So Reading, You Are. What? v. 2022

Discussion in 'Books' started by Ismitje, Jan 1, 2022.

  1. Dr. Wankler

    Dr. Wankler Member+

    May 2, 2001
    The Electric City
    Club:
    Chicago Fire
    [​IMG]

    At Buffalo: The Invention of a New American Poetry, a collection of recollections by poets (mostly) who studied at the SUNY-Buffalo grad program from the 60s to this century, which was better than I expected (one of my old professors has an essay in it, and I had no idea he went to Buffalo and studied with such heavy hitters, because he wasn't an asshole about it) edited by Sean Pears. The book had a beneficial side effect: I didn't get into Buffalo when I applied in the early 90s, and for the most part, this book eliminated any regrets. The writers of the essays who would have been my classmates were jargon-loaded exercises in obfuscation, as opposed to the people who recalled the earlier days who managed to be both interesting and readily comprehensible.
     
    Atouk, Q*bert Jones III and TheJoeGreene repped this.
  2. Atouk

    Atouk BigSoccer Supporter

    DC United
    Apr 16, 2001
    Arlington, VA
    Club:
    Queens Park Rangers FC
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Currently reading two books.

    Anaya.jpg

    Now reading Alburquerque, my first of the three novels in this new Library of America collection of three novels by Rudolfo Anaya.

    The Western.jpg

    Also now reading Warlock by Oakley Hall, my final novel in this LOA collection of four classic Westerns of the 1940s/50s.
     
    Ismitje and Dr. Wankler repped this.
  3. Dr. Wankler

    Dr. Wankler Member+

    May 2, 2001
    The Electric City
    Club:
    Chicago Fire
    The professor I mentioned in the last post is named Michael Anania. He and Rudolfo Anaya became good friends because organizers of readings would mistake one of them for the other, which led to some confused audiences back in the last century.
     
    Ismitje and Atouk repped this.
  4. chaski

    chaski Moderator
    Staff Member

    Mar 20, 2000
    redacted
    Club:
    Lisburn Distillery FC
    Nat'l Team:
    Turks and Caicos Islands
    The Impulse of Victory: Ulysses S. Grant at Chattanooga - David Powell

    [​IMG]

    "We will see directly. The boys feel pretty good; just let them alone." - Grant observing assault on Missionary Ridge.
     
    Dr. Wankler repped this.
  5. Ismitje

    Ismitje Super Moderator

    Dec 30, 2000
    The Palouse
    Club:
    Real Salt Lake
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Grabbed something at the used bookstore by the Right Honourable Baroness James of Holland Park.

    [​IMG]
    Novelist P.D. James (Phyllis Dorothy) publishes a detective series featuring Adam Dagliesh, fourteen books between 1962 and 2008. This is the 11th and was my first; I quite enjoyed it and its setting at a theological school in England, and the complex way different religious institutions figured in. I'll look for the other books.
     
    Dr. Wankler repped this.
  6. Dr. Wankler

    Dr. Wankler Member+

    May 2, 2001
    The Electric City
    Club:
    Chicago Fire
    When I was in college, I was in a course on "Literature, Law, and Society" in which we read things like Dickens' Bleak House (back when professors could tell you "read the first book over the summer") Conrad's Under Western Eyes, Antigone, Merchant of Venice, Kafka's The Trial, and we ended with PD James' Unsuitable Job for a Woman. I was skeptical because back then non-Canonical works were rare in undergraduate classrooms, but it was pretty damn good, and held its own with the other books. It's a different series, though: can't remember the name of the investigator but it wasn't Adam Dagliesh.

    Just finished...
    [​IMG]

    Spoon-Fed: Why Almost Everything We've Been Told About Food is Wrong, an interesting, thoroughly documented (but not intrusively so) book that basically points out what we've been getting wrong about food and, primarily, why -- mainly, pretty much any study can get extra publicity thanks to the PR wings of food companies, lobbying organizations, and willing journalistic outlets that like getting clicks: for example, I recall seeing a lot of articles about how it's better to eat several (five, six, or even more) small meals a day instead of three. Of course for some people, that would work. However, the study that led to all those articles was based on about a dozen mice. Now, I'm not a scientist or a doctor, but that strikes me as a bit limited because 1) it's a small study and 2) we're not really all that similar to mice born and raised in a lab. But hey, clicks! (and of course, the author Tim Spector knows that this predates the internet by decades. Also interesting: Spector is very open about things he's gotten wrong in the past: nearly every chapter features a few "I used to tell patients this, but that's not a good idea for most people, so know I recommend. . . ", all the while keeping in mind that new information will likely emerge in the future.
     
  7. chaski

    chaski Moderator
    Staff Member

    Mar 20, 2000
    redacted
    Club:
    Lisburn Distillery FC
    Nat'l Team:
    Turks and Caicos Islands
    What does he say about Hawaiian pizza?
     
    song219 and Dr. Wankler repped this.
  8. Dr. Wankler

    Dr. Wankler Member+

    May 2, 2001
    The Electric City
    Club:
    Chicago Fire
    Its total rejection is one of the few things we got right.
     
  9. TheJoeGreene

    TheJoeGreene Member+

    Aug 19, 2012
    The Lubbock Texas
    Club:
    DC United
    Nat'l Team:
    Germany
    There's no such thing as Hawaiian pizza. Pineapple on pizza is nothing but a prank by locals in Hawaii to mess with tourists. Nobody actually eats that crap.
     
    Dr. Wankler repped this.
  10. Dr. Wankler

    Dr. Wankler Member+

    May 2, 2001
    The Electric City
    Club:
    Chicago Fire
    [​IMG]

    The People v. Ferlinghetti: The Fight to Publish Allen Ginsberg's Howl, an account by not one but two prominent First Amendment lawyers of the landmark trial that determined that publisher and bookstore owner Lawrence Ferlinghetti and clerk Shigaro Murao were not guilty of obscenity in carrying and selling Ginsberg's book. It was a landmark decision that led to the overturning of other bans (Henry Miller, D.H. Lawrence, James Joyce) and pretty much making sure that no other book has been banned by government fiat since. One thing
    I knew: the judge in the case was a Christian Republican who taught Bible studies to children at his Church every Sunday: but since he also digs freedom, he decided for the defendents. One thing I didn't realize: it was a municiple court trial, and yet it still stands as pretty much the law, having never been overturned by a higher court. Good point by the authors Ronald K. L. Collins and David M. Skover, who have collaborated on similar books, including one on the trial of Lenny Bruce that I'd like to check out.
     
  11. Dr. Wankler

    Dr. Wankler Member+

    May 2, 2001
    The Electric City
    Club:
    Chicago Fire
    One of the advantages to not teaching an overload for the first time since the pandemic started, AND having a couple days off last week after a medical procedure (that went well), I got a lot more reading done than usual. So I bagged this one over the weekend, too.

    [​IMG]

    Social Poetics by Mark Nowak

    "The poems that filled far too many of the 'working class poetry' anthologies of the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000's were mostly written by white male teachers who worked shitty factory jobs during the summer breaks in their high school or undergrad years in cities like Detroit and Pittsburgh and Chicago and then recollected those days in the tranquility of their tenure track or tenured academic careers in countless elegies about the end of the working class. Social poetics, by contrast, seeks to re-imagine the poetry workshop as a radical tactic by which the production of new poems by immigrant workers, migrant workers, refugee workers, and others who are precariously under- and unemployed becomes the root and foundation of any new definitions of the practices of working-class literature as well as a new tactic within global working class resistance movements"

    Basically, Nowak re-imagines the "writing workshop" in a way unlike those at Iowa or Stanford operate, but so that actual working people (or out-of-working people) can give voice to their experiences. Better than I expected it to be.
     
  12. chaski

    chaski Moderator
    Staff Member

    Mar 20, 2000
    redacted
    Club:
    Lisburn Distillery FC
    Nat'l Team:
    Turks and Caicos Islands
    Tess of the d’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy

    [​IMG]

    "Never in her life—she could swear it from the bottom of her soul—had she ever intended to do wrong; yet these hard judgements had come. Whatever her sins, they were not sins of intention, but of inadvertence, and why should she have been punished so persistently?"
     
    Atouk and Dr. Wankler repped this.
  13. Dr. Wankler

    Dr. Wankler Member+

    May 2, 2001
    The Electric City
    Club:
    Chicago Fire
    Alas, my time of ripping through books is coming to a close now that student writing is coming in. Luckily, this was about 90 pages so I bagged it yesterday while waiting for students to respond to online discussion questions.
    [​IMG]

    The Light Within the Light: Portraits of (four New England Poets), none of whom number among my favorites, but whose lives are interestingly and briefly told in this book that is often described as "charming." I can see why, but that's not a word I would ever say. I don't think the author Jeanne Braham uses that word, either, but the book does what she set out to do. And now it's time to return it to the library.
     
    Atouk repped this.
  14. usscouse

    usscouse BigSoccer Supporter

    May 3, 2002
    Orygun coast
    You just had to, dint cha. :)
     
  15. usscouse

    usscouse BigSoccer Supporter

    May 3, 2002
    Orygun coast
    I’m surprised that after last weeks kerfluffle about Peter Strzok’s book
    [​IMG]

    being on sale by kindle for $1.99 there would have been more posts here.
    I’m about half way and boy he does an exhausting write up on “Hillary’s emails”
    My conclusion on that is she really cost herself the presidency. She can’t blame anyone but herself in the long run. She used several unauthorized phones and lap tops. Then just as it was coming to a close. They disclosed two more laptops.
    They didn’t find any security leaks but the Russians, Trump and the media made the most of it.
    She, a lawyer should never have put herself in that position.

    OK now for the rest of the book.
    Oh not here. :)
     
  16. chaski

    chaski Moderator
    Staff Member

    Mar 20, 2000
    redacted
    Club:
    Lisburn Distillery FC
    Nat'l Team:
    Turks and Caicos Islands
    Hunting Badger - Tony Hillerman

    [​IMG]

    Another Leaphorn/Chee mystery
     
    Ismitje repped this.
  17. TheJoeGreene

    TheJoeGreene Member+

    Aug 19, 2012
    The Lubbock Texas
    Club:
    DC United
    Nat'l Team:
    Germany
    To go one step further on this, "Hawaiian" Pizza was created in Ontario, Canada by a Greek pizza shop owner who decided to put pineapples on pizza as a gimmick and he named it Hawaiian because that was the brand name on the can of pineapples he used for the first one.
     
    Dr. Wankler repped this.
  18. TheJoeGreene

    TheJoeGreene Member+

    Aug 19, 2012
    The Lubbock Texas
    Club:
    DC United
    Nat'l Team:
    Germany
    [​IMG]

    I actually started reading this in January. Dalio is an interesting guy and going through this in small chunks made it palatable. It's not the greatest read of all time, but the story of Bridgewater Associates failing multiple times before becoming the behemoth in the hedge fund world that it is is compelling and the ideas behind how the various life and work principles were formed is interesting enough. It's 544 pages, but breaking it up like I did kept it from dragging or feeling too repetitive.
     
    Dr. Wankler repped this.
  19. Dr. Wankler

    Dr. Wankler Member+

    May 2, 2001
    The Electric City
    Club:
    Chicago Fire
    [​IMG]

    The Compass: The Story of the Improvisational Theater that Revolutionized the Art of Comedy in America, a book about an experimental theater started by a bunch of University of Chicago students, many who went on to have significant careers as actors and/or directors (Elaine May, Mike Nichols, Barbara Harris, Ed Asner, as well as high school drop out Shelley Berman) NONE of whom had any intention of being actors when the went to school (or in Asner's case, dropped out). The Compass predates the more famous Second City, which still exist, and out of which. . . well, pretty much every form of improvisation and sketch comedy we've seen over the years. Damn fine book by Janet Coleman, who also has a good book about legendary jazz bassist Charles Mingus.
     
  20. Atouk

    Atouk BigSoccer Supporter

    DC United
    Apr 16, 2001
    Arlington, VA
    Club:
    Queens Park Rangers FC
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Twain Tramp Abroad.jpg

    Mark Twain: A Tramp Abroad, Following the Equator, Other Travels

    I finished the "Other Travels" section of this collection last night; finished A Tramp Abroad in February and Following the Equator in June. As always with Twain, both amusing and insightful.
     
    chaski, Dr. Wankler and TheJoeGreene repped this.
  21. chaski

    chaski Moderator
    Staff Member

    Mar 20, 2000
    redacted
    Club:
    Lisburn Distillery FC
    Nat'l Team:
    Turks and Caicos Islands
    What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815-1848 - Daniel Walker Howe

    [​IMG]

    From the series - The Oxford History of the United States. I have read three, and all are very well done.
     
  22. Atouk

    Atouk BigSoccer Supporter

    DC United
    Apr 16, 2001
    Arlington, VA
    Club:
    Queens Park Rangers FC
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    upload_2022-9-12_16-13-27.png

    Now reading Rudolfo Anaya's Tortuga.
     
    bigredfutbol and Dr. Wankler repped this.
  23. Dr. Wankler

    Dr. Wankler Member+

    May 2, 2001
    The Electric City
    Club:
    Chicago Fire
    [​IMG]

    Equipment for Living: On Poetry and Pop Music, a book I read because I thought it might work well for my first year writing class. Alas, it will not. The first couple of chapters are good, but then it turns into what it is: a random and haphazard collection of reviews published in a variety of places with different audiences and different expectations. The longest essay is devoted to a not particularly good poet named Frederick Seidel (it's three times longer than the second longest essay) and there are two essays on film or film criticism that don't seem to fit in with the title. The book doesn't suck, but poet and University of Chicago professor Michael Robbins won't be selling an additional 44 books next spring.
     
    bigredfutbol repped this.
  24. Q*bert Jones III

    Q*bert Jones III The People's Poet

    Feb 12, 2005
    Woodstock, NY
    Club:
    DC United
  25. Chesco United

    Chesco United Member+

    DC United
    Jun 24, 2001
    Chester County, PA
    Club:
    DC United
    Nat'l Team:
    Argentina
    iGuerilla by John Sutherland. I bought this at bargain price and I probably paid too much. I wish I was reading The Robin Hood Guerrillas by Blum, but I cannot find it. The book is riddled with errors. Purports to tell how warfare has changed in recent years. Can't wait to sell this,
     
    Ismitje repped this.

Share This Page