A roundup of things consumed by our editors. Tobias Carroll Mostly: this week’s involved reading coverage of Occupy Wall Street, whether up-t0-the-minute reporting on protests and arrests or the essays by Jeff Sharlet and Sarah Leonard in the latest issue of Bookforum. Sharlet’s omnipresence in my Twitter feed (and my already-high opinion of his writing) has also had the side effect of prompting me to pick up his essay collection Sweet Heaven When I Die. Between that and John Jeremiah Sullivan’s […]
Indexing: Murakami, Monica Drake, Robert Gardner/Coover, and Virtually Everything Else Imaginable.
A roundup of things consumed by our editors. Tobias Carroll I’m planning to start Haruki Murakami’s 1Q84 in the coming weeks. It’s been a while since I read one of his novels, and so picked up his After Dark as a sort of chaser. And…I’m not sure that I loved it. His evocation of nighttime moods is close to perfect, as is his suggestion of something unbearably sinister lying below the surface of daily life. But while he establishes a […]
Indexing: Tim Kinsella, Todd Grimson, Manuela Draeger, Rudy Wurlitzer, and How Much More? So Much More.
A roundup of things consumed by our editors. Tobias Carroll Once again, the longest book I read last week — Tim Kinsella’s The Karaoke Artist’s Guide to Self-Defense — was read with an eye towards reviewing it here. That review should appear before too long, though I’m still in the middle of mentally aligning the novel’s subtly fractured segments and figuring out what I make of its denouement.
Indexing: Geoff Dyer, Roxane Gay, Autumn music, Roland Barthes, Flannery O’Connor, and more
A roundup of things consumed by our editors. Tobias Carroll Finished Geoff Dyer’s Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanasai last weekend for one of the book groups I’m in. At first, I wasn’t as impressed with it as I’d been with his other work, but over time, the gulf between its two sections — one third-person, set in Venice, the other first-person and set in Varanasai — began to impress me more and more. Dyer leaves open the question of whether […]
Indexing: Ann Beattie at the DMV, Ben Tarnoff, Frank Bill, Geoff Dyer, Orwell, and So Much More!
A roundup of things consumed by our editors. Jason Diamond Ann Beattie’s Mrs. Nixon was my company when I waited in line at the DMV in Herald Square for two hours yesterday, trying to get my drivers license for the first time in New York. Even though I’d had a DL in another state for ten years, since I didn’t renew, I’m a new driver in the eyes of Governor Cuomo. That means I get to go through the entire process […]
Indexing: Gary Lutz, cable television books, Chad Harbach, and more
Our editors weekly roundup of what they’re consuming. Jason Diamond I guess I’ve really missed out by not reading The Art of Fielding. Aside from the dozen people who’ve suggested I pick it up, the Keith Gessen article in Vanity Fair was really the breaking point. I’ve obviously fucked up on several levels, and it is time to rectify this.
Indexing: Asbury Park, Seth Fried, Turgenev, magazines, Jonathan Wilson, and more
Our editors weekly roundup of what they’re consuming. Tobias Carroll And so: headed to Asbury Park this past weekend for the All Tomorrow’s Parties festival. Had a fine time; saw amazing sets from Factory Floor and Swans and Portishead and Public Enemy; saw Jeff Mangum plan a stellar Daniel Johnston cover and Matt Sweeney join Bonnie “Prince” Billy on stage for a stunning version of “Beast for Thee.” I also did some reading.
Indexing: New Orleans bookstores, Denis Johnson, Dwight Macdonald, Jarvis Cocker, and more
Tobias Carroll This will be a short week for me; my reading (mainly conducted on a trip to and from New Orleans) consisted of a small selection of longer books, some of which I’ve either written about elsewhere or, well, will write about elsewhere on Vol.1. (The Four Fingers of Death, for instance.) I will say, though, that Karl Marlantes’s novel of the Vietnam War Matterhorn — much praised by readers whose opinions I trust — exceeded my expectations: it’s […]