where would a person start if they wanted to read oliver sacks?

been on a reading kick lately:




almost finished with



up next:

Stay away from the movie. Barfly is ok, but the newest one is horrendous.

I didn't even like barfly. This book is good but I'm going to take your advice on the movie.

More baseball nonfiction for me...

Excellent toilet reading. Yeah, it's a bit lurid and voyeuristic, but that doesn't mean that it's not a good read. I like her writing style, too: very self-effacing and wry; perfect for somebody with her background. I am enjoying this more than I probably should.

I'm tackling the Vollmann at the moment, then i'll be having a Kerouac fest (desolation, dharma, lonesome trav, big sur, satori in paris).



At some point i need to get through these for a course i'm starting in the Autumn.

paper, curious to hear your thoughts on this.

I was in the doctor's office last week and was reading an article in Time about Tom Hanks and the making of The Pacific and he made some book recommendations. This was one of them. I looked it up and it sounds pretty interesting.

Yeah, that's where I got the idea to check out this out.

I'm halfway through, I'll give you my thoughts when I'm finished, so far so good.

After I read an interview with him in The Believer, I basically decided to never read any of his stuff. Is it good?

What's the link to that article?

This is my first non-novel book of his, but I do enjoy him. He has his quirks and depravity, but he is generally a clever writer with a unique point of view. This is a compilation of previous work he did for magazines (including the short story "Bored to Death" that was turned into the HBO series), and I find more stories than not pretty fascinating. For instance, I just read the profile from the book where he hangs out with Marilyn Manson and drinks absinthe.

What are you reading at the moment guys? I need some recs.

I have these two on the go:

I'm going on a Bukowski themed literary tour of LA on Saturday visiting some of the bars where he drank, places he lived and worked, favorite liquor stores, etc so I've been working my way through some of his books that I have had sitting on my shelf.

Finished on Saturday:



It's the first collection of short stories by him that I'd read. A few were very good but overall I liked his novels more.

Jumped right into:



which is his only novel that I hadn't read yet. I'm about 60% of the way through it. A very easy read and enjoyable enough but its not one of his best.

Will probably start next:

or
or

assuming I finish Pulp before Saturday. Otherwise, I'll probably move on to something completely different.

Oh man, so jealous.

Just ordered a new-ish collection, New Essays

Have you read any Dan Fante?

No I haven't. I have "Ask the Dust" by John Fante, his father, on my bookshelf to read but I haven't read anything by either of them yet.

Care to recommend anything?

My favourite is "Spitting Off Tall Buildings", thats him working a bunch of crappy jobs in NYC. But i really do recommend his whole collection.


You have a bunch of spin-offs that i love, Mark SaFranco (very similar to DF's father, John), Kurt Zapata "Fourty ouncer", Jon longhi "Wake Up And Smell The Beer".

Lost his e-mail, but a guy called Luis Rivas (fantastic poet) works at a porn store in San Pedro.

Thanks for the recs Pete.

Finished this:



over the weekend. 30 years later, I still get choked up reading about the plane crash, his funeral, and the first few games after his death.

Started over the weekend:



Should be a quick read.

I think this is on deck:

When That Rough God Goes Riding- Listening To Van Morrison, Greil Marcus, 2010

To start with, this is a small book- like 5 1/2 X 8, with only 192 pages, including the index. I read it on a flight from JAX to Burlington a couple days ago, so if you're looking for in-depth insight into the man and his music, go elsewhere.

Marcus is known for his tendency to look at an artist's output and not only provide his own spin on the work, but also to examine it in the broader context of cultural significance. This book follows that pattern, mostly to its detriment as far as I'm concerned. I don't really give much of a shit about other performers and what they were/ are doing when I'm supposed to be reading about Morrison. Not to say that Marcus doesn't make for some interesting reading in between the social commentary, but very little is added to what I consider common knowledge of Morrison and his career and/or music.

Adding to the above, there are several fundamentally inexcusable errors regarding simple things such as song titles, etc. And, if anyone is interested in knowing that Marcus' favorite Morrison album is Astral Weeks, he will cure any doubt about it. He summarily dismisses about 17 years of Morrison's records with very little discussion or justification, something that I again find inexcusable, and either narrow-minded, or ignorant, or a combination of the two.

At any rate, if you want a quick read, and you can find it used, or wait until it hits paperback (which it should in short order), read it. If you want something with some meat on it, rather than ramblings about cultural context, look elsewhere.