What Are You Reading

[Harp]

A devil of a confusing read in the Latin, though.

Exegit monumentum aere perennius.
And Augie was a devil of a fellow....

 

[JazzBaby]

Just finished a book called Surreal Lives by Ruth Brandon. Never realised Salvador Dali was so, ahem, interesting. Just starting Hayden Harerra's bio of Frida Kahlo now, because I love the movie and it's mostly based on this book...

 

[Harp]

Just starting Hayden Harerra's bio of Frida Kahlo now, because I love the movie and it's mostly based on this book...

I stayed away from the flick since Selma H. reminds me of a past
mistake , but Frida herself is interesting. May read this.

 

[Haversack]

I've just started Wm. Dalrymple's _The Last Mughal_ which I picked up while in Edinbrugh a couple of weeks a go. While it is about the fall of the Mughal Dynasty in the conflagration that was the Great Mutiny of 1857, it is also about the City of Delhi that existed at that time. In the historiography, the author noted that although historians, both British and modern Indian, lament the lack of first hand accounts from Indians. he was amazed to find reams of first hand material in the Indian national archives. It was largely written in Urdu in an archaic court-script and that it had lain there untouched since at least 1921. This included complete collections of two Urdu language newspapers which continued printing entirely through the Rebellion and siege. I am really looking forward to reading this. Further back on this thread I mentioned I was reading an earlier book of Dalrymple's, _White Mughals_. Also recommended.

Haversack.

 

[WH1]

Peer beneath Hemingway's simple declarative prose; lift off his crisp,
tight construct, and therein lies a certain nihilism that neither France nor Spain
fully expunged; also an evident narcissism reflected in his personal life.
The Sun Also Rises speaks of a man crippled by war and seeking to
live a dignified life. A man capable of love but incapacitated from physical
intimacy. One suspects that Hemingway perhaps suffered an innate
deformity, capable of expessing Eros physically but somehow denied her
innate possession. Toward the end of his dissolute life; after his youth
and talent had fled, his narcissism remained, and Hemingway seems to
have collapsed within himself. I believe The Sun Also Rises to
be the best of Hemingway, and his most revealing work.

Well said, I believe his nihilistic themes surface heavily in most of his works particularly For Whom The Bell Tolls. It plays heavily in one of his best short stories, The Short Happy Life of Francis McComber, which may have been one of his most personal stories about his own life and loves.
Hemingway, the man was probably his greatest literary creation. Hunting subs off of Florida and Cuba, covering the war in Spain, serving in Italy in WW1, hunting Africa, etc. Many flaws but a hell of a character for any novel, living life in intense bursts, but that was common of most of the "lost generation" writers, perhaps the reason they are so highly esteemed.

 

[Nashoba]

I just finished a book called The Stupidest Angel (quite amusing) and I'm on and off reading one called Deathbird Stories (I think, I'd have to look) which is a complilation of rather disturbing short stories. that and my new tailoring books from the 40's...

 

[ShooShooBaby]

currently rereading me talk pretty one day by david sedaris, which is hilarious of course, and also the newest issue of BUST magazine. i've had a stressful month, so some light reading is definitely in order!

 

[LadyStardust]

Summers at Castle Auburn- I've been through it before, and loved it, but it's been several years, and I wanted to refresh my memory.

 

[Sunny]

Finished Mike Hammer this morning; on to Nero Wolfe.

 

[JazzBaby]

I stayed away from the flick since Selma H. reminds me of a past
mistake , but Frida herself is interesting. May read this.

From what I've read so far, I'd recommend it. It would be difficult to write a boring book about someone like Kahlo anyway!

 

[Technonut]

Lately I have been reading:

War Footing: 10 Steps America Must Take to Prevail in the War for the Free World.... Frank J. Gaffney and Colleagues

rebel: The life and Legend of James Dean... Donald Spoto

 

[JazzBaby]

rebel: The life and Legend of James Dean... Donald Spoto

Read Spoto's bio of Liz Taylor. It was a bit sketchy, but I enjoyed it.

 

[Technonut]

Read Spoto's bio of Liz Taylor. It was a bit sketchy, but I enjoyed it.

Thank you.... I may just pick it up.

 

[Harp]

Searching through the Chicago Public Library for LizzieMaine's
authoritative Amos n' Andy.

Also just read a review of Arabella Edge's The God of Spring,
a fictionalized account of Theodore Garicoult's Naufrage du Meduse,
which hooked me.

All I need to do now is settle the overdue fine bar tab.

 

[moustache]

Just finishing"A Celebration of Olives" by Carol Drinkwater.

JD

 

[Samsa]

Just finished Balzac's "The Wild Ass's Skin" and have started up with Dostoevsky's "The Adolescent."

 

[Polka Dot]

Hurrah for Balzac! :eusa_clap

I'm reading some Zola, myself.

 

[Harp]

I'm reading some Zola, myself.

An author to be admired as much for his courage as his work.

 

[RedPop4]

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

 

[LizzieMaine]

While I'm waiting for my lunch to cook, I'm reading the 8/31/1933 issue of the New York Daily News.

Among the headlines --

F. D. (Roosevelt) ORDERS NRA-FORD SHOWDOWN

FILM FOLK SCARED BY GANG KILLINGS ORDER MORE GUARDS.

AL WILLIAMS WONT ADMIT SOCKING HUEY (Long)

MACHINE GUN BANDITS KILL COP IN RAID

WALL STREET WOLF HELD ON $2500 BAIL AS RUBBER DEAL SWINDLER

STATE SENATE (of New Jersey) APPROVES BILL FIXING DEATH PENALTY FOR KIDNAPERS

EVANGELIST SHOOTS TWO HOODLUMS DISTURBING TENT REVIVAL

MONTHS OF SLEEPING SICKNESS RECORDS FORTY FIVE DEATHS AND 30 CASES

BLONDE TIGRESS DENIES KILLING

WOMEN PUT VANITY CASES ON BICYCLES

On the editorial page, the Inquiring Photographer asks "Do you think long hair is more attractive on a girl than the conventional bob?" J. E. Feder of Hicksville, Long Island isn't sure -- "That entirely depends on the appearance of the girl considered in the light of composition of features, makeup, and general carriage. Nothing is more attractive than long hair on the proper type of woman. The conventional bob is tiresome."

At the movies, "Gold Diggers of 1933" opens tomorrow for a week's run at Loew's State, boasting 12 stars and 300 girls. At the Roxy, a sneak preview tonight of Slim Summerville and Zasu Pitts in Universal's big laugh riot, "Her First Mate," accompanied by the latest episode in the New Adventures of Tarzan the Fearless, with Buster Crabbe, and Roxy's Miracle Stage Show, headlined by the Eight Singing Siberians. Matinee price, 25 cents, evening top is 55 cents. Kids, 15 cents always.

On sale at Bloomingdales, the big September Sale of China and Glass gets underway with a 32-piece service for 6 in the lovely China Rose pattern for $2.98. At Gimbel's Basement, women's shoes in assorted styles, regularly $3, now just $1.59 a pair. At Hearns, tailored men's shirts, just $1.09, women's silk hose just 49 cents a pair. Back to School savings at Macy's, with 2-piece boy's knicker suits just $7.44, girls' leather jackets, just $5.59. At Ludwig Baumann's, a genuine Philco radio just $15 complete. And at all A&P stores in greater New York, fancy smoked hams, just 16 cents a pound, and cigarettes, all popular brands, just $1.05 a carton.

In sports, the Giants come from behind in the 9th to beat the Cardinals 5-4. The Dodgers split a doubleheader with the Cubs, and the Yankees host the Red Sox this afternoon at the Stadium, as they seek to make up ground against the league-leading Washington Senators.

On the back page, Franklin D. Roosevelt Junior vacations on a bull ranch in Spain by dressing up as a matador and strumming the guitar.

All that for just two cents (in city limits!)