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September 03
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Unbridled
gave
 
to:
Miami Blues (Vintage Crime/Black Lizard)
by Charles Willeford
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my rating:
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read in September, 2008
Unbridled said:
"I'd seen (and enjoyed) the movie of course and as a rule I never read a book after seeing the movie, but I came across Willeford's name in an interview with Jim Knipfel, who wrote the entertaining Slackjaw and spoke admiringly of his work. With a lit...more
I'd seen (and enjoyed) the movie of course and as a rule I never read a book after seeing the movie, but I came across Willeford's name in an interview with Jim Knipfel, who wrote the entertaining Slackjaw and spoke admiringly of his work. With a little research I discovered that no less an authority than Elmore Leonard said Willeford is the best crime writer in America. That's good enough for me. I also learned that Miami Blues was the first of a series of detective Hoke Moseley books. So I had no choice but start at the first, and I can say it did not disappoint in the least – I liked it, liked its energy, story, and its pop pop speed, and I finished it in two sittings. Is it going to inspire you or move you or change your life? No. But it's the kind of book every kind of writer should read more often to tell better stories and it's also the kind of book that I'd like to read more often. Something so easy, smart, and breezy is extremely hard to do. Of course, there are tricks in this trade, and if a genre writer is prolific enough you start to see those tricks everywhere as a distraction. Still, I look forward to finishing off the Moseley series and maybe looking around the rest of the Willeford oeuvre....less
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September 02
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Unbridled
gave
to:
Renoir, My Father (New York Review Books Classics)
by Jean Renoir, Robert L. Herbert
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my rating:
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read in September, 2008
Unbridled said:
"Jean is quite a talent himself, and his narrative skills as a filmmaker are evident in this loving memoir of a son of a genius. The book opens with the wounded Jean thanking a German sniper for wounding him so that he might go home to recover in the ...more
Jean is quite a talent himself, and his narrative skills as a filmmaker are evident in this loving memoir of a son of a genius. The book opens with the wounded Jean thanking a German sniper for wounding him so that he might go home to recover in the company of his aging father, at his father's last home, where he will gather the bulk of the material for this memoir. And where to begin? From the birth of Pierre-Auguste, of course, through the rest of his remarkable life, always entertaining, touching, intelligent, and surprisingly funny. What lives enter the life of Renoir! Famous and non-famous alike, family and extended family, dealers and artists, anecdotes involving the likes of Dumas, Hugo, and any number of other historical persons; and of course the obvious gang, like Degas, Manet, Pissarro, Monet, Sisley, Bazille, Toulouse-Lautrec, and my favorite, Cezanne. It's a rich repast of stories and quotes from Renoir and there is too much to leave out in a summation like this. Renoir was an ideal man – or at least in his adult son's recollections, which is rarer than one might think. ...less
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August 05
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Unbridled
gave
to:
The CRIPPLED GIANT: A Literary Relationship with Louis-Ferdinand Celine. New and expanded ed., with Selections from the Celine-Hindus Correspondence (Hardcover)
by Milton Hindus
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my rating:
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read in August, 2008
Unbridled said:
"I continue to find Celine fascinating even though every book of his since Journey to the End of the Night has left me cold. Hindus notes, "Celine is a splinter in my mind that I've got either to absorb completely or to eject completely." I ...more
I continue to find Celine fascinating even though every book of his since Journey to the End of the Night has left me cold. Hindus notes, "Celine is a splinter in my mind that I've got either to absorb completely or to eject completely." I disagree with this simplification, but I like the line and I enjoyed this book. Jewish-American intellectual meets the anti-Semitic Celine after establishing correspondence with him during the height of his infamy (post WWII). Interesting structure: part 1 (honest, amusing, smart), Hindus's diary of meeting the exiled Celine in Denmark; part 2 (aggressive and bitter, perhaps counter-reacting to his obeisance to Celine in person), Hindus's 'immediate' reflections in Paris; part 3 (cooler, no longer hostile), further reflections and remembrances; part 4 (surprisingly positive), the afterword and the aftermath, including Hindus's feelings about Celine's response, Conversations with Professor Y; and finally (entertaining but thin), selected excerpts from the Hindus-Celine correspondence. ...less
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July 29
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Unbridled
gave
to:
Sunday After the War (Hardcover)
by Henry Miller
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my rating:
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read in July, 2008
Unbridled said:
"Given that slightly less than half of this book is excerpted from other works, I wouldn't recommend this book for the Miller novice, but there are some pieces in here that you'd have difficulty finding anywhere else, and as a Miller-phile, anything '...more
Given that slightly less than half of this book is excerpted from other works, I wouldn't recommend this book for the Miller novice, but there are some pieces in here that you'd have difficulty finding anywhere else, and as a Miller-phile, anything 'new' is something to rejoice. Rereading the excerpted material is not exactly painful either; like stepping back into a personal paradise, like alighting the steps of the airport in Maui as you eagerly make your way toward the warm green outside....less
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July 17
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Unbridled
gave
to:
Hell's Angels (Paperback)
by Hunter S. Thompson
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my rating:
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read in July, 2008
Unbridled said:
"It's pretty clear now that nothing else of his will ever clear the high bar of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Still, when it gets going, describing what he witnessed in person, like the Angels partying with Ken Kesey's crew - or his own beating - it...more
It's pretty clear now that nothing else of his will ever clear the high bar of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Still, when it gets going, describing what he witnessed in person, like the Angels partying with Ken Kesey's crew - or his own beating - it's solidly entertaining; and when it slows, reiterating the media's hysteria in the rise of the legend of the Angels, it's redundant and tiresome. ...less
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July 08
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Unbridled
gave
to:
A Lesson Before Dying (Paperback)
by Ernest J. Gaines
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my rating:
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read in July, 2008
Unbridled said:
"Good, solid book, nicely told, but I couldn't escape the feeling I was reading the script for a Hallmark CBS Sunday movie of the week. There is nothing of importance to be gained here, but Gaines is a fine writer.
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June 27
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Unbridled
gave
to:
Carry Me Across the Water (Paperback)
by Ethan Canin
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my rating:
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read in June, 2008
Unbridled said:
"The book was sound, fundamentally, sustaining and building its mild narrative momentum with an easy, limpid prose. Skilled writing, MFA consistency, but nothing to tickle the cells into any sort of rapturous applause.
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June 13
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Unbridled
gave
to:
Conversations with Picasso (Hardcover)
by Brassai
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my rating:
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read in June, 2008
Unbridled said:
"I've been skeptical of painters for many years – some, it seems to me, are outright frauds, mere ad men selling middling images, like Warhol. And yet I've always been strangely fascinated with painters and they amount to some of my favorite people ...more
I've been skeptical of painters for many years – some, it seems to me, are outright frauds, mere ad men selling middling images, like Warhol. And yet I've always been strangely fascinated with painters and they amount to some of my favorite people of all time. So it will not surprise that Picasso has always been a source of peculiar fascination for me. Of course I'd seen his seminal work and I never doubted his genius, but I never quite understood the precipitous reverence for the man of whom it was once claimed that only God created more. But I slowly started poking around: starting with Arianna Huffington's short, gossipy, and guilty-pleasure read, Picasso; watching Anthony Hopkins in the execrable Surviving Picasso (quite faithful to the Huffington book); and reading Norman Mailer's admirable, if misfired, Portrait of Picasso As a Young Man. Still, nothing. No rousing of the fire. But then I came across Henri-Georges Clouzot's film, The Mystery of Picasso, which was a documentary of sorts that filmed Picasso painting. It's a bit of a stunt, won't interest everyone, but I was mad for it, enraptured, and at the finish, I raised my fist to the sky in celebration of what I saw. Witnessing Picasso's radiant creativity in the very act, stroke by color by stroke by obliteration into sensation and thought into life extraordinaire – well, raw creative power like that is like sitting through a thunderstorm with heavy rains and the sun still shining strong. Seeing Picasso paint made me understand what genius means; I see everything by Picasso differently now. Which finally brings me to Brassaï's Conversations with Picasso. As much a biography as a series of conversations, but a biography of the epoch as well, when so many titans still reigned and called Paris home. The book is filled with the personalities who drop into Picasso's orbit, like Paul Eluard, Matisse, Braque, Henry Miller, Dali, Man Ray, Andre Breton, Apollinaire, Miro, Andre Malraux, Cocteau, Sartre, Camus, de Beauvoir, Max Jacob, and many, many others – it's dizzying and I've forgotten more than I remember so I will list no more. Can I say it is a definitive work? No. But reading this book fits Picasso the personality into the demoniacal force that I watched paint in the Clouzot film....less
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May 30
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Unbridled
gave
to:
Writing in Restaurants: Essays and Prose (Paperback)
by David Mamet
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my rating:
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read in May, 2008
Unbridled said:
"Essays. Mamet is at his best telling a story about something that happened to him and his opinions on theatre are interesting too; but he has a tendency to digress in a most plodding manner. The prose is inelegant, and you see immediately the differe...more
Essays. Mamet is at his best telling a story about something that happened to him and his opinions on theatre are interesting too; but he has a tendency to digress in a most plodding manner. The prose is inelegant, and you see immediately the difference between prose and (his strength) dialogue, which, though obvious, you do not necessarily expect until confronted with the evidence. I doubt he can write a good novel. He exhorts his philosophy of action, but his philosophizing seems to commit the act he argues against. In his favor, you do sense a sound and witty intelligence at work and that's a pleasure in its own right. Not warming your hands by the fire of a Mailer-like intellect, but certainly a good conversation over a beer....less
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May 23
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Unbridled
gave
to:
The Key (Paperback)
by Jun'ichiro Tanizaki
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my rating:
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read in May, 2008
Unbridled said:
"A most peculiar, intelligent, and cunning little book about sexual obsession, venality, lust, and quiet emotional violence. Tanizaki has an immense talent but I can't say this book is riveting either – but it comes very close to riveting. The story...more
A most peculiar, intelligent, and cunning little book about sexual obsession, venality, lust, and quiet emotional violence. Tanizaki has an immense talent but I can't say this book is riveting either – but it comes very close to riveting. The story's design is a tricky one (the diaries of 2 characters) and Tanizaki pulls it off with a surprising touch at the end. ...less
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