#580

In the middle of “White Noise” by DeLillo. Stumbled on a cool little bookstore in the city called Bluestockings (I think) and wanted to support so I picked up an intriguing short story collection by Calvino called “Cosmicomics”. Not SUPER knowledgeable about his work beyong the few I’ve read but something about the premise seemed really unique. The stack grows bigger.

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#581

this kind of thing used to bore me to tears as a younger person. now it seems invaluable on quite a few levels.

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#582

Both of those are on my list. Keen to hear your thoughts when you get down to them!

#583

Cosmicomics is amazing. Not exaggerating when i say that parts of that book were breathtaking!

#584

I’m rereading White Noise right now. Def. one of my favorite novels. I’m finding this time that it’s more and more relevant to my life and our contemporary world. In addition, most of the book is laugh out loud hilarious. Just brilliant. Delillo’s run from White Noise to Mao II to Underworld is unstoppable.

The Quietus had a great reevaluation a month or so back: http://thequietus.com/articles/24105-don-delillo-white-noise-essay

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#585

Been re-reading the John Cage books I was obsessed with in my younger years in an attempt to get myself out of a rut.

Also picked up Selected Letters of John Cage which is endlessly adorable.

Other stuff:
The Banquet Years: The Origins of the Avant-garde in France 1885 to World War 1
Staying with the Trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene by Donna Haraway (love her)
Anne Boyer’s Garments Against Women (amazing)

And the W/ manual so many times I should have it memorized by now :smile:

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#586

also love Haraway and will be reading that one soon/next. I believe her essay in the collection I posted above (cannot recommend it enough) is from that book. (coincidentally Haraway was also the inspiration for the latest thing I posted in the Cold Mac thread)

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#587

Thank you for posting this, it looks like we’re in the same boat : these days I find myself reading everything Horace has ever written…
If you’re particularly interested in Ethics, I suggest that you have a look at Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics (in case this book hasn’t caught your attention yet).

#588

Oooh will be checking that out. In the same vein, you might be interested in Anthropocene or Capitalocene. It also has a Haraway excerpt. I’ve only read the Eileen Crist essay so far (cited in the Haraway).

Now to find your Haraway inspired Cold mac post, which has me intrigued. Love cold mac.

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#589

right on! i’ll dig into that one, haven’t read it…my main interest in his letters on ethics is the vein of stoicism, so seneca, epictetus and the like.

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#590

Ah, White Noise is such a beautiful and eternally relevant dissection of waning Cold War era academe and suburban ennui. The former theme is particularly resonant for me as little has changed in that environment since. I have to say, though, that Underworld will always be the top of DeLillo’s body of work for me: Every year since picking it up I’ve re-read the introductory section “Pafko at the Wall” prior to Opening Day.

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#591

i delight in this volume and the couple others that are out there of Duchamp interviews. highly recommended, remarkably easy fun reads

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#593

yes :slightly_smiling_face:
from p47 -for me the number three is important, but simply from the numerical, not the esoteric, point of view: one is unity, two is double, duality, and three is the rest. when you’ve come to the word three, you have three million-it’s the same thing as three. m.duchamp

#594

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#595

I am reading Gnomon by Nick Harkaway. It is sprawling but a lot of fun.

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#596

I’ve had this on my to read list for a while… I have had a copy in the house for 5 years?? ( since it came out)

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#597

If you like this sort of thing, I can really recommend The Wake by Paul Kingsnorth.

Written in an “imaginary language”, a kind of hybrid between Old English and Modern English, it tells of “Buccmaster of Holland”, an Anglo-Saxon freeman forced to come to terms with the effects of the Norman Invasion of 1066, during which his wife and sons were killed. He begins a guerrilla war against the Norman invaders in the Lincolnshire Fens.

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#598

Looks great, thanks for the recommendation!

#599

Been looking at some post-modern texts for my dissertation and went through a little bit of Baudrillard’s “The System of Objects.” Surprisingly accessible reading (start with this before getting into his simulacra stuff) and super interesting for those into material culture. I needed a break from his simulacra stuff.

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#600

Baudrillard is sooo entertaining.

A friend was telling me about some philosopher card game where the Baudrillard card is like a trump card to shut down the game. But the other players can vote to just ignore Baudrillard and keep on :joy:

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