Nu-ILB: What books have you purchased lately?

Never read dickson. You always see a lot of him on 2nd-hand SF sections. That Simenon is great, the Jerome good fun, and The Harbour is meant to be an excellent socialist novel, though characteristically I have yet to read my copy...

Hi Scott, what is it about Rock From The Beginning that's making it hard to read?

it just seems naive now. and the hepcat lingo hasn't aged well. a ton of snap judgements that just seem off or wrong at this late date. but hey it was written in the heat of the moment and all that. he couldn't google anything!

Isn't part of the fun seeing how perceptions have changed over the years. Not sure how much of an Everyman/shared perspective Cohn would have had at the time. Been a few years since I read him. But I did think he was at least interesting.

Wonder how something like Bob Stanley's Yeah Yeah Yeah will be looked back on in years to come.

other stuff i got:

a fine and private place - peter s. beagle (weird book!)

the unearth people - kris neville

michael chabon - maps and legends

ron goulart - the sword swallower

the book of philip jose farmer

three against the witch world - andre norton

secret of the lost race - andre norton

damon knight's orbit

the day of their return - poul anderson

the rebel worlds - poul anderson

the winter of the world - poul anderson

the worlds of poul anderson - three novels

world of ptavvs - larry niven

total eclipse - john brunner

the worm ouroboros - e.r. eddison

time out of mind and other stories - pierre boulle

the clockmaker/the watchmaker - georges simenon

the status civilization - robert sheckley

the mezentian gate - e.r. eddison

siege perilous - lester del rey (actually written by paul w. fairman even though he isn't credited...)

splendor in the short grass - the grover lewis reader

"Isn't part of the fun seeing how perceptions have changed over the years"

yeah, but unfortunately music writing from that time period can be really predictable. i need some insights/flashes to keep me going. something i hadn't thought about before. and also those guys can make me wince. just the guyness of it all can make me wince. i see the roots of chauvinism/isolationism/sexism/etc in music writing in that old stuff. and i see it in me too and it bums me out. that was the dominant strain for decades. the self-assured bluster and hyperbole. of which i am definitely guilty of as well.

and i'm reading all these old magazines i got and i read that mary mmcarthy piece on ivy compton-burnett and i just say hot damn! this is what i am looking for in the way of crit. inside and out appraisal of talent that is not always easy to categorize or even understand or write about and somehow getting inside that and making it understandable and also really interesting. you can find some of that in music writing/crit, of course, but a lot of the main people who built the template - here at least - weren't anywhere near as rigorous because they wanted to mimic the comic book shagadelic nature of the music in their writing and while this might have been hilarious/mindblowing at the time if you were stoned....

In groovy tymes, Cohn def came across as a contrarian, even what the jazzers call a moldy or mouldy fig, but a fun one---he got me into PJ Proby, for inst. Don't remember the hepcat lingo--prob blended in with what most early rock writers were doing---but he seemed to combine blunt, if not flat statements w *some* (not too much) flamboyant imagery. Don't know how it would look now, though. As fan testimony, could be called Rock From The Beginning To The End, considering that he said of Dylan, "And if he killed off the thing I loved---well, that was hardly his fault." Also grudgingly admitted the validity of Pepper's etc.
(In 70s, wrote text for Guy Peellaert's coffee table pre-"graphic novel" gallery Rock Dreams, which some said was way too rock-slick, if not gross[don't remember it very well], went on to write magazine feature, which he later said he'd made up: basis of Saturday Night Fever, spent time on Riker's for selling coke, turned up in New Orleans after Katrina, where he claimed to have produced Dirty South rap, don't know if any surfaced.)

Which Orbit did you get---the first one?!

Hey, I found Splendor In The Short Grass too! Mentioned upthread around the end of June:

Splendor In The Short Grass: The Grover Lewis Reader, edited by Jan Reid & Kip Stratton, intro by Dave Hickey. Lewis was a strong longform journo in early Rolling Stone and others---title piece started on location for The Last Picture Show---also incl. short stories, poems and excerpt from unfinished memoir. I still remember bits of the Stone work from orig. publication, and whole thing looks v. worthwhile.
Still haven't started reading it, though.

xp I would prob enjoy McCarthy on Compton-Burnett more at this point too.

Oh, and another geezer, but one def. with his own, increasingly non-chauvinist POV---have you read much Dave Hickey? Air Guitar is usually named as a peak, or maybe valley to some---he's apparently controversial in some art-crit circles. Really enjoyable quality-over-quantity music commentary and excursions back in the Noise Boys era of Voice and Creem, but don't know if it's ever been collected. I wanna read his short stories too, but that collection is pricey so far.

someone gave me air guitar once to read and i did read some of it but that was a long time ago. don't remember much.

in general, i don't read much music writing. i will read historical stuff and occasionally jazz writing which can also be really problematic and i can be picky about it. most of my music reading now is confined to oral histories/interviews or writing by musicians. i've cut out the middle man. i have a swing oral history book that i was looking at the other day and i can just read stuff like that forever. Notes and Tones by Arthur Taylor was my big epiphany. I wanted more of that. i'll take the prejudices and blind spots of musicians over jazz writers any day of the week.

Notes and Tones by Arthur Taylor was my big epiphany. I wanted more of that. i'll take the prejudices and blind spots of musicians over jazz writers any day of the week.

― scott seward, Thursday, August 25, 2016 7:53 PM (thirteen seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I've still got to finish that. Think it wound up being my traveling book for a while and something else took over. But what i did read of it was pretty good.

also
"yeah, but unfortunately music writing from that time period can be really predictable. i need some insights/flashes to keep me going. something i hadn't thought about before. and also those guys can make me wince. just the guyness of it all can make me wince. i see the roots of chauvinism/isolationism/sexism/etc in music writing in that old stuff. and i see it in me too and it bums me out. that was the dominant strain for decades. the self-assured bluster and hyperbole. of which i am definitely guilty of as well. "

I haven't read Cohn in a while I think I do have a couple of his around somewhere though, though one could still be on a shelf in london. I nearly rebought awopbopaloopbop earlier this year but thought i might already have it.

But yeah would find some of that a turn off.

Sidney Bechet's Treat It Gentle: An Autobiography is a trip, ditto Mingus's Beneath The Underdog, Milesby Miles Davis and Quincy Troupe (somewhat controversial, source-wise, but Miles is ever the raconteur, once you get him going, and if he and/or QT went back and stuck in other people's shit, it fits great). Billie Holiday and William Duffy
s Lady Sings The Blues is very vivid---despite the "as told to" the voice of her songs (incl. ones she wrote) comes through. I need to find more by female jazz artists---also, strung out on Art Pepper again because the Neon Art posthumous but very live releases presented by wife Laurie (and his characteristically intense, concise comments on Ralph J. Gleason's "Jazz Casual" performance/interview/performance TV series, now YouTubed), I wanna read his (Laurie-assisted) autobio, Straight Life.

Rock books by rockers-wise, I like Dylan's Chronicles, Byrne's multiphasic How Music Works---personal experience and favorite riffs take over from lectures---and don't get me started about Don Felder's Between Heaven and Hell, which I greatly enjoyed over on an ILM Eagles threads A Good Day In Hell.

I've got several country autobios unread, but Tom T. Hall's The Storyteller's Nashville is ace, and frequently hilarious.

Wolf In White Van is the best *novel* I've found by a muso, and one of the best by anybody.

damn, rudy van gelder died today...

Yeah I saw that on Facebook. hadn't realised he had still been around.

Down and Dirty Pictures Peter Biskind his book on the wave of films from the late 80s onwards including such film directors as Quentin tarantino and Steven Soderbergh. I know I enjoyed Easy Riders and raging bulls when I read taht but that could be almost a couple fo decades ago.

& Chuck Palahniuk Fight Club. I think I must have read this since seeing the film but that's also quite a while ago. I don't initially recognise the beginning though.

Basket case What's happening With Ireland's food by Philip Boucher-hayes and Suzanne campbell.
I read a couple of books along the same lines a few years ago which put me off buying supermarket food for at least a while & check out what smaller independent shops were around town. Now I'm mainly buying from LIDL cos its the closest shop. Hopefully its not as bad as some places but not sure if it has the ethos it started with.

born For Liberty by Sara M Evans women in American History looked interesting.
all 4 of those so far were €1 each so worth a splash.

also got How To walk In High Heels The Girl's guide tO everything cos I thought it might show some shot cuts to things I might want to know. & it was 25c as was
Wild Swans 3 `Daughters of China by Jung Chang

then wound up picking up The Dictionary of pub Names for €1.50 in the Dealz near where i had to be this afternoon cos I do find things like that interesting. Seems to have history behind some specific pub's reasons for taking the names too.
Just looked up Elephant and castle and it says that the title refers to the cutlers Company's Coat of Arms which dates back to 1622 but some people will continue to insist on the Infanta of Castile story I thought it might give.

Bohumil Hrabal - I Served the King of England. Just a lovely edition of this masterpiece.
Arkady & Boris Strugatsky - Hard to be a God
Doris Lessing - The Four-Gated City (top find: Bantham paperbk ed)
Speaking of Siva (free verse sayings from the 10th - 12th centuries, dedicated to Siva)

bought a 1965 copy of Stoner for $1 at a book sale -- is this worth anything? no dust jacket.

also $1 each
White - The once and future king
Murakami - Dance Dance Dance
Herbert - Dune
Marsh - Enter a Murderer
Mcsweeney's 18

That 1965 copy of Stoner must be worth at least five times what you paid for it.

John Jeremiah Sullivan - Pulphead
Halldor Laxness - Independent People
Bret Easton Ellis - Less Than Zero
Yuri Herrera - Signs Preceding The End Of The World

More finds:

Marie Ndiaye - Self-Portrait in Green
Kolatkar - Complete Poems - which I read earlier this year but that was my library copy.

The translations of old Marathi poets in that are magnificent others Jejuri is available through NYRB

Jejuri is ace. Haven't seen the Complete Poems anywhere.

Its on Bloodaxe

But yeah v lucky to get a 2nd hand copy.

I hit my usual spots today, sold some books to Powell's (for a pittance) and came home with:

The Broken Road, Patrick Leigh Fermor, NYRB trade paperback, new (remaindered) for $10. The final installment of his epic pre-WWII on foot journey to Istanbul.

Wars I Have Seen, Gertrude Stein, like-new trade paperback, $8.50 Ms. Stein in her colloquial-friendly persona, gabbing about herself and others.

Blood and Thunder: The Epic Story of Kit Carson and the Conquest of the American West, Hampton Sides, used trade paperback, $3. See epically wordy subtitle for clues.

Early Irish Myths and Sagas, translated by Jeffrey Gantz, used Penguin Classics paperback in readable condition, $2.

Angels on Toast: The Wicked Pavillion: The Golden Spur, Dawn Powell, three novels crammed into one used trade paperback published by QPB Book Club, $4.

Arkady & Boris Strugatsky - Hard to be a God
Doris Lessing - The Four-Gated City (top find: Bantham paperbk ed)
John Jeremiah Sullivan - Pulphead
Angels on Toast: The Wicked Pavillion: The Golden Spur, Dawn Powell, three novels crammed into one used trade paperback published by QPB Book Club
Got these, though Pulphead is the only recent score. All v. worthwhile (QPB member in 80s-90s, bought tons).

Vivienne Westwood by Vivienne Westwood and ian kelly
cos it was at cut price in TK Maxx and I'd recently read about her in The Look by Paul Gorman

Grays Anatomy by Henry Gray cos it was €4 in Oxfam and in pretty good nick, nearly new though th eprice tag from initial purchase hasn't been removed exactly immaculately.

& The Kabbalah from a Sacred texts range for €1 cos I thought it might be worth a look.

and earlier in the week
The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work by Alain de Botton

and The Best Of Myles for €1 each.
Not sure if I've had the Best Of Myles before but certainly not with this cover anyway and Flann O'Brien is always worth a read

i preordered a book about perverts by homosexual II!

Stevolende, put that de Botton in a lead box and dispose of appropriately. The guy's a hack and a nitwit.
Is the Gray's Anatomy a reporoduction of his own work, or the updated textbooky version?

Carter, Nights at the Circus
DeLillo, White Noise
Desai, Clear Light of Day
Dinesen, Out of Africa
Gordimer, The Conservationist
King, Green Grass Running Water
Lessing, The Golden Notebook
Murdoch, The Sea, The Sea
Nabokov, Lolita
Williams, Hard Core
Woolf, A Room of One's Own

"The Penguin Book Of The British Short Story: From P.G. Wodehouse to Zadie Smith"
"M Train", Patti Smith
"Born To Run", Bruce Springsteen
"Content Provider", Stewart Lee
"Tove Jansson: Work And Love" Tuula Karjalainen

Colin Irwin book on Highway 61 Revisited
Langland Piers Plowman
Mayday! Mayday! Lorna Siggins book on Irish Air Sea rescues.
Catcher In The Rye for 25c cos I don't think I had it.
&the Oral History of Allman Brothers which is fascinating so far. Just got beyond Duane in Derek & the Dominoes.

Allman Brothers book is One Way Out and it was done by Alan Paul.

I am tempted by the tove bio. The penguin book of short stories would be better if it stopped one author earlier, smith is a rubbish short story writer.

Do you like her novels and essays or do you dislike her stuff in general?

I thought white teeth was a very good, overstuffed first novel, and then the autograph man was a disaster, while the third one was fine if you forget e.m. Forster was doing all the heavy lifting. And her short stories are feeble. Her essays are sometimes good, but always presented as though she is the finest mind of her generation. I guess i just don!t understand why she is so well regarded.

Found a copy of teh Blue Planet tied in to the David attenborough series for €2 yesterday.
Alan Clayson Rolling Stones Complete discography

Abbey road the Best Studio in the World by Alistair Lawrence and Sir George Martin for €12 the day before which is a great coffee table book based on the studio. Got some great photos.

Half-price sale at a used book store that already has good prices. For $60 I got about 20 lbs of book.

Kenneth Clark - An Introduction to Rembrandt
Van Dyck 1599-1641
Diane Cole Ahl - Fra Angelico
Au temps de Watteau, Chardin et Fragonard
Art in Rome in the Eighteenth Century
Living in Bali (Taschen)

2$ each at Fripe-Prix Rennaissance

Americanah (already own a copy but I lent it to a couple people and it's quite beat up, figured a pristine copy for 2$ not a bad investment)
Margaret Atwood - Survival (this attractive A-List edition)
Muriel Barberry - The Elegance of the Hedgehog (picked it up on-sight because of the Europa Editions insignia--is it any good?)

NB: Europa insignia not always a sign of quality. Sometimes it just means a variant of A Year in Provence, for example.

And sometimes it means good books in awful, awful covers, like ferrante

Ha, yes exactly.

NB: Europa insignia not always a sign of quality.

good to know, thx. I've seen my used bookstore selling lots of their stuff, so at the very least I can always re-sell to them. You've not read the Burberry? apparently it was a best-seller in france? not the kind of thing i would read w/o a good recommendation...

And sometimes it means good books in awful, awful covers, like ferrante

Haw, i kind of like the mawkish ferrante covers

Sorry, the Burberry appeared at time when my Europa fixation was growing cold.

Bruce Springsteen - Born To Run
Neil Gaiman - American Gods
Nathanael West - The Day Of The Locust/Miss Lonelyhearts
Mario Vargas Llosa - The Feast Of The Goat
Streetwise: Stories From An Irish Prison

Jerome K Jerome - Three Men in a Boat

Pancatantra in the Penguin Classic version.

I succumbed to the evil empire and ordered from Amazon:

The Man Without Qualities: Volume 1, A Sort of Introduction and Pseudo Reality Prevails , Robert Musil, as a trade paperback, for $14.86. This order would not have happened without ILB enthusiasm. If Volume 1 appeals, I'll have to order Volume 2.

On the Nature of the Universe, Lucretius, in the Melville translation (Oxford World Classics), as a trade paperback, for $9.52. Another ILB-inspired selection, based on direct praise for this translation.

The Birth of Tragedy, Nietzche, in a Dover Thrift Edition paperback, in order to qualify for the FREE shipping on my total order, for $1.

Millhauser, Edwin Mullhouse: The Life and Death of an American Writer 1943-1954, by Jeffrey Cartwright

A big 2-volume Piranesi: The Complete Etchings from Taschen. It's beautiful, and the price is not bad for how much wood pulp you get.