NYRB Publishing

I really liked Platonov's Foundation Pit, but I think his collection of stories is better. Would like to read most of the rest of that list, thomp.

stephen benatar, wish her safe at home -- very good, very dark comedy - woman comes to own London house, goes mad
geoffrey household, rogue male -- superior adventure thriller about a big game hunter in the 1930s who decides to hunt down Hitler
jakov lind, soul of wood -- brutal but excellent
guy de maupassant, afloat -- lovely non-fictional record of boating trip
audrey platonov, the foundation pit -- brutal but excellent
francis wyndham, the complete fiction -- so, so, so good
stefan zweig, the post-office girl -- I love Zweig, and this is wonderful--sort of post WW1 Bonnie-and-Clyde in Germany, but with lots more to it

I love Zweig, and this is wonderful--sort of post WW1 Bonnie-and-Clyde in Germany, but with lots more to it

I will definitely check this out.

yeah the zweig is fantastic but its p brutal throughout. i really like mavis gallant but cost of living is a weaker collection than any of 'paris stories', 'collected works' or the penguin collection (the best intro imo) - its all earlier stories and shes nowhere near as lean & unsentimental & wise in these stories as she becomes later. theyre kinda 'writerly' also so i dont know how much that will appeal...

'soul of wood' is the one id most like to read but havent

god, oakley hall's warlock is good, isn't it? i can't get enough of it, but it can be so tense i have to stop sometimes. this is a cliched thing to say but it crackles with energy. smart without being ponderous. it feels like it "gets it." walks right up to the edge of romanticism and then rips your guts out. poor bud gannon.

really need to restart that one. preferably on vacation

i started reading it once but i didn't really know what i was reading.

warlock. says so right on the cover

man, i finished warlock a week or two ago and it was so good. waiting for the movie from netflix right now, kind of curious about how good it's going to be.

now i'm reading the big clock by kenneth fearing, don't know how into it i am but it's interesting and seems like a quick read so i'll probably keep going. kind of a noir with a very unappealing "hero" and a ridiculous plot and awkward writing.

wait there's a warlock movie??

starring richard widmark, henry fonda and anthony quinn, no less

it was funny reading it thinking "huh it's weird no one's ever heard of this book" and then finding out about the movie and that the book was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize

i read a thing the other day that noted most old-skool pulitzer nominees/winners were bestsellers in their day.

(and i guess, as a corollary, lots of bestsellers probably fall out of view pretty quickly. especially if their authors don't stay in the game somehow.)

The Big Clock has a very odd ending, kind of lame in a way, but it's interesting. I find Clark Gifford's Body, also by Fearing, totally fascinating and unique, though I still don't know quite what to make of it.

I thought I was going to hate "Clark Gifford's Body" and I ended up loving it. One of the things NYRB has done for me is intorduce me to some brilliant leftish US novels from the midele of the twentieth century, including "Clark Gifford's Body", "The Middle of the Journey" by Lionel Trilling, "What's for Dinner" by James Schuyler. Thanks, NYRB.

Currently reading a new NYRB: Iris Owens's 'After Claude', which I'm really enjoying, despite/because of the narrator being one of the most repellent people EVER.

btw "Warlock" movie - not really recommended. They made a decent effort but had to cut a bunch of stuff (mostly for time, obviously, but also the entire mine union plot was taken out, probably due to the time/climate that it was made). Widmark is good, Fonda is good but doesn't really seem right for the part IMO. Seems like it would have been confusing to anyone who hadn't read the book.

Also they do a weird thing where at the beginning Blaisedell and Morgan ride into town together, like they've been traveling together as a team (unlike in the book, where Morgan's already in Warlock and running the saloon). But then all of a sudden Morgan has his own saloon, with no explanation of how he bought it so quickly or anything. Maybe I missed something.

Read a fair bit of Oakley Hall a few years ago (for a big thing on Warlock that got spiked – ashamed of parts of it now, screechy and ignorant about politics, America, not good enough on the history of the Western); didn't like any of his other books as much as Warlock - the Ambrose Bierce mysteries had their heart in the right place, couldn't get through that one about downhill skiers. It was enlightening about what happens to writers - I mean from a lot of perspectives it does look like Hall vanished after Warlock, but there he is, working hard for the rest of his life, right at the centre of West Coast creative writing and regional fiction.

i think hes "known" as a teacher more than an author. disappointing to hear that nothing else reaches warlock, though.

the book store down the street was selling a bunch of these for 99 cents each! bought a bagful. then bought another bagful to give as christmas gifts. couldn't believe it.

so lucky! my most recent book score story - last time we were on holiday the local bookstore had those paris review interview collections for 50p each so of course i bought them all

i still need those!

Came across this article while doing some research and realized that Bill Klapp IS Lowell Lake from A Meaningful Life

http://books.google.com/books?id=oucCAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA35&lpg=PA35&dq=%22ghosts+of+hell%27s+kitchen%22+%22new+york+magazine&source=bl&ots=eJDl4IV8cb&sig=Br1Z7Q4TtPH5lSDnu8z40Lwr5H4&hl=en&ei=9d4LTbucHMGC8gby66TRCA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&sqi=2&ved=0CBMQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=%22ghosts%20of%20hell%27s%20kitchen%22%20%22new%20york%20magazine&f=false

"The sameness. I can't be part of that sameness again."

Currently reading a new NYRB: Iris Owens's 'After Claude', which I'm really enjoying, despite/because of the narrator being one of the most repellent people EVER.

started this on the train today and lolled

It's a lot of fun. The ending is pretty freaky.

http://blog.mpl.org/mke_reads/hard_rain.jpg

i keep seeing this and i wanna read it, it seems like something i would be into

i havent seen that one before but yeah it also seems pertinent to my interests

ones i've read recently:
stoner by john williams - well-written but pretty depressing for my tastes
the quest for corvo by a.j.a. symons - conceptually cool, got kind of repetitive after a while and i stopped reading it about 50 pgs before the end
on the yard by malcolm braley - really awesome prison novel written by a dude who was in prison for like 20 years

Stephen Benatar - that's a name to conjugate with

I like the John Collier a lot. Although I've only read, er, about eight stories since I bought it in 2006-ish. Seems like the perfect bathroom book to dip into once every 15 months for the rest of your life.

i got 3 of these books in the mail. i just started tove janssssssson, the true deceiver. it sure is weird how all three have different typefaces!

Just picked up Platonov - The Fierce and Beautiful World. Guy at the bookstore really talked it up.

xpost Paris Review has a fair number of interviews archived on their site. C'mon and feel the exhilaration of getting away from writing via talking about writing (I do it too, but have to manage without an audience)

i finished the true deceiver. ouch! should i read warlock or beware of pity next, or flip a coin

warlock

I feel like I should just read all of these NYRB Classic since I've dug every one I have read. The Outward Room by Millen Brand was pretty minimal, but hit me hard. I'm reading Vasily Grossman's "The Road" now.

cassandra at the wedding by dorothy baker, picked it up because of carson mccullers blurb & deb eisenberg's afterword, it was great. now starting warlock by oakley hall. i l u nyrb books

so theyve collected vladimir sorokin's ice trilogy in one volume which includes 'ice' (as book 2).

recently read & loved:
- riders in the chariot
- an apartment in athens

an apartment in athens is great. I've bought the Ice trilogy, but not tackled it yet.

haha youve read everything!! is there anything youd recommend in particular, kinda outta stuff to read atm. also have had a not bad really but less enjoyable patch lately w/ nyrb i didnt really like williams 'stoner' & couldnt even finish gadda's 'that awful mess...' (which is staring reproachfully @ me as a type this) or sciascia's 'to each his own'. also was disappointed w/ 'the invention of morel' although i finished that one

what did you not like about the gadda? i started it but it didn't grab me as promised, and i had other things to do.

Have you read Clark Gifford's Body? Or The Strangers in the House, by Simenon? They're a couple of the most straightforward enjoyable ones I can think of.

j i just found 'that awful mess' too dense & associative, i think? i had hard time following what was happening even while i was reading, my focus just sort of bouncing off the page. a lot of times id catch myself thinking abt something trivial and realize i couldnt recall anything that had happened in the last couple of pages

i might try 'clark gifford's body' but im not really in the mood for simenon atm

The same thing happened to me with the Gadda, it's fairly rare for me to abandon a book. Perhaps I should try again.

The two Elaine Dundy novels are light and enjoyable; I love "Hadrian The Seventh", I love "Ringolevio" (though my copy is Canongate / Rebel Inc. FOR SHAME) both political romps in their very different ways; I found "In Hazard" by Richard Hughes an absorbing and intense wonder; "Sleepless Nights" by Elizabeth Hardwick herself is an odd favourite of mine: it's wispy and intangible, I've read it a few times and each time I start thinking "oh there's nothing to this" and end in raptures of one kind or another. Again, my cop is a 1980s Virago Classic so perhaps I should just shut my mouth about it.

I'm reading "Warlock" and it keeps reminding me of the song "Pancho and Lefty". I think it's the phrase "he only did what he had to do". Sometimes I hear it in the voice of Emmylou Harris and sometimes in the voice of WIllie Nelson, but that doesn't seem to relate to the character speaking the words.

The desert's quiet and Cleveland's cold.

No spoilers.

Acquainted with Grief -- the only other Gadda novel available in English -- is well worth tracking down. That Awful Mess... is, well, an actual mess -- intended by its author, and perhaps the execution of its translation added to this.

You and your Virago classics Tim! I think I've seen that Hardwick in a 2nd hand shop whenever I pass through...

to go along with the hadrian the seventh recommendation, i see they also publish a.j.a. symonds' quest for corvo which is entertaining and well worth a read if you're into rolfe/corvo. don't think i've actually ever seen a nyrb publishing publication (though that radiguet cover looks familiar).

Actually you may well find Quest for Corvo fascinating, even if you know nothing about Corvo/Rolfe--I'd never read him when I read it, and really enjoyed it.