There should be an ILB "Introduce Yourselves"!

The tussle in my head between the values I sum up as 'the textual' and 'the textural' is probably something to do with my being so inherently bookish (degree in Eng Lit, worked in bookshops before my music career began, etc). At the moment the textural is winning.

I think this is because, when I really wanted to be a writer, I was deep into the 'literature of exhaustion' -- Beckett, Celan, Gombrowicz... perhaps you could add Goytisolo and add to 'exhaustion', with its imagery of getting to the end of langage and being done with the whole thing once and for all, the parallel style of 'endless, pointless, baroque elaboration' -- what Dostoyevsky calls, in Notes From Underground, 'babble':

But what is to be done if the direct and sole vocation of every intelligent man is babble, that is, the intentional pouring of water through a sieve?

I opted to babble in pop records, which didn't seem exhausted when I started making them (I might have a different feeling if I were 20 today). Pop records seemed to balance the textual and the textural rather well.

A BB page like the one we're on right now looks a bit like a printed, published page, doesn't it? But even more like a sieve. Can't you hear the gurgling sound as your writing simultaneously gets set in type and swept down the drain?

i am griffin doome (not my real name). i write. i've had two short stories published and write music journalism on a semi-regular basis for two magazines. i am working on my unpublishable opus at the moment and short stories as they come. i fear that i may turn to writing a shallow rip-off of my experiences in the music scene strictly for cash.

i love pretty words.

my tastes are pretty conventional: jd salinger, rick moody, denis johnson, flannery o'connor, william faulkner, philip k dick.

i am from london though i choose not to be from london. ha ha.

I did a BA in English list and an MA in writing. I do book reviews but sadly not for a living, instead I work as an editor. I tend to turn off the mad editing skeelz in email/online forums so don't hold me to stupid spelling mistakes et al.

I do some writing myself and therefore am bitter, cynical, and hate everyone. Especially you. Aaaaaaaaand YOU.

I read fiction / travel mostly. Since I was 20 I've set myself a target of 100 books a year. I'm 34 and my eyes hurt.

Office job, but with travel writing aspirations. Two pieces published. I also ran a university magazine for a year and I'm truely sorry.

I'm Upper Clapton end, by the Lea. Which area of the rural oasis do you inhabit?

Griffin, what journals have you been published in?

same town as Jordan
might move but now I might not
one wife and two kids

four cats and five books
that I've published (four are "real,"
one's Internetted)

also done Slam stuff,
competed nationally,
and I write reviews

My favorite author right now is Brian O'Nolan in any of his modes (Flann O'Brien, Myles na gCopaleen, etc.), but have also thought Cortazar, Barth, Barthelme, Tutuola, Shakespeare, Perec, Saroyan, Atwood, Murakami, Delany, W.C. Williams, LeGuin, Baldwin, Borges, Austen, Twain, Dostoievsky, Garcia Marquez, and Kawabata my favorites at one point or another. Jordan we must get together and discuss books over many beers at the Great Dane or something, our tastes are too similar not to, Mingus is the century's great neglected author yes I said yes I mean yes.

My favourite fiction authors include Jeff Noon, Banana Yoshimoto, Ursula LeGuin, Evelyn Waugh and Hilary Mantel. I'm also very fond of Latin poets from the late Republic/early Empire, more of the Catullus/Propertius tendency than the Virgil, but tend to sulk if I can't find a bilingual translation (ie: most of the time). I also get stroppy when people insist on linking a poet's work to their life story.

I try and write, but I'm lazy and seemingly incapable of going beyond a few paragraphs of very dense prose. A play of mine was performed at the Edinburgh festival; unfortunately, it was pretentious twaddle.

I don't write beyond my technical writing stuff. But I'd like to write a non-fiction book about termites some day.

Dallas (for now), 30, English teacher.

Wish I had time to read more. Am trying to correct this. Hate Pynchon. Never read Roth.

Fave books: His Dark Materials, Bastard Out of Carolina, Jane Eyre

Have written two novels which I'm retooling. Have published various non-fiction, journalistic bits but nothing since becoming a teacher. Along with trying to read more and am trying to revive my creative writing talents.

Last book read: Cane River by . . .uh, Tadiemy. forget the first name. Historical fiction .Not bad.

Currently reading: Last Exit to Brooklyn, Selby.

As a reader, I am eclectic. 40 or 50 books a year, veering about aimlessly in both fiction and non-fiction, whatever I find interesting and readable. I'm not well-versed in modern fiction; I'm more of an ignoramus in that part of the literary world and so I shall be lurking more than contributing on threads devoted to recent novels.

I have a lot of knowlege about poetry, up to about 1950. After that the main channel of poetry seems to spread out into a broad but shallow alluvial fan and I get lost. I could also blame my age for this, but it would be wrong. It is more that I am backward-looking and out of sympathy with modern life.

I also have a fairly broad knowlege of and interest in the classics, by which I mean everything up to about 1600 AD, whether European or not - although outside European literature the availability of texts where I live (and therefore my knowlege of them) drops off considerably. I am no scholar. I don't have the temperment for it. I am the silly amatuer through and through.

I doubt very much whether either my poetic or classical interests will ever come into much play here on ILB, but there they are. I plan to toss in wherever it seems to me I have something of value to say.

As for My Favo(u)rite Authors, I'll make a senseless stab at it: Flann O'Brien, John Donne, Mark Twain, Stephen J. Gould, Rabelais, Wallace Stevens, Walter Mosley, and To Be Announced.

Oh yes, I am from Oregon.

Oh, sorry, I never specified my origins... you probably won't have heard of the town I grew up in, it's called Port Edwards. Central Wis, potato farms and paper mills. My entire family, on both sides, is based in Central Wisconsin and the maniacs won't quit nagging me to come visit them in this horrible weather. Like Chicago isn't cold and dark enough!!!

Thanks to college, I know about and heart Gravity's Rainbow, In the Skin of a Lion and Mrs. Dalloway, and thanks to college, I'm utterly tired of Ulysses. I notice that I really haven't much rhyme or reason to things I like, but I know I hate reading poetry. I won't bother with any why's.

I also like doing puzzles. And I really enjoy writing fiction.

I would like to thank Jessa and Bookslut.com for recommending this place. And Jessa thank you for Bookslut, can't say enough good things
about it.

My reading is all over the place. I was influenced early in life by
C.P. Snow's "Two Cultures" and promised myself that I would never
limit my reading or my intellectual interest. I am currently involved
in Theological studies and I also read a lot of astronomy. I'm a
huge Anglophile and my fiction reading is centered currently on
modern British Authors. In terms of Poetry I've been reading a lot of
the Metaphysical Poets. Reading Ralph Ellison has led me to his friend Albert Murray and the exploration of Jazz and Jazz criticism.

Delighted to have landed here. Like Phil I've been influenced by the
doomy social critics. I find my self surrounded more and more by folks who do not read and spend way too much time in front of the 'idiot box'. Nice to find a place to talk and recharge.

Good, but unambitious reader in elementary school. I couldn't get too interested in many of the works of fiction that "good readers" were supposed to read. I was more interested in books about flags, bugs, armor, etc. (There were some exceptions here and there.) Around 7th grade I started reading some Tolkien and C.S. Lewis fiction (gifts from my family). At around the age of 12 I discovered poetry, mostly modern poetry, which was really BIG for me in a way I can hardly remember now. In retrospect it looks a lot like I was using it as a way to give myself an identity, even a sense of superiority, to compensate for becoming a social outcast. (Though on the other hand the interest in poetry was already there in a more modest form well before it sort of burst open.) Also, I think the whole kind of blur of reading lots of things I didn't understand amounted to something like a state of disassociation to help me get through the very painful present I was living. But maybe now that I have mostly lost interest in it I am prone to explaining my past interest away in psychological terms. (Also, I'm forgetting that far from creating a blur, some of the poetry I read may have helped me learn to observe the phenomenal world around me.)

The other big thing that was tied up with reading at this time was that I began to seriously question the religion in which I had been raised. So I was reading Christian theology, books about other religions, etc. I would say that much of my reading even now is at least partly motivated by finding evidence against Christianity or, more positively, figuring out what other ways of understanding the world make sense to me. Of course, even if I hadn't once believed in some particular set of religious doctrines, I would presumably, sooner or later, have wanted to come up with some overall understanding of Reality, the World, etc.

In retrospect, my college intellectual life seems to mostly have been a matter of not figuring out quickly enough how my interests were shifting. (I shouldn't have majored in English. I shouldn't have been sitting under the depressing fluorescent lights reading rare Charles Henri Ford books that didn't delight me.)

I read non-fiction almost exclusively, often to try to answer specific questions I have (usually fairly unwieldy ones), but maybe equally as often simply because a book has made me curious. To a large extent, my reading is influenced by my immediate environment. At work, I tend to be around a lot of books dealing with religion, so I read more books in religious studies than I might otherwise. Likewise, hanging around ILM has inspired me to read more books about music than I might have otherwise (even if it's often not the same books being mentioned there). I have a somewhat short attention span, in the sense that I may get terribly serious about a particular subject and begin reading about it, but I will almost always get sidetracked after about three books on that topic. So I may go from "I want to understand what the hell my government is up to" to "This cave art is really fascinating."

Here are some books, mostly fairly recent, that I would like to read (from a folder of print-outs/photocopies):

Jealous Gods and Chosen People: The Mythology of the Middle East by David Adams Leeming
Wizards and Scientists: Explorations in Afro-Cuban Modernity and Tradition by Stephan Palmie
When I Was Cool: My Life at the Jack Kerouac School by Sam Kashner
The Middle-Class City: Transforming Space and Time in Philadelphia, 1876-1926, by John Henry Hepp
The Art of Reciting the Qur'an by Kristina Nelson
Talk of the Devil: Encounters with Seven Dictators, by Riccardo Orizio
Sex, Time and Power: How Women's Sexuality Changed the Course of Human Evolution, by Leonard Shlain
An Expendable Man: The Near-Execution of Earl Washington, Jr., by Margaret Edds

I live on Bodmin Moor. Favourite authors: Saki, Isaac Bashevis Singer, Ibsen, Miller, Goldoni, Dahl, Rudkin, Bond. Favourite more recent books: Paris Trance by Geoff Dyer, Dogwalker by Arthur Bradford, The Night in Question by Tobias Wolff.

Most recent discovery: The Young Visiters (sic) by Daisy Ashford - the laughoutloudest thing I've read in a long time.

I haven't settled on a nickname I'm happy with yet, so this one is temporary.

I'm Laura, age 30, currently doing my atonement for some past life transgressions by living in central Florida. I've a BA in Technical Writing and and am finishing an MA in the same field. Right now I'm happily freelancing my technical/scientific writing and editing skills, though I specialize in space-related matters. And, to make-up for the political bs of my chosen field of specialization, I do some volunteer writing/editing/publishing stuff for several non-profits. I'm also looking into geting a Masters in Library and Information Sciences.

I'm a life-long reader, after having been raised by a family of hippies who forbid there being a television in the house, so I fast learned to escape from the chaos into books. Right now I'm having a few health problems and am thankful that I have a life (and household) full of books (25 bookcases, at current count). My best friend is also a passionate (and eclectic) reader, so he tends to steer me toward some of the more unique works that he stumbles across, but my own personal preference is toward modern, international literature; literary science fiction and fantasy; social and political histories; just about any memoir set in the middle east and south-east Asia; middle eastern and south-east Asian lit.; odd travelogues; just about anything (fiction and non-fiction) set between about 1875 and 1920; U.S. western settlement; California history; the natural sciences ... okay, easier to exclude, here. I don't tend to read horror, romances, westerns, most stuff in mass paperback publication.

Current favorite authors include: Jonathan Lethem; Dawn Powell; Neal Stephenson; Jasper Fforde; Don DeLillo; Bernd Heinrich.

i have been a librarian for over 15 years.

books have always been an important part of my life. but just recently i...can't.

last book actually finished "His Dark Materials" trilogy (well, nearly finished. i ground to a halt 200 pages into the final book)

since then (6 months ago?) have started several but just...can't.

so i'm here. to suck the enthusiasm from you!

Hi accentmonkey - congratulations on having escaped from the joys of technical writing.

Tom, I too like the mainstream lit - good to see someone else who enjoys Chabon and Eugenides.

My all time favorite book is Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, but I tried to read One Hundred Years of Solitude and couldn't get through it.

Has anyone read Green Mansions by William Henry Hudson? That's one of my favorites too.

Val

Good shout, Val.

Books I've read this year are: 'Decline and Fall' (Waugh), 'We Wish To Inform You That We Will Be Killed With Our Families' (Gourevitch), 'All My Friends are Superheroes' (Andrew Kaufman). I'm currently separating time between 'The Dark Heart of Italy', Peter Biskind's 'Down and Dirty Pictures, and Joseph Wambaugh's ace 'The Delta Star' (sample line: "I just hope I don't end up in San Quentin with an asshole big enough for a motor scooter to turn around in".) My desert island book is tragically trad ('Catch-22').

I'd love to work around/with books but right now I'm working as a geeky computer person.

$> cd pub
$> more beer

HA HA HA. If you get that, you're a geeky computer person, too. [high five] Anyone know any geek books out there? I've heard of Coupland's Microserfs, but that's about it.

I'm a tried-and-true Joycean and really dig-fin de-siecle Anglo prose. I love French Naturalism as well as contemporary lit. fiction. And I write novellas and screenplays. I'd like a job so I can go buy some good beer.

Hire me! I'm amazing!

I used to be called "Haikunym."

Anyway...I found this board through Bookslut, and now check it every day. I don't have access to a "reading community" or even good bookstores where I live (I'm on the eastern seaboard, a couple of hours' drive from Bangkok), so this is a wonderful oasis for me.

I'm a 25 year old student. I have a B.A. in English Literature from the University of Waterloo (Vermont Girl: that's the school in Canada they take a road trip to in Microserfs), but right now I'm waiting to get into the MA in Humanities program at Laurentian. I'm one of the editors for WoodenFish.ca, and I have a lit blog at vestige.org/daily/.

I'm into Modernist and contemporary fiction, and some poetry. Julian Barnes, Umberto Eco, James Joyce, Jorge Luis Borges, Robertson Davies, Carol Shields, Sheila Heti, Salman Rushdie, T.S. Eliot, George Elliot Clarke, William Gibson, Jeanette Winterson, Virginia Woolf, are all favourites of mine.

I'm also into film and music (wide range of interests in both). I like candlelit dinners and long walks on the beach.

Lately I've been reading 50s crime fiction: Jim Thompson, Patricia Highsmith, John Franklin Bardin. I grew up on all that dark existential stuff - Camus, Beckett etc. Last contemporary novel I read and really liked: James Lasdun, The Horned Man.

When she's not on my lap, though, I enjoy reading Thomas Pynchon and Ron Hansen. Gravity's Rainbow (Pynchon) and Mariette in Ecstacy (Hansen) are my favorite books... the first for the mind, the second for the soul.

When I have a few spare moments, I become quite "Type-A" and spend my time cataloging typos at http://www.bookerrata.com .

My favorites are Austen, Agatha Christie, James Herriot, Fannie Flagg, the Bronte's, Sedaris, Eugenides, Chabon, and Hemingway.

I like when a surpressed group first gets its voice. Victorian women. The Harlem Renaissance. Early Gay Lit.

I too found this place through Bookslut. I confess that I do not get poetry. But I keep trying. I also fear that I may be the dumbest one here.

Everyone seems to have an inferiority complex initially, thinking they haven't read as much as everyone else or they have read the 'wrong' sort of books.

I'm just thinking aloud really.

Mikey - I think you're right, actually - I know that I've had an inferiority complex or two related to these threads - and then someone pops-up with a "gosh, I loved that too!" post and I feel all secure again.

I do wonder how many of us would consider ourselves to be book snobs - and how others view us, for that matter.

No, I don't want to know either of those answers, on second thought.

Hello there pepek (er, how do you/would you prefer to be addressed?) - I too am a winged Californian - must be something in the water that makes us such book fans. Congratulations on the publishing, too. I'm in awe.

HEY!!! Actually, since last night's oh-so-lovely snowstorm (spring, where are you?) it's pretty frigid outside and there is even a bit of a wind coming thru the window near where I sit, so you aren't that far off.

And I think EVERYONE on ILB brings something interesting to the table. Likes/Dislikes/Loves/Experience/Youth/Etc.

This is far too sweet and thoughtful. I wish I'd written it.

okay, but watch out for the Guinness ;)

For example, Jane Austen requires a dry white wine, chilled overnight. To get the most out of Thomas Hardy you need a pint of strong ale called something like Cooper's Arse, served by a bearded man with an ooh ahh accent.

What the hell am I going on about?

I'd like us all to get together and see how we mix. Some people would be sipping chilled white wine, murmuring about Jane Austin, while I'd be in a drunken rage, hollering about what a fucking god Selby is, breaking chairs across people's backs.

It would be so funny.

The name of the thread is hopefully self evident, though as soon as I posted it, I realised a more appropriate naem would have been along the lines of "Socrates himself is particularly missed" or "Heidegger Heidegger was a drunken beggar".

I'm Rachel, I'm 25 and I live in Brighton, UK. I work in a language library and am doing a masters in library/infomation studies. I've had some poetry published and I TRY to run an webzine but my damn home computer keeps dying.

Recent borrowings from the public library have included Adam Thirlwell, Colin Dexter, Patricia Highsmith, Mavis Cheek, Raymond Chandler, Craig Brown, Robert B Parker, Zadie Smith, Yann Martel, Chip Kidd and Daniel Handler.

I'm a little in love with Don Paterson, Paul Farley, Owen Wilson and Jessica Stevenson.

My favorite work of fiction is Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried, favorite authors are O'Brien, Hemingway, Camus, Denis Johnson and my favorite poem is Diane di Prima's "April Fool Birthday Poem For Grandpa." I'm drawn to minimalist writing, I guess. I like short stories, sparse prose, room for me think/envision the work for myself. Too much Hemingway growing up, I suppose.

Last books I read - 1/4 of A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, Philip Roth's The Great American Novel, Tobias Wolff's Old School, Peter Biskind's Down and Dirty Pictures.

Fiction (ALbert Cohen, M.Yourcenar, Pirandello, Coelho), although I read fiction with some guilt, like I was induldging; some poetry (pretty much into Haikus lately);Travel (chatwin's songlines!); Politics and a dribble of psychology (Freud, trying to move on to Jung)...

...and right now I feel Like I should end this sentence "andIamabookholic", and sit down among my new pals to whom I am bonded by a common addiction

I like nearly all fiction that's 'well written' and in recent years have been just as enamoured of non-fiction.

Particular faves M Atwood (Mikey I took a LONG time to get thru Blind Assasin too), C Shields, M Piercy.

Books I can recall enjoying in the last few months River Horse -William Least Heat Moon, Cosmopolitan - Tony Cecchini, The Namesake - J Lahiri, Peace Like a River - Leif Enger

I like things such as Pip Larkin, Amis jnr, Heller (when he writes about ME), David Berman, Roddy Lumsden, Alasdair Gray and quite possibly other things too.

No preferences in regards to fiction or non fiction(History, Philosophy and Travel from preference).

Latest favorite Orhan Pamuk.

Authors I'm fond of include Margaret Atwood, John Wyndham, Don Delillo, and Daphne Du Maurier. I've got equal fondnesses for short stories and CanLit, and a weakness for most older SciFi, plus dystopias in general. Oddly, after that, my dearest book ever would be 'The Cruel Sea' by Nicholas Monsaraat.

Favourites include Dick, Wodehouse, Updike, Erickson, Borges, Barth (and lots of other PoMo types), Twain, Spark, Hugo, Joyce, Zola, Proust, Baldwin, Hoffman, Oates, Grass, Marquez, Delany, Vachss, Block - oh, I could list a hundred and still miss out loads who I adore. I mostly read fiction, literary stuff making up the majority, but crime and SF are important strands too. Plus non-fiction, especially on art (particularly Japanese) and cutting-edge science. I write about all these things (and comics, music, TV and other things) for Freaky Trigger, this board's grandparent.

Actual name Andy, 27 year old librarian from Gloucestershire. Into pretty much anything - particular fan of Robert Rankin, Iain Banks, James Ellroy. TV - love most cult stuff. Movies - wide taste range, but v. keen on epics, fantasy, Lynch, Tarantino. Music - classic goth and rock, punk and new wave. Spend an inordinate amount of spare time Live Roleplaying (fantasy setting) and going to gigs in and around Gloucester area. Not a stereotypical librarian...

Used to read quite a bit of fiction - Graham Greene, Patrick Hamilton, Evelyn Waugh, Dickens, James Ellroy, Jim Thompson, Celine, Gogol, Knut Hamsun, Philip K Dick, F Scott Fitzgerald - but got bored of it. Now I mostly stick with British History and books about psychopaths.

And then there´s something I don´t understand. When I join this site a couple of days ago, I had to fill in a personal profile. But when I try to click on peoples names in the threads nothing happens. I only get to see peoples names and emailadresses, which I have already seen in thread.
Do people have personal profiles or do they not?? And how do I see them???

Well, then I´ll also write a bit about myself here.

I´m 33, living in Copenhagen, Denmark. I`ve always loved to read and I also write. One day I even hope to be published. When I just read all the answers above, I actually got a little bit jealous. There´s so many in here who have published something.

I like a lot of different books; Kjell Askildsen(norwegian), James Baldwin, Dostojevsky, Houellebecq, Kafka, Tama Janowitz, D.H.Lawrence, Henry Miller, Perec, Boris Vian, Sartre, Tolstoy, Tchekov.
Danish writers; Bang, Branner, Brøgger, Ditlevsen, Gress, Dons, I.P.Jacobsen, Pontoppidan, Sandemose, Wied.

Then I´m mad about Virginia Woolf and everything connected with Bloomsbury. I´ve read a lot of Bloomsbury-biographies. I don´t know why, but I´m very facinated with these people.

And finally I´m into opera.

Yay for Perec!

I didn't know there were personal profiles.

ps, can you tell im at work and personifying bored?

i don't think the fault necessarily lies with you.

I read a lot and I read a lot of everything, yet I always feel not quite with the scene. ilx can be kind of non-scene scene; I like it. So, Hello!

I used to have a friend who lived in Vancouver's Chinatown - above the "narrowest shop in the world" (I think that was the name of the place). His apartment was filled with wonderful books. He was also a bit of a character and walked around holding the hand of literary characters (Piglet was a favorite) and talking to them. I miss him.

So, I shall reintroduce myself. I support West Ham and they play with my heartstrings like a flirty maiden. And I love books of course. But not Virginia Woolf. I would rather chisel my kneecaps off then read her long-faced nonsense again.

I just hope that it does not revive too much!

Ewing posted to this thread! So did a postman from Hull.

Ann Sterzinger is hard on herself, I think: perhaps that is among her virtues.

My name is still Chris. I think we all know why I post here.

I'm addicted to Pelevin, Murakami, Magnus Mills, modern Latvian fiction (I'm currently working on some translations), the Russians, and early 20th c. American literature.

I also have a crush on David Mitchell, and recommend Patrick Suskind's Perfume to everyone who asks me to recommend a good book (if they look ambitious, then it's Anna Karenina). I recently discovered how much I love books that have descriptions of snow in them. I refuse to read Hemingway in paperback, and instead stick to old musty copies from closer to the time he was writing them. In high school, my favorite book was Of Human Bondage.

I'll read non-fiction if it involves the history of Eastern Europe/Russia, if it relates to linguistics, or if it comes with good recommendations from people I trust.

Hey Zan, I went to Riga once. There is (was?) a lovely vegetarian cafe near the big church.

I love "bumping into" people who've been there. It's a magical, unique place.

On the downside, Irish pubs.

To bring it back to books (I fear others might start to think we're selfish), I have to say that if you were able to read Latvian fiction, you'd see how perfectly it reflects the country it comes from. I find this in a lot of places. Visiting Prague actually made Kafka's stories seem quite normal. St. Petersburg mirrors Tolstoy's grandiosity perfectly. I need to visit more literary stomping grounds...

She is a tiny black hole.

Congratulations, misshajim. Babies rock. And everyone I know called Sara (or Sarah) is incredibly cool. Good name choice.

I'm Matt, I'm 27, I live in Lancashire and write a whole bunch of odd poetry with so far modest success. The guv'nor of my cabal, Robert Sheppard, is significantly better known than me.

And hi Matt!

And hi Archel!

i only started reading somewhat regularly during the past year. i've discovered it becomes a lot easier when you get out of school. i must say i quite like it!

i'm a sucker for "florid prose" but i think i'm about to read some hemingway.

You should try Riga... it's Prague with fewer Americans.

also, fredric jameson's new book looks very exciting.

(i liked yr stance on the ILE larkin thread, btw.)

i have now posted in this thread about a half dozen times without actually introducing myself, which seems wrong.

I'm also married to Jaq, the blonde Frenchman who posts here a lot. I'm from western Washington (Olympia, Seattle), but we temporarily live in eastern Washington, in Richland, where life as we know it ceased to exist many eons ago.

Favorite authors of late: J.M. Coetzee, George Saunders, Milan Kundera, Nelson Algren, Herman Hesse

Not since I became mod!

currently i'm in devon. in the last year i have lived in beds., staffs., bristol, and reykjavik, which is probably the source of my being behind a year in my degree, actually, spending a semester killing time in reykjavik rather than staying in england and sorting out why i was falling behind so in my studies. but hey, reykjavik.

(xpost: piuma secretly deletes all the fiction threads. it's kind of annoying, actually.)

i forgot to add where i live. i live in rochester. also i hate science fiction, magic realism, futuristic mumbo jumbo, fantasy. i don't know why. what does everybody else hate?

thanks, though I'm not sure what this means

I was the other one some of the time, when I wasn't busy downloading music and comics instead. (I'm not sure anymore if I started reading in the spring or fall of 2003. My first post to ILE is in November 2003, and I remember mostly ignoring ILE for months after I discovered ILM. It's all Simon Reynolds's fault, anyway.)

Nice to meet you all.

I am reading the first volume of Proust very slowly, inasmuch as I haven't picked it up in ten years.

Sigh.

Welcome Betsy.

Ha. Well, actually i am required to come into the office & sit at my desk all day, but if no one here has any work for me (i edit non-native-English papers for a research institute), then I kind of just...sit here.

I'm a librarian in Queens, the portal of QL that they call Central. Being shipped back after a halcyon 18 months in the branches. I like many things. Above all, feeling very much at home after 13 years in New York. And there's music. The Fall. The Fall! And also the Jam. Other things as well, but have to work to update my listening. I like writing and photography, museums, beaches, and books. Because I like to think about art.

nice to meet you!

howdy.

Welcome. ILB can always use a queenly librarian who loves books. And art, too, but that is ancillary to books around this neck of the woods.

We regulars of ILB are few in numbers compared to the myriads who bustle about ILX.com exchanging views on all matters under the sun, but we make up in good grammar what we lack in ceaseless hubbub.

Amen. We're also much more civilised, too. I can't remember an ILB clusterfuck.

...but we make up in good grammar what we lack in good taste

hey, sc. <-- all I can manage right now, woken up far too early, but good to have you on board.

Thanks everyone - nice to be a part of a civilized group.

hi silvercigarette -- i am a faithful queens lib user!

and hi everyone else, i snuck onto the board without politely introducing myself a while ago.

Wow, a QL user!

Silvercigarette, do you know Virginia Plain?

Sorry haven't logged in in few days, so I just saw this. Yes, I do know Virginia Plain.

Hi: I've been lurking for a while, and I've been enjoying reading this board so much that I'd like to join in. I live in F@rgo, ND, USA. I probably read more broadly than deeply, though favorites have been Dick, David Mitchell, Lispector (and, in younger days, DFW). I also like ancient lit., philosophy, economics, the very occasional book of history. Fiction usually more than non-fiction. Two books I read recently that I loved are Ozick's The Puttermesser Papers and Yoko Ogawa's Revenge. Anyway, hello!

hi!

welcome!

"(oh yeah, I'm 35)"

jeeeeezus now i feel way old. gonna be 45 this year...

but anyway hi seanballat! welcome!

and hey stick around. where did all these people go? where did silvercigarette go that was only 8 months ago...

Thanks for the welcome, folks!