Logan's profile

1046 ratings (3.75 avg)
179 reviews
939 trivia answers
Goodreads librarian
#47 best reviewers

Logan's bookshelves

read ‎(1044)
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1001-list ‎(155)
classics ‎(98)
dystopic-fiction ‎(84)
essential-books-for-a-library ‎(82)
history ‎(77)
comics ‎(70)

horror ‎(69)
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Logan is currently reading

	06/24 Logan is currently reading: The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter (Paperback) by Carson McCullers bookshelves: 1001-list, classics, currently-reading, fiction	my rating:
	recommended to Logan by: Charity progress: (page 151 of 307) "I love this book. I'm trying desperately to take my time with it." — 4 days ago, 07:33AM add a comment
	09/10 Logan gave to: Even Cowgirls Get the Blues (Paperback) by Tom Robbins bookshelves: currently-reading, fiction	my rating:
	2 comments

Logan's recent updates (rss)

July 05

Logan made a comment in the group Terminalcoffee—Poop Coffee... topic:

Logan wrote: "My parents sent me some of this from Java. I am equal parts excited and scared about brewing it. "

July 03

Logan marked as to-read:
Public Enemies: America's Greatest Crime Wave and the Birth of the FBI, 1933-34 (Paperback)
by Bryan Burrough
bookshelves: to-read

my rating:

add a comment

July 02

Logan made a comment in the group Terminalcoffee—What Are You Listening to Right Now? topic:

Logan wrote: "Not to mention the soundtrack. Some of my favorite songs from that era, including Iggy's "Sister Mi...more "

Logan made a comment in the group Terminalcoffee—Fourth of July Weekend! topic:

Logan wrote: "I was going through some boxes of childhood stuff the other day and opened the packaging for my old ...more "

Logan made a comment in the group The Next Best Book Club—Classics... You Want To Read. topic:

Logan wrote: "There are so very very many, though I've been putting quite a dent in them throughout the year thus ...more "

Logan read and liked Choupette's review of Pride and Prejudice:

"Pride and Prejudice: a Memoir (Volume One)

Characters:
Choupette: a greasy-haired, pockmarked, vampire-toothed adolescent
V.V. de Poi: Choupette's crazy-ass friend
Mariam: another friend (plays viola)
Suzy: scary weird...more "

5 comments

Logan read and liked ...'s review of The Americans:

"I just finished watching the Coen Bros “No Country for Old Men” for the umpteenth time. My favorite scene is when Sheriff Bell visits his former Deputy at his house. There is a line when the Deputy says "...this country is hard on people.”...more I just finished watching the Coen Bros “No Country for Old Men” for the umpteenth time. My favorite scene is when Sheriff Bell visits his former Deputy at his house. There is a line when the Deputy says "...this country is hard on people.” I started to think about this book. Looked at from a longer timeline.

My college art library had the original hardbound version of this book along with Mendelsohn’s “Amerika.” ...and a number of others unrelated to what I am about to write. They were in a locked room you had to have permission to enter. Climate controlled. The books could not leave. It was the most beautiful jail in the world. The prints were gorgeous. I would get in the room and spend hours digging around. Gazing at the images and projecting ideations of permanence from the temporal. I felt like a kid in a candy store. I felt like I was doing something illegal. Why would they let some dumb white kid from the ghetto into this room full of beautiful things? I still feel like that sometimes around beautiful things I have no business being associated with. It is a reason I get sad when they go away... I digress.

There was another “Amerika”-esque book by another foreign photographer -- I think it was Rodchenko – but I am not sure. Anyway. It is funny to look at the difference between the two – the American’s Amerika and the Outsider’s Amerika. The way each represented the object and subject. Mendelsohn’s photographs are austere and objectified representations of landscape devoid of scale and abstractly represent the idea of America through meticulously constructed compositions -- about the way you would expect the Germans to do. They communicate the idea without capturing the soul. They are beautiful. There must’ve been something in the water over there at the Bauhaus. Still. You can follow a straight line through to the Bechers and their disciples. There is a rigor to it that is undeniably beautiful. But it is detached. The photographs of Frank and Walker smelled like the earth, the asphalt, the wet concrete, the burnt oil of rumbling steel machines, and the must of newly evaporated sweat. I would sit in that room, and instead of trying to trace the line forward (like I did with the Germans), I would trace it backward. Backward to the Hudson River Painters...like Church and Bierstadt. The paintings have that same ethereal quality of ozone and mud that I would flip through in that room.

I sense the words of Whitman and Emerson when I look at the paintings of Beirstadt and Church. The confluence of landscape, nature, the frontier, and the individual jump off the canvases and make me yearn for that time when those things still had some value. Where the divine was conflated with the individual and the soil we tread on. It is no coincidence that Kerouac wrote the introduction to these series of photographs. The Beats were that next generation of writers that had their fingers on the pulse of the American psyche -- fuckin’ burnt rubber and cigarette butts on the highways and souls of the country. Where the frontier is no longer a place in space but a moment in time, and the individual is watching any sense of their own importance pass with the cadence of the painted white strip down the middle of road in the rear view mirror. I could see the words of Ginsburg and Ferlinghetti oozing from the wrinkles in the faces in those Frank photographs. It does not matter which came first. It is one of the things I think about most in life – how we got here from there. From the micro to the macro. It is a conundrum. I hesitate to call it Progress.

I still read things about these photographs from this era. These pseudo intellectual post-structuralist arguments about the nature of aesthetics. On this very site even. When I do it makes me want to scream, but it only comes out as a whimper. Now I just keep it to myself. I do not want to catch any of the symptoms. You see... I have a bit of a thing for these photographers from the era. Steiglitz, Evans, Frank, Strand...all of the work from the Farm Security Administration. It is a reflection of a time forgotten. And not forgotten in the nostalgic sense of a past that is fetishized, yearned for, and unsuccessfully recreated. But forgotten in the sense that it was never realized. Forgotten to occur at all. For whatever reason. You can see this absence reflected in the faces, storefronts, and shiny chrome bumpers of all of the images in this book. And it is beautiful.

And now there is an exhibit showing at the LA-MOCA. I should go pay my respects.
(less) "

9 comments

Logan made a comment on Michelle's review of The Idiot

Logan wrote: "Huzzah for more Fyodor! I feel so bad for everything that Prince Myshkin goes through in this book. "

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Logan added The Brothers Karamazov to the book list Best Russian Literature

Logan added 2 books to this list. Add your votes » add a comment

July 01

Logan is on page 151 of 307 of The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter

"I love this book. I'm trying desperately to take my time with it."

add a comment

More of Logan's books…

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Logan's favorite authors

Jhumpa Lahiri
author of
The Namesake

Mark Twain
author of
The Adven...

Richard K. Morgan
author of
Altered C...

Neal Stephenson
author of
Snow Crash

William Gibson
author of
Neuromancer

Bruce Sterling
author of
Mirrorsha...

More of Logan's favorite authors...

Logan's favorite quotes

"I have always imagined that Paradise will be some kind of library."
— Jorge Luis Borges

tags: books, library

2,262 people liked it

"A man should begin with his own times. He should become acquainted first of all with the world in which he is living and participating. He should not be afraid of reading too much or too little. He should take his reading as he does his food or his exercise. The good reader will gravitate to the good books. He will discover from his contemporaries what is inspiring or fecundating, or merely enjoyable, in past literature. He should have the pleasure of making these discoveries on his own, in his own way. What has worth, charm, beauty, wisdom, cannot be lost or forgotten. But things can lose all value, all charm and appeal, if one is dragged to them by the scalp."
— Henry Miller

15 people liked it

"When did the future switch from being a promise to being a threat?"
— Chuck Palahniuk (Invisible Monsters)

tags: future

158 people liked it

"those who escape hell
however
never talk about
it
and nothing much
bothers them
after
that."
— Charles Bukowski

38 people liked it

"Love is a temporary madness, it erupts like volcanoes and then subsides. And when it subsides, you have to make a decision. You have to work out whether your roots have so entwined together that it is inconceivable that you should ever part. Because this is what love is. Love is not breathlessness, it is not excitement, it is not the promulgation of promises of eternal passion, it is not the desire to mate every second minute of the day, it is not lying awake at night imagining that he is kissing every cranny of your body. No, don't blush, I am telling you some truths. That is just being "in love", which any fool can do. Love itself is what is left over when being in love has burned away, and this is both an art and a fortunate accident."
— Louis de Bernières (Captain Corelli's Mandolin)

tags: love

184 people liked it

More of Logan's favorite quotes…

Logan's groups (recent posts)

The Next Best Book Club — 4315 members — last activity 0 minutes ago
As your humble moderator, I feel the need to ask you a few questions.

Are you willing to kiss all your spare cash goodbye? Are you easily ...more

Terminalcoffee — 363 members — last activity 8 minutes ago
A place to chat about anything...books, music, movies, culture, and anything else than emerges.

No one expects your allegiance to this grou...more

1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die — 5816 members — last activity 6 hours, 42 min ago
For those attempting the crazy feat of reading all 1001 books!

For discerning bibliophiles and readers who enjoy unforgettable classic lite...more

Flight 815-ers Unite — 140 members — last activity 7 hours, 45 min ago
This is a discussion board for Lost addicts to come together and throw around thier theories, talk about current or past episodes, and share thier lov...more

The Haters Club — 298 members — last activity 1 hour, 13 min ago
Sorry Kids! The Haters Club is 18+ now.

It's tragic that in today's day and age that hate is so grossly undervalued. If hate is truly love ...more

More of Logan's groups …

events Logan is attending

Sidebar Portland Meet-Up
June 18, 2010 10:19PM
Powell's Books, Portland, OR, The United States
Come to Portland for many books, beers and bonding. Meet the corporeal forms of...more

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