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Echoing a lot of what’s been suggested, also Danez Smith’s poetry is really intense and well done
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Jun 6, 2020 21:59
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derp posted:gimme some of the best literature by black americans Also Ann Petry's The Street, which I have nominated for BotM a few times.
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Jun 6, 2020 22:21
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derp posted:gimme some of the best literature by black americans The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream
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Jun 6, 2020 23:20
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Philadelphia Fire by John Edgar Wideman, it's about the 1985 police bombing of a West Philadelphia row house. Very apt imo Also Native Son by Richard Wright
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Jun 7, 2020 00:12
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derp posted:gimme some of the best literature by black americans There Is a Tree More Ancient Than Eden, by Leon Forrest.
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Jun 7, 2020 01:56
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I will defer to this guy's recommendation for a specific Leon Forrest book.
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Jun 7, 2020 04:06
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derp posted:gimme some of the best literature by black americans Oxherding Tale by Charles Johnson - a Buddhist take on a slave narrative, with a guest appearance from Karl Marx.
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Jun 7, 2020 04:17
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Sham bam bamina! posted:I will defer to this guy's recommendation for a specific Leon Forrest book. Divine Days is good, but it's definitely way more sprawling and unfocused than his first novel, and the prose isn't as consistently incredible so i don't think it's a great starting point. Probably all of his books are worth reading though.
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Jun 7, 2020 05:03
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that Leon Forrest novel has come up in this thread before I believe. need to get my hands on it sometime
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Jun 7, 2020 10:52
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ulvir posted:that Leon Forrest novel has come up in this thread before I believe. need to get my hands on it sometime He should be up there with the likes of Gaddis and Gass and whoever else comparable from the USA imo, just really incredible writing.
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Jun 7, 2020 11:09
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it's probably a fist fight over whether it'd be called anything close to lit but i'm rereading the people of paper of Salvador Plascencia and i love it again and i say the only crime it commits is being published by mcsweeneys
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Jun 7, 2020 22:21
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McSweeneys at least has really dope book covers
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Jun 8, 2020 01:41
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derp posted:gimme some of the best literature by black americans The Chaneysville Incident by David Bradley Sent For You Yesterday by John Edgar Wideman Vanishing Rooms by Melvin Dixon
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Jun 8, 2020 02:07
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nut posted:it's probably a fist fight over whether it'd be called anything close to lit but i'm rereading the people of paper of Salvador Plascencia and i love it again and i say the only crime it commits is being published by mcsweeneys Mcsweeneys seems extremely bad however they did reprint Kojo Laing's first novel which is neat because no one reads him and he's very cool.
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Jun 8, 2020 07:52
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nut posted:it's probably a fist fight over whether it'd be called anything close to lit but i'm rereading the people of paper of Salvador Plascencia and i love it again and i say the only crime it commits is being published by mcsweeneys I liked that book
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Jun 8, 2020 09:53
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What's wrong with
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Jun 8, 2020 10:11
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They're run by Dave Eggers and they publish a bunch of cloying American garbage
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Jun 8, 2020 10:21
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Oh no that must be horrible!
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Jun 8, 2020 10:26
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a heartbreaking jerk of staggering penis
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Jun 8, 2020 10:29
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I have tried to read a lot of McSweeney's books in the past and even their monthly releases and there is a good thing here and there but it's so infrequent. I have also read Dave Eggers books and have yet to meet someone who thinks he's not aggressively mediocre.
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Jun 8, 2020 11:48
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nut posted:I have tried to read a lot of McSweeney's books in the past and even their monthly releases and there is a good thing here and there but it's so infrequent. Sounds like literally every publisher ever.
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Jun 8, 2020 11:53
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3D Megadoodoo posted:Sounds like literally every publisher ever. Not really, lots of small presses put out consistently interesting and quality stuff.
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Jun 8, 2020 12:35
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I don’t know anything about mcsweeneys genesis—was the website first? They have a site that publishes listicles and short stories daily or weekly or something and that kind of supply is probably unsustainable. Anyways read people of paper
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Jun 8, 2020 12:40
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A human heart posted:Not really, lots of small presses put out consistently interesting and quality stuff. Dalkey and Fitzcarraldo in particular are consistently great. I'm also fond of an absolutely minuscule Irish press called Coracle, operated at a loss by a couple with excellent taste, one of whom also keeps up a lovely blog.
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Jun 8, 2020 14:09
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Eugene V. Dubstep posted:Dalkey and Fitzcarraldo in particular are consistently great. I'm also fond of an absolutely minuscule Irish press called Coracle, operated at a loss by a couple with excellent taste, one of whom also keeps up a lovely blog. Archipelago and Open Letter do good stuff too, and I've less direct experience with Deep Vellum and Contra Mundum but they also seem to have some really interesting books. Some university presses turn out consistently good fiction as well.
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Jun 8, 2020 14:48
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Dalkey became basically a vanity press some years ago, publishing whatever they get funding for, often with dodgy editing. If you want to buy books published in the US, look at Open Letter, Archipelago, Deep Vellum, Feminist Press, New Directions, New Vessel or many other presses instead. Edit: I'm not saying Dalkey don't do good books - there's a bunch of stuff there that you won't be able to find anywhere else, and they have a great backlist. But their business model is really shady and their standards have dropped considerably to the point that there are a lot of other, better publishers out there now. They literally have had only one book on the BTBA prize longlist in the past five years. Burning Rain fucked around with this message at 15:13 on Jun 8, 2020 |
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Jun 8, 2020 14:49
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Dalkey has a fantastic backlist, yeah. Horrible company to work for, apparently. I know a former intern who got stiffed on even the tiny stipend they offered.
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Jun 8, 2020 16:33
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Burning Rain posted:Dalkey became basically a vanity press some years ago, publishing whatever they get funding for, often with dodgy editing. If you want to buy books published in the US, look at Open Letter, Archipelago, Deep Vellum, Feminist Press, New Directions, New Vessel or many other presses instead. I'm not sure the BTBA thing is particularly their fault, a book like Bottom's Dream for example absolutely have been in the running for that award but it was basically just ignored by the judges as far as I can tell. There's also a recent interview with John O Brien where he talks about a possible merger or collaboration with Open Letter with view to getting their back catalogue out there.
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Jun 9, 2020 00:53
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derp posted:I've been wanting to read some history lately, because I'm uneducated. Any subject other than American history. But I want stuff with top notch prose. Any standouts in the non-fiction / world history area that shouldn't be missed? The more focused and obscure the better. Long Walk to Freedom Anabasis Also anything by Solzhenitsyn. Technically fiction but the subject matter is pretty solidly historical and autobiographical.
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Jun 9, 2020 08:58
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Lead out in cuffs posted:Long Walk to Freedom Lenin in Zurich by Solzhenitsyn is technically based on Lenin's life in exile, but I would not describe it as solidly historical. It paints a view of Lenin that is entirely coloured by Solzhenitsyn's hate for the Soviet Union. It may be a good read, but don't come away from it thinking that it accurately depicts Lenin's personality and motivations.
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Jun 9, 2020 15:24
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gently caress I was trying to look through my bookcase but nothing noteworthy of history is in English. 
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Jun 9, 2020 16:25
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Duck Rodgers posted:Lenin in Zurich by Solzhenitsyn is technically based on Lenin's life in exile, but I would not describe it as solidly historical. It paints a view of Lenin that is entirely coloured by Solzhenitsyn's hate for the Soviet Union. It may be a good read, but don't come away from it thinking that it accurately depicts Lenin's personality and motivations. Yeah I'm thinking more of his semi-autobiographical works like A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich and Cancer Ward. I havent read The Gulag Archipelago, but that would probably also qualify? And yeah, he very much had a massive (and justified) hatred of the Soviet Union, so obviously that's something to keep in mind. Also, now that I think of it, Siddhartha Mukherjee is probably very much what Derp's looking for. He's a clinician-scientist who's written two science history books, one on cancer (The Emperor of All Maladies), and one on genetics (The Gene). The cancer one is better, but they're both really good. The prose is beautiful.
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Jun 9, 2020 18:22
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Lead out in cuffs posted:Long Walk to Freedom It's good, but it's neither a history book nor worth reading for the prose alone.
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Jun 10, 2020 01:29
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So, in Proust, how do you pronounce the name of the character Bloch? In my mind I read it like "blockh" but I'm not sure that's right
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Jun 10, 2020 01:31
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Safety Biscuits posted:It's good, but it's neither a history book nor worth reading for the prose alone. Derp can speak for himself, but I don't think his request was restricted to academically-vetted university textbooks. He's also been asking for books by African American authors, presumably in the context of the ongoing BLM protests. The autobiography of a black man who was a key figure in the struggle against Apartheid, describing some of the key decades of that struggle, seems at least relevant to both requests. And while the prose in Long Walk to Freedom isn't worth reading just for its own sake, it's pretty solid and engaging as autobiographies go.
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Jun 10, 2020 03:55
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Heath posted:So, in Proust, how do you pronounce the name of the character Bloch? In my mind I read it like "blockh" but I'm not sure that's right “blau” like wocka flocka
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Jun 10, 2020 05:07
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Heath posted:So, in Proust, how do you pronounce the name of the character Bloch? In my mind I read it like "blockh" but I'm not sure that's right People of that era would have said "Blok" (or more rarely "Blosh"). It would have been seen as rudely pointing to someone's Jewish origins to say it with the German "ch", essentially a way of alluding to the supposed foreignness of Jewish people (same for Swann/Svann).
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Jun 10, 2020 06:29
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I'm halfway thru 2666 and it is amazing, my favorite sequence is Fate's drunken nights of "unreality" in Santa Teresa, especially when he upper cuts that dude in the jaw then speeds off to Tuscon with a Also it owns that Bolano hates academics as much as cops *edit: I should note that this word is what is used in the book and is meant to reflect a misogynist culture Mokelumne Trekka fucked around with this message at 16:25 on Jun 10, 2020 |
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Jun 10, 2020 16:07
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I'm struggling a little with Robin Buss's translation of The Count of Monte Cristo. His English is just too plain and modern for me, to the point of being somewhat difficult to pay attention to at times.
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Jun 11, 2020 03:26
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I bought an illustrated 18th century encyclopedia of Japanese Yokai and it owns There are frog men who love to sumo wrestle and steal your soul out of your rear end in a top hat
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Jun 11, 2020 03:37
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