Today I finished reading Free As In Freedom: Richard Stallman's Crusade For Free Software by Sam Williams. I enjoyed the book despite the mediocre writing and numerous typos.

Next on the list: Look Homeward Angel by Thomas Wolfe (it's been on the shelf for 2 years)

I just finished She Came To Stay - Simone De Beauvoire. Fuck. My heart and brain feel like they've just done a whirlwind tour of every emotion I ever used ever when it came to tempestuous love. Brilliant and just ending!

I'm gonna carry on with Huck Finn now.

and you know when you can't bear for the book to end? i was relieved for this ending to come. not in a bad way mind, it was just quite a painful experience.

Hoof.

Recently, I've struggled through 'Advertisements for Myself' by Norman Mailer. 'American Dream' is one of my favourite novels, but I couldn't get into this at all. It seemed like so much juvenile, navel-gazing shit, better kept for the diary. Oh, a fragment of your new novel, written on pot? Write the fucking novel then, and quit with printing this petty, petty bollocks. It's a shame, because hidden in there is clearly some damn good stuff ('The White Negro' is in there, for example) but it just seemed to get lost underneath Mailer's own belly.

Then I went for 'American Singers' by Whitney Bailiett. Bailiett died, a read an obituary that made him sound great, I bought this book of articles about jazz singers, I was pretty disappointed. I think it was too much at once - the articles were all kind of stylistically samey, so would have worked across several numbers of the New Yorker, but suffered lumped together in the one book. And Ray Charles comes across as a div - there is even a footnote, explaining that the descriptions of his father in this volume differ from Charles' autobiography because Charles was tailoring his answers to white folks. There are some good yarns in the book though, perhaps it's my fault for reading the whole damn thing in order.

After that was 'Humboldt's Gift' by Saul Bellow. I always forget how much I like Saul Bellow. I think I've read maybe four of his novels and each time has been a pleasure, yet I um'd and ah'd over spending £1.25 on 'Humbolt's Gift' a few weeks ago. Of course it was great and I enjoyed it immensely. This is a thought I use/abuse a lot but it was one of those books that you end up climbed inside of, with it all wrapped around you. I broke the paperback binding. I was enjoying it that much.

At the moment, I am halfway through 'The Short Stories of Mark Twain'. They're in chronological order. As far as the early stuff goes: he's a bastard. I laughed out loud - apologies, I LOL'd - at 'A Medieval Romance'. Without wishing to spoil it for anyone, Twain constructs this fantastically convoluted situation of trans-gender princes and at-risk duchies and lives - and then accepts that he's written everyone into a corner and hasn't got the first idea how they'll get out of this one. The End. Bastard! But, loveably so. I'm deeply enjoying these, and his themes and scope are expanding with age and making for a delicious read.

What's anyone else reading these days and nights?

I'm reading Confederacy of Dunces. It's gotta end soon because these character are driving me crazy.

daniel robert chapman wrote:
At the moment, I am halfway through 'The Short Stories of Mark Twain'. They're in chronological order. As far as the early stuff goes: he's a bastard. I laughed out loud - apologies, I LOL'd - at 'A Medieval Romance'. Without wishing to spoil it for anyone, Twain constructs this fantastically convoluted situation of trans-gender princes and at-risk duchies and lives - and then accepts that he's written everyone into a corner and hasn't got the first idea how they'll get out of this one. The End. Bastard! But, loveably so. I'm deeply enjoying these, and his themes and scope are expanding with age and making for a delicious read.

What's anyone else reading these days and nights?

Mark Twain is awesome, and I think most people remember him as the guy whose novels they were forced to read in grade school. He was genuinely politically rebellious, and some of my favorite writing by him are the columns and essays. He defended James Branch Cabell vocally (another favorite US writer of mine) in what was a pretty serious obscenity trial of the time.

I'm going back and reading some Buckminster Fuller. It's interesting, but kind of...well, you know. 'Timothy Leary-ish'. In a good and a bad way.

I've recently rediscovered Nelson Algren for the third time. Got the deluxe edition with essays and insights of The Man With the Golden Arm. Incredible stuff.

I admit to having read Fantasyland: A Sportswriter's Obsessive Bid to Win the World's Most Ruthless Fantasy Baseball League prior to my drafts this year.

I recommend it to those interested in the subject.

I did my bi-monthly re-read of John Woram's Recording Studio Handbook and I finally got down to reading The Mars Trilogy.

I finally got around to reading Kitchen Confidential and I loved it. It only further solidified my notion that Bourdain would be an ideal dining/drinking companion for a night on the town, no matter the town.

The past couple of days I've been trying to work my way through several back issues of Harper's and Wired, and I'm trying to decide which of these books to start next:


Stalingrad: The Fateful Siege - Antony Beevor (alex_maiolo, have you read this one?)

The Unfolding of Language: An Evolutionary Tour of Mankind's Greatest Invention - Guy Deutscher

The Children of Hurin - J.R.R. and Christopher Tolkien


Being an enormous Tolkien nerd, I'm obviously leaning toward the last one but I have to get to the bookstore to pick it up and the other two are already in hand.