Words! Words! Words!: Autumn 2012 'What do you read, my lord?' thread

That's about it. "Droll" is apt.

My fave character is based on Blaine from Maine (wonder if he read it)

I bought my other half Alice Munro's Hateship, Loveship, Friendship, Courtship, Marriage; she hadn't started it so I thought I'd give it a go. I wondered whether it'd stick - small-town Canada is about the most boring setting I can think of. My fears lasted about three pages. This is masterful.

haha god yes

YES

Amazon had Blanchot's Lautreamont & Sade for 9 bucks, so I ordered that + Maldoror (in the Paul Knight translation); I've taken out both from the library before and found them immensely enjoyable. looking forward to singing the praises of evil again this winter.

... ack wrong thread!

Just finished Morrissey: the pageant of his bleeding heart. If you love him and like reading academic stuff about literature, this is your book. Seriously academic, but not dull. Also read the newest Augusten Burroughs, This is how - his take on the self-help book. Very insightful essays about dealing with various emotions and truly dire problems. It was the perfect bookend to Morrissey.

So I've only just finished the first of the Munro stories, but I wanted to say to everyone on here who ever talked her up - you were so right.

This is masterful.
On the basis of this comment, I have bought HLFCM and added it to the queue.

Uh-oh - if this takes a massive nosedive I'll feel bad alright.

You're more likely to enjoy it if you feel pressured to find it good, yeah? Anyway, it was about 40p second-hand, so it's hardly a crippling investment.

"Floating Bridge," Ismael.

I finished the first book of stories in The Collected Stories of Deborah Eisenberg. Some good stuff - emotionally raw at times, makes you wince - but artfully put together. I thought a change of pace would be nice before continuing, so now I'm reading some stories from Steven Millhauser's recent collection We Others. An interesting contrast to the Eisenberg.

how was tess of d'urbervilles in the end?

And did you read the version with or without the undies/cliff scene?

Just started Hatchet Jobs - Dale Peck.

just got to the heavy dialect part in the middle of Cloud Atlas. the next 50 pages will be heavy going.

(also, that's another thing that makes me think of iain m banks as well as the odd palindromic structure)

reading 'i am charlotte simmons' - is fairly engrossing, not as embarrassing as i thought itd be, reminding me of curtis sittenfeld's 'prep'

like a chapter from finishing the steve jobs bio - is fine, mostly hero worship, he sucks as a person

collected amy hempel stories

gonna also start 'the league' a history of the nfl up to like ~'86

http://i43.tower.com/images/mm100008373/murder-in-memoriam-didier-daeninckx-paperback-cover-art.jpg

Its a bit weak as a detective novel I think but the historical stuff (nazi collaborators, the algerian massacre in Paris, 1961) is shocking

I'm about 2/3rds through the new Chabon ('Telegraph Avenue'). The writing is good and I'm enjoying it, but it has moments that read like black people fanfic.

Just finished a review copy of the new (Jan 2013) George Saunders collection---REALLY uneven. He has a few more realistic stories in it, and it really throws the emptiness of the non-realistic stories into sharp relief. Also opens with the longest, weakest story, which seems like a bad idea. But the final story was great.

anyone here read any of Kevin Barry's stuff? I notice he had a story in last week's New Yorker and i'm curious how he comes across to non-Irish readers. I love his writing but I feel like a lot of the humour would be lost if you're not familiar with the distinctly Irish turns of phrase he captures so well

In 2007 he won the Rooney Prize for Irish Literature for his short story collection There are Little Kingdoms.[1]

uncanny

http://i.imgur.com/dzdKA.png

He has confessed to "haunting bookshops and hiding" to "spy on the short fiction section and see if anyone's tempted by my sweet bait" and has also placed copies of his own work in front of books by other “upcoming” authors.[5]

so have you read any of his stories then

Am now one chapter into The Line Of Beauty.

Jordan: "black people fanfic"?

Just finished a review copy of the new (Jan 2013) George Saunders collection---REALLY uneven. He has a few more realistic stories in it, and it really throws the emptiness of the non-realistic stories into sharp relief. Also opens with the longest, weakest story, which seems like a bad idea. But the final story was great.

― ornamental cabbage (James Morrison), Thursday, 8 November 2012 22:24 (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I predict I will have a completely opposite set of reactions to this.

i really liked his most recent nyer story

Roth says he's done (writing):
http://www.oregonlive.com/books/index.ssf/2012/11/prolific_author_philip_roth_sa.html

Re-read Junot Diaz's Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao the other day, still a stunning, flawless novel IMO.

Trying to tuck into The Known World by Edward P Jones for my MA course for this term (the 21st Century American Novel) - finding it a really arduous read so far...I just don't get on with historical fiction in general, and it's...not very exciting? Maybe it gets better.

that was on my MA last year. no one liked it.

Haven't read that, but I really really like his short stories, Lost In The City and several published since, though haven't yet gotten the second collection, All Aunt Hagar's Children The first is about black people in various D.C. neighborhoods over several decades. A bit like August Wilson. So far, I never guess where where or how his plots will go, with one exception, which seems like slick crime fiction, but even that's more of a character study than the exertion of twists. Still, I can see how he might get courted by TV or Hollywood (hope Paul Thomas Anderson gets him, or Eastwood).

Finished Do Androids Dream?: clearly that should've been my first PKD novel. Really, really good. Now onto Ubik. While I'm waiting for my local public library to get that in, I will probably turn to another Sagittarian--a quick re-read of Conrad's N----- of the Narcissus

Dunno how ILB regards Willa Cather, probably the most consistently excellent American novelist of the post-WWI period. Started reding Shadows on the Rock cuz I've read the Big Novels already

Yeah, I heard a composition by Thomas "Blind Tom" Wiggins (didn't catch the performer's name) a few days ago, and immediately thought of the description of his playing in My Antonia Have you read The Professor's House? Been a lomg time, but I really got into it. She really didn't care for the social pretentions and shibboleths of the sons and daughters of the pioneers. "Meanwhile life outside goes on all around you",

Dunno how ILB regards Willa Cather,

I regard her as FUCKING ACE, for what it's worth

lolling so hard @ this comment on Rev's redstate link

_Yet more evidence that we have been living in fantasyland for too long now. I don't want to hear that this is all Romney's fault, or all the campaign's fault. The simple fact is that in the run-up to this election, we were fed a steady diet of lies, from all our "loyal" sources. We need to hold not only the Romney campaign accountable, but also the conservative press (specifically the Murdoch press - Fox was the worst of the bunch), and the establishment talking heads like Karl Rove and Peggy Noonan. We need to get clear about something: these people are selling us a product. They have been taking our money and telling us bedtime stories. We complain about the MSM, but can we honestly say that the conservative press has been more honest?

How do we expect to win elections if we can't even get straight facts about the electorate? But maybe it's our own fault. There was practically a revolt around here when Erik said he didn't think the polls were false. And yet he was right, and they were right. Have we become allergic to the truth?_

Re-reading "To The Lighthouse" for class at the moment. Also read this recently...http://www.amazon.co.uk/British-Social-Realism-Documentary-Short/dp/1903364418

are you on the same course i was on or are these just the books on every literature MA ever

reading Cousin Bette, my first Balzac, in a good modern Oxford translation by Sylvia Raphael. a tremendously enjoyable mishmash of outrageous opinion/authorial sermonising, gossipy prurience, social/political conflict, and intricate melodrama - can see why Balzac was v. important to Henry James.

a lot of the judgements on characters, races, countries, classes etc seem jaw-droppingly...broadbrush...at times; just today this brutal little paragraph made me laugh:
Madame Crevel, rather an ugly woman, very common and stupid, who died none too soon, had given her husband no joys other than those of paternity.

also it is slightly comic to read abt these aristo frenchmen rushing round frantically collecting mistresses even when it costs them their name, reputation, fortune, good lady wife etc

im doing new media and english, thomp. 'to the lighthouse' is on my literary modernism module. other books are 'howards end', 'women in love' some katherine mansfield short stories, a bit of 'ulysses' and 'good morning midnight'

I expect I will be buried in the Thomas Jefferson administration for the foreseeable future. Only 1050 pp yet to read!

thoughts so far?

A few. This book requires a def committment of time; it is slow-paced, but it is very readable. I expect that by the end I will have a very thorough understanding of the political forces of the time and how they all were resolved. Because the country was so young and the whole democratic experiment was so new in the world, these formative years should be pretty fascinating.

Jordan: "black people fanfic"?

Like, scenes where an ex-NFL millionaire, his bodyguard, and everyone else in the room are casually referencing 'A Canticle for Leibowitz' and Isaac Asimov deep cuts. But maybe everyone in Oakland/Berklee is way into the Jewish sci-fi canon and talks about Tarantino constantly.

I don't mean to be too hard on it because I am enjoying it, but I can't help raising an eyebrow from time to time.