Books! What are you currently reading or just finished?

[astrid]

I’m saving Wind-Up Bird for last, I’ve heard such great things about it. The Rat Trilogy seems so cool too, I think I’ll start that for my next Murakami. What were your thoughts on Kafka on the Shore? It impacted me a lot and I’m interested in hearing what others think about it.

I see him around all the time! Any specific recommendations from his work? That exact feeling is what I can’t get enough of and so far Murakami has been the only person I’ve read who really gets it. I’m dying for more.

[rklem]

I liked Kafka on the Shore a lot. His more recent books are a mixed bag though. Some felt just too long and repetitive to me – sometimes even a bit kitschy (1Q84).

On Paul Auster: When you go to a book store and ask for a good entry point they usually recommend The New York Trilogy – which isn’t bad, but a typical early work, not as subtle and elegant as everything he wrote afterwards. I’d recommend to start with The music of chance (a novel) or The book of Illusions.

[astrid]

I get that. I enjoyed 1Q84 a lot but some parts were way kitschy (and long). I’ve heard many many bad things about Killing Commendatore (and everything else post Kafka, really) but I’m interested in it all.

Cool! I’ll check them out next time I’m working (at a bookstore!). That all sounds great.

[stolmine]

Just finished Fanon’s Wretched of the Earth a couple days ago. Full of convincing arguments and some more tired ones, especially about the lumpenproles! It’s hard to find anything these days with as much rhetorical style, bombast, and intent. He reframes nationalism in ways I had never considered.

Gotta finish up Ronell’s Crack Wars now and then move onto The Bloody Chamber by Angela Carter. Also thinking about breaking edge on my Murakami hiatus. I think I’ll go for Blind Willow Sleeping Woman.

[sellanraa]

I enjoyed Killing Commendatore. Thought the Colorless title was the weakest recent Murakami, but I also enjoy the slightly more fantastic and surreal side of his writing.

[astrid]

Fanon is heavy duty, can’t believe how spot on he can be sometimes. Also that Murakami collection has Birthday Girl which is my favorite piece of fiction I’ve ever read.

[astrid]

From the summary, it sounds like KC really goes for the hardcore surrealism (which I also enjoy). Colorless sounds good if you’ve read his other stuff and are just riding with him, but I could see it falling flat.

[_greathorned]

Paddy Scannell’s Media and Communication

[bassling]

This is wonderful kids book about Erik Satie.

Reading about him just now, I gather the truth is even stranger, but I like how the moral of the story is that eccentricity can excuse an obnoxious arsehole.

[hyena]

i just discovered i love Roberto Bolaño’s narrative (i know i’m very late!!! a friend told me about him 10 years ago but one reason or another i never read his stuff before). now i’m completely sucked in! i started with 2666 and now i’m devouring the third novel by him in a month, i just can’t get enough! i love how he’s able to jump from a register to another, i love his obsession for long lists (city streets, poets names, details of murders, whatever) but especially i find his ability to paint feelings and wandering thoughts in a way i can totally relate to! great taste for irony and tragedy intertwined.
<3

[tehn]

free e-book for the next couple days: https://www.versobooks.com/books/3065-how-to-be-an-anticapitalist-in-the-twenty-first-century

so much love for this:

from perhaps a new favorite press, ignota

holding this book, reading outside, felt like casting a powerful spell.

[xidnpnlss]

@tehn

free e-book

Wonderful. This was on my list based on your recommendation.

[hardworking]

2666 is really something. Loved the sense of answers to the mysteries being just out of reach and never quite coming into focus across the different narratives.

[slowsounds]

some recent summer stuff…

Spectres II from Shelter Press. maybe I’ll go back to it, but overall this was super disappointing. despite it having a lot of artists I really admire or are interested in everything is super short and never really gets into anything very deep. most of it read like surface level remarks or notes on process mixed with grant writing. Corsano’s piece was the strongest for me- I actually felt like I walked away from it with something new both to think about in general and about his own work, and despite it being written also like spitballing ideas (more deliberately than some others) I found the writing much more compelling.

Rolf Julius - Small Music (Grau). Finally got a copy of this one, and am super glad I did. A lot of great photo documentation, drawings, writing, others writing on Julius. Its a shame this one isn’t easier to find because I think reading Julius’ writings here give a lot of nice insight into his ideas and process and this is really the best publication on his work I’ve found. despite picking up every CD, essay, exhibition catalog, etc I can get my hands on over the years I felt like I still got something new from this book. even his project proposals are poetry. while the photos are all black and white its a much nicer and more in depth look over the Museum Bochum book which is more easily available.

Blank Forms #3, Freedom Is Just Around The Corner. I’m generally super psyched to see Henning Christiansen’s work having gotten a lot more exposure over the last few years and its great to have new recordings and work documentation available and translated, so I had already been meaning to pick this up for a while. While there is some really nice insight here and I did learn a lot, on the whole the journal fell into the problem I’ve had with a lot of music and art books that aim to be deep diving and comprehensive, particularly on single artists - it got super repetitive and boring. While new information and anecdotes and lots of interviews with Christiansen and others do provide insight, a lot of the same anecdotes or stories or works come up over and over again. Sometimes when a work is really formative or important it can’t be avoided, and while providing resourced is great it is really hard to strike the balance between when another interview or essay is going to provide more depth or when its going to just be superfluous repetition even if it is from another perspective and wouldn’t be of much use to anyone who wasn’t writing a dissertation who would then selectively choose what information to actually pass along. I got a similar feeling when reading the SF tape music center book for example- you start excited to get new pieces of the puzzle on something you are really interested in and by the time you are done with it you feel more like its time to leave it on the shelf and take a break for a bit rather than being excited to revisit or go further in to that work.

[pftjschute]

2666 whips so much ass oh my god. I got a copy in Spanish and I’ve been meaning to do a parallel reading.

[Kheone]

Recently finished:
Colin Dickey’s The Unidentified
Alexandra Horowitz’s Inside of a Dog
Octavia Butler’s Dawn.

Currently reading:
Arkady Martine’s A Memory Called Empire
Monica Gagliano’s Thus Spoke the Plant

[bobbcorr]

I’m reading Harrow the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir, which is terrific. It’s also written in the second person, and it’s quite challenging, which means it’s a slow ride. But it’s still terrific.

It’s the sequel to Gideon the Ninth, which was a ball.

[Angela]

Alexandra Horowitz is a funny name for a dog.

[Loitering]

Just finished this:

Never thought of myself as much of a Warhol fan, but he was an incredibly fascinating character and pretty much had his finger on the pulse of everything. I basically spent the past week reading this and annoying my wife with Warhol factoids.

Now onto this:

I’ve always been a sucker for mid-century European intellectual history…

[Whinger]

I’m rereading The Illuminatus Trilogy by Robert Anton Wilson And Robert Shea, which I haven’t read since just after high school. There’s SO much I didn’t understand when I read it the first time as my knowledge of history was appalling. Now it’s just bad, so I’m getting quite a bit more from the read. Super fun, kind of like the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy for conspiracy theories. It is very much a product of the 70s.