Ersatz TLS discussion
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Weekly TLS
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What are we reading? 8/04/2024
Robert wrote: "AB76 wrote: "Robert wrote: "New books on display at the Auburn library. Harold Holzer's "Brought Forth on This Continent" tries to examine the American Civil War through the lens of American Immi..."
i think about 40% of the anglican clergy were USA born by the 1770s but as you say, they were defined as loyalists, so had to leave to, ending Virginias Anglican century(though they were fading every decade from the 1680s as a majority)
VA has many beautiful anglican churches from the 18thc still
so sad to see Handheld Press is closing, i'm not sure why, it seemed like a great success...
Another chapterChapter six in Crypt by Alice Roberts is a detailed essay about Henry VIII’s favourite ship the Mary Rose, the crew and their bones.
The ship was a carrack, a warship which usually had three masts and a high forecastle and sterncastle. It was built between 1509-11 and sunk in 1545 a veteran from other engagements.
Shortly before the Battle of the Solent the Mary Rose underwent some modifications and was loaded with extra guns. The French claimed to have caused the sinking with cannon fire ( fake news!) but it is thought that as the ship attempted to turn she keeled over. The gun turrets had been left open and she sank quickly. The deck was covered with netting to hamper any boarding attempt and this prevented many from escaping.
Roberts records several attempts to work out exactly how many men were on board. It is known that forty plus survived. The bone counting suggests that the ship was undermanned at around 300 and this might have been a factor in the sinking but equally some bones may have not been recovered.
The main attention for the chapter lies in analysis of the bones particularly the shoulder and arm bones and a study of the effects of archery.
Fnished The Fight for Manod by Raymond Williams(1979), i class it as a modern novel though its 45 years oldWilliams forecasts the incoming tide of neoliberal abandon and profit seeking well, in a novel that combines politics and storytelling with a distinctive Welsh border focus
A review remarks " “In such instances, Williams creates a fictitious example of the seamless alliance between state and capital that characterises Neoliberalism, where dividends and benefits are privatised, while the costs and risks are nationalised”
I really enjoyed reading this, i guess maybe cos it isnt really a modern novel..lol
i'm really suprised that i remember so little about The Comedians , as it was force fed to me in boring schoolrooms..unlike with Hardy, of which i remembered so much, despite an equally negative school force feeding, its pleasently like reading a new novel for me.It feels politically charged, dripping with danger, culturally fascinating and well plotted. Maybe at 16-17 i wasnt interested in all these things but i'm pretty sure i was, just the kind of novel i would want to read but maybe compulsion made me rebel
I have finished 'They Divided the Sky' by Christa Wolf. This is a book set in the 1960's in the GDR, and is a book about a relationship, between a young Rita and older graduate Manfred, and covers some of the themes of loyalty, both to a newly defined country, and loyalty within a romantic partnership, and how often that loyalty can be crushed, or distorted when some of those factors seem to contradict each other. I now feel that I have a pretty good idea as to what it must have been like to work in a GDR train carriage factory of those particular times. I can't say that I'm that much of a fan of the book. It has a light feel about it, too light perhaps? Shelfie, look away now, if you are still occasionally peering in to visit us here, on Ersatz TLS! ... They meet at a village dance, and fall in love, which seems to involve a great deal of nodding on Rita's part! Now I rather dispute that nodding is an intrinsic part of falling in love. But maybe I have lived a very different life (though I have worked in factories, in the 70s, that were not that dissimilar from the train carriage factory)... Anyway alas it put me in mind of nodding donkeys somehow, and I could not get rid of this image as I read through the book, so was never really able to believe in the romance. Still it gives a strong flavour of life in the GDR at that time, and work place allegiances, and disputes. I do much prefer Jenny Erpenbeck's 'The End of Days' take, on similar territory. She has a cold clear eye which I found refreshing, like a dose of salts somehow, and I had far greater belief in the motivations of the characters in her book.
News from 'the birds'... After more than 20 years or so, of totally ignoring the two mirrors in the back garden, a couple of blue tits have taken to having early morning 'rounds' of pecking at themselves in the mirror. This has gone on for well over a month by now. The mirror is well and truly fixed, and so would be quite hard to take down.
It is always in the morning, but most interestingly, to me, the two robins always come down to watch, and 'shrug', with a little bit of what could be called 'cackling' in 'robinspeak', as if they were attending a 'bread and circus' type event, and having a good laugh at, presumably, the idiocy of the blue tits that cant tell the difference between themselves and a rival stranger, one assumes for 'nesting' and 'breeding' reasons. Well hopefully they will get on with the breeding bit soon and no longer see the mirror as their own worst enemy!... It did make me think about how easy it is to delude oneself though...
And finally, I have finished my account of my 'Secular Pilgrimage' around Germany. Some here might remember the odd posting I put up here whilst on my trip last April, but mostly it's to say to MK that I really enjoyed her suggestion of a diversion to Tiepolo's ceilings in Würzburg. I doubt I would have gone there at all, without her encouragement, and also thanks to some here, and on WWAR, for their reading suggestions along the way. https://jediperson.wordpress.com/2024... I am now moving on to Patrick Leigh Fermor's 'A Time of Gifts'. Hopefully my reading will speed up a bit, as I have been a very slow reader for the last six months or so.
FrustratedArtist wrote: "Bill wrote: "I was just reading an article about Justice Stephen Breyer in the latest New Yorker and came across a single short paragraph that reinforced my idea that a taste for Proust requires so..."There were musical motifs in Waugh's work. Lady Metroland's name, for example, was a leitmotif for a kind of sophisticated (and costly) corruption.
Finally made it to France a day late after an overheating wheel (caliper problem) led to a delayed departure... which had a knock-on effect with our plumber delaying his planned work to replace the oil boiler with heat pumps until Thursday (it'll take at least a week). So no central heating or hot water for the moment... 
by Ross Macdonald - started in Wales, continued on ferry, finished in France... Although I would have bought this anyway, I especially wanted the edition with the cover image shown... nicely gruesome. It is not a Lew Archer story: the protagonist and first-person narrator in this case is Howard Cross, a probation officer. He gets involved in a case where the son of a wealthy couple is kidnapped, perhaps with the assistance of the chauffeur - who is on probation. Cross starts to look for his client, and to investigate...
An excellent noir novel with a really satisfying plot. As usual, Macdonald's prose runs smoothly with several outstanding passages. Now that I have read his biography, it's possible to see aspects of his own experience as a child and adolescent peeping through. The psychology of the characters is often based in lived experience - Macdonald didn't 'learn it in a book'.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GwyM9...
by Satoshi YagisawaWent on an adventure the other day - dared to go into the local bookshop for the first (or maybe second) time since peak COVID and browsed for a while. This one is another where the cover counted as much as the blurb to draw me in.
So far, so good - I'm enjoying it. A tale of a young Japanese woman, made use of by a cynical lover, heartbroken, gets to stay in her uncle's bookshop... and rediscovers a taste for reading. All good stuff - more when I finish.
scarletnoir wrote: "Finally made it to France a day late after an overheating wheel (caliper problem) led to a delayed departure... which had a knock-on effect with our plumber delaying his planned work to replace the..."You really aren't having much luck are you?
Mod
Other post-covid news. Today we had a visit from a charming bird called a northern flicker, a bit larger than a blackbird, with mottled brown plumage, strong red and black markings around its neck, and a long straight beak which it uses to dig about for ants and grubs. Before Covid we had enormous flocks of them walking about on the grass, and then they disappeared for four years, who knows why. This one is on its own for the moment, and rather watchful. I guess being head down on the open ground they can be a target for hawks and other predators.
Mod
I had to look up this charming bird — charming indeed!
Gpfr wrote: "Logger24 wrote: "Today we had a visit from a charming bird called a northern flicker ..."I had to look up this charming bird — charming indeed!
"
what a lovely bird!.. I hope they find a happy companion to keep them company. There is a rather sad article in the Guardian today https://www.theguardian.com/environme... about a sound recordist commenting on the loss of bird chatter and natural sounds like water in the brooks because of climate change/wild fires etc.
My favourites in the garden are the blackbirds, they are always having something or other to go on about, very noisily!... I have a tiny wren as well, but he/she is a very coy bird. We have had reports around here of birds imitating police sirens and car alarms... What an odd world we are heralding in...
Robert wrote: "There were musical motifs in Waugh's work. Lady Metroland's name, for example, was a leitmotif for a kind of sophisticated (and costly) corruption."I haven’t read Waugh (only The Loved One a very long time ago). Was he familiar with Wagner?
On the evidence of Richard Wagner and the Modern British Novel, the use of verbal motifs was used by a number of novelists of the previous generation as well.
The most Wagnerian novel I’ve read has been J R. In the dialogue that makes up most of the novel, speakers are often not identified directly, but through their use of idiosyncratic words or phrases that serve as Wagnerian motifs, their “calling card” in Debussy’s phrase. The transition between scenes is also handled in a Wagnerian manner: semi-impressionistic blocks of prose that begin in one place and mood and gradually transform in tone and setting to prepare the next scene, like the orchestral interludes in opera. Gaddis’ novel is mention in Wagnerism: Art and Politics in the Shadow of Music, but Ross doesn’t emphasize the extent of the Wagnerian influence.
Another Wagnerian novel is Anthony Burgess’ The Worm and the Ring, structured, as the title suggests, in imitation of the Ring tetralogy.
Tam wrote: "Gpfr wrote: "Logger24 wrote: "Today we had a visit from a charming bird called a northern flicker ..."I had to look up this charming bird — charming indeed!
"
what a lovely bird!.. I hope they ..."
we have a bird imitating a siren here, every April the call arrives and i kept thinking it was a tedious ringtone but it seems to be a crow or starling, like the one in Bicester on the news, with exactly the same call
scarletnoir wrote: "Finally made it to France a day late after an overheating wheel (caliper problem) led to a delayed departure... which had a knock-on effect with our plumber delaying his planned work to replace the..."gosh scarlet, how many black cats path have you crossed in last six months!
i saw your post on the rugby in the Guardian.....shame the welsh regions are not so strong in the European Cup anymore, i remember the Llanelli Scarlets being contenders at one time, last 8 of the tournememnt i think
I dont know if anyone else subs to paper versions of the literary magazines but i have a few thoughts on the "big three"NYRB- still remains the best, even if i dislike the new cover styles over the last 18 mths. Never seems to shrink too much, though it is a lot smaller than it used to be and is always a great read
LRB- patchier than the NYRB, less substantial and right now i have finished the April edition quickly, which happens too often, it is always finished before the 2 weeks have elapsed
TLS- shortest and only been subscribing for 5 weeks. its managed to fill the LRB hole but not sure i will go beyond my £12 for 12 issues introduction
I prefer print to digital and pay quite a lot for the NYRB and LRB but i feel the money is going less far than it used to
Thanks to all who commiserated with our misfortunes! Latest blow - the plumber had originally delayed the work until Thursday, but the builder (who also needs to be involved) can't come before 29 April! So, no central heating for another three weeks at least... Plumber promises to instal a temporary boiler on Thursday - no idea how or if that will work. In the meantime, we have been invited for lunch and a shower at our friend Anne's tomorrow. So we'll be clean for a day or two...Don't think I mentioned one absurd problem (but I'm tired and may have forgotten!) - an electrician was meant to turn up on Monday to upgrade the power supply so that we can run the heat pumps... but he went to the wrong house, and did the work there instead! It's annoying but also funny - he turned up today. I'm told the unfortunate, absent owner will be charged a higher rate! He will not be amused.
That is a lovely looking bird. Did they really disappear during COVID - or were there no humans to see them? Like the tree falling in the forest?
I continue to enjoy Days at the Morisaki Bookshop - it's pretty short, probably qualifies as a novella (not sure how short they have to be...) and expect to finish it tomorrow, sometime.
Mod
I had to look up this charming bird — charming indeed!
"
GP - Lovely pic, thank you.
Scarlet - Being at home more during covid, I'm sure I would have seen them. No explanation I can think of - unless it's the higher temperatures and they're stopping over somewhere further north.
Logger24 wrote: "Gpfr wrote: "Logger24 wrote: "Today we had a visit from a charming bird called a northern flicker ..."I had to look up this charming bird — charming indeed!
"
GP - Lovely pic, thank you.
Scar..."
I see that they are a relative, sort of, of the woodpecker that we have here. the lesser, (or greater?) spotted, or the green woodpecker. I have had a very occasional visitor in the back garden of the green woodpecker, but you have now explained to me why they are such a rare visitor, they eat ants! We have a 'mobile' nest in the back garden, of flying ants. You would never know it, apart from a lumpish bit of the lawn, until the one day that they hatch, and go flying, it seems when the temperature hits a certain degree, over a sufficient amount of time, and then all ant life breaks loose! But it only lasts for a day. One time the ant uprising coincided with our, then, at the time, annual BBQ. It was quite entertaining!
Anyway the rare visiting woodpecker, of the green variety, I have seen about 3-4 times in the back garden, in the last 30 years or so. They looked a bit like a tiny, goofy, version, though green, of big-bird, from 'Sesame street'!... Still treasured memories... at least to me...
by Satoshi Yagisawa (translated by Eric Ozawa)This short book comes in two parts: in the first, Takako (a young woman)* is suddenly told by her boyfriend that he is to marry someone else. This leads to a significant chagrin d'amour, and as a result Takako ends up staying at her uncle Satoru's second hand bookshop, where she gradually rediscovers her taste for reading - and for life.
In part two, Satoru's mysteriously disappeared wife Momoko returns after five years... she takes Takako on a trip to a sacred mountain, where she explains her absence.
I enjoyed this - it's an easy and pleasant read, decently written, with a nice feeling and some good lighter, humorous sections. I would not say that there is anything especially 'new' about either the story or the writing; for me, the novelty lay in the setting - the Jimbocho area of Tokyo is home to around 170 second-hand bookstores (according to the text), and a large fair is held annually with stands on the pavements. Sounds like fun! It's a book which should cheer up any reader, unless they are expecting 'more'.
The book also mentions a large number of Japanese authors, and iirc I haven't read any of them. The translator, in an afterword, usefully refers to those whose books may be easy to find in English - and a few who have yet to be translated.
I chose the book in part because of its cover illustration - I have linked to the edition I bought. Browsing is a dangerous occupation, but this time I don't regret the impulse buy.
*I have no knowledge of Japanese names, and in any case we don't know the narrator's at the point where 'she' writes on the first page: "One day, (my) boyfriend... suddenly blurted out, 'I'm getting married.'" This threw me a bit for a few pages, as I knew the author was male: was this 'boyfriend' bisexual? Was he about to enter into a gay marriage?" I was confused!
Do others lend books to friends? This question is prompted by our friend Michelle, who called around on Monday with a number of books for madame (they are all in French - I may attempt one or two if my other half gives them good reviews!)Anyway, Michelle said that she'd like some English books to read, so I went to look see what we have here in our second home. I'm reluctant to lend favourite books - sometimes they have not come back - but maybe I can trust Michelle? In the meantime, I dug out a few I don't want to hang on to, including the magnificently named ANOTHER BULLSHIT NIGHT IN SUCK CITY by Nick Flynn... but hang on? What is this? I have no recollection whatsoever of buying or reading this book (I have a good memory for books, if not much else). So, was it left by a visitor or did I buy it long ago, then forgot it on a shelf? I definitely haven't read it, so must at least give it a chance before it goes...
Mod
There are 2 time-lines, the present day and 1980. Lotte's father, a police officer was seconded to Amsterdam in the month leading up to the coronation of Beatrix when there were riots and general unrest. The events of that time have repercussions in the present.
De Jager's father was a police officer and had similar experiences of policing riots in Amsterdam at a slightly earlier time.
So far I've enjoyed this series.
This modern novel-phobe has just started Erasure by Percival Everitt, a novel 23 years old mind youI'm impressed straight away, i saw a review of the film in the TLS and as always decided to go for the book before i go anywhere near the film.,
It reads like a film in some ways, witty, conversational, quite modern and i hope it will lead me to more Everett novels, though still got a lot more to read. His latest book, Huckleberry Finn related looks interesting too
Mod
I see that they are a relative, sort of, of the woodpecker that we have here. the lesser, (or greater?) spotted, or the green woodpecker.,..."
So they are. We don’t have green woodpeckers in the eastern US. Like you I saw them in the UK on rare occasions, never a spotted. What we have instead are woodpeckers with strong black and white plumage, some quite large and some with a brilliant red crest. A baby one wrecked a bit of our deck furniture, an old tree trunk holding up a lamp, by gamely drilling a hole to make a nest inside. Cover that up and it drilled another, and so on. They’re not common but not rare either. We hear them out in the woods, the hollow knocking sound that carries so beautifully.
I read me one athem pulp crime novels that talkin about Mickey Spillane got me a hankerin after. Thisun was called Swamp Sister and its about a bunch of fellas an gals livin in the Louisana swamps. Seems like four years ago a plane crashed somewhere in the swamp and aint nobody can figure out just where. Now the fella on this plane was carryin a suitcase with a cash payroll of eighty thousand dollars which is why people down there are more than ordinary interested in this particular plane.
Right after it happened a city fella, Mr Ellis, showed up claimin he was from some insurance company and offerin people ten percent of the money ifn they find that plane and tell him about it. Now the folks down there aint real educated but theys smarter than Mr Ellis seems to think cause they can figure a hunnert percent of eighty thousand is a heap better than ten percent.
Well nobody has ever found that plane and some what went lookin fer it never came back outten the swamp. But now folks are saying that Shad Hark, whose brother Holly was one of those that dint come back, suddenly seems to have come into more money than he genrally makes trappin pelts.
What Shad nor nobody else around there knows is that before he went back to the city Mr Ellis gave Joel Sutt down to the general store a list of serial numbers from that there payroll money.
I guess I liked this here book pretty well, and I do believe it got me to thinkin about readin another crime book from this company Black Lizard.
Mod
We don’t have green woodpeckers in the eastern US..."
I see them in the cemetery near my home.
Gpfr wrote: "Logger24 wrote: "Tam wrote: "I see that they are a relative, sort of, of the woodpecker that that we have here. the lesser, (or greater?) spotted, or the green woodpecker.,..."We don’t have green..."
in the shires the woodpeckers have been more active than i can remember, flashes of green but most common are the hammering sound on bark, all through March and April
AB76 wrote: "This modern novel-phobe has just started Erasure by Percival Everitt, a novel 23 years old mind youI'm impressed straight away, i saw a review of the film in the TLS and as always decided to go ..."
By pure coincidence (or, maybe, the book is being given prominence in bookshops ATM), I bought this the other day at the same time as the 'Morisaki Bookshop' novel. I must admit that I bought it after having read a page or two of the brilliant introduction by Brandon Taylor (and - blushes - I'm not 100% sure that I realised it wasn't part of the actual book). Did you read that - is it in your edition?
I look forward to reading it in the next few weeks.
Bill wrote: "I read me one athem pulp crime novels that talkin about Mickey Spillane got me a hankerin after. Thisun was called Swamp Sister and its about a bunch of fellas an gals livin in the Louisiana swamps. Seems like four years ago a plane crashed somewhere in the swamp and aint nobody can figure out just where.
Sounds like a laugh! The author I think of in connection with Louisiana crime tales is James Lee Burke and his very good 'Dave Robicheaux' series. I've read loads of those - but after a while the plots seem a bit similar, with characters called 'Billy Bob' or suchlike, and the evildoers being rich guys living in antebellum mansions. Your plot summary does bring to mind his 'origin story' for Alafair, the daughter he adopts after a plane crash in the swamps (Burke's own daughter is named Alafair as well - and is also a crime novelist, among other things) - and another good thriller A Simple Plan by Scott Smith in which a plane crashes and some not too bright people find loads of cash and decide to keep it. This has been filmed - a good adaptation under the same title - and stars (this is almost too good to be true!) Billy Bob Thornton. :-)
Gpfr wrote: "Death in the Red Light District. This is the 7th in Anja de Jager's Lotte Meerman series about an Amsterdam-based detective.There are 2 time-lines, the present day and 1980. Lott..."
I think we are following one another G!
Bill wrote: "I guess I liked this here book pretty well, and I do believe it got me to thinkin about readin another crime book from this company Black Lizard..."I had a look at their list - I see that Black Lizard is a branch of Knopf (who championed the novels of Ross Macdonald); Knopf in turn is now a division of Doubleday.
The list contains a number of crime novels by authors who are either very good writers, or at the least capable of producing extremely effective page-turners. Apart from Macdonald, they have books by Chester Himes (black cops subject to racism in NYC); Carl Hiaasen (crime/humour set in Florida); Jo Nesbo (page-turning Norwegian writer); Raymond Chandler; Dashiell Hammett; Ruth Rendell (often excellent psychological thrillers); Dan Fesperman (good use of his experience as a foreign correspondent); and Camilla Läckberg (very effective tales often set in or around the Swedish resort of Fjällbacka - her home town).
You could do a lot worse!
Mod
I liked her Fjällbacka Series, but I hated the more recent The Golden Cage. To be more exact, I hated the beginning — I found it really distasteful and gave up on it very quickly.
scarletnoir wrote: "I had a look at their list - I see that Black Lizard is a branch of Knopf (who championed the novels of Ross Macdonald); Knopf in turn is now a division of Doubleday."I believe that, like many such subsidiary imprints, Black Lizard was once an independent or semi-independent publisher. My copy of Swamp Sister only has "Black Lizard Books, an imprint of Creative Arts Book Company".
I first became aware of Black Lizard in the 1980s: they were reprinting crime novels from the 50s and 60s in mass market paperbacks that kind of resembled the old 25 cent paperbacks sold in drug- and cigar stores (a format later embraced by Hard Case Crime). At that time their bread-and-butter author seemed to be the prolific pulp producer Jim Thompson.
Several years ago at a used book store I picked up a few fistfuls of Black Lizard editions in this mass market format. Many, like Swamp Sister, were reprints of Fawcett Crest crime paperbacks. None of them were "name" authors (like Hiaasen or Chandler) and none were translations. A few, like The Killing and I Wake Up Screaming, I knew about from the movie versions.
scarletnoir wrote: "AB76 wrote: "This modern novel-phobe has just started Erasure by Percival Everitt, a novel 23 years old mind youI'm impressed straight away, i saw a review of the film in the TLS and as always de..."
my edition has no intro, its a faber edition from 2021 sadly!
I've read the first few of Spillane's Mike Hammer books: over the top but fun and entertaining. I'll read the others when I get to that era - I think he took a break and came back to the character in the early 1960s? I don't think there's any point in comparing him to Chandler or Ross MacDonald, who were on another level entirely.Jim Thompson is of course one of the big names of the genre. I've been impressed with everything I've read of his, maybe five or six novels.
I have a Charles Hiassen book, Lucky You, but haven't read it yet. It was sent to me gratis once along with a John D. MacDonald book that I had ordered online - I was in the process of reading his Travis McGee series at the time.
I'm trying to catch up on some of the earlier crime classics before I get into the more modern stuff. The only contemporary crime writer I kept up with was Andrew Vachss, whose Burke series I enjoyed very much. That's one that should be read from the beginning as there are many references to previous happenings throughout the series. The first one is called Flood.
scarletnoir wrote: "The author I think of in connection with Louisiana crime tales is James Lee Burke and his very good 'Dave Robicheaux' series."I tend to think of Burke and Daniel Woodrell (whose Bayou Trilogy I have on my shelves, unread) as up-market versions of books like Swamp Sister, which shows a certain self-awareness of its lowbrow status. One of the minor characters is a novelist whose annual output alternates entries in two series of children's adventure stories with paperback crime thrillers, much as the author, Robert Edmond Alter, did during his brief writing life. In contrast to the authorial stand-ins created by writers like Stieg Larsson, he is, in addition to being a cuckold several times over, by far the most hapless, inept, and clueless character in the story.
Two new imprints from established publishers worth exploring are "Faber Editions"(i have an Emeric Pressburger novel from them on the pile) and "Dalkey Archive Essentials"Its good to see these rarer books re-published and also new translations of works that have maybe been translated before, Penguin have done well with some of their popular classics as do the ever reliable NYRB classics
Am looking foward to starting Brigitte Reimanns Diaries 1955-63 the first collection of her translated diaries by Seagull PressSomewhere i read recently a quote that what could be better suited for a diary than a young womans thoughts and feelings but i have forgotten the context. Unlike much of diary-journal reading i expect it may be a bumpy ride but there are many angles to look at the diary from. The East Germany of the 1950s, a young female writer, female perspectives on life and love etc
Translated diaries are still not common enough for me, especially in cultures where huge diaries over many years are kept but only a few hundred pages get translated.
It will be interesting to compare her with Christa Wolf, though i havent read any of Reimanns fiction yet
Mod
NYRB- still remains the best..."
NYRB – I used to enjoy stopping at our village library to read it every month. They have a comfortable armchair in a corner. Then it stopped appearing on the magazine shelf. I asked if they had had to terminate their subscription, or was it perhaps not much read. Turned out it was funded by an old gentleman who had now died. I said I would be happy to take that on. So the library has had it again for the last year or so, and every now and then they ask if I want to pick up a stack of back numbers which otherwise they would have to throw out. As a result I have a great pile of old NYRBs here, each turned back to some article I want to read and haven’t got to. I find there are at least two or three good articles in every issue that fall in my zone of interest.
LRB – Not seen this for years, and then recently we were over at the house of a writer-friend who subscribes and for some reason gets two copies. Would I be interested in the spare? Of course. So now I have two piles of back numbers I haven’t yet got to. It’s thinner but still has much of interest, e.g. a fascinating piece on the Venetian publisher Aldus Manutius.
TLS – I loved this when I was living in England but haven’t seen it for many years.
Logger24 wrote: "AB76 wrote: "I dont know if anyone else subs to paper versions of the literary magazines but i have a few thoughts on the "big three"NYRB- still remains the best..."
NYRB – I used to enjoy stopp..."
Interesting, especially the NYRB back issues, would love to be able to read some of those in a library in UK! I've been with NYRB since 2007 and LRB since about 2014
I'm debating about sticking with the TLS, its helped me this week with the LRB finished a week earlier (they do like random spaced out "holiday" issues with no extra pages or indication of the change in frequency)
Gpfr wrote: "scarletnoir wrote: "Camilla Läckberg (very effective tales often set in or around the Swedish resort of Fjällbacka - her home town). ..."I liked her Fjällbacka Series, but I hated the more recent The Golden Cage. .."
I haven't read that one. I like the Hedström and Falck series.
Bill wrote:"I believe that, like many such subsidiary imprints, Black Lizard was once an independent or semi-independent publisher."Very likely - smaller firms are always being swallowed up by bigger ones.
I had a longer look at their list and came across three more favourites - Walter Mosley (excellent series on black LA investigator 'Easy' Rawlins); Håkan Nesser (very good series with Inspector Van Veeteren - who later retires and takes up the ownership of a bookshop!); and James Crumley - wonderful hard-boiled author and Missoula-based lecturer at the University of Montana. Very good writing style; confusing plots!
Mod
I picked this up in Smith&Sons today, but on seeing the price put it down again quickly — 17.60!
At the moment I'm reading The Prey: spooky, snowy, Icelandic winter ...
I walked through the Palais-Royal, chilly weather but the roses are out.
WRT other authors mentioned - I like the two Jim Thompsons I've read, especially Pop. 1280. I should remember to read more.Carl Hiaasen - an interesting case - worked for many years on the Miami Herald, as well as writing novels. He is both less serious than many crime writers (the plots are often wildly improbable and comical) and in another way more serious than most (he writes satirically about many social and political issues). One book I especially liked dealt with the plastic surgery racket in Florida - Skin Tight
Mod
Is that the one with the small circular saw? Makes me laugh every time I think of it.
scarletnoir wrote: "WRT other authors mentioned - I like the two Jim Thompsons I've read, especially Pop. 1280. I should remember to read more."Way back when the early Black Lizard paperbacks were coming out, I read an excerpt from Thompson's The Killer Inside Me which impressed me and made me eager to read the novel. (At that time it was, I believe, the only Thompson novel in print not published by Black Lizard - the cover says "A Quill Mysterious Classic".)
The book failed to grab me the way the brief passage did, and since then I haven't read any more Thompson. But I wasn't at all sure that my lukewarm reaction was justified by the novel itself: it may have been more influenced by my own mood and circumstances at the time. So, I continued to accumulate books by Thompson when I found them at used book sales and now have quite a number, including Pop. 1280 (which was filmed, relocated to French West Africa, as Coup de Torchon).
Thompson was also the screenwriter on two early Kubrick films: The Killing and Paths of Glory.
Yesterday we had all the seasons in a day, strong winds, sunshine, heavy rain and hailAnd a neighbour called to tell me two of my ridge tiles were off!
giveusaclue wrote: "Yesterday we had all the seasons in a day, strong winds, sunshine, heavy rain and hailAnd a neighbour called to tell me two of my ridge tiles were off!"
its settled down a bit here...still not that warm for late April but i have counted about 7 storms since January and rainfall has been very high
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Ersatz TLS
Books mentioned in this topic
A Clockwork Orange (other topics)The Devil Prefers Mozart: On Music and Musicians, 1962-1993 (other topics)
Waltz into Darkness (other topics)
Alfred Dreyfus: The Man at the Center of the Affair (other topics)
Went to London, Took the Dog: A Diary (other topics)
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Authors mentioned in this topic
Deryck Cooke (other topics)Cornell Woolrich (other topics)
Stieg Larsson (other topics)
Jim Thompson (other topics)
Margaret Atwood (other topics)
Harold Holzer's "Brought Forth on This Continent" tries to examine the American Civil War through the lens of American Immigration. It i..."
Interesting. The senior Anglican clergy left Virginia after the Revolution, leaving a real gap.