Bookshelves--What Are You Reading?

[Pete C]

I read Kadare's The Pyramid and his Elegy for Kosovo. Both were enjoyable, but the former was better. I like a good metaphor for totalitarian bureaucracy and you can't get better (because you can't get more useless) than the construction of a monumental tomb.

I couldn't get through The Pyramid. Maybe it was the translation, but it seemed to me like a dry, formualic textbook attempt at making a Kafkaesque political parable.

[Pete C]

about saramago now,well i really loved ALL THE NAMES,and it was the first one of him i read

That, on the other hand, is a "Kafkaesque" novel that I found compelling & full of charm.

[walto]

Yeah, Root, "Winter's Tale" is about a hard-up, aspiring theater director from NY who has to lower himself into taking a gig directing a community group in rural New England somewhere. Everyone learns how to get along, live, what's important in life, etc. I liked the premise, but it was really really horrible. Bad writing, stereotypical, unbelievable characters, poor plotting, you name it.

It was the first thing I'd ever read by Benchley fils, and I'll take his dad any day. Poor guy must have done a lot of turning over in his grave.

[clinthopson]

I'm in the midst of Benjamin Franklin : An American Life
by Walter Isaacson. It's a well done bio of a truly great man which shows warts and all.

Isaakson keeps the narrative going and seldom bores me.

Is there anyone out there today of a similar protean caliber of Franklin? Sadly, I can't think of anyone.

[walto]

Clay Fink is pretty protean.

[Root Doctor]

Yeah, Root, "Winter's Tale" is about a hard-up, aspiring theater director from NY who has to lower himself into taking a gig directing a summer community thing in rural New England somewhere. I liked the premise, but it was really really horrible. Bad writing, stereotypical, unbelievable characters, poor plotting, you name it.

It was the first thing I'd ever read by Benchley fils, and I'll take his dad any day. Poor guy must have done a lot of turning over in his grave.

Thanks, Walt. I'll let Nat remain a fond childhood memory and skip a rereading.

[patricia]

I'm reading "Cowboys and Indians - The Shooting of J.J. Harper", by Gordon Sinclair Jr.
This is the account of the shooting by police of a native Indian, Harper, and the court case which ensued. The case uncovered a labrinth of systematic injustice concerning the investigations of deaths and deterntions in custody in Winnipeg Manitoba in the eighties, when this shooting occurred as well as a chronicle of the unjust treatment of Indians in the Canadian justice system.

I bought this book because I have long been an admirer of Sinclair's father, Gordon Sinclair Sr. who wrote several books about the Middle East and the Indian subcontinent, during the thirties and forties. His observations formed a good part of what I know about the culture and politics in Afghanistan and the rest of the region.

Sinclair Jr. writes for the Winnipeg Free Press and this is his first book. Looks promising.

[Root Doctor]

I'm reading "Cowboys and Indians - The Shooting of J.J. Harper", by Gordon Sinclair Jr.
This is the account of the shooting by police of a native Indian, Harper, and the court case which ensued. The case uncovered a labrinth of systematic injustice concerning the investigations of deaths and deterntions in custody in Winnipeg Manitoba in the eighties, when this shooting occurred as well as a chronicle of the unjust treatment of Indians in the Canadian justice system.

I bought this book because I have long been an admirer of Sinclair's father, Gordon Sinclair Sr. who wrote several books about the Middle East and the Indian subcontinent, during the thirties and forties. His observations formed a good part of what I know about the culture and politics in Afghanistan and the rest of the region.

Sinclair Jr. writes for the Winnipeg Free Press and this is his first book. Looks promising.

Wasn't Sr. responsible for "The Americans," a spoken word hit of the polyester era?

[patricia]

Wasn't Sr. responsible for "The Americans," a spoken word hit of the polyester era?

Yes. That's him. He also was a very well-known radio and television personality as well as, formerly, a writer for the Toronto Star.
I introduced my very best friend to his books about the Middle East, right after Sept 11, because Sinclair wrote quite extensively about Afghanistan.
Most of his books are out of print, but they are worth looking for. My favourite is "Footloose in India", which was published in the thirties.
Amazing man. Died in 1986.

[Root Doctor]

Jason Bivins' "The Fracture of Good Order," an intriguing examination of the tensions created by Christian activism in a liberal democracy.

Peter De Vries fans should note the article about him in the current issue of the New Yorker.

[clinthopson]

Clay Fink is pretty protean.

That's the basis of the Adkins diet.

[Sand]

Woke up this morning with my radio tuned in on National Public Radio (Norway). It was a re-run of a program about reading, the reading experience. I was kind of surprised, because the interviewee talked about the book we just had handed over to our American publisher as her major reading experience in a long time.

[Jason Bivins]

Jason Bivins' "The Fracture of Good Order," an intriguing examination of the tensions created by Christian activism in a liberal democracy.

Geez, Roots, I thought you had better taste.

[Monte Smith]

I saw the horror movie THE RING earlier this year--or was it last year?--and was nicely impressed. It is very rare for a scary picture to actually scare, and THE RING had a good sense of the ominous about it which I completely credited to it being the adaptation of a Japanese film, RINGU.

The Japanese are obsessed with ghosts. Dead ancestors, you know.

Anyway, I have yet to see RINGU but I am nearly done with this, a translation of the original novel made newly available by Vertical Press:



This is by Koji Suzuki. It's not a great novel by any means. Maybe the language suffers in translation, but checking out the Ringu phenomenon on the internet, I tend to think the weaknesses are in the original. But this is like Stephen King: quibble with his language skills, be entertained by the invention of his imagination. This is a good, pulpy read.

A sequel to the above book is just out. I grabbed it, because I love that Japanese pop stuff:

[frank m]

My family crest is "Weeding Rots the Mind" so I listen on tape or cd to a sampling of what my library has to offer in that line.Just finished "My View of Shakespeare" by A.L. Rowse. and Steve Martin's "The Pleasure of My Company" on a CD read by Martin. Actually the Times gave this latter book a rather poor review, but I thought it was really a rather low key but very sweet book, a real anomaly in present day fiction.
Rowse brought to light a near 400 year old wisecrack. Shakespeare had adopted a family crest with the motto "Not without Right". Ben Jonson suggested the crest should have a Boar's head with the motto "Not without Mustard"

[Gentle Giant]

Within the last week, I completely stormed through David Hadju's Positively 4th Street: The Lives and Times of Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, Mimi Baez Fariña, and Richard Fariña. I was completely engrossed by this highly compelling and exceptionally well-researched account of the people, forces, and influences that converged in Greenwich Village and Cambridge in the late 50s and early 60s to create the folk music renaissance. I can't recommend this highly enough, and now I can't listen to enough Dylan (although I'm currently digging the WHRB Charles Mingus Orgy).

[Nathaniel Catchpole]

Henry George - Progress and Poverty - about a quarter of the way through. Intersting, but he's only just finished roasting Malthus.

concurrently: Eddie Prévost - Minute Particulars

[jazzy mary]

I know Conrad's "The Duel." Did Chekov write a story by that name too?

Yes. Root Doctor just read it, I believe.

[Root Doctor]

Geez, Roots, I thought you had better taste.

I'll dispel that notion completely when we hit NYC at the end of the week, Jason.