocks?

i didn't notice the smugness or didn't pick up on it but he's probably being disparaging about himself since Bill Gray basically = DeLillo with a bit of Salinger and Pynchon thrown in too, probably. i think Mao ii was a kick in the arse for DeLillo who was basically a recluse until Underworld came out.

The Wheelman by Duane Swierczynski, an eye-popping Philly-based heist-gone-very-very-wrong caper in which a mute getaway driveway manages to escape certain death at the hands of the bad(der) guys time after time, in situations that would have killed off James Bond at Dr. No.

does registration not carry over on this? hrmph

what i heard was that the mao-ii author was william gaddis. i have no idea tho.

i am reading 'aspects of the novel' and finding it a lot more than i imagined.

oh, and i finished the new pynchon

sorry - the smugness i was referring to is in players. the first half is mostly delillo jeering, "hah, their lives are so empty!"
i think he's really tender to his characters in mao II, at least in comparison.

what i really should be reading is turkey: a modern history by eric zurcher, because i have a final exam on the late ottoman empire next monday. but, you know...

for a second i actually thought it was a history of the bird. today is not a sharp day.

I started reading Mark Twain's Roughing It. The first few chapters were quite enjoyable.

Sodom and Gomorrah

I just finished Dashiell Hammett's Red Harvest and I want to cruise through the end of the year with some good crime/spy genre fiction. Should I reading something by a) Patricia Highsmith, b) John Le Carrrrrre, c) Richard Stark?

i have been wanting to read john le carre lately, seeing as how the headlines are sort of resembling him at the moment. not that i ever have read him. but oh well.

how did you like the hammett? i still think it's one of the best things i've read this year

Oh yeah, it's great. I think I like the Thin Man just slightly more (better writing/more joeks), but that might be because I read it first.

I read a great children's book: "Fly By Night" by Frances Hardinge. I'm not sure I would have read it as a child though--it's fairly dense.

Go Patricia Highsmith!

Now I'm reading 'The Cardboard Crown' by Martin Boyd, first in a tetralogy of which I only have the first 2 books and the last 2 are out of print, alas. Yesterday I finished Max Frisch's 'Homo Faber', which must win Most Boring Narrator In Twentieth Century Literature, and come close in the Most Pseudo-Profundities category, too.

I am finally reading The Russian Debutante's Handbook, which I was given for Christmas 2004. I quite like it, but am not absorbed by it.

Highsmith seconded.

My Seville homework, if you rmember me bringing that up, was "The Seville Communion" because ILx went down before I had the chance to see whether you lot had recommended anything else. I'd read it before, it's goofy and OK (Seville itself is perhaps the loveliest place I've ever been and the book doesn't really do it justice).

Now I'm reading "Mawrdew Czgowchwz" by James McCourt, which I'm enjoying as a description of extreme fandom. It's heavy going in a sumptuous sort of way. I like it, but I'm not sure I'm going to finish it, what with the mind-clouding distractions of the festive season in direct competition.

I'm reading The Name of the Rose, which I first read about 5 years ago for school. I enjoyed it the first time, but I have a feeling I’ll get more out of it now, especially the semiotics stuff. And I actually can’t remember the outcome of the murder mystery, if there is one, so it should keep me in a bit of suspense.

hey cas(etc) it was you reading the platonic dialogues one by one before right? would you recommend that? i was thinking about it cuz i read 'phaedrus' last night but i might leave it til the summer

at any rate let this stand as a reminder to do a platonic dialogues thread once we get proper ILE back

No, it wasn't me. I was just recommending some that I like. It's prolly about time I read another one.

Today I read more of "Twilight of the Idols" and started that Stein book about birthdays and names, which is so completely great. Is there a 20th C. poet better than Stein? One the one hand, I don't think that statement means anything, but on the other hand, holy crap she is great.

ah. well, next year's failed project - in the spirit of this year's failed project to read all of philip k dick* - will be to read all the dialogues, i guess.

* tho i did get round to 'the unteleported man' and 'the cosmic puppets' recently

I just read Edward Anderson's "Thieves Like Us". The usually spurious back-cover X-meets-Y blurb is actually just right this time, describing it as Dashiell Hammett crossed with John Steinbeck. Written and set during the Depression, a nicely bleak little crime novel.

'eye in the sky'

The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin.

Finished the very fine "Fingersmith", now reading "London Fields" by Martin Amis. Semi-re-reading, because I read around half of it shortly after it was published. I loathed it at the time. A couple of abysmal short stories from "Heavy Weather" apart, I have read no fiction by Amis since, although I did read (and rather liked) "Experience".

I started reading Patricia Highsmith's "Small g" last night, has anyone read it? There was a collection of three Ripley novels but I just couldn't get excited about it in the bookstore for some reason.

Terry Pratchett's young adult Discworld books: Wee Free Men, Hat Full of Sky, and Wintersmith, because I needed some heavy-duty light reading.

La planète des singes.

The ending of that one is disappointing.

My recent reading cover connections:

http://ec2.images-amazon.com/images/P/0140445145.01._AA240_SH20_SCLZZZZZZZ_.jpg http://ec2.images-amazon.com/images/P/2266026534.01._AA240_SCLZZZZZZZ_V62579294_.jpg

'the world jones made'

xpost nietzsche contra ape

"Ape has killed God!"

I love that ape stock exchange chapter.

Somerest Maugham - The Painted Veil

W. Somerset Maugham's _The Painted Veil_ (not coincidentally)

"The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing Traitor to the Nation" Vol. 1 The Pox Party
2007 is the year I go YA

As predicted I set Mawrdew Czgowchwz aside. Instead I picked up "Party Going" by Henry Green, which is a perfect read for this time of year. I may never have said how I love Henry Green here in the sandbox, which is an oversight, and I can't say I love Henry Green too often.

Stainslaw Lem 'Solaris' and currently finishing Frank Herbert's 'Whipping star'.

ian mcewan's atonement, will start housekeeping up again soon thereafter

Henry Green's wonderful, though I have to admit it took me a while to get to grips with him. He has a unique style of rendering conversation and the like, which I read somewhere was based on the sorts of things he thought he heard because he was partly deaf. Have you read 'Caught', Tim? As a sucker for Blitz novels and a sucker for Green novels, it was catnip for me.

I'm partway through George Saunders' 'The Brief and Frightening Reign of Phil', which is really good, although I'm wondering whether the consistency of theme for each story is going to wear me out before I get to the end of the collection.

finished 'the world jones made'. onto c whitehead's 'john henry days'. coincidenttally, both of these books include one-line mentions of saskatchewan, although they don't agree on the spelling.

'Against the Day' 550 pages in....

James, "Caught" was the first HG I read, and now "Concluding" is the only one I haven't read. So, I remember liking "Caught" a lot, but I bet I'll like it a whole lot more when I get round to re-reading it.

the semester is done! nowe i'm reading john wyndham, the chrysalids for the fourth time, i think. wonderful book.

still reading goncharov-oblomov

in the inbox are:
michael herr-dispatches
david mamet-oleanna
milan kundera-the book of laughter and forgetting (began this and abandoned for oblomov...it was good but maybe not so much the frame of mind I am in)

Gilbert Sorrentino, Red The Fiend

Because he writes over and over again about both Bohemian New York and Blue Collar New York with that characteristic blend of anger and humor that is his alone.

Although, I have a feeling that Bohemian New York is not going to make an appearance in this one.

Essential German Grammar, by Stern and Bleiler. I'm apparently going through a grammar phase. This one is precisely what I wanted, though, and if the other books in this series are as good, I am excited.

Is that a Dover publication, Chris?

Yes it is.

All my reading might be doomed now that I have borrowed Martin M.'s PS2 for Katamari-rolling purposes.

A book on sex crimes, a book on the porn industry, some Elle Decor hardcover that I got for Christmas. When I'm not sick as a dog.

Is it the porn and sex crimes that made you sick?

I'm reading Vico's "New Science" in the new year.

'Les Bienveillantes' by Jonathan Littell.

Finished Twain's Roughing It. Not sure what to read next, though I've got a few ideas.

Working on:
Melville-The Confidence Man
Intimate Nights: The Golden Age of New York Cabaret
Lionel Trilling-Sincerity and Authenticity

Since the last time that I posted:

A large Norton volume of Percy Shelley's poetry, as well as a couple of cantos from Byron's Don Juan. I was not overly impressed by much of it.

A failed attempt at reading Emma -- I only managed to finish the first volume.

Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations, which was very compelling and full of interesting insights. Also, one of the more demanding reading experiences that I have had in some time.

Four of Christopher Marlowe's plays, of which my favorite was Dr. Faustus. That bit about the fellow riding his horse into the water and then demanding a refund was hilarious. The dramatic excess of his plays is a strongpoint for me.

In process/Coming up:

The Caxton version of Le Morte D'Arthur, which is a long-term reading project.

Plays by Shakespeare and Aeschylus.

Wittgenstein's On Certainty, when I can find it in the coming week.

Don Juan is funny enough, at least for a few books, or at least so I remember it.

Colin, do you have the updated version? I am reading the original of Intimate Nights now.

Yeah, I got the reprint. I picked it up because there are a few passages about my great-uncle, who ran a cabaret in the 70s/80s, but I'm really enjoying the whole thing so far.

I am happy to read all the good words on Powers: I have The Echo Maker in my precarious TBR pile and plan to order The Gold Bug Variations which is the book I really wanted to start with but no store had it in-stock and the library had this huge hardcover.

And I'm getting the Penguin Russian Short Stories collection tomorrow too. Right now I'm reading Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim in a final surrender to Sedaris mania and Pamuk's My Name is Red for a book club.

I am about 150pp into Against The Day (my maternity leave big read) and enjoying it muchly thus far. Mildly distracted by the fact that my cat has become totally obsessed with this book and keeps chewing the corners and nuzzling the pages while I'm trying to read (if I'm not reading it, she just sits on it).

stein, 'blood on the dining room floor'
linda williams, 'hard core'

Arethusa: Powers, Russian Short Stories, Sedaris - all excellent!

Am reading Gerard Woodward's 'August' now, which I'm loving, though I'm getting to the very bleak (but still very funny) parts. Before that I reading henning Mankell's 'Depths', which reminded me of a subzero (literally and emotionally) Tom Ripley, and the Persephone books reissue of the clever and gripping 'The Expendable Man' by Dorothy hughes.

Persephone Books is an excellent establishment, as is Serpent's Tail and Virago: three of my favourites!

I finished the Sedaris yesterday and have started John McGahern's Amongst Women. I read about his works in the TLS and thought he sounded like someone I'd want to read. I was right. His clear, authentic, piercing style makes a deep impression on me. I always feel sad that I learn about such great authors after their death.