What did you think of Franny and Zooey, Alfred?
― dow, Sunday, January 2, 2022 6:07 PM
A genuine surprise.
― So who you gonna call? The martini police (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 3 January 2022 20:25 (two years ago) link
these 100+ lists are both impressive and scary.
― adam t. (abanana), Monday, 3 January 2022 21:23 (two years ago) link
Ah! How so? (C'mon, spill.)
― dow, Tuesday, 4 January 2022 01:16 (two years ago) link
I've often seen Alfred's impressive cranium on WDYLL threads, so his lengthy list merely serves as an unnecessary confirmation of the self-evident. I shudder to think what breathtaking marvels would be revealed if James Morrison were to post to WDYLL!
― more difficult than I look (Aimless), Tuesday, 4 January 2022 01:22 (two years ago) link
I also have a pretty large head, fwiw.
― we need outrage! we need dicks!! (the table is the table), Tuesday, 4 January 2022 13:28 (two years ago) link
Jorgenrique Adoum - Prepoems in PostSpanishRabih Alameddine - KoolaidsSinan Antoon - The Baghdad EucharistAmiri Baraka - The System of Dante's HellDodie Bellamy - Bee ReavedHassan Blasim - The Corpse ExhibitionAnne Boyer - My Common HeartMolly Brodak - Bandit: A Daughter's MemoirJulie Carr - 100 Notes on ViolenceSelected Poems and Prose of Paul CelanMary Crow - BordersPeter Culley - The Age of Briggs & StrattonPeter Culley - HammertownKevin Davies - The Golden Age of ParaphernaliaSamuel Delany - Dhalgren (reread)Jim Dicksinson - I'm Just Dead, I'm Not GoneGe Fei - The Invisibility CloakSesshu Foster - City of the Future (reread)Sesshu Foster - Atomik AztexFederico Garcia Lorca - Selected Poems Andre Gide - Urien's VoyageJohannes Göransson - Poetry Against AllJudy Grahn - love belongs to those who do the feelingLinda Gregg - The Sacraments of DesireDorothea Grossman - Museum of RainPeter Handke - Three by HandkeJim Harrison - Song of UnreasonJim Harrison - The Essential PoemsFanny Howe - The QuietistFanny Howe - Radical Love: 5 NovelsThe Selected Poetry of Vicente HuidobroZora Neale Hurston - Their Eyes Were Watching GodKazuo Ishiguro - Klara and the SunDenis Johnson - The Name of the WorldDenis Johnson - Train DreamsRonald Johnson - The Book of the Green ManHettie Jones - DriveJohn Keene - AnnotationsWilliam Kennedy - IronweedJohn Koethe - rotc killsEugene Lim - Search HistoryEugene Lim - Dear CyborgsKelly Link - Get in Trouble: StoriesBernadette Mayer - SonnetsJoyelle McSweeney - FletSemezdin Mehmedinovic - My HeartDunya Mikhail - The War Works HardSayaka Murata - EarthlingsEileen Myles - Not MeAlice Notley - Negativity's KissMichael Ondaatje - The Collected Works of Billy the KidCelia Paul - Self PortraitMarge Piercy - Woman on the Edge of TimeSam Riviere - Safe ModeCamille Roy - Honey MineFrederick Seidel - Going FastDanzy Senna - Where Did You Sleep Last Night?Choi Seungja - Phone Bells Keep Ringing for MeGary Snyder - Earth House HoldMagda Szabo - The DoorJean Valentine - Door in the Mountain: New and Collected Poems, 1965-2003Ocean Vuong - On Earth We're Briefly GorgeousNikki Wallschlaeger - WaterbabyNikki Wallschlaeger - Pizza and WarfareSimone White - Dear Angel of DeathJohn Edgar Wideman - The Homewood Trilogy
(inclusion not necessarily an endorsement, of course)
― zak m, Wednesday, 5 January 2022 03:11 (two years ago) link
Have already finished 3 or 4 books since teh start of teh year and started 4 or 5.Will see if that goes anywhere.But some great stuff anyway, more bell hooks, Anita Loos who I hadn't read before and think I missed a book by recently which now grates, George Schuyler who is amazingly against the tide and stuff.
― Stevolende, Wednesday, 5 January 2022 09:09 (two years ago) link
No One Is Talking About This, Patricia LockwoodWar, So Much War, Merce RodoredaTrue Believer: The Rise and Fall of Stan Lee, Abraham RiesmanHow Much of Thee Hills Is Gold, C. Pam ZhangThe Seven Veils of Seth, Ibrahim al-KoniConversations in Sicily, Elio VittoriniFever Dream, Samantha SchweblinEleven Sooty Dreams, Manuela DraegerCompass, Mathias ÉnardA House and Its Head, Ivy Compton-BurnettThe Invisibility Cloak, Ge FeiKin, Miljenko JergovicIn Memory of Memory, Maria StepanovaGold, Frankincense, and Myrrh, Slobodan NovakA Girl's Story, Annie ErnauxA Castle in Romagna, Igor StiksGötz and Meyer, David AlbahariHammers on Bone, Cassandra KhawA Private Venus, Giorgio ScerbanancoThe Cyclist Conspiracy, Svetislav BasaraCroatian War Nocturnal, Spomenka StimekWhere There's Love, There's Hate, Adolfo Bioy Casares & Silvina OcampoEEG, Dasa DrndicVoices in the Evening, Natalila GinsburgL'Amante Anglaise, Marguerite DurasNothing But Blackened Teeth, Cassandra KhawBetween Life and Death, Yoram KaniukThe Left Hand of Darkness, Ursula K. LeGuinI Belong to Vienna, Anna GoldenbergA Woman's Story, Annie ErnauxFires on the Plain, Shohei OokaNazi Literature in the Americas, Roberto Bolaño My Heart, Semezdin MehmedinovicPhone Bells Keep Ringing for Me, Choi SeungaA Heritage and Its History, Ivy Compton-BurnettVanish in an Instant, Margaret Millar
― J Edgar Noothgrush (Joan Crawford Loves Chachi), Wednesday, 5 January 2022 13:43 (two years ago) link
Don't know most of those authors, but!---Ivy Compton-Burnett (twice), Adolfo Bioy Casares & Silvina Ocampo, Ursula K. LeGuin (and one of her stone cold classics at that), Roberto Bolaño, and Margaret Millar to boot (even Patricia Lockwood, whom I don't think I've ever read, but whose name somehow attached itself to a startling woman of authoritah in a recent dream)---that's my kind of list already---better check the other items on it---
― dow, Wednesday, 5 January 2022 15:35 (two years ago) link
I need to read more Duras too.
― dow, Wednesday, 5 January 2022 17:44 (two years ago) link
I almost bought the Ocampo last week! NYRB rock.
― So who you gonna call? The martini police (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 5 January 2022 17:49 (two years ago) link
dow, I strongly recommend Annie Ernaux. She's a memoirist. I avoid memoirs! But she is genuinely special -- there is something unrelenting in her self-examination. And addictive. I expect to read a bunch more of hers.
― J Edgar Noothgrush (Joan Crawford Loves Chachi), Thursday, 6 January 2022 00:43 (two years ago) link
Intriguing---will def. check her out, thanks.
― dow, Thursday, 6 January 2022 01:51 (two years ago) link
The Jakarta Method - Vincent BevinsThe Sense of an Ending - Julian Barnes Nimona - Noelle Stevenson 1974 - David Peace The Pear Field - Nana Ekvtimishvili No One Is Talking About This - Patricia Lockwood Lying For Money - Dan Davies Nordic Fauna - Andrea Lundgren Shuggie Bain - Douglas Stewart Summer Lightning - PG Wodehouse The Bloody Chamber - Angela Carter Age of Anger - Pankaj Mishra Yesterday - Juan Emar Sea of Ink - Richard Weihe Love's Work - Gillian RoseDarryl - Jackie EssThe Hothouse by the East River - Muriel SparkTyll - Daniel KehlmannNovels in Three Lines - Félix Fénéon
Of this the best were No One Is Talking About This, Darryl and the Jakarta Method. The worst by some distance was Shuggie Bain, a however many hundred page book about a boy who loves his mammy where we learn nothing about the boy other than that he loves his mammy.
― calumerio, Thursday, 6 January 2022 21:42 (two years ago) link
I don’t know how I manage to do this every year but I was weighing out some brewer’s yeast & suddenly remembered that last year I read & forgot to log:Merlin Sheldrake - Entangled Life& my brain would not let me let this go uncorrected
― Nerd Ragequit (wins), Thursday, 6 January 2022 23:11 (two years ago) link
A week into 22 and I have not read a page so far, hopefully I get some sweet covid isolation time at some point
― Nerd Ragequit (wins), Thursday, 6 January 2022 23:13 (two years ago) link
i didn't think shuggie bain was *that* bad but it wasn't great
― 𝔠𝔞𝔢𝔨 (caek), Thursday, 6 January 2022 23:17 (two years ago) link
I love both Marguerite Duras and Paul Celan! Joan Crawford Loves Chachi that's an impressive list with many writers I've been meaning to read, especially In Memory of Memory, Maria Stepanova.
― JacobSanders, Thursday, 6 January 2022 23:57 (two years ago) link
calumerio, nice to see someone else read Rose. Glad you liked Jackie's book and the Jakarta Method, too.
― we need outrage! we need dicks!! (the table is the table), Friday, 7 January 2022 15:32 (two years ago) link
The Mabinogion (tr. Sioned Davies)Arthur Machen - The Great God PanClark Ashton Smith - ZothiqueClark Ashton Smith - PoseidonisArkady and Boris Strugatsky - Roadside PicnicKir Bulychev - Alice: The Girl From EarthKir Bulychev - Half a Life and Other StoriesKir Bulychev - Gusliar WondersYevgeny Zamyatin - WeGeorge Orwell - Nineteen Eighty-FourAldous Huxley - Brave New WorldKobo Abe - Inter Ice Age 4Kate Wilhelm - Where Late the Sweet Birds SangRuth Park - Playing Beatie BowRuth Park - The Harp in the SouthRuth Park - Poor Man's OrangeBertrand Russell - What I BelieveBertrand Russell - Why I Am Not a ChristianJoe Hill & Gabriel Rodríguez - Locke & Key: Keys to the KingdomJoe Hill & Gabriel Rodríguez - Locke & Key: ClockworksJoe Hill & Gabriel Rodríguez - Locke & Key: Alpha & OmegaBenjamin Myers - Under the Rock (put down halfway through, will finish at some point)
― in walked airbud (unregistered), Saturday, 8 January 2022 00:56 (two years ago) link
I remember L&J being really solid and wishing there were more good, long, discrete contained stories like that (ignoring the rubbish spin offs)
― Chuck_Tatum, Saturday, 8 January 2022 11:39 (two years ago) link
Locke and key I mean.
― Chuck_Tatum, Saturday, 8 January 2022 11:40 (two years ago) link
I watched teh tv series last month, has been a while since I ead the comics which I enjoyed at teh time and was one reason I watched teh tv show. Think I continued cos I started. Don't think I enjoyed as much as the comic anyway. Might give tehm another look if I can find the fiels sinced i read it on cbr.
― Stevolende, Saturday, 8 January 2022 11:54 (two years ago) link
Love's Work was good, but demanded more of me than I was able to give, intellectually and emotionally. I will go back to it.
Shuggie Bain was super bad, a relentless honking airhorn of "we were poor... but dammit we were unhappy too", in sore need of two more drafts and an editor. I did do an actual lol at a very minor character being called "Kier Weir", though, a welcome absurdity.
I don't think I have ever actually *liked* a protagonist in a book as much as I liked Darryl.
Anyway, I will continue lurking here, pinching ideas from youse all, though this year's resolution is read the books that I bought in 2021, rather than buy any new ones.
― calumerio, Saturday, 8 January 2022 13:57 (two years ago) link
this year's resolution is read the books that I bought in 2021, rather than buy any new ones.
I tried that a couple of years ago and, of course, failed. It was helpful, though. It did encourage me to cut back on purchases and clear some of the backlog of unread books, so on the whole I'm glad I made the resolution and consider it a success.
― more difficult than I look (Aimless), Saturday, 8 January 2022 17:01 (two years ago) link
unregistered- how are the Kir Bulychev books?
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Saturday, 8 January 2022 18:50 (two years ago) link
great! I'm not too well-versed in Soviet SFF, but I'd recommend all three of those Bulychev collections. the biggest highlight for me was the title story of Half a Life. at heart it's a narrative of a woman's acts of self-sacrifice as she comes to empathize with the weird sentient beings who are imprisoned with her on an alien research vessel. a little mawkish, maybe, but there's a compelling interplay between the sentimental and the cynical as a group of emotionally stunted astronauts struggle to make sense of the woman's story and the now abandoned vessel
I also really like the cycle of short stories that makes up the second half of Gusliar Wonders, in which a Russian village becomes an unlikely point of first contact with various aliens and wizards and time travelers. it's similar in premise to Simak's Way Station, only funnier and with less faith in human nature. overall Bulychev seems fixated on the way unimaginative egotists react when confronted with the alien or the supernatural, and he has an acute ear for irony
Alice's Travels (the first novel in that Alice collection) is a fun children's interplanetary mystery, concluding with a slightly hokey, Scooby Doo-ish confrontation with space pirates. the cartoon adaptation is apparently regarded as a classic, and Bulychev is best known in Russia for his Alice books/films. afaik few of his other works have been translated into English aside from the post-apocalyptic novel Those Who Survive and the novella "Another's Memory" (collected in Earth and Elsewhere. Half a Life and Gusliar Wonders are both available at the Open Library
― in walked airbud (unregistered), Saturday, 8 January 2022 23:23 (two years ago) link
I'm kinda tempted to start working my way through the non-Strugatsky entries in Ted Sturgeon's Best of Soviet Science Fiction series:
https://i.imgur.com/O5HLz7d.jpg
(full list here)
― in walked airbud (unregistered), Saturday, 8 January 2022 23:28 (two years ago) link