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andy popp

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#1375 Re: Books...
April 29, 2019, 11:28:47 am
Very positive review of Helen Mort's Black Car Burning here in The Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/apr/25/black-car-burning-by-helen-mort-review

duncan

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#1376 Re: Books...
April 29, 2019, 11:53:14 am
Thanks for the recommendations for Ghosts of the Tsunami.

I like to read books about or set in the place I'm visiting. Any suggestions for Colorado/Wyoming? History and culture are especially welcome.

andy popp

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#1377 Re: Books...
April 29, 2019, 11:57:31 am
Brokeback Mountain. Seems like quite a few of Annie Proulx's books are set in Wyoming.

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#1378 Re: Books...
April 29, 2019, 12:11:45 pm
The Shining?

Johnny Brown

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#1379 Re: Books...
April 29, 2019, 12:28:59 pm
As mentioned on the previous page, my favourite of John McPhee's series on american geology is the Wyoming-centred Rising from the Plains, mainly because the human element is so strong, told through the lifestory of the featured ex-cowboy geologist and his pioneer parents.

DaveC

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#1380 Re: Books...
July 08, 2019, 01:43:05 pm
Well,since nobody else seems to have much to say here I've given myself a  :jab: to get back on and put up some more of last years highlights, one in particular:
In The Distance,Hernan Diaz I read a review of this book quite by chance and ordered it from it's original small U.S. publisher because it sounded a little different from the run-of-the-mill story of the old west and it certainly was. It follows the adventures/misadventures of a young Swedish boy who is sent to America with his older brother to get them away from their family's life of abject poverty in the rural Sweden of the mid-nineteenth century. When he is seperated from his brother while changing boats in England, he finishes up alone on the wrong (west) coast of America and, adopted by a family heading for the goldfields of California, begins a truly extraordinary odyssey. The two things that quickly set this tale apart from the normal are, 1. our main character starts off with no English so the narrative only tells you what he can understand and work out for himself which makes for a disorienting and often disturbing read but one that rewards with a unique and remarkable reading experience as the character learns to communicate and understand what is going on around him and we, the readers, are given more detail as he learns, and 2. it quickly becomes apparent that our hero is a physically giant figure, even as a boy he towers over adults who he meets as a result of which his movements around the western North America give birth to legends and stories about a giant man known as the Hawk (we eventually learn his name is Haaken, hence the nickname.) The story is full of violence, heartbreak and unlikely survival with a great little twist in the tail and a year later I think this was my favourite read of 2018.

Outline / Kudos / Transit by Rachel Cusk A trilogy of novels by one of the best writers I have come across in recent years. Follows the life of a middle-aged, divorced novelist as she deals with life, writing, attending literary events and teaching writing courses. All told in the first person, the trilogy is engaging, original in style and Cusk's prose is finely wrought. Well worth the effort.
Having spent so much time on the first book above, I'll just list some other outstanding novels from the year for me - and yes I would personally recommend any or all of them!
Cinco Beckwell by Lee Maynard
On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan
All That Man Is by David Szalay
American Pastoral by Philip Roth
The Cigar Factory by Michele Moore
Magnetic North by Lee Maynard
Sweet Days of Discipline by Fleur Jaeggy
By Night in Chile by Roberto Bolano
The Geography of Water by Mary Emerick
Travelling in a Strange Land by David Park
Destroy All Monsters by Jeff Jackson
Vacationland by Sarah Stonich
The Samurai by Shusaku Endo
Laurentian Divide by Sarah Stonich
Everything Under by Daisy Johnson

Also read some great non-fiction in the course of the year but I'll post them another time.

Au revoir!


andy popp

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#1381 Re: Books...
July 08, 2019, 01:53:46 pm
I love that I've read only one book on your list, American Pastoral, which I thought flawed. For some reason I have a strong aversion to that whole Roth, Updike etc. crowd, though I really should try the Rabbit novels.

As we're roughly halfway through the year I'll try and post up some of my highlights.

DaveC

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#1382 Re: Books...
July 08, 2019, 02:47:22 pm
I've never really got into Updike and I've read a couple of Roth's and the one above was the best of them, the others were at best OK, I prefer Doctorow amongst the bigger American names. I got into a lot of what I suppose you'd call provincial American writers like Sarah Stonich (Minnesota/Great Lakes), Lee Maynard (originally West Virginia but he moved around a lot later - and is not for the faint-hearted!), Michele Moore (South Carolina) and Mary Emerick (Alaska).

andy popp

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#1383 Re: Books...
July 08, 2019, 02:51:51 pm
I like Doctorow but have only read two. Have you read Richard Ford? Some of those other names look interesting. For another "regional" writer I can strongly recommend John O'Hara (Pennsylvania), especially Road to Samarra.

DaveC

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#1384 Re: Books...
July 09, 2019, 10:07:17 am
I haven't read Ford,  but I will put him on my list,  and I'll do the same with John O'Hara , cheers for the tips.

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#1385 Re: Books...
July 09, 2019, 10:29:48 am
I recently finished the Sportswriter by Ford and was left distinctly underwhelmed. Didn't really see what all the fuss was about; I thought the prose was clanky and the 60's folksy American tinge to it made me cringe. Takes all sorts though; am I better off trying another one?

Recently finished An Artist of the Floating World by Kazuo Ishiguro which I thought was a masterpiece; one of his best.


andy popp

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#1386 Re: Books...
July 09, 2019, 11:35:18 am
If you didn't like The Sportswriter then I definitely wouldn't recommend trying any of the other three Frank Bascombe novels (I adored them). Canada is the only other novel I've read, which many people rave about - I thought it was good but not outstanding. To Dave C I'd recommend starting with The Sportswriter - the Bascombe novels are also highly regional being very largely set on the New Jersey shore.

andy popp

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#1387 Re: Books...
July 09, 2019, 12:17:44 pm
Four standouts from the first half of this year (though there have been others): two history books and two short story collections.

Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie, Montaillou: The Promised Land of Error. This classic of "history from below" that explores in microscopic detail the everyday life of a small village in Pyrennes at the close of C13th and beginning of the C14th. Wonderfully rich and humane.

William Cronon, Nature’s Metropolis: Chicago and the Great West . Brilliant, highly original history of the rise of Chicago in the C19th and its relationship to the growth and expansion of America, particularly the way it acted to funnel huge volumes of commodities (pork, beef, wheat) east. A seminal book in both environmental history and the history of capitalism.

Katherine Anne Porter, Pale Horse, Pale Rider. I'd not heard of this author (1890-1980) before but this is very powerful, atmospheric collection of southern US set stories to rank alongside Eudora Welty and Carson McCullers.

George Saunders, Tenth of December. Saunders made his name as a short story write but I'd only read his brilliant but deeply eccentric first novel, Lincoln in the Bardo, which now seems less of a one-off, both that book and this collection of short stories displaying Saunders' ability to summon up a great range of voices with considerable economy. I found this funny, sad, sardonic, sympathetic, prescient, and always humane.

DaveC

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#1388 Re: Books...
July 09, 2019, 03:43:41 pm
I read Ladurie's Montaillou a few years back and agree with you 100%.
Also agree about the Saunders short stories. If you want to try something different from him try The Brief and Frightening Reign of Phil, a short and plainly satirical novel/novella that is quite unlike anything else I've ever read,  inventive, beautifully written,  and just plain weird.

Ged

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#1389 Re: Books...
July 09, 2019, 07:28:27 pm
I just finished the road (in about 3 sittings). Best book I've read in years. It's extremely unsettling. I had to read something else before going to sleep. Highly recommended.

spidermonkey09

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#1390 Re: Books...
July 09, 2019, 11:17:38 pm
I just finished the road (in about 3 sittings). Best book I've read in years. It's extremely unsettling. I had to read something else before going to sleep. Highly recommended.

The section with the child tugging his dads sleeve as the zealots walk towards them across the field still gives me the shivers. Utterly brilliant book.

Not sure if you've read any other McCarthy, but if you haven't I highly recommend No Country for Old Men (even if you've seen the film) and especially the Border Trilogy, starting with All The Pretty Horses. That trilogy is the best literature I have ever read I think, absolutely peerless.

sheavi

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#1391 Re: Books...
July 10, 2019, 10:20:18 am
Just finished 'The Places in Between' by Rory Stewart which I thought was excellent. Plus Helen Morts Black Car Burning was very good.

Duma

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#1392 Re: Books...
July 10, 2019, 11:04:03 am
Helen Mort is on one of the recent jamcrack episodes if you're interested

Ged

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#1393 Re: Books...
July 10, 2019, 08:32:02 pm
I just finished the road (in about 3 sittings). Best book I've read in years. It's extremely unsettling. I had to read something else before going to sleep. Highly recommended.

The section with the child tugging his dads sleeve as the zealots walk towards them across the field still gives me the shivers. Utterly brilliant book.

Not sure if you've read any other McCarthy, but if you haven't I highly recommend No Country for Old Men (even if you've seen the film) and especially the Border Trilogy, starting with All The Pretty Horses. That trilogy is the best literature I have ever read I think, absolutely peerless.

Thanks, will give them a try

cheque

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#1394 Re: Books...
July 12, 2019, 10:09:28 am
Plus Helen Morts Black Car Burning was very good.

I just read and enjoyed this.

I reread it’s spiritual cousin M John Harrison’s Climbers (both are novels about Peak-based climbers by Peak-based climbers who were previously associated with other types of writing) a few months back too. I’d forgotten everything about it but I realised that reading it when I’d only been climbing for a few years and had a lot in common with the protagonist had a massive effect on me.

BCB, despite having superficially similar subject matter is a much more wide-ranging book than the claustrophobic, detail-orientated Climbers but also narrower in the sense that it’s specifically about Sheffield and the crags and villages very close to it. As I say, I can relate personally more to Climbers and it also feels a bit more accomplished but I can’t help feeling like BCB is a better novel in a lot of ways. You can certainly tell which one was written by a female poet and which was written by a male sci-if author.

andy_e

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#1395 Re: Books...
July 12, 2019, 10:49:49 am
I recently re-read parts of Climbers too after it having been one of my favourite books when I was at school. A lot of the romanticised imagery I remember from it actually came across far more stark, masculine, almost dismissive in its tone. I always remember it being bleak (my passage published in Over the Moors guidebook was clearly heavily influenced by it) but it shocked me with how cynical it seemed.

Your description of Black Car Burning makes me want to go and read it!

DaveC

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#1396 Re: Books...
July 14, 2019, 01:03:37 pm
Thought i'd chuck in a few of the best non-fiction I found last year:
Burning Down the Haus, Tim Mohr A great book that follows a small group of young East Germans who discovered punk via British military radio in the late 70s and maybe, possibly, they started a revolution that brought down the Berlin Wall. Entertaining, readable prose, a great  story and a plethora of intriguing characters who defied one of the most totalitarian states in the Communist bloc and made for one of the biggest surprises of my reading year.
The Order of Time, Carlo Rovelli Italian physicist Rovelli's concise and very personal guide to our current knowledge of space-time is a fabulous little book and if the subject takes your fancy this might be the book for you.
Tides: The Science and Spirit of the Ocean, Jonathan White My best non-fiction read of 2018, an entertaining and engaging tour of the ocean tides, how they work, why they vary so much with a grand tour of many of the world's tidal hot-spots (eg Bay of Fundy, Mont St Michel). A great book.
RisingTideFallingStar, Philip Hoare This authors third venture into the world of water is a composite tale of all the ways we interact with and have come to terms with our planets oceans. As with his previous works, Leviathan and THe Sea Inside, it is full of beautiful prose and a range of eccentric and sometimes mad characters, another fine read.

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#1397 Re: Books...
July 26, 2019, 11:15:27 am
Le naufrage des civilisations, Amin Maalouf.

Amin Maalouf, author of some splendid historical novels like “Samarkand” about the Persian mathematician and poet Omar Khayyam and “Leo Africanus” about the geographer of that name, recently published a long essay in four parts titled “Le naufrage des civilisations” (The shipwreck of civilisations).

The first part, A Paradise in Flames, about the wrecking of first his mother's Egypt then his father's Lebanon is a touching personal family history. More so because of the Maalouf's ability to raise his perspective from the personal and understand Nasser's (catastrophic) policy of expelling “foreign” elements like his family. The chapter is a canticle of praise for the multicultural societies of his youth and traces how a number of political events (Churchill's mishandling of the Suez crisis etc...) inevitably lead to the breakdown of the political order in the Levant.

The second part (Populations in Ruination) continues to trace the Arab despair from the second world war, to the catastrophic loss of the combined armies against Israel in 1967. A despair that lead all the way to what the Maalouf believes is the ultimate expression of lost hope: suicide bombings. The writer argues that the situation in the middle east is a morass that ultimately will drag the entire world down with it.

The third part (The Year of The Great Reversal) is chiefly concerned with the zeitgeist of the late 70s and how the four conservative revolutions of 1978-79 (Thatcher, Khomeini, Deng Xiaoping and John Paul II) together with the moral duty of the west to oppose communism in all its forms further the morass in the middle east. Alas, Maalouf himself was only present at the Iranian revolution and I feel that the loss of a personal perspective is one of the weaknesses of this chapter. However, the connection between the four conservative revolutions of 78-79 is interesting and not something I've thought about before, but overall this part doesn't live up to the first two.

The forth part (A Disintegrating World) unfortunately is of the genre that I like to call “Liberals who whine” so it reads a bit like an overly long article in The Economist. Overall I think the book should be read for the first two maybe three chapters. The last chapter is chiefly interesting for its Franco-French view on USA (a love lost, but still some feelings) and the EU (the founders should have created a European federation, stopping at the internal free market was an irreparable mistake).

Overall, the best book on the current state of the world I've read the last few years. Miles ahead of King's Grave New World which I think is the second best. Anyone who has an interest in the near east and can slog through French with the help of a dictionary should read the first chapter at least.

andy popp

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#1398 Re: Books...
July 26, 2019, 01:25:11 pm
Thanks JWI, that sounds fascinating. Do you know if its only available in French?

Its interesting to think of China in 1978 as experiencing a conservative revolution, typically the open door policy would be seen as a liberalisation. The other great conservative revolution of the period was, of course, Reagan. In some ways it feels as though we have been in a near permanent conservative revolution ever since.

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#1399 Re: Books...
July 26, 2019, 01:48:14 pm
Thanks JWI, that sounds fascinating. Do you know if its only available in French?

Its interesting to think of China in 1978 as experiencing a conservative revolution, typically the open door policy would be seen as a liberalisation. The other great conservative revolution of the period was, of course, Reagan. In some ways it feels as though we have been in a near permanent conservative revolution ever since.

The book was released in late March. I would be surprised if there were translations already. An earlier essay “Disordered World” is available in English. I haven't read it but I suspect it covers some of the same ground.

Reagan is dealt with at length, but is Maalouf views the American conservative revolution (and many other conservative reversals) as a direct consequence of the spirit of the age that produced Thatcher and Khomeini.

 

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