the scibona was my fave, definitely
― ☂ (max), Friday, 10 June 2011 15:02 (thirteen years ago) link
i don't think i am going to struggle through something set in the '50s right now, but if my affection & admiration translated into perseverence w/reading i would pick up his book right away. apparently it is p good.
― stately, plump bunk moreland (schlump), Friday, 10 June 2011 16:11 (thirteen years ago) link
scibona saying "I didn't know what I was doing or what I believed in, except the United States of America and the Cleveland Browns."
made me think of brownie and ilnfl <3
― johnny crunch, Monday, 13 June 2011 20:35 (twelve years ago) link
O_O
― brownie, Monday, 13 June 2011 21:16 (twelve years ago) link
otm
― horseshoe, Monday, 13 June 2011 23:26 (twelve years ago) link
finished Devil and Sherlock Holmes, then tore through Lost City of Z. up next:http://i.imgur.com/SFp5O.jpg
anything else on the NYer book club list?
― gr8080, Tuesday, 14 June 2011 08:38 (twelve years ago) link
I've been meaning to read The Devil and Sherlock Holmes for some time, thanks for the reminder. Interesting to see that three of the stories from that have been optioned for films. Honest question, how does that work for these kind of investigative reports? Does Grann get a decent payday from the studios? Or does it generally funnel back to the subjects?
― the fey bloggers are onto the zagat tweets (jon /via/ chi 2.0), Tuesday, 14 June 2011 13:25 (twelve years ago) link
Here's an article that goes into ithttp://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m3065/is_n14_v25/ai_18729174/
― Number None, Tuesday, 14 June 2011 13:33 (twelve years ago) link
Awesome, thanks!
― the fey bloggers are onto the zagat tweets (jon /via/ chi 2.0), Tuesday, 14 June 2011 13:34 (twelve years ago) link
reminds me -- do we have an active ILX new books you are reading thread?
― Mordy, Tuesday, 14 June 2011 14:43 (twelve years ago) link
Spring will be a little late this year: what are you reading, Spring 2011?
― caek, Tuesday, 14 June 2011 14:47 (twelve years ago) link
yeah, i know that one. i meant more "NEW" (to the world, not u) books you're reading. like the What Albums Are Worth Listening To So Far in 2011 thread but for books
― Mordy, Tuesday, 14 June 2011 14:50 (twelve years ago) link
There's this
Rolling Contemporary Literary Fiction
― Number None, Tuesday, 14 June 2011 14:57 (twelve years ago) link
i keep reading interviews with george saunders and meaning to read him, so pleased by how articulate & effusive he seems, and i pretty much started doing so with the story in the fiction issue; i only read a couple of pages and just can not bring myself to finish it. does it transcend its clunky quirks? i know g.s. & i have a future but i do not think this is it.
― stately, plump bunk moreland (schlump), Friday, 17 June 2011 15:17 (twelve years ago) link
there are bigger fans of GS on this board than me, though i like him a lot, but if you dont like that story im not sure youd like any saunders. that kind of... naturalistic dialogue and narration is his thing
― ☂ (max), Friday, 17 June 2011 15:35 (twelve years ago) link
yeah i thought that one was actually a little understated for him
― mookieproof, Friday, 17 June 2011 15:40 (twelve years ago) link
i am leaving in a sec so this maybe isn't the best time to launch into a big thing but, i think i have problems with some things like that, like the dfw story that i forget the name of that's written in a v sorta reduced idiolect of this gruff laconic guy. like i love the old man and the sea & all but there's this danger of being too aware of the writer, and it getting anthropological, sometimes, i think -- or maybe there isn't, but i give up before it earns its keep. probably if you're okay with accepting the conceit of fiction you should be okay with a guy putting on a voice, but it rubbed against me the wrong way somehow. that i also am impatient with classics & stuff written in just anything that isn't a modern dialect ... maybe it is me.
with the saunders i think it seemed kinda hokey to me, the bleeping and all, the narrator himself fluttering about btw registers on top of it all. but then maybe my damning criticism of the story based on p1 & 2 is a little sharp.
he wrote that palin piece a while ago, the embrace of her dialect in which was its triumph, so i amn't giving up yet.
& max that hamon piece slays, yes.
― stately, plump bunk moreland (schlump), Friday, 17 June 2011 15:46 (twelve years ago) link
george saunders hasn't been very good for the last couple years i'm sorry to say but his first two collections are all-time
― it seems i am the larry (strongo hulkington's ghost dad), Friday, 17 June 2011 15:47 (twelve years ago) link
yeah, I liked Saunders first two books, but that recent story didn't do a lot for me. Maybe it reminded me a little too much of that great story about the male stripper with the zombie mom.
― President Keyes, Friday, 17 June 2011 16:52 (twelve years ago) link
the article on contractors in iraq is really good & depressing too― ☂ (max), Monday, 6 June 2011 01:21 (2 weeks ago) Permalink
― ☂ (max), Monday, 6 June 2011 01:21 (2 weeks ago) Permalink
just read this and I think it was one of the best things I've read in a few months. the burlusconi one was awesome too.
also read the Acai story and the mental health story in the May 30th issue- totally recommend both.
― gr8080, Tuesday, 21 June 2011 18:37 (twelve years ago) link
finally finished this ish; the bunga bunga and contractor pieces are both equally o_0
― Don't start the chain you know? (forksclovetofu), Tuesday, 21 June 2011 19:30 (twelve years ago) link
Mental health was brutal and sad. ;_;
― E.L. Doctorow Who (Leee), Wednesday, 22 June 2011 03:12 (twelve years ago) link
did you read the recent article by the man who lost his 10-month-old daughter? jesus.
― by another name (amateurist), Wednesday, 22 June 2011 03:27 (twelve years ago) link
rebecca mead (who i think is regularly fantastic) has an article abt alice walton's new museum thats really good but then its on a topic that fascinates me so
the article about third party contractors left me furious
― "what a great post" - some (Lamp), Wednesday, 22 June 2011 03:39 (twelve years ago) link
― E.L. Doctorow Who (Leee), Wednesday, 22 June 2011 03:45 (twelve years ago) link
oh god, i read the mental health one on my ipad on the train and there's a "bonus feature" where you can read the last six photographed pages of her journal before she died and it is just the saddest thing ever and i was kinda choking up on the train and feeling the deepest kind of despair and then it was my stop
― Don't start the chain you know? (forksclovetofu), Wednesday, 22 June 2011 04:23 (twelve years ago) link
the contrast between the story and the army's boilerplate platitudes - any illegal offence committed on an army base is an illegal act and will be investigated as such, etc - and the ringing telephones was pretty damning.
found myself patting down some acai surveying its sugar content a couple of days after reading the article. maybe this will be the next wave.
― devoted to boats (schlump), Wednesday, 22 June 2011 08:49 (twelve years ago) link
is that new george saunders story sufficiently exciting that i should borrow a copy of the new yorker to read it, or should i just wait for the collection, yes this is an appropriate thread to ask this question in
― thomp, Thursday, 23 June 2011 11:54 (4 hours ago) Bookmark
― thomp, Thursday, 23 June 2011 16:11 (twelve years ago) link
i mean, is it 'yeah it's george saunders it's pretty good' or is it 'george saunders at the top of his game' or is it 'my god, this is the best thing george saunders has ever written'
obv if you don't like george saunders none of these answers will be revelant
relevant too
the first one, i think.
― strongo hulkington's ghost dad, Thursday, 23 June 2011 16:13 (twelve years ago) link
working my way through the insider trading piece, p good, or maybe its just im interested in the topic
― ice cr?m, Thursday, 23 June 2011 16:14 (twelve years ago) link
denby cgi thing bugged me cuz he does that thing where he basically says people other than kids might not like these kids movies too bad these kids movies aren't better for people who aren't kids. just a running complaint of mine. but in general yeah i guess cgi is outtahand or whatever.
― scott seward, Thursday, 23 June 2011 16:22 (twelve years ago) link
I haven't received the new issue, so I'm still struggling to dent the fiction issue, which I've found rather non-descript, even Lahiri's why-I-write thing.
― The Edge of Gloryhole (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, 23 June 2011 16:25 (twelve years ago) link
yeah the cgi thing was very unfocused
― Don't start the chain you know? (forksclovetofu), Thursday, 23 June 2011 17:14 (twelve years ago) link
denby is srsly no cool
― ice cr?m, Thursday, 23 June 2011 17:16 (twelve years ago) link
yeah fuck that dude
― horseshoe, Thursday, 23 June 2011 17:16 (twelve years ago) link
i mean for real bro
http://grab.by/cC5T
i should probably always skip his stuff just cuz.
― scott seward, Thursday, 23 June 2011 17:19 (twelve years ago) link
he's good at bugging me. would rather read andy rooney essays on film.
― scott seward, Thursday, 23 June 2011 17:20 (twelve years ago) link
All I ever remember about Denby reviews are the times when he spoils something (i.e., Schindler's List).
― Let me tell you something about that song. (Eazy), Thursday, 23 June 2011 17:20 (twelve years ago) link
denby morelike NO COOL
― Lamp, Thursday, 23 June 2011 17:21 (twelve years ago) link
"Hyper-articulate and often breathtakingly intelligent and always brazenly alive. I think it's easily the strongest American film since Clint Eastwood's "Mystic River," though it is not for the fainthearted" -- david denby on the movie crash
― ☂ (max), Thursday, 23 June 2011 17:25 (twelve years ago) link
"romantic comedies aren't good anymore because women have more rights than they did in the 1940s and this makes me nostalgic"--david denby on some damn romantic comedy, paraphrased by me
― horseshoe, Thursday, 23 June 2011 17:26 (twelve years ago) link
i think that observation is sort of true, tbf, but he made it like an idiot savant, like he was completely uninterested in the implications
― horseshoe, Thursday, 23 June 2011 17:27 (twelve years ago) link
"Hyper-articulate and often breathtakingly intelligent and always brazenly alive. I think it's easily the strongest American film since Clint Eastwood's "Mystic River," though it is not for the fainthearted" -- a time-traveling david denby on cronenberg's crash
― Lamp, Thursday, 23 June 2011 17:30 (twelve years ago) link
is there a less meaningful phrase than "brazenly alive"
― horseshoe, Thursday, 23 June 2011 17:31 (twelve years ago) link
ohhhhhhhhh i hate him
"For the most part, I stayed home in the apartment that I loved. And instead of going out, I entered in that summer of 1999 a dark and empty tunnel, an enclosure illuminated along the walls by a flash of naked men and women. I had discovered porn on the Internet. In the solitude of night, and in my little study at home, where mighty volumes of Plato, St. Augustine, Hegel, Montaigne, Nietzsche hardly my regular reading but a recent obsession loomed over the desk, the kneeling young women awkwardly turned their eyes to the camera. They often had long and beautiful hair that they must have laboriously cared for; they looked for approval not from their partners but from the camera, which I thought was the true object of their desire. They wanted to be seen. And the men, ugly and strong, sullen, tattooed some of them, thick-membered, concentrating on their erection and their orgasm, lest they lose either they were amateurs, not models, exercising the democratic art form of exhibitionism, with me as their willing audience. They all wanted to be seen, but I didn t want to be seen."
― scott seward, Thursday, 23 June 2011 17:33 (twelve years ago) link
*barfs up entire internal organ system*
― ☂ (max), Thursday, 23 June 2011 17:33 (twelve years ago) link