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Yo, I just read this excellent interview:

https://www.theparisreview.org/intervie ... lice-munro

but have never read anything by Alice Munro...
What's a good one to start with?

I thought I’d give one of the Dune Brian Herbert books a crack and I’m reading The Butlerian Jihad…

Not good. I’ve almost packed it in twice but I’m almost done so… the writing is terrible, the origin stories of lots of stuff from the Frank Herbert books is clunky and most of the characters are idiots.

Shame.

I’ll probably read another one

Gravity’s Rainbow again. I’ve read it more than a few times over my life and always think I would benefit from looking up a chapter summary or something on the side, but instead I just let it wash over me like poetry. Have always loved Pynchon’s writing.

Epp, S. Discrete Maths and its Applications. Fifth edition.

I am teaching discrete maths to our new masters cohort and I want them to have a good textbook on which they may rely. Epp’s is pretty good! Making sure my notation matches hers. There is more variation across maths and logic symbols than one might expect.

Oksana Zabuzhko : Fieldwork in Ukrainian Sex

Swift and hurried, in constant movement. I'm into that part, but not so much the content itself. Something about this always makes it sound distanced and artificial, to the point where the observations on the self-image and historical consciousness of Ukrainians don't arouse much interest either, it all kind of flattens out. "Academic" is the best way I can describe my impression.


Serhiy Zhadan : Anarchy in the UKR

Just finished. Read alongside the former, this too is a text in movement, and I like it better. A guy is hiking around the country by train and we get a series of snapshots of locations and situations that are quite effective at evoking sights of places I have never seen and for which I have no clear references in previous imagination.


Serhiy Zhadan : The Orphanage

Just started. It's good. Similar thing here with the environments.

About to start:

Book two of the Valis trilogy (can't recall the name right this minute) and Living Pictures by Polina Barskova.

The latter I thought was short story fiction when I bought it but turns out it's essays. That's cool.

I’ve been working my way through William Gay’s output. Gritty southern gothic fare, like McCarthy’s Suttree. When I’m not reading William Gay, I’m reading Jim Harrison.

There’s a great author here in Central TX named James Wade. He’s a younger fellow who wears his influences on his sleeve, but seems to be settling into his own voice. He also writes in the southern gothic tradition. I recently burned through his three books, and I’m looking forward to his new one. I hung out with him one night a few years ago, just before his first book came out. He told me he found writing to be very easy. If he can easily turn out books that good, I expect he’ll have a long and lucrative career ahead.

I read the Nomeansno book last week. I wasn’t aware of Rob’s breakdown and burnout toward the end of their existence, as well as the less-than-amicable nature of Andy leaving the band and Rob’s longstanding grudge.

August Strindberg : The Red Room

Boring.

Goliath by Matt Stoller. Fantastic so far. Traces the history of monopoly power, and the fight against it that we’ve been losing for a very long time. Some unbelievable characters and some unbelievable behavior.

I just finished this.

https://shop.posterhouse.org/decolonizi ... ebook.html

I wanted a lot from it, and it gave me none. A shame.