The Great Gatsby -- F Scott Fitzgerald Finally! I've been waiting for quite some time to read this alongside either one of my kids, and my daughter made it through school without ever reading. Now that my son is reading it, my long wait is over because I have not read this since it was assigned to me in high school. I didn't think much of it then, much preferring Fitzgerald's short stories to this. I do have to say, that is one creepy cover. I am pleased though, that the new paperback editions are using the original artwork. Who could top that?
War and Peace-Leo Tolstoy Finally took the plunge. Suspect I may not be posting in this thread for a while.
The Damned Utd - David Peace "But the way I see it, there's no present and there's no future. There's just the past, happening over and over, again and again, here and now before your eyes." A novel about Brian Clough’s 44-day (!) tenure at Leeds United in 1974 (and also about winning the league with Derby County in 71-72).
brilliant novel, IMO. Can't remember if it was my "novel of the year" but it definitely has the best dust jacket. I love how it looks like that guy whose name I don't recall just brazenly nicked the FA Cup before everyone's eyes. @usscouse will know...
A blast from the past there. Cloughie was quite a character. Took the dirtiest team in the league to the final. Billy Bremner AKA the "dirty little dwarf" heading the team. In case you didn't know they made a movie loosely based on the book called...wait for it. "The Damned United" sorta B grade but worth the watch.
I still haven't seen the movie. You know those Red Box things ourside of supermarkets, etc? The very first one of those I saw, in Greensburg, PA, had The Damned United among its offerings. "Hmmm," I thought, "if it's in one of these things, surely I'll come across it in a library or something." Not yet.
Do I have to give my rep back? William Shakespeare -- Julius Caesar Apparently this was one of Shakespeare's most popular plays during his lifetime and it is so easy to see why, even through the lens of the 21st Century: no stupid play within a play (easily my least favorite Elizabethan theater convention), no need for fools or charlatans, possibly the greatest funeral oration ever, the most dramatic murder in Shakespeare's repertoire, signs and portents that equal MacBeth's witches, and bad guys committing suicide (Brutus commits suicide by having an underling hold a sword and he runs onto it). Plus, it's so darn attainable. I've read a lot of advice to new writers about how the reader must be hooked in the first chapter, nay the first page. Well, William does it here. In spades. The "honorable" Brutus is gulled by Cassius in the first act, the second act has Caesar receiving the "Beware the Ides of March" warning, plus his wife's dream, and he still decides to go to the Senate, and the third act gives us the murder and Marc Antony's brilliance. The last two acts are almost an afterthought....
Red Harvest - Dashiell Hammett "A remarkable achievement, the last word in atrocity, cynicism, and horror." - André Gide
Dangerously Funny: The Uncensored History of the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour by David Bianculli. Pretty good story about the brothers and there time in showbiz with an emphasis on their show and the massive amounts of network censorship they faced leading to its eventual cancellation. I wish I could've seen the show with the guest line up consisting of Mel Torme, Don Knotts, and Ravi Shankar.
The Tyranny of Experts - William Easterly The author argues against the technocratic, top-down approach common in international development. I liked some parts of this more than others, but overall it contains solid arguments and very interesting snippets on economic history.
I wasn't familiar with that series. That's a Civil War nerd's playground. Well, if the books are good, at least. http://emergingcivilwar.com/publications/the-emerging-civil-war-series/ Hmmm. They seem to put the footnotes and sources online. Not sure I like that trend...
Writing Across The Landscape: Travel Journals 1950-2013 by Lawrence Ferlinghetti (2015). Almost bought this last fall. Glad I didn't. But I'm glad to read it, so thanks, Library!
So, I'm in a reading group now with some friends on Facebook. We are using this reading challenge as our guide for the year: http://modernmrsdarcy.com/2016-reading-challenge/ You've probably seen it floating about. We are doing the list backwards meaning the first month was supposed to be a book we'd already read. The second month is supposed to be a book that we consider intimidating. I did those first two backwards because I'd started Cloud Atlas, which I considered intimidating for 2 reasons: 1) my wife started but gave up on it quickly, and she's an avid reader and 2) the blurbs on it indicated it was a 'book writers love'. I've felt such books are usually overly complex in structure, either of the prose or of the story such that I can't wade through it or don't understand. Cloud Atlas was not intimidating though I have a feeling that it has more layers of understanding for me to peel. So, my first book of 2016 was Cloud Atlas. I just started my re-read which is Breakfast of Champions. I'd first read it in my mid-20s. Reading it 30 years later, it is just as funny, but feels sharper, because I'm more aware of what it's talking about, and it feels rather vile how little things have changed.
I'm a big fan, and not just because it's so eminently quotable: Cray havoc and let slip the hogs* of war; The fault, dear Brutus is not in the stars but in ourselves that we are underlings; He doth bestride the narrow world like a Colossus; Yond' Cassius has a lean and hungry look; But, for my own part, it was Greek to me**; Cowards die many times before their deaths, the valiant never taste of death but once; Aye, but I am constant as the northern star; Et tu Brute; Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears, I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him. The evil that men do lives after them, The good is oft interred with their bones; Ambition should be made of sterner stuff; And Brutus is an honorable man; This was the noblest Roman of them all; Nature might stand up and say to all the world, 'This was a man!". I may have read the play a few times * **Not an original concept, but the popularization of it in the English language, which is hardly remembered
Art Performance, Media: 31 Interviews (2004) edited by Nicholas Zurbrugg: interviews with 31 writers, composers, painters compiled over three decades (lifted from Amazon, they are Kathy Acker, Charles Amirkhanian, Laurie Anderson, Robert Ashley, Beth B, David Blair, William S. Burroughs, Warren Burt, John Cage, Richard Foreman, Kenneth Gaburo, Diamanda Galás, John Giorno, Philip Glass, Brion Gysin, Dick Higgins, Jenny Holzer, Mike Kuchar, Robert Lax, Jackson Mac Low, Meredith Monk, Nam June Paik, Yvonne Rainer, Steve Reich, Rachel Rosenthal, Bill Viola, Larry Wendt, Emmett Williams, Robert Wilson, Nick Zedd, and Ellen Zweig. I know the work of a few of these people quite well, and a few I've never heard of: And one (David Blair) I thought I'd never heard of but it turns out I'd seen a few of his things and liked them quite a bit.