Das Book: the very new reading thread

[hannah]

Also all DVDs will be destroyed

[hannah]

Eh

[Greg Nog]

I'll make you a deal we will enforce your edict and no one is allowed to read the Iliad or the Odyssey or any play ever again.

If the alternative is travelling oral historians, then I will happily sign on to this concept

also i will begin my training as a travelling oral historian

[andronicus]

You can start your career as a travelling orator by learning a story from one of the best oral traditions in the world, the Nasreddin Hodja stories.

During a conversation with Tamerlane, Hodja started bragging about his donkey. 
"It is so smart that I can teach it even how to read," he said. 
"Then go ahead and teach it how to read.  I give you three months," Tamerlane ordered. 
Hodja went home and began to train his donkey.  He put its feed between the pages of a big book and taught it to turn the pages by its tongue to find its feed.  Three days before the three month period was over, he stopped feeding it. 
When he took his donkey to Tamerlane, he asked for a big book and put it in front of the donkey.  The hungry animal turned the pages of the book one by one with its tongue and when it couldn't find any feed between the pages it started braying.
Tamerlane watched the donkey closely and then said,
"This sure is a strange way of reading!"
Hodja remarked,
"But this is how a donkey reads."

[Antero]

I'll make you a deal we will enforce your edict and no one is allowed to read the Iliad or the Odyssey or any play ever again.

If the alternative is travelling oral historians, then I will happily sign on to this concept

also i will begin my training as a travelling oral historian

Agreed!

[RoyBiggins]

Yeah, I'd definitely do that for a living if it were possible.  Of course, in that case, I also would be less frequently stuck in traffic, wishing I was reading.

That said, lots of the stuff I'm reading via audio (heh) is nonfiction, 'cause I share a lot of your feelings, Antero.

[Stewart]

I'm going to try to dig my way through Alasdair Gray's Lanark over break.  Have any of you read this?  I made it through the first section of it last week.  It was gnarly! 

I also started a Stewart Home novel last week, Red London, when I realized Lanark was going to be a bit much work during the last couple weeks of the semester.  Somehow, even though it was about gay skinhead orgies and parodies of The Temple ov Psychic Yvoth, I got REALLY bored.  Did I just pick the wrong book, or is he rubbish, or am I just wrong?

[Greg Nog]

andronicus's Nasreddin story gets bonus points for including Tamerlane, given that Marlowe's first play about the dude is my all-time favorite Elizabethan drama.

So Andrew, I've only read maybe six or seven of the Lupin stories so far, but you should definitely order it for your store.  It's so unbelieveably fun.  In fact, I think you should set up a whole display devoted to "gentleman thieves" -- you can include that, those books coldie linked to, the Ocean's movies, the Hunter Rose issues of Grendel, etc.

Roguery!

[Almanzo]

I'm going to try to dig my way through Alasdair Gray's Lanark over break.  Have any of you read this?  I made it through the first section of it last week.  It was gnarly! 

One of my absolute favorite books of all time. A few years ago, a good friend gave my wife and I that gorgeous four-volumed boxed edition of it, and it remains one of my most cherished possessions.

[Andrew_TSKS]

So Andrew, I've only read maybe six or seven of the Lupin stories so far, but you should definitely order it for your store.  It's so unbelieveably fun.  In fact, I think you should set up a whole display devoted to "gentleman thieves" -- you can include that, those books coldie linked to, the Ocean's movies, the Hunter Rose issues of Grendel, etc.

Roguery!

this is a hell of an idea. i will have to see what i can do.

[howardfinkel]

Reading Ira Glass's New Kings of Non-fiction collection that came out recently. Interesting stories. Haven't read the David Foster Wallace one yet but looking forward to it.

[slow west vultures]

has any one read any of Joseph O'Connors' books?  I read a review in the Nytimes book review last week about his latest one, and saw Star of the Sea - about a boat leaving for america during the irish potato famine - in borders today, and i'm definitely intrigued.  also fwiw - his latest one is about a motley assortment of individuals bound for this town in a state resembling montana after the civil war.  i think that one sounds more up my alley.  maybe there's a set of bailey brothers in it. 

[davy]

i'm really digging china mieville, by the way. i started with perdido street station.

[mountmccabe]

I'll make you a deal we will enforce your edict and no one is allowed to read the Iliad or the Odyssey or any play ever again.

A lot of the time when I'm reading a play I'll end up reading it aloud.  Or at least quasi-so.  It really does make a big difference.  Though it'd be better if I heard other people read it to me.  While in costume.  And up on a stage moving around as if they were the characters.

Biggins, you should be listening to plays and old epic poetry on tape.  Or CD.  Or whatever.

[auto-da-fey]

Today I finished Rodolfo Acuna's Anything But Mexican: Chicanos in Contemporary Los Angeles, which was a great work but perhaps a bit less textually exciting than much of what gets discussed in this thread. I should have some time in the next few weeks to read some actual fiction for a change, which I'm looking forward to. I'm thinking of hitting some Chester Himes novels, since I'm using If He Hollers, Let Him Go in a class next semester, which I partly chose specifically to spur myself into embarking on further Himes reading. I've got a copy of Lonely Crusade, so that's looking like my lead contender right now.

[Andrew_TSKS]

dude, i read "a rage in harlem" earlier this year and it blew my mind. himes's stuff is dark dark dark. which is to say, it's awesome.

[auto-da-fey]

Yeah, I should pursue that, too. Despite my love for 1970s blaxploitation cinema, I've never seen Cotton Comes to Harlem precisely because I hadn't read the book(s), so there'd be that bonus in it for me, too. I have seen A Rage in Harlem, though, I guess because when it came out I hadn't heard of Chester Himes but thought Robin Givens was hot.

[rockmeamadeus]

Robin Givens was hot.

WORD.

[Andrew_TSKS]

dude, "a rage in harlem" the movie has an almost completely different plot than the one in the book. you should still read the book.

[auto-da-fey]

dude, "a rage in harlem" the movie has an almost completely different plot than the one in the book. you should still read the book.

Oh, definitely. I would never consider a movie a substitute for a book. Though I probably will see No Country for Old Men without having read the book, something I'm ambivalent about but can probably roll with.

[Andrew_TSKS]

same here. i may still read the book eventually though.

[Bernard]

Stoked out of my mind at the prospect of school ending in another week, so I can start on my obscene stash of loot:

Gabriel Josipovici: Writing and the Body; Everything Passes.
Tom McCarthy: Remainder(s)
Big Blanchot reader, edited by Lydia Davis
Rosalind Belben: Reuben, Little Hero; Dreaming of Dead People, Is beauty Good
Wilkie Collins: Armadale
Robert Walser: The Walk

I did the math, and realized that my local used book shop (which already sells for $10 what the used bookshop down the road sells for $15) is now giving me 30-40% 'loyalty' discounts.

Already almost done with Belben's Choosing Spectacles and am just ****ing the hell all over it. SO good.

[elpollodiablo]

Good god, have you guys ever seen Suttree? It's McCarthy's longest book by a damn country mile.

[Bernard]

I also started a Stewart Home novel last week, Red London, when I realized Lanark was going to be a bit much work during the last couple weeks of the semester.  Somehow, even though it was about gay skinhead orgies and parodies of The Temple ov Psychic Yvoth, I got REALLY bored.  Did I just pick the wrong book, or is he rubbish, or am I just wrong?

He's definitely not rubbish, but he might just not be your cup of tea. I nearly pass into a coma from boredom any time I read any Pynchon, but it's not because his books are crap. Not every reader can read every book, obvs.

[elpollodiablo]

Greg you should read the Border Trilogy, I've decided.