I'm going to stick to the rools and go with one: A Month in the Country by JL Carr (practically ILX canon, tbh). Swells beyond its 135 pages into timelessness.
― Vanishing Point (Chinaski), Tuesday, 16 November 2021 21:06 (two years ago) link
One non-fiction too: The Strange Last Voyage of Donald Crowhurst by Nicholas Tomalin and Ron Hall. Colonial-gentleman-cum-Devonian-Quixote sets out to complete the solo round the world yacht race and rather than admit defeat, spirals into deception, isolation and madness.
― Vanishing Point (Chinaski), Tuesday, 16 November 2021 21:10 (two years ago) link
Ugh, didn't mean to misspell the name. Vanessa Veselka, sorry.
― Sterl of the Quarter (James Redd and the Blecchs), Tuesday, 16 November 2021 21:25 (two years ago) link
I think this essay of hers is very much worth reading as well: https://magazine.atavist.com/the-fort-of-young-saplings/
There’s another essay about her narrow escape from the Truck Stop Killer as a teenage runaway but it basically ruined my day when I read it.
― JoeStork, Tuesday, 16 November 2021 22:22 (two years ago) link
The Boys of My Youth by Jo Ann Beard. Really good personal essays.
Seconding A Month in the Country and also Eve Babitz, but the Babitz I like best is Slow Days, Fast Company.
War With the Newts by Karel Capek. 1936 Czech satire in which people discover and enslave a species of giant intelligent newt and the global economy becomes entirely dependent on them, leading eventually to global Newt revolution and a disastrous rise in sea levels.
― Lily Dale, Wednesday, 17 November 2021 04:21 (two years ago) link
oh shit, yeah, the boys of my youth is the best. really influential for me. i also love beard's novel in zanesville though it could be construed as ya
― STOCK FIST-PUMPER BRAD (BradNelson), Wednesday, 17 November 2021 04:31 (two years ago) link
Dog of the South - Charles Portis
― terminators of endearment (VegemiteGrrl), Wednesday, 17 November 2021 05:13 (two years ago) link
Very much appreciating all these recommendations! I had fiction in mind but not opposed to non-fiction at all as long as we're talking real treats, such as well written, perhaps even gripping journalism or narrative essays. Poetry also welcome. Most important is that it be a kind of rewarding read that is not too demanding, an archetype of the treat I'm thinking of could be The Old Man and the Sea or Babette's Feast (although I'm more interested in novels than novellas).
― corrs unplugged, Wednesday, 17 November 2021 09:20 (two years ago) link
The True Deceiver, Tove Jansson - The best of her adult novels I've read, female children's author who writes stories about harmless little bunnies rubs up against independent, hard edged woman in small village. Ideal Winter read, a good one to gift people as they usually don't have it.
― Daniel_Rf, Wednesday, 17 November 2021 10:31 (two years ago) link
You may already be familiar with The Hearing Trumpet by Leonora Carrington but that seems well-suited here.
Also second the Charles Portis recommendation -- any of his novels, really, especially Masters of Atlantis.
― Chris L, Wednesday, 17 November 2021 12:36 (two years ago) link
_The True Deceiver_, Tove Jansson - The best of her adult novels I've read, female children's author who writes stories about harmless little bunnies rubs up against independent, hard edged woman in small village. Ideal Winter read, a good one to gift people as they usually don't have it.
― suggest bainne (gyac), Wednesday, 17 November 2021 12:41 (two years ago) link
War With the Newts by Karel Capek. 1936 Czech satire in which people discover and enslave a species of giant intelligent newt and the global economy becomes entirely dependent on them, leading eventually to global Newt revolution and a disastrous rise in sea levels.― Lily Dale
Ah cool, so is Capek worth reading in general, then? Obv famed for popularising 'robot', but I've never been sure if he's worth digging into in his own right.
You may already be familiar with The Hearing Trumpet by Leonora Carrington but that seems well-suited here.― Chris L
Seconded!
― emil.y, Wednesday, 17 November 2021 15:17 (two years ago) link
The 'no experimentalism' thing is throwing me a bit, bah. Especially as I feel like IOAWNAT isn't even close to a difficult read! Also I'm guessing that the treat element means nothing too cynical or depressing, right?
― emil.y, Wednesday, 17 November 2021 15:19 (two years ago) link
― Vanishing Point (Chinaski), Tuesday, 16 November 2021 21:06 (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink
need to read this; his FA Cup book is absolutely amazing and does similar
― imago, Wednesday, 17 November 2021 15:22 (two years ago) link
xp I like experimentalism as much as the next person but it just doesn't really fit my idea of a treat
then again rules are meant to be broken and if you know an experimental short novel that's the equivalent of a bounty bar, well... I'd be interested!
some depressing/cynical stuff leaves the reader elated (like Thomas Bernhard) and in that case it's fine by my
― corrs unplugged, Wednesday, 17 November 2021 15:33 (two years ago) link
*me
also The Hearing Trumpet is one of the best books ever as far as I'm concerned btw, 100% concur, get on it, etc
― imago, Wednesday, 17 November 2021 15:38 (two years ago) link
I think it's less that I want to recommend pure experimental lit and more that sometimes I don't know what people would consider overly experimental - to me something like The Third Policeman is a real treat, but would its quirks rule it out? But if experimental stuff is not completely banned, just not preferred, then that feels easier.
― emil.y, Wednesday, 17 November 2021 15:44 (two years ago) link
I recently got around to The Invention of Morel by Adolfo Bioy Casares and that felt quite treat-like. The central character is overly obsessive about a woman he never speaks to, which may be off-putting, but I didn't feel pushed into empathising with that emotion but rather found myself chuckling at its extent. Mileage might vary, I guess.
― emil.y, Wednesday, 17 November 2021 15:47 (two years ago) link
books like The Third Policeman manage to be both treats and the best books ever written tbf, this thread absolutely needs its ilk
― imago, Wednesday, 17 November 2021 15:48 (two years ago) link
A Happy man by Hansjorg Schertenleib is a book that's prob a treat, just a guy walking around with a happy (or well-adjusted) life and every sentence it seems like he's going to die, a very strange tension that I haven't really seen very much
― Bongo Jongus, Wednesday, 17 November 2021 15:57 (two years ago) link
Edmund White's Forgetting Elena is... [pause to consider] quite acceptable here. Don't you think?
― alimosina, Wednesday, 17 November 2021 16:07 (two years ago) link
various things by John Einarson though I noticed a few years ago that his name keeps getting mispelt on different books or possibly listiongs. He has done some really good music bios including ghost writing/compiling Arthur Lee's memoir. His Mr Tambourine Man on Gene Clark was really good too.
I really enjoyed Behind The Scenes on the Pegasus Carousel by Love drummer Michael Stewart Ware. It was one of the first insider memoirs from the band· I haven't reread it in a while and it has had 2 different updates which I also haven't caught up with.just looking around my room and seeing love posters on teh wall so being reminded by that.
Simon Reynolds various books on post-punk including Rip It Up And Start Again.
Mark Mordue's book on the young Nick Cave Boy On FireClinton Walker's Stranded on Australian punk and its aftermath
― Stevolende, Wednesday, 17 November 2021 16:59 (two years ago) link
Natasha Ginzburg - SagittariusJoy Williams - The Quick and the DeadElizabeth Taylor - A Wreath of Roses
― So who you gonna call? The martini police (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 17 November 2021 17:05 (two years ago) link
based on these selections, one would do well to read any given new york review classic
― mookieproof, Wednesday, 17 November 2021 23:08 (two years ago) link
I've run into a few duds in NYRB Classics, but overall it has an excellent hit rate. If I see one shelved in a used bookshop I always investigate it and usually buy it, read it and enjoy it.
― more difficult than I look (Aimless), Wednesday, 17 November 2021 23:37 (two years ago) link
Black Wings Has My Angel by Elliot Chaze is another really good NYRB book - a forgotten classic of noir that I can't begin to describe but that made me put the book down and stare at a wall several times while I was reading it.
― Lily Dale, Thursday, 18 November 2021 00:04 (two years ago) link
That may not sound like much of a treat but I meant it in a good way.
― Lily Dale, Thursday, 18 November 2021 00:05 (two years ago) link
Loved reading Eva Baltasar's Permafrost earlier this year. Maybe too caustic for a treat? But the prose is really packed, maybe reads a bit like what it is -- European fiction in translation -- but it was as vital to read as anything I've read in a long time.
They hired me on a Monday, three months after my first article. For the first time, I felt colorless — a dreadful muddle of various hues, an unthinkably grim and grayish green. My skin was like a mollusk shell, my body parched, my muscles fibrous like esparto grass — and inside I smelled of a parking lot.
I enjoyed the two above-mentioned Babitz books too.
― eatandoph (Neue Jesse Schule), Thursday, 18 November 2021 00:07 (two years ago) link
loved 'black wings has my angel'
― flopson, Thursday, 18 November 2021 00:13 (two years ago) link
That one’s on my list/pvmic
― Sterl of the Quarter (James Redd and the Blecchs), Thursday, 18 November 2021 00:20 (two years ago) link
- The Beginning of Spring (Fitzgerald), my favourite book by my favourite author, the perfect midpoint between her early and late styles - At Freddie’s (Fitzgerald), the funniest one- The Beiderbecke Affair (Plater), the best ever novelisation of a TV show (not counting Steven Moffat’s The Day or the Doctor, which is probably too niche for this list)- Harriet the Spy, one of the few books everyone should read
― Chuck_Tatum, Thursday, 18 November 2021 00:49 (two years ago) link
I really love The Long Secret, the sequel to Harriet the Spy.
― Lily Dale, Thursday, 18 November 2021 01:15 (two years ago) link
I’m just about to start reading that!
― Chuck_Tatum, Thursday, 18 November 2021 01:39 (two years ago) link
Hard Rain Falling by Don Carpenter has a similar effect as this, and goes in a couple of directions you wouldn't necessarily expect from this genre.
May as well start rounding out the list of NYRB Treats. The classic Western Warlock by Oakley Hall was one of my most captivating reads of the last few years. You can see the seeds of Deadwood being planted as you're reading it.
― Chris L, Thursday, 18 November 2021 01:40 (two years ago) link
Warlock rules, can confirm
― terminators of endearment (VegemiteGrrl), Thursday, 18 November 2021 01:41 (two years ago) link
gah i started it last year and had trouble getting into it. i will try again.
― certified juice therapist (harbl), Thursday, 18 November 2021 01:48 (two years ago) link
lol i basically tried every nyrb classic that the library had five years ago but couldn't get into any of them. the hearing trumpet and the tove jansson book look promising though.
― Linda and Jodie Rocco (map), Thursday, 18 November 2021 02:01 (two years ago) link
I borrowed my brother's copy of Warlock, didn't read it, and accidentally dropped it through the library return slot because I mistook it for another NYRB book. This is a good reminder that I should get around to ordering him another copy.
― Lily Dale, Thursday, 18 November 2021 02:03 (two years ago) link
The Tove Jansson one is super good.
― Lily Dale, Thursday, 18 November 2021 02:04 (two years ago) link
Ish Reed's early Yellowback Radio Brokedown, The Freelance Pallbearers, and Mumbo Jumbo are short, not sweet, and imaginative, in a fun way (can see where Blazing Saddles might have come from, for inst).ZZ Packer's Drinking Coffee Elsewhere is a stone cold classic collection of modern short stories, funny and scary and touching.AJ LIebling's The Earl of Louisiana set standards for The New Journalism, also the old journalism; in 1959, he checks out a particularly wild turn in the epic career of Louisiana Gov. Earl Long, little brother and lifelong rival of the sainted Huey. Sprung from an asylum after brief, pesky experience, he revs up to run for re-election yet again, though now even his juggling of various shades of black-creole-cajun-WASP-country-urban-etc. interests, also the rich, who tend to hate him but make some deals, even his skillz are tested by backlash vs. civil rights movement, as both sides begin to accelerate---Liebling is well-quaiified to hobnob with sources in NOLA and elsewhere, but mainly he's partaking of the insider gossip, while observing with the eye of a quick study and very seasoned pro (was war correspondant as weill as appreciator of racetracks and victuals, also one of the best New Yorker rovers of his era). Edutaining as all hell, serious too, and not very long (I checked pape count for all of these) _This may well have been an inspiration for the Coen Brothers movie in which Paul Newman played Earl (good job, though visually a stretch).Ditto for Billy Lee Bramner's The Gay Place, three novellas from the orbit of a Texas governor w some of the same feats and challenges as Earl (and some other historical pols of those crispy times)---but TGP is too long for this list sry
― dow, Thursday, 18 November 2021 02:16 (two years ago) link
yes, i have and have read the tove jansson. it's also short!
― certified juice therapist (harbl), Thursday, 18 November 2021 02:23 (two years ago) link
oh i meant to say and is very good lol
― certified juice therapist (harbl), Thursday, 18 November 2021 02:24 (two years ago) link
Oh yeah, and Thomas Farber's Tales for the Son of My Unborn Child Berkeley, 1966 - 1969: thoughtful portraits of men and women he knew, also turns the camera around when he gets embarrassingly involved with a sub-Gurdjieff cult leader, a swaggering asshole, shitting on your illusions (worse than Mr. Natural, because realer, although we're left to judge, if we care to, how much of this collection is fiction).
― dow, Thursday, 18 November 2021 02:24 (two years ago) link
Yes! I adore Capek, and I went back and forth between recommending War With the Newts, his short story collection Tales from Two Pockets, and a work called Three Novels that might be my favorite but that I ruled out because it could be classified as experimental. He's remembered more for the sci-fi stuff because it's so prescient - he specializes in scenarios where people invent something dangerous, become economically dependent on it, and then keep using it when it's clear that it's actively destroying the world - but he's also good at the small-scale stuff; he's human and humane and funny and dark and intensely empathetic. He's a realist, a magical realist, a satirist, a visionary, and the most grounded and approachable of philosophers. I love him in the same way I love John Prine.
― Lily Dale, Thursday, 18 November 2021 02:29 (two years ago) link
Damn, that's me sold!
Ish Reed's early Yellowback Radio Brokedown, The Freelance Pallbearers, and Mumbo Jumbo are short, not sweet, and imaginative, in a fun way (can see where Blazing Saddles might have come from, for inst).
Was thinking about suggesting Mumbo Jumbo myself, actually (I haven't read the others). There are elements that I would describe as experimental but it really carries you along, definitely was a fun treat for me when I read it.
― emil.y, Thursday, 18 November 2021 02:35 (two years ago) link
Seconding Out Stealing Horses.
Adding
Love and War in the Appenines - Eric Newby’s beautifully written memoir of being a POW, escaping and then hiding out in Italy during WW II.
Edisto - Padgett Powell. Novel about a boy growing up on the South Carolina coast with an eccentric mother.
― that's not my post, Thursday, 18 November 2021 06:00 (two years ago) link
I think I read the Newby book under the title of When the Snow Comes, They Will Take You Away. It was really good.
― Lily Dale, Thursday, 18 November 2021 09:45 (two years ago) link
If the question is 'what's a book that's just enjoyable to read?' -- then my most immediate answer is probably: Raymond Chandler, eg: FAREWELL, MY LOVELY.
― the pinefox, Thursday, 18 November 2021 11:28 (two years ago) link
I've only read Long Goodbye (loved) and Big Sleep (good on a sentence level, story kinda generic). Are any of the others as good as Long Goodbye, or like The Big Sleep, but better?
― Chuck_Tatum, Thursday, 18 November 2021 13:03 (two years ago) link
Thanks to this thread I just finished Last Of Her Kind. My mom went to Radcliffe in 1968, and was fully in with all kinds of radical organisations, and went through many of the schisms and changes described, so it was pretty cool to feel like I was back in that time, with her, in a way
The end felt.. patched together a bit? Strange because for the first, say, 2/3 I was just utterly under Nunez's spell
This probably shows how little modern fiction I read but it's pretty wild to realise about halfway through a book that every single male character who shows up is either irritating or actively harmful, and in either case sort of represents a speed bump, or grudging necessity, or at the very best a refuge from reality. Yet despite their kind of marginality, they have an outsize influence - maddening to see this obviously incredibly perceptive, sensitive narrator just kind of railroaded into all kinds of poor situations mainly by men
― Humanitarian Pause (Tracer Hand), Tuesday, 27 August 2024 15:09 (one month ago) link
(and of course not just her.. many/most of the women she knows as well)
― Humanitarian Pause (Tracer Hand), Tuesday, 27 August 2024 15:10 (one month ago) link
Hi, if you're still interested my fave I've read this year:black tickets by jayne anne phillips and the moviegoer by walker percyBoth poetic type fiction set in the USA south
― idiotpills, Tuesday, 27 August 2024 16:03 (one month ago) link
THE MOVIEGOER is awesome, as is THE LAST GENTLEMAN. Maybe don't read any of his other novels, but some essays instead.
― The Zing from Another URL (James Redd and the Blecchs), Tuesday, 27 August 2024 16:49 (one month ago) link
i need more jayne anne phillips in my life. idiotpills, this is an excellent collection of southern stuff that i recently finished. came out in 2009. great stories.
https://i0.wp.com/www.nationalbook.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/Peelle-cover-e1553095402417.jpg?fit=427%2C650&ssl=1
― scott seward, Tuesday, 27 August 2024 17:44 (one month ago) link
I read Sara Mesa's "Un Amor" last week and it satisfies all five of the thread's Treat Criteria.
intriguing, will be reading that
― corrs unplugged, Tuesday, 27 August 2024 18:23 (one month ago) link
About halfway through THE LAST OF HER KIND. Dense and a different voice from her most recent three but incredible so far
― The Zing from Another URL (James Redd and the Blecchs), Saturday, 7 September 2024 20:48 (three weeks ago) link
As you already reported upthread iirc
― The Zing from Another URL (James Redd and the Blecchs), Saturday, 7 September 2024 22:06 (three weeks ago) link
Joseph, The Hole In The Zero (science fiction)
― alimosina, Sunday, 8 September 2024 03:57 (three weeks ago) link
*phew* finished. Guess I will either read the autobiographical A FEATHER ON THE BREATH OF GOD (which title apparently comes from Hildegard of Bingen) or else the shorter MITZ.
― The Zing from Another URL (James Redd and the Blecchs), Sunday, 8 September 2024 20:26 (three weeks ago) link
People seems to think the last three are autofiction presumably because the narrator's voice is apparently really close to her actuall speaking voice but only her very first novel could be reaonsably classified as such.
― The Zing from Another URL (James Redd and the Blecchs), Sunday, 8 September 2024 20:27 (three weeks ago) link
Joseph, _The Hole In The Zero_ (science fiction)
― The Zing from Another URL (James Redd and the Blecchs), Sunday, 8 September 2024 20:48 (three weeks ago) link
Read the first section, the one about her dad, of A FEATHER ON THE BREATH OF GOD. So far so good.
― The Zing from Another URL (James Redd and the Blecchs), Sunday, 8 September 2024 22:21 (three weeks ago) link
I see that The Hole in the Zero is on 4nn4's 4rch1v3 a.k.a. book soulseek
― master of the pan (abanana), Sunday, 8 September 2024 22:51 (three weeks ago) link
yeah, I think the clever construction of The Friend actually goes a long way to show that it's not autofiction
debut surely draws on her experiences but at the same time I'm pretty confident a big part of it's very fictional (let me know what you think of the final part/chapter which iirc is about an affair)
― corrs unplugged, Monday, 9 September 2024 05:18 (three weeks ago) link
Okay, will do. This seems to be another short one.
― The Clones of Dr. Slop (James Redd and the Blecchs), Monday, 9 September 2024 16:26 (three weeks ago) link
Anything you wanna say about it?
Not much. I can't be objective, and the book can't be summarized.
Trivia: possibly the first usage of the word "quark" in a novel.
― alimosina, Tuesday, 10 September 2024 05:28 (three weeks ago) link
Think you'll find Joyce used it first in Finnegans Wake.
― bored by endless ecstasy (anagram), Tuesday, 10 September 2024 06:33 (three weeks ago) link
― The Clones of Dr. Slop (James Redd and the Blecchs), Tuesday, 10 September 2024 13:27 (three weeks ago) link
So you think the affair in the last chapter is pure fiction?
― The Clones of Dr. Slop (James Redd and the Blecchs), Tuesday, 10 September 2024 16:37 (three weeks ago) link
Well, probably inspired by something real. But yeah, seems pretty made up to me. I don't know though!
― corrs unplugged, Wednesday, 11 September 2024 14:41 (three weeks ago) link
Makes for a great read
Based on interviews I’ve read I assume most of it is basically true. One interview she went as far as to say something to the effect that you’d be surprised at which parts are true and which parts are invented. She gave as an example of something she had to invent her mother’s trip home when the war ended.
― The Clones of Dr. Slop (James Redd and the Blecchs), Wednesday, 11 September 2024 17:59 (three weeks ago) link
On to the next one I guess until I run out of steam, either MITZ or maybe FOR ROUENNA.
― The Clones of Dr. Slop (James Redd and the Blecchs), Wednesday, 11 September 2024 18:02 (three weeks ago) link
i'd recommend "deadwood" by pete dexter, especially if you've watched the show - it has a lot of the same characters/historical figures but they are characterized and emphasized very differently. it is over 300 pages but not by much (about 350 iirc) and funny and grimy and sad.
― na (NA), Wednesday, 11 September 2024 18:04 (three weeks ago) link
i can't believe i read Paris Trout by Pete Dexter in 1988! it doesn't seem that long ago. that's a great book. God's Pocket is really good too. I read Paris Trout after reading about Pete and Tex Cobb almost getting beaten to death in South Philly. it's a scary story! i was living in Philly at the time. one of the scariest moments in my Philly life was walking around a corner and almost running right into Tex Cobb. he scared the shit out of me. his face was so frightening.
― scott seward, Wednesday, 11 September 2024 22:30 (three weeks ago) link
Dexter began writing fiction after a life-changing 1981 incident in the Devil's Pocket, neighborhood in South Philadelphia, in which a mob of locals armed with baseball bats beat him severely. The perpetrators were upset by Dexter's recent column about a murder involving a drug deal-gone-wrong, published on December 9, 1981, in the Philadelphia Daily News.
"A couple of weeks ago, a kid named Buddy Lego was found dead in Cobbs Creek," wrote Dexter. "It was a Sunday afternoon. He was from the neighborhood, a good athlete, a nice kid. Stoned all the time. The kind of kid you think you could have saved."
The kid's mother called Dexter, nearly hysterical. How, she cried, could he write that her dead son was a drug user? Lego's brother, Tommy, the night bartender at Dougherty's, was also on the phone, screaming at the then-38-year-old columnist, demanding a retraction.
Dexter went to Dougherty's bar to talk to Tommy Lego, having told Lego he would not be publishing a retraction. In the bar, Dexter was blindsided by two blows to the jaw, splintering and breaking teeth. Later, Dexter returned with a friend, heavyweight prizefighter Randall "Tex" Cobb. In the ensuing fight outside the bar in the street, Cobb's arm was broken and Dexter was hospitalized with several injuries, including a broken back, pelvis, brain damage and dental devastation. Cobb's injuries cost him a shot at WBA heavyweight champion Mike Weaver.
― scott seward, Wednesday, 11 September 2024 22:33 (three weeks ago) link
Tex Cobb! that's crazy you saw him just walkin around.
― Humanitarian Pause (Tracer Hand), Wednesday, 11 September 2024 23:03 (three weeks ago) link
holy hell how have I not read Annie Proulx till now“the Half Skinned Steer” fwiware her novels this intense??
― Humanitarian Pause (Tracer Hand), Thursday, 12 September 2024 18:44 (three weeks ago) link
will check out "deadwood" and pete dexter, thanks!
xp james: do MITZ!
― corrs unplugged, Friday, 13 September 2024 18:20 (three weeks ago) link
‘So Long, See You Tomorrow’ by William Maxwell Heard about it on Backlisted & finally read it this week. Just finished (its quite short) and am uncharacteristically considering an immediate re-read I don’t know if I’ve every read anything that is this, idk, almost-perfect? He’s so succinct but the emotional weight of everything he writes about in this story is so immense.10/10 somehow feels too cliched lol anyway recommend without hesitation to all & sundry
― werewolves of laudanum (VegemiteGrrl), Monday, 16 September 2024 18:41 (two weeks ago) link
Tremendous book. Agree with everything you said.
Can also recommend *Time Will Darken It*, which has the same sense of economy and control. What a writer. Blows my mind that he only wrote one other novel in the 32 years between *Time Will Darken It* and *So Long, See You Tomorrow*.
― I would prefer not to. (Chinaski), Monday, 16 September 2024 19:06 (two weeks ago) link
Also, more people need the middle name 'Keepers'.
― I would prefer not to. (Chinaski), Monday, 16 September 2024 19:08 (two weeks ago) link
i am def going to try seek out more from him, for sure - my library has his short story collection, i will try to find Time Will Darken It also
― werewolves of laudanum (VegemiteGrrl), Monday, 16 September 2024 19:13 (two weeks ago) link
this was enjoyable if quite dark and somewhat frustrating
will check out ‘So Long, See You Tomorrow’ by William Maxwell
― corrs unplugged, Monday, 16 September 2024 19:13 (two weeks ago) link
Great thread idea!
I have to say that my reading life has been immensely enriched by the existence of I Love Books and all its contributors. Finding good books used to be much more hit-and-miss, but now my 'hit' rate is over 90% and I have a long list of titles and authors to explore. Thanks, y'all.
― more difficult than I look (Aimless), Monday, 16 September 2024 19:18 (two weeks ago) link
the Backlisted podcast has vastly enriched my reading — i see references to it here & there a bit on ilx search - wondering if a dedicated thread might be good?
― werewolves of laudanum (VegemiteGrrl), Monday, 16 September 2024 19:23 (two weeks ago) link
I'd contribute. I have a mixed relationship with Backlisted but I've got so many amazing books from it.
― I would prefer not to. (Chinaski), Monday, 16 September 2024 20:14 (two weeks ago) link
Andy Miller's book is a lot of fun, an atypically good example of the "I did a weird thing for six months and here's what happened" genre. Sometimes I wish he'd stop interrupting his guests (or his co-host) quite so much. But I've heard worse, and he's generally quite funny, so he gets a pass. I enjoy his tormented, self-aware relationship with his own inescapable blokiness, although I think I may have developed a somewhat parasocial relationship with them during the lockdowns.
I don’t know if I’ve every read anything that is this, idk, almost-perfect?
"A Month in the Country" by JL Carr is another perfect, very short novel with a Backlisted podcast (as are, off the top of my head, "Excellent Women" and "Human Voices").
― Chuck_Tatum, Monday, 16 September 2024 20:40 (two weeks ago) link