NYRB Publishing

you forgot morris dickstein. (xp)

I liked Stoner enough to read his novel on Augustus lol

I still need to read warlock and 30 years war

i read stoner a year or two ago and honestly have very little memory of it. read warlock instead (or first, at least).

You guys have sold me on Warlock but but never got around to reading the library copy I had. Still gotta finish The Long Ships.

oh god i didnt realize stoner was by the guy who wrote augustus! i liked augustus, actually

the best nyrb book I've read is The Fountain Overflows, you should all read it.

oh god i didnt realize stoner was by the guy who wrote augustus! i liked augustus, actually

I did too but I had to overcome my addition to Vidal's approach to history (specifically in Julian).

Argh, I tried to read Augustus and hated it so fucking much. I hope Stoner is better.

i didnt like 'stoner' at all, probably because its deeply stupid

'speedboat' was the best of the recentish stuff i've read from them. i'd also recommend 'the murderess'

I admired its modest attempt to sketch the life of a mediocrity.

Was hoping Stoner would get some tough love from his creator near the end but as it turned out any pretense of authorial distance collapsed completely. (xp)

Ah, Stoner! Ah, Humanity!

i've got speedboat and pitch dark lined up to read soon

you're all stoners

the two from "gritty american novels" i've read (nightmare alley and on the yard) are both pretty incredible

Hard Rain Falling is great as well, haven't read Nightmare Alley

Nightmare Alley was incredible--the movie was pretty good too

Film of Nightmare Alley is pretty great, believe it was some sort of vanity project for Tyrone Powers, afraid the book won't live up.

oh, the book was better

OK, it's going back into the indefinite detention center holding pen book pile reading list.

Has anyone read The Three Christs of Ypsilanti?

I added an 's' to Tyrone Power's name, sorry.

xpost granted I hadn't seen the film yet when I read the book, so when I saw the movie I was looking through those "they left out that part I liked" glasses

Note that J. Hoberman said that the film "is neither a great movie nor even a classic noir but it has a great ambition to be daring and, once seen, is not easily forgotten."

Has anyone read The Three Christs of Ypsilanti?

It's interesting and distressing in equal parts, but also a bit too long--skimmed the second half. Hard for any book to match up to its premise, to be fair: 'True story of 3 mental patients who all believe they're Jesus sharing a house! Hijinks ensue!'

i don't really know anything about searls still, but as far as i'm concerned he is probably 100% otm from being editor/selector of thoreau's journals:

http://conversationalreading.com/damion-searls-top-ten-nyrb-classics/

To avoid needless repetition, please cut and paste in your mind the following sentence into all ten descriptions below: “It passes the bounds of human understanding how good this book is.”

the patrick leigh fermor books are all so so so great

^^ agree

The Broken Road: From the Iron Gates to Mount Athos Hardcover
Patrick Leigh Fermor (Author)

This title will be released on September 12, 2013.

that's the uk edition. hope there's an nyrb ed too

Another Melville House hijack - anyone had the chance to look at their Neversink Library titles?

http://www.mhpbooks.com/series/the-neversink-library/?id=506

Definitely seek out the Irmgard Keun, Ödön von Horváth, Raymond Radiguet, Simenon and the Strugatsky Bros books. I have a couple of the others but haven't read them yet.

3 NYRBC books on the Kindle Daily Deal today: Stoner, Inverted World, and Rogue Male

Stoner is marvelous.

i'm reading one on kindle now. fatale by jean-patrick manchette. it's short.

stoner and rogue male are both fantastic if very different.

Came to say Inverted World is a popular title around here.

One thing I like about the NYRB ebooks is that they have the same cover art and intros and afterwords and such as the print version, so you really are giving up as little as possible. Might end up buying the ebook and hand my print copy over to a lucky ilxor.

That edition of Inverted World and its afterward by John Clute really made me want to read anything by Christopher Priest, M. John Harrison or J. G. Ballard and anything praised by John Clute. OK, maybe it is hard to read all of Ballard and maybe Clute gives out too many positive reviews but I don't think I was too far off.

Just picked up Skylark by Dezső Kosztolányi after reading bits of the intro (Peter Esterhazy): the world of Musil (Kakania) via Chekhov (banality is amazing if you look hard enough). Reading as I have been, the first 50 pages just now, I find this Hungarian sensibility hardening in my mind for a facility and dexterity in a way in which they spin a tale, Arabian Nights fashion might be close, but really no cigar.

Another passage from the intro is the praising of Kosztolányi as a rhymer of words, of an ability to cut to the chase, be sharp and direct. I find that also a very Hungarian thing too, maybe something that was in much medieval and Renaissance lit but then was lost by all many regions but somehow kept going by that region we now call Hungary, I don't know.

Perhaps Hrabal has that too, and he's Czech. Its a thing...whatever it is its very compulsive.

Seriously, the only bad novel by a Hungarian I've read was some crap by Peter Nadas--the rest of these guys really know/knew how to write.

See also: Miklos Banffy, Sandor Marai, Antal Szerb, Imre Kertesz, Frigyes Karinthy, Ferenc Karinthy, Zsigmond Móricz, Gyula Krudy, Lajos Zilahy, Tibor Dery, László Krasznahorkai

Hmm. Obviously I need to find some female Hungarian writers, too.

At the end of Skylark I thought that well this is the closest the circus must be like as a book, and that's what Kosztolányi, Marai, Krudy, Dery and maybe Szerb do. Comes through a town spreading joy and leave everyone with a hint of sadness when they go away.

Krasznahorkai and Kertsz are v different to that.

Great description!

Yeah, Krasznahorkai is never going to be compared to a circus.

Special Film Forum tie-in screening of Nightmare Alley tonight.

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/news/john-williams-stoner-wins-waterstones-book-of-the-year-8979661.html

i started reading that just recently, it's terrific. i cant really think of anyone id give it to as an xmas gift, though

i usually this version in uk bookshops rather than the nyrb one -

http://theasylum.files.wordpress.com/2009/10/stoner.jpg

Hmm. Obviously I need to find some female Hungarian writers, too.

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-51wZVF16wq8/TskkXCsPq-I/AAAAAAAAABg/ooXEBISUysQ/s640/vampir_noemi.jpg

Nice - is she from Transylvania too?

There is a piece by Julian Barnes on Stoner today.

The re-issue of the forgotten American novels, mostly from the 20s and 30s (Glenway Wescott), is the one bit from NYRB 'programme' that I find it hard to muster any interest in.

I actually think Stoner will be boring and actually dull. It might also be that I really dislike some of the people that have gone for this (the Barnes piece is like 'oh I am sent books all the time but more than one of my buddies told me to read it' I mean plz fuck off!) Maybe I should stop doing that, but I suspect I'll just get worse..