now reading
Lovesick Blues: The Life of Hank Williams by Paul Hemphill
lx have u read f scott fitzgerald tender is the night? it is a treat. of all the books i’ve read here that one has stuck with me the most (gilead and citizen vince right behind)
good thread, good idea.
lamely, though, i don’t know if i’ve read that; maybe a long long time ago. i’ll pick it up and let you know.
i’m so glad you like citizen vince; i really liked it too. and i loved the bit from gilead that you read to me.
just finished the oxford guide to word games by tony augarde; sounds silly but i enjoyed (most of) it. i’m going to send you the chapter about scrabble. haven’t started anything new yet.
traded in a bunch of crap and got these two, will report back:
martin amis—london fields
a home at the end of the world—michael cunningham
i read london fields. haven’t read the other.
i began the business by iain banks. not sure this is one i’m going to finish; it could be too annoying.
a home at the end of the world is good, so far, a chapter in. i had never heard of the guy or of the book but hey, take a chance. i know nothing about martin amis, either. we’ll see.
tender is the night is a book i read at some point, maybe in college, maybe in high school, and it made no impression on me then. a different matter now...
you would like a home at the end of the world. i’m about 2/3 of the way through it in a day and a half. i’ll try to bring it back with me. or not. i may sell it. but worth your time!
i feel like it’s on one of my lists somewhere. don’t worry about bringing it; i’m sure i can pick it up at the top of the street. when i get tender is the night.
long distance book club at last? i considered starting cannery row the other night, but didn’t. :)
Jane Jacobs—The Death and Life of Great American Cities
Cannery Row and Sweet Thursday are my all-time favorite perennial reads. There’s a hole in reality we can look through if we like.
it turns out i’m enjoying The Business after all. not going very quickly because that word puzzle book got me wanting to do cryptic (brit-style) crosswords, which i happen to have a book of, so i’ve been doing that a lot, too.
i got the cunningham this weekend, but neither bookstore at the top had the fitzgerald.
nr: big pack of magazines (new yorker, nyt magazine) that arrived yesterday
rushdie midnight’s children
(that amis book sucked)
yeah, i hated that amis too; it totally sucked.
bill bryson—some book about travelling in europe
it’s, y’konw, light and fine and funny at times and whatever and i’ll be done with it by tomorrow.
i just finished the cunningham. yes, i liked it. thanks for the recommendation.
cannery row. at last.
:D
eugenides middlesex
special topics in calamity physics
the impressionist, hari kunzru
(really enjoyed cannery row, by the way. why haven’t i read more steinbeck?)
because a high school teacher screwed it up for you somehow?
nope, i didn’t read steinbeck till college (the grapes of wrath), and i really loved it. and i loved the professor, too. so that’s not it.
maybe because there’s so much of everything to read?
maybe because of my love of british mysteries from the 1930s and 40s?
maybe because i spend so much time on this board?
maybe because i generally read books that are lent / give to me, and nobody else reads steinbeck?
I will loan you Sweet Thursday, once I find it....
It is probably next to The Man of No Talents.
I still have the tattered paperback of Cannery Row I first read. It is really falling apart now, foxed and chipped and battered. I didn’t read any Steinbeck until I was in my mid-30s. I haven’t read them all yet. But I try to read Cannery Row and Sweet Thursday every May.
the character in my book lives three train stops away from me, in schoneberg.
jaq, any particular reason that you read them in may?
i would love to borrow Sweet Thursday once you locate it (and read it).
thanks! :)
It’s my birthday present to me :)
I have found A Man with No Talents. Sweet Thursday’s location is being narrowed down!
hey, when’s your birthday?
That would be—TODAY!!
Hello, 47!
hey happy birthday!
yay, hurray! happy day, jaq!
Joan Didion—Sentimental Journeys
I’d never read anything by here, and I’m enjoying this, essays from the 80s.
Lonely Planet Hong Kong and Macau
Gilead — Marilynne Robinson
Thanks for bringing this back for me, Jergins. It is sad and sweet.
yes, both
Lurker, are you reading anything interesting? Please tell us about it!
finally finished Gilead. loved.
now reading:
Towards A New Architecture — Le Corbusier
i find this passage, from the Le Corbusier on the topic of regulating lines and primitive structures, very charming:
In order to construct well and distribute your efforts to advantage, in order to obtain solidity and utility in the work, units of measure are the first consideration of all. The builder takes as his measure what is easiest and most constant, the tool that he is least likely to lose: his pace, his foot, his elbow, his finger.
needing a break from the above:
T.H. White — Mistress Masham’s Repose
this description of the vicar made me laugh out loud:
It was difficult to see his eyes, partly because they were of the same general color as the rest of his face, and partly because he wore thick spectacles, behind which the lurked like oysters.
i am happy i picked this up tonight.
...behind which they....
of course
for fans of Mary Norton’s The Borrowers series, or Dodie Smith’s I Capture the Castle, or Stella Gibbons’ Cold Comfort Farm:
Mistress Masham’s Repose is a must-read!
so after being reminded of them, i reread I Capture the Castle and Cold Comfort Farm. satisfying.
now i’m reading a dippy Kate Fansler mystery. may not finish it.
hi old thread, old friend. i’ve read a lot of stuff since last we visited.
currently am reading Old School by Tobias Wolff. thus far noteworthy for this passage:
“Always on the scout for new venues, I smoked in freezers and storage lockers and steam tunnels. I joined the Classical Music Club so I could smoke in the bathrooms of the concert halls we visited, and went out for cross-country so I could smoke while running in the woods.”
A Walker in the City — Alfred Kazin
“Nowhere but on Belmont Avenue did I ever see in Brownsville such open, hearty people as those market women. Their shrewd open-weather eyes missed nothing. The street was their native element; they seemed to hold it together with their hands, mouths, fists, and knees; they stood up in it behind their stands all day long, and in every weather; they stood up for themselves.
oh no. one of my favorite mystery novel detectives died. that’s not supposed to happen.
i’ve been reading old articles from various magazines and newspapers, lots of them on the topic of architecture. they make me want to go everywhere.
today i finished flow my tears, the policeman said. it’s actually the first fiction book i’ve read in a really long time!
i am trying zadie smith’s white teeth. we will see
just read Middlesex, kind of loved it.
now i’m finally reading Sweet Thursday. here’s something from it that made me laugh:
“It was his observation that when women had access to money they got nervous. To his mind, a healthy woman was a broke woman. A dame with money was a kind of a half-assed man. She stopped working at being a woman, and, as everybody knows, the finest thing about a woman is that she is a woman.”
would like to read or look at this
nr: bangkok 8—john burdett
gonna read at work in a few minutes!!!
look who finally finished a book and held a job at the same time
ball four jim bouton
Shantaram book about 4 hours ago from txt
eugenides middlesex
sitting next to bed but yet to be read.
was tearing through this but now haven’t made much progress in over a week. will return to it today.
new colson whitehead
guess who finished an actual not very good book? for the record: jamaica kincaid “a small place”
book FOR you coming from DL
:)))