RussellinVT’s Comments (group member since Apr 11, 2024)

RussellinVT’s comments from the Ersatz TLS group.

Gpfr wrote: "Logger24 wrote: "Is the procedure the same if you want post one of your own photos, rather than something already somewhere on the web?..."

Yes, put your photo in postimage...."

Thanks. I will have a go later on.

Gpfr wrote: "Tam wrote: "Can I perhaps make a request here, for some people in the know, to pass on how to copy images into their posts..."

Click on (some html is ok).
You see: image..."

Thank you to Tam for asking that question.

GP - Is the procedure the same if you want post one of your own photos, rather than something already somewhere on the web?

"AB76 wrote: "... no discount on the OUP classics either?"

P.S. A professor friend actually got in touch with OUP some years ago to urge them to make various of their academic texts available in cheaper editions, because he used them as set texts, and they would sell hundreds to his students alone. He got the brush off.

AB76 wrote: "... no discount on the OUP classics either?"

They give a decent 40% on the Classics and on the VSIs. It's the more academic works, esp. hardbacks, where they give zero.

Bill wrote: "Well, that's from the magazine...."

I see the full article is included in The Fun Stuff under the title George Orwell’s Very English Revolution. It covers Orwell’s entire writing life. I guess I reacted sharply to one paragraph.

The same book contains a 25-page essay on Edmund Wilson (and much else besides). I expect I read it at the time but no longer remember anything. One to look at when I’m done with To The Finland Station.

Try again.

Bill wrote: "...I think I also found the Orwell piece you mention..."

That’s certainly it. My memory says it went on much longer.

Bill wrote: "......"

AB76 wrote: "a letter in the TLS bemoaned the cost of OUP and CUP titles..."

You also learn, if you’re running a small bookshop that, unlike the 40% or 50% discount from the retail price that you get on most trade books when buying wholesale, the discount you get on those OUP and CUP titles is usually 0%. I’m not sure how, with zero profit, any bookshop could be expected to stock them. I assume the university presses are not really interested in the retail trade, and look instead to the libraries and the institutional market who, I imagine, buy direct. The US presses are not a lot better. Yale, Princeton and Harvard (Belknap) typically give 5%, though sometimes you can be surprised and get 25%. Even so, we like to stock some of these books, the ones we like the look of, in addition to the Oxford World Classics and OUP Very Short Introductions. To our mind, they do give an aura of quality – even if you don’t succeed in selling them. Eventually I can buy them for myself.

Bill wrote: "Speaking of New Yorker critics, are there any James Wood readers here?..."

I’ve read a few of his though not the ones you mention – The Broken Estate, The Fun Stuff and, the best imo, How Fiction Works, really intriguing. I went off him when there was a whole essay of Wood critiquing Orwell critiquing Tolstoy critiquing Shakespeare. Come on, there’s got to be something better to do in life!

Tam wrote: "Out of interest did you get my message...."

Thanks, Tam, sure did. I’ll get back to you v soon.

I finished Ma’am Darling by Craig Brown, at last. As a biography it’s actually quite accomplished, culling stories from far and wide on Princess Margaret and her raffish friends. But don’t believe the quotes from critics (e.g. Julian Barnes) calling it extremely funny and hilarious. Who could laugh at such a sad, unsatisfied life?

Turning now to a reliable source of complete satisfaction, the masterly Turgenev and Sketches from a Hunter’s Album.

Gpfr wrote: "Quiet round here!..."

I’m still on the same three books I’ve been on for a couple of weeks ago, so have nothing much to report. As well as the Olympics absorbing a lot of time (you think you’ll only watch a bit and then you can’t tear yourself away) there’s a load of vegetables and fruit coming out of the garden that have to be harvested, cleaned and stored.

The book of essays by Joseph Epstein mentioned by Bill a while back also continues to entertain. One on Auden sent me off to look at several of his poems. At the moment I’m some way into his 30-page Letter to Lord Byron, which is written in the style of Don Juan – jocular in tone, wacky rhymes, and lots of contemporary references, except he has stanzas of seven lines rhyming ABABBCC, instead of eight rhyming ABABABCC, claiming implausibly that while ottava rima would be proper he himself would come a cropper. Early on he says he couldn’t decide whether to write to Lord B or Jane A:

But I decided I’d give a fright to
Jane Austen if I wrote when I’d no right to

And goes on

Then she’s a novelist. I don’t know whether
You will agree, but novel writing is
A higher art than poetry altogether
In my opinion, and success implies
Both finer character and faculties.
Perhaps that’s why real novels are as rare
As winter thunder or a polar bear.

Which shows that light verse can be thought-provoking even when not meant very seriously.

Bill wrote: "Walz was interviewed by Ezra Klein last week. In answer to a standard Klein closing question, he recommended 3 books:..."

Thanks for all the info, Bill. The range of his three recommendations is quite impressive.

Paul wrote: "Okey-doke, did anybody have Walz in the Veep betting pool?"

No, but I do quite like what I’m reading about him - a geography teacher, football coach, 24 year volunteer in the National Guard, married 30+ years, two children, not a single investment in stocks or bonds, not even a house any more (sold when they moved into the Governor’s mansion), just their two teacher pensions, life insurance, and a college saving plan. He sounds a very regular, stable guy. But… no word yet on his reading preferences.

Gpfr wrote: "@scarletnoir + of course anyone else who is interested!

I'm reading a book called Les chemins intimes. Ten writers have written about their childhood, where they're from, or other memories..."

I'm interested! Sounds like a good way in to contemporary French writers, where I feel very much adrift.

It also reminds me of a collection of short pieces called My Country Childhood, all first published in Country Living magazine. Mostly by writers, but others too. Enchanting.

Berkley wrote: "Any opinions on Ronald Frame? I saw one of his books the other day and was thinking of giving him a try."

There's one of his called Merlewood in The Oxford Book of Scottish Stories, and I thought it was outstanding. It was the first of his I had come across, so if you find others to recommend I would definitely be interested to hear.

We’ve had a 9 year-old grandniece staying with us for the last week, her first longish time away from home on her own. You forget how much attention children need! But she was completely charming.

In consequence I’ve been reading only when I could snatch ten minutes.

The Journal of Anaïs Nin has actually got better. It suddenly woke up when the scene shifted from Henry Miller to the psychoanalyst’s couch. Her clear-eyed view of the process itself, and her own vulnerabilities, make her much more sympathetic. She likes to analyse the analyst.

I’ve pushed on with Craig Brown’s Ma’am Darling. Princess Margaret continues very un-sympathetic. A sad tale of a discontented life. In the first half the only bit of surprising news is that she was enthralled by Richard Holmes’ biography of Coleridge.

I’ve enjoyed the opening chapters of To the Finland Station. I've realised that pretty much everything I ever knew about Vico and Michelet I learned from this book. Shorter sections on Renan and Taine were good value. On now to Anatole France, which I should be able to appreciate better than before, as I have read some of his books in recent years (a memoir of his life, a couple of the novels). The connection to Communism seems a bit distant, though you can see where Wilson is going – a new approach to history which is socially organic, not just a record of the deeds of great men.

AB76 wrote: "Amazing how the Joan Sales novel i am reading has gained no traction, scarlet mentioned a similar situation related to Percival Everett on the G..."

Maybe no comment, but always read with interest, AB.

Robert wrote: "I'm off to the hospital to get a new knee..."

Good luck from me too. It's amazing these ops are now more or less routine. A friend here who just had a knee done was up and walking after one day, abandoned the cane after the second day, and hopes to get back to his golf.

Thanks, Tam. I've got a message ready to send you but I think you have to respond to my "friend" request first - the old one disappeared along with everything else.