Robert Duncan: The Ambassador From Venus, a biography of the poet by Lisa Jarnot. Damn good so far. The subtitle sounds like a Sci Fi novel, which is a little apt because Duncan once hung out with Philip K. Dick. If I wind up teaching a particular class, this will come in handy in getting through some of his poems that re seriously impenetrable.
Going to start hitting up some of the classics, and just finished this one up: The Time Machine - H.G. Wells
The Yorkist Age A very lively description of public life in 15th Century England Year's Best SF 17 I've been reading anthologies like this for decades, but I have seldom come across so many unfamiliar authors who I wanted to read more of.
The Lost Battles -- Jonathon Jones I gave this book to both my dad and my father-in-law for Christmas, but my FiL went to Florida for two weeks and left it at home, so I snagged it. Fascinating story about the time Leonardo and Michelangelo working side by side, and in fierce competition, in the Great Council Hall in Florence. Really a gripping intellectual history, but unfortunately, rather poorly written. I bought the book, sight unseen, just because I knew the subject matter would be of interest, and I'll finish it, but it would be so much better in the hands of a better writer.
I don't know if it's quite on the same level, but you might want to take a look at Some of the Best From Tor.com, 2012 Edition. http://bit.ly/UtqSZK
The Philosophy of Hebrew Scripture by Yoram Hazony. Pretty thick going in spots, but about as accessible as a book like this is going to get. He's arguing (and demonstrating) that the Hebrew bible holds up well if its read not as revelation, but as a work of reason. The deck is stacked against him since philosophy in general doesn't employ narrative, poetry, etc., but it's worth thinking about. And Eunoia by Canadian poet and scholar Christian Bok. A weird bit of writing that's kind of fun if you like these sorts of things. Eunoia is the shortest English word that contains all 5 vowels. Each section of the book is devoted to a particular vowel, and in that section, that is the only vowel he uses. A couple of examples (NOT my favorites, but they're what I could find
Always wanted to read it, and figured there's no better time than the present. Just cracked the proverbial cover on ... The Art of War - Sun Tzu
Winter is usually my time to read but this year not so much. I read some of my fav. current authors latest, like Lee Child's "A Wanted Man" Wasn't quite up to his other books but it was still a 24 hour read. "Four people in a car, hoping to make Chicago by morning. One man driving, eyes on the road. Another man next to him, telling stories that don’t add up. A woman in the back, silent and worried. And next to her, a huge man with a broken nose, hitching a ride east to Virginia." Then the movie of Child's book "One Shot" "Jack Reacher" came out so I went to see that with Tom Cruise playing the 6' 5" Reacher. I wasn't sure about Cruise but it worked for me, Cruise does a good job. Right now I'm into Jo Nesbø’s "Phantom" Down, dark and dirty drug scene in Oslo. "After the horrors of a case that nearly cost him his life, Harry Hole left Oslo and the police force far behind him. Now he's back, but the case he's come to investigate is already closed, and the suspect already behind bars." One of the reasons I haven't read as much, I got myself hooked on Sudoku...Yeh, I know! I got obsessed with the stupid game. Looking for the ones marked "Wicked" or "Evil" Something satisfying about working it out. They say it's good for me at my old age keeps the brain ticking or summat. websudoku.com is my enemy. I went on a trip before Xmas and found the "MENSA" book of sudoku. Thought this'll keep me happy for hours, those people are supposed to be smart ot sumething. Turned out to be a disappointment it should have been called "Sudoku for dummies" Oh well, back to scaring myself with Jo Nesbø and 50 ways to really kill someone and make it hurt.
Read Last of the Mohicans as a kid, always wanted to read more. Found The Leatherstocking Tales on a yard sale table last week...
Well that ending was disappointing. Seemed like he didn't know how to end the book, seemed like he (the author) didn't really know who-done-it until the last page. "Oh hell, let's make it this guy and get it over with." Harry Hole is beaten up, knifed, shot, half drowned, doesn't get any sleep for 3 weeks while he bounces from one suspect to the next. I was glad when the book ended and I could toss it into the back seat of the car. Too bad I liked his other Harry Hole books.
Thanks to USScouse, I didn't pick up the copy of Nesbo's Phantom that they were holding for me. Instead I grabbed a book that was on the list of possible presents that I gave to my wife in December Verdi's Shakespeare: Men of Theater by Garry Wills, whose name has popped up on other threads today, coincidentally. I've barely started it but Wills hasn't let me down in the 20+ years I've been reading him.
You won't be sorry about either book. The one you passed up or the one you're reading. I picked this up off the library shelf, quick read over the weekend. John Grisham's "The Racketeer" I enjoy most of Grisham's stuff, clean easy reading and enough suspense to keep you locked in. He's used the "We've got lots of money from bad guys so we'll do some fancy bank transfers and go live on an island" before. But I'm a sucker for that sort of tale.. "Given the importance of what they do, and the controversies that often surround them, and the violent people they sometimes confront, it is remarkable that in the history of this country only four active federal judges have been murdered. Judge Raymond Fawcett just became number five." I had this story years back that I would try and write: A guy on a long road trip gets tired driving the desert at night and pulls over to sleep, comes the dawn he gets out to take a leak and sees a couple of other cars and sees it's a drug deal gone bad, 4 dead bodies, guns and casings spread around. One car has the ubigious samsonite cases stuffed with nice 50's and 100's the other has a stack of kilo bricks wrapped in the back. Takes the cases leaves the shit. Them he and a buddy get set up and take a road trip to Florida to buy a boat, stash the cash and sail to the Cayman Islands to find a friendy bank. With adventures along the way as someone finds out......! But they put out the movie "No Country for Old Men" and screwed me up...
OK, setting aside Leatherstocking Tales and reading this: We Were Soldiers Once .... and Young by Harold Moore and Joseph Galloway. My father is singing in the West Point Glee Club this weekend and their closing song is the hymn Mansions of the Lord, which is the song used in the ending credits of the Mel Gibson movie We Were Soldiers (one of the better war movies around, BTW). This got us talking about the movie, which we've seen separately, so I thought I should read the source material, esp because I need more fodder for my ongoing discussions with my 17 year old daughter re: women in combat. Sometimes nook is nice. Thought about finding this book and three minutes later it was downloaded and I was reading...
Yeh, good book and not a bad movie. You have a lot of interest going there between your dad your daughter and music and women in combat. You just had to read it. Women in combat??! I'm a strong equality guy 'but' I'm still undecided on this. It's one thing and enough on your plate in combat with your buddies. Then we have that protective gene in the 'dominant' male of the specie. I can see support roles and I can also see myself getting into trouble with my argument, so I'll quit.... Got to think some more about Nook as well.
I'm all for it, women in combat. I might feel a little differently if we had the draft, but with an all-volunteer military, we already have a self-selecting group of individuals, and the simple fact is, until women have the same responsibilities as men, they will not have the same opportunities for advancement. And if you read the accounts of Medal of Honor winners, at least, you can see that the protective gene thing causes men to react in an emotional manner right now. And besides, since there are things that women do better than men, i.e. handle high G turns, respond to stress, and work collaboratively, we ought to be able to get a more efficient fighting force. What the daughter and I have been discussing in light of this decision is the whole women-as-the-vessel of purity, motherhood and culture. Fun times.
Redshirts - John Scalzi On the surface, it's a parody of Star Trek and how the low-ranking members (namely the ensigns, whose uniforms happen to be red) of the away teams are always the ones to kick the can while on the away missions, while the ship's captain, second in command, and chief science officer always survive.
Thanks for the heads up. I've read a couple of the Harry Hole books. Looks like I'd be best giving this one a miss.
Have moved onto the last Game of Thrones (A Dance with Dragons) and will soon be starting Christopher Brookmyre's latest - Bedlam Looking forward to Brookmyre. It sounds like he's back on form
Robert Duncan: The HD Book. For a class I'm preparing on modernist poetry and after. And speaking of the aforementioned Cooper, I'm rereading one of my favorite baseball books of all time... The Glory Of Their Times, an oral history of baseball in the early years of the 20th century. Saw it on a library sale table the day pitchers and catchers reported for the Cardinals, and took the hint... One of the players is Fred Snodgrass. Marking the page is a poem that someone had copied out and used as a bookmark On the Death of Fred Snodgrass San Francisco, April 6,1974. It says here in the Chronicle: “Fred Snodgrass, who muffed an easy fly ball that helped to cost the New York Giants the 1912 World Series, died yesterday at age 86.” ******** you, Fred Snodgrass. Some things we never forgive.
This is, bar none, my favorite baseball book ever, and it's a pity that neither the obituary writer nor the "poet" ever read it so they'd understand what really happened that day. I hope I still have the LP I found on line a few years ago with excerpts from the tapes Ritter made of the interviews. It adds even more to the impact.