general reading and book related things

[indiansummer]

no book's really any more important than another, is it? save for how important it is to you.

...to conintue the thought, you'll never actually know how important the books are to you until you've read them anyway.

so read what you like is probably the best way to go about it all

[linus]

having just read 'born yesterday' by gordon burn and as with every other book by burn been floored by it I was looking for a suitable thread to post this quote that burn uses in the book by the irish writer, john mcgahern:

the best of life is lived quietly where nothing happens but our calm journey through the day, where change is imperceptible and the precious life is everything

that might sound somewhat like it's lifted from one of those 'little books of calm' or whatever but in the context of mcgahern's life, his writing and where it appears and what precedes it in burn's book it knocked me a bit for six

is the quote facile? should life instead be all sound and fury? sturm and drang?

it appealed to me because as a chap blighted by inner tumult, having lived a life at best erratic, at worst thoroughly wasted, those words seemed to resonate

anyway, as you were... nothing to see here

[80sfan]

audible are doing a 'free trial' do-dah through a few sites/podcasts. here's one.

you sign up through the link on the page, put your card details in, download your chosen book, cancel within 2 weeks and all is dandy. you can keep the book once you've cancelled, 'cos it's like an mp3. or is an mp3, i don't know.

anyway, audiobook for no monies.

i've got the rise and fall of the third reich. it's 60 hours worth of book, so i am winning.

[crystalball]

I saw the Salinger trailer the other day and thought it was awful. Just, gah! Maybe I'm being over-protective.

[crystalball]

We haven't got a psychogeography thread, have we? I've just been reading this piece by Robert Lewis Stevenson over an over again and it's really great. It kind of touches on stuff I think about a lot - about my relationship with the surroundings I grew up in, and the place I chose as my adoptive home, and whether it all sort of reflects the way I see myself. And the self-effacing/self-indulgent nature of walking. Yeah. Anyway, it's lovelier than all those things. Here is it - it's worth a read: 'On the enjoyment of unpleasant places'.

[sweepingthenation]

Question arising from having finished writing a non-fiction book with a view to sale through Amazon's Kindle Direct Publishing scheme: what's the copyright situation on a self-published book that uses extensive attributed quotes from books, magazines and newspapers?

[noLooking]

Question arising from having finished writing a non-fiction book with a view to sale through Amazon's Kindle Direct Publishing scheme: what's the copyright situation on a self-published book that uses extensive attributed quotes from books, magazines and newspapers?

Publish, sit down and wait for all the writs to come in. Lucky you!
Only kidding, I'm not sure but I'd think the only thing you'd have to worry about was the books - if you do that kind of thing with poetry and song lyrics it costs a fortune.

[crystalball]

There's a programme on Ivor Gurney on BBC4 this coming Sunday that looks great. It's got his music in it and everything. Tears.

[noLooking]

Typed 'Soviet Union' into Sheffield library listings and came away somewhat bewildered. Can anyone recommend a good, reasonably balanced history of the Soviet era that I'm likely to find there?

[crystalball]

There's a programme on Ivor Gurney on BBC4 this coming Sunday that looks great. It's got his music in it and everything. Tears.

Sorry to go on about this - did anyone watch it? It was lovely. Bit sparse on poetry, maybe, but that last ever known photo of him, taken by his best friend while he was standing on the beach in Dover with his back turned, looking over the sea towards France, that really got me.

[humblebee]

There's a programme on Ivor Gurney on BBC4 this coming Sunday that looks great. It's got his music in it and everything. Tears.

Sorry to go on about this - did anyone watch it? It was lovely. Bit sparse on poetry, maybe, but that last ever known photo of him, taken by his best friend while he was standing on the beach in Dover with his back turned, looking over the sea towards France, that really got me.

No, missed that - have to see if I can find it on catch-up. Ta for the tip-off!

[Dan]

Some of you might be interested to know that all Verso books are half-price until 14th April. This is probably going to cost me quite a lot of money.

[michael]

There's a review here of that collection of Patrick Keiller essays "The View from the Train: Cities and Other Landscapes". One of the things it talks about a lot is the dérive,

"The idea that the dérive, an apparently aimless progress across cities and their environs, might in and of itself be destructive of a certain kind of urban space - the space commoditised by late capitalism - was intrinsic to Situationist practice and remains so for Keiller's project."

I was wondering what that means exactly. I don't have the collection but I have read "Imaging", the essay that features the North London line, where Keiller measures some of his excursions around London against the idea of the dérive. His examples aren't aimless but they do have unanticipated results. So a bicycle trip along Harrow Road towards Harlesden to look for a place seen from a train a few days earlier leads to him finding the place but also to him making his first film.

The dérive is a Situationist idea. Unfortunately Auckland Libraries' only copy of the "Situationist International Anthology" was due last September, so instead I looked at "Critiques of Everyday Life", which has this quotation from the anthology written in the late 1960's,

"slipping by night into houses undergoing demolition, hitchhiking nonstop and without destination through Paris during a transportation strike in the name of adding to the confusion, wandering in subterranean catacombs forbidden to the public etc - are expressions of a more general sensibility which is nothing other than that of the dérive."

In "Bedfont Court Estate", an essay in another collection, Nick Papadimitriou attempts to visit Perry Oaks, a sludge disposal works on the western edge of Heathrow Airport, but finds that it's become the building site for a fifth passenger terminal. Nearby he comes across the estate of the title, a group of derelict farmhouses. Papadimitriou doesn't mention the dérive but as with Keiller's examples there's an unexpected result, finding the building site and the estate, and this time there's also an element of entering a restricted space since there are trespass signs and airport security and he's detained briefly by armed police.

And that's as far as I've got. Now I'm going to have another look at the north London excursions in "SCARP".

[roundbitsofplastic]

I need to got shot of a bunch of things. I wsa gonna eBay a load of books but I figured no one's actually gonna search for them on eBay cos who shops for books on ebay? Would anyone mind if I chucked a thread up around hrer with a list of what I'm getting rid of and suggested amounts?

[noLooking]

"The idea that the dérive, an apparently aimless progress across cities and their environs, might in and of itself be destructive of a certain kind of urban space - the space commoditised by late capitalism - was intrinsic to Situationist practice and remains so for Keiller's project."

Reading the article on Pulp earlier that I trailed elsewhere got me thinking about this post again, which rekindled an interest and motivated me to getting round to getting something about Situationism. As yet, I haven't read it (shamefully, 'The Hunger Games' trilogy is taking up much of my reading time), but Mckenzie Wark's 'The Beach Beneath The Street' has already proved it's worth, as the dust jacket folds out into this beautiful cartoon summation of the movement (apologies for it being a bit big, but size is required to do it justice).


It may well be a symbol of how shallow I am that I can only be drawn into a serious political book by some pretty pictures but sometimes you just have to face up to that reality.

[noLooking]

Just spotted this, which is on on Monday at 4pm on Radio 4:

"With Great Pleasure" - The novelist Jonathan Coe, author of The Rotters Club and What a Carve Up!, chooses the pieces of writing that have meant the most to him and inspired his own work.

His choices - including Lydia Davis, ee cummings, Henry Fielding and Thomas Hardy - are read by Eleanor Tremain and Peter Marinker for an audience at the Birmingham Literature Festival.

http://bbc-now.co.uk/programmes/b051ryq6

It was recorded last year, so you can't go and watch, but this sounds really good.

[crystalball]

Just spotted this, which is on on Monday at 4pm on Radio 4:

"With Great Pleasure" - The novelist Jonathan Coe, author of The Rotters Club and What a Carve Up!, chooses the pieces of writing that have meant the most to him and inspired his own work.

His choices - including Lydia Davis, ee cummings, Henry Fielding and Thomas Hardy - are read by Eleanor Tremain and Peter Marinker for an audience at the Birmingham Literature Festival.

http://bbc-now.co.uk/programmes/b051ryq6

It was recorded last year, so you can't go and watch, but this sounds really good.

That was good. Thanks Andy! Did you listen to it? Reminded me how much I love Lydia Davis. Heard it on catch-up and then got in to a Radio 4 programmes vortex until I hit a bad reciting of Louis MacNeice's 'Snow' and then silence.

[noLooking]

That was good. Thanks Andy! Did you listen to it? Reminded me how much I love Lydia Davis. Heard it on catch-up and then got in to a Radio 4 programmes vortex until I hit a bad reciting of Louis MacNeice's 'Snow' and then silence.

I did! It was good, I'd never heard Lydia Davis before, but I really enjoyed that. Always nice to be reminded of an old Flann O'Brien shaggy-dog story as well, especially one involving the Irish and drink (there probably isn't any other sort).

One thing I did think was a bit of a shame was that there wasn't an interviewer to draw him out on some of his influences a bit. But Radio 4 is always awesome, the best thing I ever heard in my entire life was last year, when some Tories took over 'Analysis' for the week to act genuinely mystified about why everyone hates them ("We're a persecuted minority", etc). Comic gold.

[crystalball]

Off to see Jon McGregor and some other people read short stories tonight. I've become the sort of person who goes along to literary events on their own and hides at the back and then walks around in the rain for an hour. You know the one. Should start taking a gin flask with me. And my friends.

[Trev]

Off to see Jon McGregor and some other people read short stories tonight. I've become the sort of person who goes along to literary events on their own and hides at the back and then walks around in the rain for an hour. You know the one. Should start taking a gin flask with me. And my friends.

If you ever need a 'buddy' for these kinda things - do hit me/char up......