started this one last night

Just finished this gem. A good read. I miss Guy Clark.

Finished this last night, which was the last of the Red Sparrow trilogy. Very entertaining, I really enjoyed all 3 books. Haven't heard great things about the Red Sparrow movie, which comes out on Friday.

Haven't gotten my hands on Kremlin's Candidate, hopefully it won't be much longer. Loved the first one, really liked the second, looking forward to the third. Looking forward to the movie, too. C'mon, it's got Jennifer Lawrence. How bad can it be?

Clams wrote:

How is this? I read The Free and Motel Life and didn't find either to be anything particularly special. If these were written by someone NOT in a band I really like, I'd be even less impressed. I'm not saying they were awful books, just pretty average. I think the stories he's trying to get at are good and worthwhile, I just don't think the actual writing is up to the ambition.

whatwouldcooleydo? wrote:

Clams wrote:

How is this? I read The Free and Motel Life and didn't find either to be anything particularly special. If these were written by someone NOT in a band I really like, I'd be even less impressed. I'm not saying they were awful books, just pretty average. I think the stories he's trying to get at are good and worthwhile, I just don't think the actual writing is up to the ambition.

I haven't gotten to Don't Skip Out yet but I've read everything else and really like his writing. Sparse prose and gritty scenes are my bag. Lean On Pete is my personal favorite.

Beebs wrote:Sparse prose and gritty scenes are my bag

Totally with you there, just feel with Vlautin it's a "reach exceeds grasp" kind of thing. Or, in case I mangled that, I like where he's trying to take me, but don't really dig the car he's driving or the route taken

But as always, what the fuck do I know?

Take my advice, don't listen to me

I've been spending some quality time with this one, one of my very favorite novels, and the best I know about our "strange little city":



Here's a little quote from Lafayette Thompson about Sonny Raymond, who really is not Tommy Robinson except in soul and spirit and heart (all of which they both lack):

Sonny gets ahead in life by doing things that would ruin a good man--paranoia, tyranny, an uncontrollable temper. Decent people can't stand him, the way you can't stand to look at a bad accident. And while the decent people avert their eyes, he moves up another notch. And you wonder how the hell a crazy man got so much power.

I've heard that about someone else. Can't think of who offhand. Anyways, it's a hell of a good book. A bit literary in ways that put some folks off. Not difficult but sometimes weird.

Beebs wrote:

whatwouldcooleydo? wrote:

Clams wrote:

How is this? I read The Free and Motel Life and didn't find either to be anything particularly special. If these were written by someone NOT in a band I really like, I'd be even less impressed. I'm not saying they were awful books, just pretty average. I think the stories he's trying to get at are good and worthwhile, I just don't think the actual writing is up to the ambition.

I haven't gotten to Don't Skip Out yet but I've read everything else and really like his writing. Sparse prose and gritty scenes are my bag. Lean On Pete is my personal favorite.

I'm only a few pages in so I can't speak for the new one, but I'm with beebs on this one. I think Willy is a pretty unique writer. I love his stuff.

Under The Western Sky, essays on Willy Vlautin writing and music. Well, I'm halfway through and well, it's a bit of a slog. Leave it to academia to find a way to make two things I love dearly boring and dry. I cannot forgive saying "unnamed man on a Greyhound" when referring to "5 Degrees Below Zero". Ray Thaves, it's literally the first two words of the song.

whatwouldcooleydo? wrote:

Clams wrote:

How is this? I read The Free and Motel Life and didn't find either to be anything particularly special. If these were written by someone NOT in a band I really like, I'd be even less impressed. I'm not saying they were awful books, just pretty average. I think the stories he's trying to get at are good and worthwhile, I just don't think the actual writing is up to the ambition.

I agree to a point. I enjoyed Motel Life for the most part. There were particular scenes where it seemed like he hit a gear that he is trying to hit the entire time but seldom can. It's been a while since I read it but two scenes in particular stood out to me. One where the older brother is meeting a guy at a casino. The entire thing is described perfectly. The other is the scene where he goes to see his former boss at a car lot. It's cold outside and overcast. The man's office is warm and heated by a propane heater. I am not trying to give much of a description but those two scenes were really well written to me in terms of painting a really clear picture.

Overall though the book was just alright. I generally dont like depressing books so if you want me to take that ride you have to make it worth my while with really interesting settings be they landscapes or otherwise and you have to give me really well developed characters that I can at least get to know even if they aren't particularly likeable (although likeability is a big plus there). He kind of seems like a guy who is almost a good writer but his short comings make him something of a one trick pony. Here are some characters that you don't learn much about. Their lives suck. A bunch of sad stuff happens. You are reminded that these people's lives suck. The end.

Lean On Pete is, imo his best work. I've thoroughly enjoyed every book he's written. His style and subject matter are just what I want in a book. The new one is good but not on the level of Lean On Pete or Northline. Also the Lean On Pete movie is supposed to finally be released April 6 or so.

last night i read goethe's the sorrows of young werther. quite liked it. the fact that it was told in diary form added some tension given i knew the outcome going in, and there were more than enough genuinely great passages to make up for the unintentional comedy of the whole idea of this guy deciding to kill himself because a girl doesnt love him back enough. the ending packed a punch even after rolling my eyes quite a bit leading up to it

im in the middle of michael nesmith's memoir, which has been pretty interesting so far, and just started andre gide's the immoralist

my last real english class was in high school and it focused on the basic batch of classics (shakespeare, jane eyre, etc) so theres quite a lot im missing. im trying to replicate my record store strategy of filling in holes based more on whatever jumps out at me on a library shelf than anything else. luckily theres a great one a couple miles from my house

Got this a few weeks ago, read it in a weekend. Now time to rewatch the show yet again.

rlipps wrote:Got this a few weeks ago, read it in a weekend. Now time to rewatch the show yet again.

I'm rewatching for the...fifth? sixth? time. Almost through Season 3 right now. I'll have to check this book out.

Shakespeare wrote:just started andre gide's the immoralist

this was excellent. really quick, and i wasnt sure how much i liked it as i went but ive been thinking about it a lot since i finished, and i think my main issue with it actually worked in its favor by the end, because it didnt get bogged down in sordid details like i thought the plot might.

one of my big hangups in reading is i want literature to hit me and stick like music can, so finishing a book and immediately moving on and putting it out of mind forever can make the whole process seem pointless (this is obviously silly, as theres nothing wrong with cheap fleeting entertainment in any media) so i'm quite happy to have spent a few days processing this one

started joan didion's a book of common prayer because i feel like ive read an embarrassingly low amount of writing by women and i want to correct this

If you want to combine women writers w/ mysteries/thrillers (perhaps a bit low brow for you lol), it's kind of a golden age: A small sampling would include Tana French, Karin Slaughter (on name alone, right?), Lisa Gardner, Meg Gardiner, Chelsea Cain (the Archie/Gretchen series ONLY; her more recent ones have been hugely disappointing).

not opposed to that stuff at all, thanks!

most of the female names i do know, even just passingly, skew much older, so it wont hurt to be a bit more up to date

the rough goal is to read a book by one female writer for every one male, at least until i feel like theres some variety in my mental bookshelf

a book of common prayer was decent. i felt it got a bit convoluted with two many characters but the dialogue was overall great and there were some nice little moments, including the ending. plot was a bit of a mess but that might have been due to the opening sectiond raggin a bit

last night i started john darnielles wolf in white van. i like his songs a lot but wasnt crazy about his latest novel. it was very readable but ultimately just a blur that didnt deliver on all the twists it aimed for. ive had this one from the library for too long so im hoping to also knock it out pretty quickly

for reading during baseball games i grabbed a bio on lincoln's history of chronic depression, which i dont know many specifics about yet. only one paragraph in but its interesting

rlipps wrote:Finished this last night, which was the last of the Red Sparrow trilogy. Very entertaining, I really enjoyed all 3 books. Haven't heard great things about the Red Sparrow movie, which comes out on Friday.

Just finished this and enjoyed it immensely. If it's not quite as good as Red Sparrow it's certainly in the ballpark and close enough that distinctions are probably just quibbling. While Palace of Treason is imho a slightly lesser work, the trilogy as a whole is fantastic and I highly recommend it to anyone w/ even the slightest interest in the genre AND to those w/ any interest in the current international situation, debates over the CIA's proper role and other intriguing political questions of the day. As to this book specifically:

1. I am astonished at how "ripped from the headlines" so much of the book is. I know that like everything else book publishing time lines have sped up, but parts of this book sound like they were written last week, especially the references to the N. Korean nuclear situation but also the Iran treaty, Putin's rape of Russia, Russian election meddling, general Trumpism as it relates to foreign affairs and competing worldviews & interests among the US, China and Russia. Not only is all this in the book, Matthews appears to be a very knowledgeable commentator and the book smacks of insider knowledge.

2. If the book has a weakness it's that Matthews has taken his score settling and personal views on CIA intrigue to absurd lengths. He REALLY beats up on bureaucrats, politicians, the White House, analysts, journalists and pretty much everyone who doesn't think that aggressive espionage is not the primary mission of the CIA including anyone and everyone who has the nerve to express moral qualms about any of the excesses. To a point, this stuff is interesting and again the insider perspective is invaluable, but he beats this dead horse so hard that it just gets plain boring and imho detracts from his overall credibility. OTOH, most of the fictional writing in this particular sub genre is much less favorably disposed to the CIA so it is a perspective worth hearing (for a while anyway).

But anything negative about the above pales in comparison to the quality of the book, the intricate, intriguing and satisfying plotting, the wonderful major characters and the trilogy as a whole. Again, I really enjoyed this one and the other 2 and I will miss these characters.

Clams wrote:

Finished this up last night. True to form, a thoroughly depressing Willy Vlautin novel. I'd probably rank this one below the previous four.

recently finished:

john darnielle - wolf in white van

much better than universal harvester. i was a bit apprehensive about its plot unfolding in reverse, since i felt UH kinda collapsed under its ambition despite his great skill as a writer, spoiling a nice premise with too many twists, but it worked in this case. even managed to deliver subtle twists here and there as it became more clear what happened in the beginning of the story.

meg wolitzer - sleepwalking

loved the premise of this (three college girls obsessed with suicidal poets) and it was well written but didnt feel deep enough. maybe it was intentional, as some sort of point about the main three girls being too into their chosen poets, but it felt like a missed opportunity. i didnt mind how predictable it was in general but the ending was far too rushed and kinda spoiled a lot of the development of characters.

john steinbeck - the pearl

really good, also quite predictable and a bit too heavy handed. much preferred of mice and men. love his writing though, at some point i'll get to his longer works

andre gide - the white notebook

this was basically the same concept as the sorrows of young werther, which i read recently and loved, but without a coherent longer form plot to tie it together. ended up reading as just miserable diary fragments. i love gide's writing, so it was still worth reading for that, just not what id hoped for. only ~70 pages but still a bit of a grind to get through

michael nesmith - infinite tuesdays

i started this like two months ago and set it aside cuz it lost steam when the monkees period wound down. breezed through the last half last night and as is usually the case with memoirs, my enthusiasm depended on my interest in the topic itself. monkees, rise to fame, first national band: hell yeah, tell me everything. christian science, video production and miscellaneous business ideas: next! he is a pretty good writer so it was never boring, i'll give him that.

last few days:

emma cline - the girls. 4/5.

really enjoyed reading this one and i think it did exactly what it set out to do extremely well, my only qualm is how closely it stuck to the basic structure of the manson story. it was "fictionalized," but all the key aspects were there, and it killed the suspense a bit for me as it unfolded. not a dealbreaker at all, because i dont think the killings were necessarily the most important part of the story here, but i would have come out much more impressed if shed shown a bit more imagination instead of retelling a story thats been told enough already, albeit in a vaguely fresh perspective. bit of a missed opportunity given how well executed the novel was overall.  the modern day scenes were a great touch and maybe should have been more of the focus.

stephen chbosky - the perks of being a wallflower. 5/5.

this wrecked me. maybe thats a cliche and maybe im too old for it but dang! it wasnt even like any of the characters spoke directly to me in full, but bits and pieces of each of them really hit me and the whole thing was flawlessly executed and left me in a bit of a daze for a while. i initially thought the format might turn a bit gimmicky after a while but that didnt end up being the case at all. im still unpacking a lot of things about this book in my head but one of my favorite things is how big a whirlwind the ending was, both in terms of its blunt impact and the pacing as it unfolded. after a few chapters it became clear that at some point it was going to go for some huge gut punch and when it happened it managed to be equal parts shocking and totally logical within the frame of the plot. i cant decide if i should ever bother with the movie, though chboskys close involvement does intrigue me.



joan didion - play it as it lays. 4/5.

id say i liked this more than book of common prayer but it still didnt fully land for me. however i read it in one sitting (with a pause to make dinner) and thought about it more in the days since finishing than i did while reading it, so its gotten under my skin anyway. i appreciated that the character web was a bit less convoluted this time, and the short chapters and generally sparse plot details really added weight. its almost certain i'll eventually find the didion book that blows me away

chip kidd - the learners. 2/5.

hated this. i was curious how it would land for me to read it now, because i read its predecessor (the cheese monkeys) in college and thought it was an incredibly sharp view of design school that worked as both loving and biting satire. it was set decades ago but so much of it rang true for me, both in its present scenes and the hints of the future. add the fact that kidd is a surprisingly adept writer and i think it was a book that could work even as more than an inside joke for art students. now im not in college and neither is the main character of the book, the only difference is he still loves all the piddly bullshit about graphic design. in many ways its the same book as the cheese monkeys, just with a postgrad setting, so i was probably doomed to hate it for all the same reasons i loved the cheese monkeys, but it just seemed really bad. this time it did seem like someone taking up writing as a hobby, not a job. it was never a grind to read but it felt generally overambitious and the various threads didnt come together 'till very late in the book, and its conclusion was clumsy at best. the portions based on the milgram experiments were most interesting, and i wish the book had focused more (or entirely) on that instead of trying to tie it into the design stuff and a baffling death scene.

This is pretty interesting. It explores loads of alternatives to the usual neo-liberal, i.e. current consensus, way of thinking about the economy. The big ideas are very interesting but I'm not sure I agree with all the detailed analysis presented.