Just about all of Victor Serge now in print
― Exile in lolville (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Saturday, 25 February 2012 15:00 (1 year ago) Permalink
i went to city lights when i visited SF last month and they've got a whole section devoted to these. had trouble restraining myself from buying 10 of them.
― (The Other) J.D. (J.D.), Saturday, 25 February 2012 19:55 (1 year ago) Permalink
ive heard theres a bookstore in cobble hill that has a nice selection
― max, Saturday, 25 February 2012 19:57 (1 year ago) Permalink
If only I could remember where that place was.
― Can You Please POLL Out Your Window? (James Redd and the Blecchs), Saturday, 25 February 2012 20:11 (1 year ago) Permalink
gd i wish i didnt have to pay rent
― 99x (Lamp), Sunday, 26 February 2012 03:06 (1 year ago) Permalink
didn't know there was an nyrb edition, but jean stafford's the mountain lion is an awesome, creepy book and is on sale.
― horseshoe, Sunday, 26 February 2012 20:10 (1 year ago) Permalink
http://www.nybooks.com/books/imprints/classics/the-mountain-lion/
― horseshoe, Sunday, 26 February 2012 20:11 (1 year ago) Permalink
seriously why is my cats food like $70
― a life ___________ (Lamp), Sunday, 26 February 2012 20:12 (1 year ago) Permalink
haha i know i am just lalala pretending that sale isn't happening btw
― horseshoe, Sunday, 26 February 2012 20:12 (1 year ago) Permalink
I was gonna say go to libraries or something, but then I realized I always return my books late so that doesn't really help w/ $$$$
― puff puff post (uh oh I'm having a fantasy), Sunday, 26 February 2012 20:14 (1 year ago) Permalink
books are like one of the few things i think are really worth spending money on but i already spent soo much money this month on like sweaters and plane tickets
― a life ___________ (Lamp), Sunday, 26 February 2012 20:14 (1 year ago) Permalink
― puff puff post (uh oh I'm having a fantasy), Sunday, February 26, 2012 3:14 PM (25 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
i just paid $40 in late fees for library books. :( i am a deadbeat and only finished half of them, too.
― horseshoe, Sunday, 26 February 2012 20:15 (1 year ago) Permalink
i havent taken anything out of the library since the summer because i have $24.56 in late fees
― a life ___________ (Lamp), Sunday, 26 February 2012 20:16 (1 year ago) Permalink
Was thinking about The Mountain Lion while reading the recently revived Harper's thread. Back in the 80s, when Michael Kinsley was editing it (and well!), James Wolcott wrote about Stafford, who I (and all the people I mentioned the article to) had forgotten mostly forgotten about. To us, she was mostly the wife whose nose was broken twice by hubby Robert Lowell, as graphically described in Ian Hamilton's Lowell bio.Stafford also got some material, for both fiction and poetry, I think out of those experiences; don't know Lowell's confessional verses go that far, but he also became literally a textbook example of bipolarity)Nevertheless, Wolcott got us into The Mountain Lion, Boston Adventure (novel), and I still need to read the non-fiction A Mother In History, Stafford's encounters with Lee Harvey's mom. Way later, an interviewer mentioned this column, and Wocott said people were still thanking him for it. As well they might. the main character of The Mountain Lion seems like somebody you might never want to bother having compassion for, but she compells it, a sympathetic sub-villain (maybe like Lowell to her? Although she did get the hell out--the mother in Boston Adventure is somewhat similar)
― dow, Sunday, 26 February 2012 20:33 (1 year ago) Permalink
sorry about stupid typos
― dow, Sunday, 26 February 2012 20:34 (1 year ago) Permalink
i've never read Boston Adventure! i should check it out. i think of Molly as a character that defies any attempt at readerly sentimental identification, but i don't know if she's a villain, exactly. she's terrifying.
― horseshoe, Sunday, 26 February 2012 20:43 (1 year ago) Permalink
She does defy it, and she's scary, but o shit, where Stafford takes her and the reader, the ending o shit
― dow, Sunday, 26 February 2012 21:00 (1 year ago) Permalink
paging scott seward btw; have you read jean stafford? i think you would enjoy jean stafford.
― horseshoe, Sunday, 26 February 2012 21:01 (1 year ago) Permalink
I saw The Mountain Lion at my local bookstore last year and didn't buy it -- a mistake. Should I start with that one or BA?
― Exile in lolville (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Sunday, 26 February 2012 21:04 (1 year ago) Permalink
Hard to say--The Mountain Lion is shorter, not as dense, which might be good or bad; you can't forage for so many consolation prizes if you get tired of the main line of development. Boston Adventure starts like its title suggests, oh a plucky underdog's gonna make it after all. Might have some tense moments, but some wry me resolutions, not so unusual then. Probably got into some school libraries that way. But it keeps tunneling into, for instance, scenes with a mental mother, very convincing, beyond standard coming of age etc novels then; It's not only about such relationships, doesn't settle even for them, though could have, re merited reviewer-bait.
― dow, Sunday, 26 February 2012 21:27 (1 year ago) Permalink
Oh yeah, and here's an description, for non-subscribers like me, of a Stafford collection's title story:http://www.newyorker.com/archive/1948/02/21/1948_02_21_023_TNY_CARDS_000214532
― dow, Sunday, 26 February 2012 21:31 (1 year ago) Permalink
Weirdly, all 3 of Lowell's ex-wives are now published by NYRB: Jean Stafford, Caroline Blackwood, Elizabeth Hardwick. All 3 are really great writers, too
― Not only dermatologists hate her (James Morrison), Sunday, 26 February 2012 23:03 (1 year ago) Permalink
Don't know Blackwood's work, is it good?
― dow, Sunday, 4 March 2012 20:13 (1 year ago) Permalink
The one I read was good, and others here have repped for some of the others.
― Why Does Redd People Never Want To Blecch? (James Redd and the Blecchs), Sunday, 4 March 2012 20:17 (1 year ago) Permalink
Oh yeah, now I see mention of Great Granny Webster, what's the writing like?
― dow, Sunday, 4 March 2012 20:33 (1 year ago) Permalink
Remember it being witty and funny, byt it was a while ago, I couldn't tell you more. Maybe I should read this copy of Corrigan sitting right here.
― Why Does Redd People Never Want To Blecch? (James Redd and the Blecchs), Sunday, 4 March 2012 20:49 (1 year ago) Permalink
Please do! I'll look around online when not so lazy.
― dow, Sunday, 4 March 2012 20:51 (1 year ago) Permalink
Yeah, Blackwood is witty and funny and often pretty dark, too. Good stuff.
― Not only dermatologists hate her (James Morrison), Sunday, 4 March 2012 22:38 (1 year ago) Permalink
Forgot to mention the darkness. Enjoying first pages of Corrigan. May stick with it
― Why Does Redd People Never Want To Blecch? (James Redd and the Blecchs), Sunday, 4 March 2012 23:16 (1 year ago) Permalink
'an ermine in czernopol' is just really, really good
― Lamp, Tuesday, 3 April 2012 02:22 (1 year ago) Permalink
anyone read Hav, the Jan Morris travel fiction thing that they have forthcoming. Usually enjoy morris, am tempted.
― you don't exist in the database (woof), Wednesday, August 24, 2011 11:00 AM (8 months ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
just read this, really enjoyed it. its actually two books in one -- one set in 1985 and one in 2005 -- the first is better but the second works fine as a companion piece
― max, Wednesday, 9 May 2012 02:50 (1 year ago) Permalink
Oh yeah, I gotta have Hav. The travel non-fiction I've read was rich, dense but very clear, very careful, with no hesitation.Comes from climbing all those mountains, incl the ones w streets. Also liked Conundrum, re the sex change. Haven't read the pre-op, Desmond era adventures, but I better.
― dow, Monday, 14 May 2012 21:19 (1 year ago) Permalink
Lethem praises Patrick Hamilton's NYRB editions in current Rolling Stone, mentions that Hamilton provided the basis of Hitchcock's Gaslight and Rope (the latter with a little help from Leopold and Loeb, or so I assumed)
― dow, Friday, 25 May 2012 19:59 (11 months ago) Permalink
reading the sheckley story collection right now, very fun
― congratulations (n/a), Friday, 25 May 2012 20:13 (11 months ago) Permalink
Patrick Hamilton is so much one of my favourite writers
― seven league bootie (James Morrison), Sunday, 27 May 2012 04:21 (11 months ago) Permalink
from http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/books/2012/06/bookexpo-america.html
I also discovered that, starting this fall, N.Y.R.B. is launching a new e-book-only imprint, made up of literary novels and books in translation singled out by the writer Sue Halpern. “Our logic is very simple,” Halpern writes. “Since, as the argument goes, it is too risky and expensive to bring out these sorts of books, we will take advantage of digital’s lower costs to expand the reading universe.” The first three offerings will be Lindsay Clarke’s “The Water Theatre” (September); Zena el Khalil’s “Beirut, I Love You: A Memoir” (October), and Yoram Kaniuk’s “1948” (November). The project is one answer to the lament about print’s demise; think of what’s now possible in the cheaper e-book form.
― congratulations (n/a), Thursday, 7 June 2012 18:19 (11 months ago) Permalink
Me too, and I think I first heard of him on ILB.
That ebook thing sounds excellent.
― franny glass, Friday, 8 June 2012 15:50 (11 months ago) Permalink
Anybody get Ride a Cockhorse? The original novel was published in '91.
― a regina spektor is haunting europe (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Sunday, 8 July 2012 23:36 (10 months ago) Permalink
I've ordered it, but it hasn't come in yet--looks good, though
― an inevitable disappointment (James Morrison), Monday, 9 July 2012 00:12 (10 months ago) Permalink
struggling with the wedgwood
I keep reading sentences but they're not going in; she has an imperceptibly queer style. lots of sentences seem straightforward but don't seem to make a lot of sense. maybe I'm just in the wrong headspace rn
― skrill xx (cozen), Wednesday, 18 July 2012 12:11 (10 months ago) Permalink
finished reading 'the mountain lion' which i liked a lot and thought felt kinda sui generis like it wasnt really a story about childhood or coming-of-age but it also wasnt a fable, really, although it has strong elements of both?
i think of Molly as a character that defies any attempt at readerly sentimental identification, but i don't know if she's a villain, exactly. she's terrifying.
she is terrifying! i didnt hate her and they way stafford slopes in and out of her pov, mixing her and her brother up makes it hard to get a real sense of her somehow? idk i almost felt like despite everything she was still a mystery to me, nothing she did would surprise but everything seemed uncertain and unpredictable too.
― Lamp, Tuesday, 24 July 2012 04:08 (9 months ago) Permalink