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What Are You Reading

Harp

I'll Lock Up
Messages
8,508
Location
Chicago, IL US
carebear said:
Read "Actual Innocence" (Scheck, et al) for my Justice seminar. If you still have any trust or faith in the death penalty process as currently administered in the US, the book is worth a read.


You might read David Melinkoff's The Conscience of a Lawyer.
Common law right, murder, and the burdens placed upon defense counsel.
 

John Boyer

A-List Customer
Messages
372
Location
Kingman, Kansas USA
On What Cannot Be Said: Apophatic Discourses in Philosophy, Religion, Literature, and the Arts, Volume 1 by William Franke. A remarkable and rather ingenious anthology of poetry and prose exploring the impasse of words before silence: from Plato to the present.

Gravity & Grace by Simone Weil on loan from fellow lounger, Harp. A collection of reflective experiments and arguments Ms. Weil made to herself from her Notes, written at the onset of WWII: "a great soul that might have become a saint" and "the Outsider as saint, in an age of alienation."

John
 

"Skeet" McD

Practically Family
Messages
755
Location
Essex Co., Mass'tts
One of the most remarkable books I've NEVER HEARD OF....

A friend lent me his copy of Jan Potocki's THE MANUSCRIPT FOUND IN SARAGOSSA....which, apparently, is the novelistic masterpiece of Poland...circulated (and seemingly written, in bits) in both Polish and French, it has been available in an English translation only for about a decade. I'd never even heard the title, much less knew anything about it.

Written by an noble adventurer/polymath who was also....slightly mad, it seems....the book is a set of tales set within tales set within tales....people telling a story of a story in which people are telling stories, and divided into 66 days; this is very much in the class (and league) of the Decameron and the 1,001 Nights. The material is a very racy mix of the erotic, the supernatural, crypto-Jews, Spanish Muslims, the Knights of Malta....oh, yes: gypsies--this is a book created within the same milieu that gave us the Hellfire Club. Ah! the 18C! The author committed suicide (probably; not much seems to be provable about Potocki), possibly with a silver bullet he fashioned out of the knob of his teapot. It would spoil the fun to tell you whether or not the work got "finished"....but I will tell you...it doesn't matter.

An astoundingly good read.

"Skeet"
 

Slate Shannon

One of the Regulars
Messages
105
Location
Nearer to here than to there
[QUOTE="Skeet" McD]A friend lent me his copy of Jan Potocki's THE MANUSCRIPT FOUND IN SARAGOSSA....which, apparently, is the novelistic masterpiece of Poland...circulated (and seemingly written, in bits) in both Polish and French, it has been available in an English translation only for about a decade.[/QUOTE]

I read this many years ago, and it is a strange and weird book. It has been available in English for more than a decade, however. My copy is from 1960. I did enjoy it, by the way.
 

Harp

I'll Lock Up
Messages
8,508
Location
Chicago, IL US
[QUOTE="Skeet" McD]A friend lent me his copy of Jan Potocki's THE MANUSCRIPT FOUND IN SARAGOSSA....which, apparently, is the novelistic masterpiece of Poland...circulated (and seemingly written, in bits) in both Polish and French, it has been available in an English translation only for about a decade. I'd never even heard the title, much less knew anything about it.


An astoundingly good read.

"Skeet"[/QUOTE]


Will give this a go, Skeet. Thanks.
Bye-the-bye, ever read Flann O'Brien's At Swim Two Birds?
I believe O'Brien ranks with Joyce and Beckett.:)
 

carebear

My Mail is Forwarded Here
Messages
3,220
Location
Anchorage, AK
Harp said:
I'd send it to you but I gave my volume to a One-L.
I believe The Conscience of a Lawyer is a Westlaw publication.

I looked on Amazon, looks like it is out of print but used copies are available. I'll track it down.
 

"Skeet" McD

Practically Family
Messages
755
Location
Essex Co., Mass'tts
Grá mo chroi, mo cruiscín.....

Harp said:
Will give this a go, Skeet. Thanks.
Bye-the-bye, ever read Flann O'Brien's At Swim Two Birds?
I believe O'Brien ranks with Joyce and Beckett.:)

Dear Harp, Yes, I have: a grand read. It's been a few years, however....I should really have another crack at it and refresh my memory. As you know, I'm quite a Joyce fanatic, Beckett less so, by a good deal....Myles et al. fits solidly in between, but MUCH closer to JJ (which would please him, I think...). The Dalkey Archive: now, that's a fave...

You will surely enjoy the Potocki! Tell us all what you think...

"Skeet"
 

carebear

My Mail is Forwarded Here
Messages
3,220
Location
Anchorage, AK
Finished up Dan Brown's "The Terror" after putting it down for a bit.

Not sure about it, liked the historical part of the fiction at least.

Back to school books for a bit.
 

Ledfeather

New in Town
Messages
41
Location
Portland, OR
what do you read, or what are you reading?

i generally read neo-noir (i suppose thats the best term for it. guys like
-craig clevenger
-will christopher baer

i also am into literary fiction. i realize classifying this gets into murky religious type arguments about what it actually is and is not... so i wont be doing that, unless it's brought up. names like:
-stephen graham jones
-tom spanbauer
-katherine dunn
-irvine welsh
-peter rock
-chuck palahniuk
-karen novak

to name a few.

im currently reading "pygmy" by chuck palahniuk
 

High Pockets

Practically Family
Messages
569
Location
Central Oklahoma
:) Hello,.....just stopped in for a lead or two on a good book,.....I'm in the middle of a great biography by Marshall Smelser; The Life That Ruth Built.

Read three Ty Cobb biographys last winter,.....Frank Sinatra's next on the list!:)
 

billysmom

One Too Many
Messages
1,244
Location
Fort Worth, TX
I've just about finished Douglas Brinkley's The Wilderness Warrior: Theodore Roosevelt and the Crusade for America. Great TR biography concentrating on his conservation efforts from childhood on. It's a different perspective from the usual Kettle Hill, Panama Canal, Nobel Peace Prize stuff, although they all play a part.

Sue
 

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