NYRB Publishing

really? i remember your post asking about ivy c-b and hoping youd get a response since i picked up the nyrb edition of 'manservant and maidservant' but havent gotten around to reading it yet.

to be fair to ivy c-b, i'm only 30 pages in.

I've only read one Ivy CB, and had a similar reaction. Since several people told me that all of her books were basically the same, I never tried another.

it's basically 200 pages of dialogue afaict. it's like reading a really long play, but it's even more exhausting because her style makes who is actually speaking terribly obscure.

i've read many of these but the ones that really stuck with me and still live on my shelf are

- radiance of the king

- adventures and misadventures of maqroll

- hindoo holiday

- a life like any other

- fancies and goodnights

- the bog people

- the world of odysseus

oh and warlock, duh

but it's even more exhausting because her style makes who is actually speaking terribly obscure.

Henry Green can be like that but when it clicks finally, it's kind of thrilling.

x-post I read the World of Odysseus recently and liked it a lot.

<3 <3 <3 Maqroll the Gaviero! Other perennial NYRB favorites: Envy, Anatomy of Melancholy, and especially Memoirs of My Nervous Illness, one of the most heartbreaking and fucked up things ever written.

well now i have to read it

upcoming titles include 'the letter killers club' by sigizmund krzhizhanovsky which at least one ilxor is v excited about

Also the stories of Robert Sheckley!

I'm another ilxor very excited about it (the krzhizhanovsky )!

Shecklety! THat's great!

sheckley! at least my third or fourth favourite bad writer

fuck i can't type today

i wasn't correcting your spelling, just exclaiming

it kind of words as one of those almost-after-the-fact bowdlerisations. like 'oh shhhugar.'

Sheckley? Really? Will there be any overlap with with The Masque of Mañana?

thomp, do you really consider Robert Sheckley a bad writer? If so, I believe you will bring the wrath of the Sluglords down on your head.

sorry--didn't read it as a correction, it was just an xpost :)

starting to get into the ivy cb a bit more. i still maintain that the style is totally exhausting and reader hostile for absolutely nothing in return, but she draws a good character, and it's very funny. almost like a victorian 'the office' at times.

anyone read Hav, the Jan Morris travel fiction thing that they have forthcoming. Usually enjoy morris, am tempted.

insert question mark

Saw that on the website, with a blurb from UKLG.

Any good NYRB non-fiction recommendations along the lines of 'The World of Odysseus' & 'The Thirty Years War'?

& to hijack the NYRB thread with some Melville House, I was greatly entertained by slowly stumbling across these in the first large bookstore I've had the chance to visit in a while:
http://biblioklept.files.wordpress.com/2011/07/duel.jpg
(If I knew how to create a poll ...)

I've read 4 of those before, and they were all excellent. The Conrad is also very funny.

Henry Green can be like that but when it clicks finally, it's kind of thrilling.

― Cuius regio, eius radicchio (Michael White), Thursday, August 18, 2011 7:04 PM (1 week ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

haha this has turned out to be otm.

another nice NYRB nonfiction is "the bog people"

ive been dipping in and out of "when the world spoke french" which is nice and has a lot of primary sources but seems to lose some of its impact due to... not being in french

anyone besides Michael White read The Unpossessed?

Thought about it, but no, not yet.

was not able to finish. too bawdy for my taste.

Fwiw, I'm presently reading 'Quand l'Europe parlait français'.

"bawdy" ooh la la!

It was just bawdy enough for me as I recall.

Elizabeth Hardwick introduction + similarities to my beloved Dawn Powell = easy sell

I enjoyed it, Alfred.

Just read the NYRB collection of Elizabeth Hardwick's stories, which was really excellent (although the last few were a bit too similar stylistically to be best enjoyed all read together).

Just picked up the Theophile Gautier book, My Fantoms.

Read the first few stories in the collection James M just mentioned and yes, they were all aces

Which I probably said upthread in exactly the same words

Maybe it was another thread

Fwiw, I'm presently reading 'Quand l'Europe parlait français'.

I just got this from the library.

the recent run of titles over the last month has been so excellent. i guess it was in one of the 'what are you reading' threads and not here but i also wanted to thank ilb for mentioning albert cossery which lead me to pick up the latest one theyve published, 'proud beggars'.

considering signing up for this: http://www.nybooks.com/books/imprints/classics/the-nyrb-book-club/

i shoulda got it for my girlfriend for christmas or something

i finished "red shift" a little bit ago and loved it, absolutely fantastic

been dipping in and out of the dwight macdonald collection too, kinda hit and miss but most is very good

just picked up this one: http://www.nybooks.com/books/imprints/classics/fatale/ and this one: http://www.nybooks.com/books/imprints/classics/stones-of-aran-pilgrimage/

on the "to buy and read" list: letter killers, hav, ice trilogy, three christs

Looking forward to the upcoming Store of the Worlds: The Stories of Robert Sheckley

i am very tempted by that but theres also at least one release each month i have zero interest in... idk might still sign up anyway.

lol ive read everything on your 'to buy and read' list. 'letter killers club' is the sort of thing im tempted to force on ppl at parties w a desperate and wild 'you have to read this' i liked it so much. i have the dwight macdonald collection but i havent started it yet. hit or miss is a good way of describing 'growing up absurd' which i more wanted to like than really enjoyed? i mean mostly i just wanted to mail it to hoos so he could stop reading like hayek and richard florida or w/e but i figure hes probably already read it.

ive also got 'the enchanted april' and 'mr. fortune' laying around unread.

lol we need to intervene with hoos and all his libertarian girlfriends

Red Shift is awesome

Have just got Letter Killers and Hav. Three Christs is very interesting but ultimately too long

Didn't know about the Sheckley--that is great!!!