October 8th, 2009 / 10:22 am
Random
What are you reading right now?
I am reading these two books right now:
Henri Bergson – Matter and Memory
Tags: what are you reading
Christopher Higgs
October 8th, 2009 / 10:22 am
Random
October 8th, 2009 / 10:22 am
Random
i have the diagram for bergon’s cone of pure perception tattooed on my right arm. no joke.
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October 8th, 2009 / 2:49 pmdavidpeak—
meant to write “bergson.” i studied matter and memory and deleuze’s cinema 1 & cinema 2 in a class called “the philosophical issues of film.” it was my introduction to tarkovsky. probably the best class i’ve ever taken.
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October 8th, 2009 / 6:12 pmChristopher Higgs—
That sounds like an awesome class.
I first learned about Bergson while studying Deleuze. I had a conversation with someone just the other day in which I recommended reading D’s cinema books as an introduction to Bergson.
I’m reading this one this weekend and then Creative Evolution next week, both for this course I’m taking on theorizing modernism. Last week we read Beckett’s novel Watt, and we’re applying Bergson to that reading in what I think is a really productive way.
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Paul Auster: Moon Palace (teaching).
John Foot: Calcio, A History of Italian Football (long-term education).
David Foster Wallace: The Broom of the System (was on my shelf and somehow ended up in my hands).
Flannery O’Connor: A Good Man Is Hard to Find (classics education).
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Oh, you know, flipping through my vast library of Herta Müller’s excellent work.
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October 8th, 2009 / 11:00 ammimi—
From the AP (via Yahoo News – Ya – hoo – oo!):
Peter Englund, the permanent secretary of the Swedish Academy, told The Associated Press this week that the secretive Swedish Academy had been too “eurocentric” in picking winners.
His predecessor, Horace Engdahl, stirred up heated emotions across the Atlantic when he told the AP in 2008 that “Europe still is the center of the literary world” and the quality of U.S. writing was dragged down because authors were “too sensitive to trends in their own mass culture.”
After Mueller was announced, he told AP that “If you are European (it is) easier to relate to European literature. It’s the result of psychological bias that we really try to be aware of. It’s not the result of any program.”
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Cockroach, by Rawi Hage
Scorch Atlas, by Blake Butler
Things We Didn’t See Coming, by Steven Amsterdam
The Testament of Cresseid & Seven Fables, by Robert Henryson
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buddha 6 ananda by osamu tezuka just got 7& 8 in the mail. no i’m not fourteen.
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London Fields by Martin Amis.
In line: God Hates Us All by the fictional character Hank Moody
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Mount Analogue by Renee Daumal, which I can’t recommend enough. (His letter to Breton is interesting too: condemns the surrealists as mostly a joke concerned with posterity and being read decades later.) Pan by Knut Hamsun. Three by Ann Quin. (1st comment.)
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October 8th, 2009 / 4:06 pmmike—
DAUMAL IS SO GOOD
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That Wallace Stegner thing I mentioned in a post the other day, Life on the Mississippi, some nonfiction thing about the vikings, and this Rick Atkinson book about the Italian theater in dubya dubya two.
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Right now I am reading:
The San Francisco Poets (from the Oakland Public Library Dimond branch, to teach)
Just finished: Shoplifting from American Apparel
Just started: Cane by Jean Toomer
Just guiltily purchased at Barnes and Noble: Mind Wide Open (liked very much Everything Bad Is Good for You a few years ago)
Just loaned to me by a friend: The World Without Us
On my nightstand: toooooo many to list here, unless anyone reaaalllllyy wants to know…. I’ll carry my laptop into my bedroom and list directly…..must be about thirty…..I’d be interested myself…..)
Also checked out from the library: The Broom of the System
Want very much to read and must order: Scorch Atlas
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October 8th, 2009 / 6:15 pmChristopher Higgs—
Jean Toomer’s Cane is a seriously excellent book, if for no other reason than the way he collages genres.
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The new David Ohle – loved Boons, starting The Camp
Unsaid 4 (I’m into the second half finally)
One Ring Circus by Katherine Dunn
The Man Who Loved Books Too Much by Allison Hoover Bartlett
Siamese by Stig Sæterbakken, translated by Stokes Schwartz
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Blake Butler – Scorch Atlas
Mike Young – MC Oroville’s Answering Machine
Thomas Kendall – A Crack in the Heart Some Light Goes Through (Manuscript)
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AM/PM by Amelia Gray
Angels by Denis Johnson
The Long Emergency by James Howard Kunstler (a book about peak oil and social collapse–research for my next novel)
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October 8th, 2009 / 6:18 pmChristopher Higgs—
I really enjoyed Kunstler’s nonfiction book The City in Mind: Notes on the Urban Condition — actually taught one of the essays (the one on Vegas) to a group of freshman a few years ago and it received a really positive response.
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Just read Ron Rash’s short story collection Chemistry and Other Stories (fantastic). Finally read Orson Scott Card’s Ender’s Game, really liked it. I have three in the mail, the new collection Girl Trouble by Holly Goddard Jones, Leadfeather by Stephen Graham Jones, and No One Belongs Here More Than You, shorts by Miranda July.
Will be picking up copies of Scorch Atlas at Blake’s reading next Monday, and most likely AM/PM too.
Will be reading with Blake and Zach and Aaron on Tuesday at Chicago Quickies as well.
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October 8th, 2009 / 11:59 amRichard—
crap, LEDFEATHER, I keep doing that, not LEADFEATHER…sorry Stephen
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AM/PM, Scorch Atlas, three different NYRB Classics including the amazing and highly recommended The Slynx by Tatyana Tolstaya, a collection of short stories by Daphne DuMaurier, and a new translation of the Inferno. Also just picked up the new Lydia Davis collection and new J.G Ballard collection, both of which I’m about to dive into once I finish the Slynx. Oh, and Nixonland.
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October 8th, 2009 / 6:19 pmChristopher Higgs—
Who did the new translation of the Inferno?
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October 9th, 2009 / 1:10 pmAmber—
Ciaran Carson. (And I should say “new,” not new…I think it’s from a few years ago but I just picked it up.) It’s very modern, almost colloquial at times…I’m not sure if I like it yet–but it’s an interesting contrast. Definitely worth a read.
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homage to czerny – gert jonke
the tunnel – gass
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Just finished: A Smuggler’s Bible by Joseph McElroy
Currently: Auto-da-fe by Elias Canetti
And: Up in the Old Hotel by Joseph Mitchell
Upcoming: Lookout Cartridge by Joseph McElroy
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October 8th, 2009 / 6:25 pmChristopher Higgs—
McElroy is great. Seldom does his name come up when people talk about the postmodern novel – but it should!
A few years ago I held an editing position at a literary journal where I had the opportunity to work with him on an essay he wrote in which he revisited his novel Plus – an amazing book that is told from the perspective of a brain floating in outer space.
You’re in for a treat with Lookout Cartridge.
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Geoff Dyer’s The Ongoing Moment, and Inga Zolude’s Silta Zeme (Warm Earth), a Latvian book I’m working on translating in preparation for the big Latvian literature revival that is surely just around the corner. (But honestly? There should be one. This book is fantastic.)
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Here’s Your Hat, What’s Your Hurry by Elizabeth McCracken. I love love love her!
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October 8th, 2009 / 5:02 pmcmr—
Nice. I’m half way through her second novel, Niagara Falls All Over Again. I read The Giant’s House before that a some short stories she had in Zoetrope: All Story before that. She is easily becoming my favorite author, which kind of sucks because I think all that’s left to read is that book you’re reading and a probably ultra depressing memoir I’m not sure I can handle.
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I’m usually reading many books in the same time:
* Dada: Zurich, Berlin, Hannover, Cologne, New York, Paris – by Dorothea Dietrich, etc.
* Interfictions – Roberto Simanowski
* The Islanders – Charles Avery (again)
* Sputnik – Joan Fontcuberta (again and again)
* tabbloid (blogs saved as PDFs and printed out – yes, people, I’m environmental criminal, even if I print both sites of paper) – HTMLgiant etc.
* The Believer – back numbers, all I could order at Amazon
and many another books about Dadaism (for my running dissertation)
And the next book I’ll read will be
* The Whalestone Letters – Mark Z. Danielewski
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Been reading Evenson’s Fugue State very slow, a story a week. Started Lutz’s Partial List of People to Bleach yesterday. Got my Ellipsis order last week. Read Marten. Started Ruocco. Lock and Lim on the horizon.
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Homer & Langley – EL Doctorow
The Open Curtain- Brian Evenson
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The Crab Nebula – Eric Chevillard
Siste Viator – Sarah Manguso
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Scorch Atlas – Blake Butler
We Take Me Apart – Molly Gaudry
Lady Chatterley’s Lover – DH Lawrence (about to start this one this week)
and i read poetry/philosophy almost every day
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October 8th, 2009 / 1:56 pmdavid erlewine—
just finished Scorch – fucking great
just read Kevin Wilson’s SS collection, Tunneling to the Center of the Earth – ditto
just read Nick Antosca’s Fires – ditto
i’m now reading “Say You’re One of the Them” – it arrived at my house the day before Oprah hyped it up. liking it okay enough but not loving yet
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October 9th, 2009 / 3:51 amRoxane—
I’m about to start reading Say You’re One of Them for the second time. I think it is such a problematic book. I’m actually going to post about it next week.
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October 9th, 2009 / 7:08 amdavid erlewine—
Roxane, can’t wait to see your post. Right now, Hannah’s “Ray” is occupying my hands but I hope to get back into “Say” this weekend. I’ve heard so much about “Fattening for Gabon” (it’s a novella, at 135 or so pages) but so far it’s not at all keeping me.
Mystery and Manners by Flannery O’Connor
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the last email from my ex-g/f. over and over.
and some mamet plays.
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October 9th, 2009 / 7:09 amdavid erlewine—
ha ha if you’re kidding
sorry dude, if not
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Arakawa & Gins – The Mechanism of Meaning
Nick Land – The Thirst for Annihilation: Georges Bataille and Virulent Nihilism
Peter Dube (ed.) – Madder Love: Queer Men and the Precincts of Surrealism
Recently finished Killian’s Argento Series, Taia’s Salvation Army, Place & Fitterman’s Notes on Conceptualism and Field’s Incarnate: Story Material. Need to figure out what fiction, lit. theory & poetry ah’ll be reading nexxxxxxxt (i need to be reading, basically, something from every category of “books i like to read” at all time: art, philosophy, anthology, poetry, fiction, and lit theory).
Also, oh my god! The film criticism of Theirry Kuntzel that I’ve been photocopying out of back issues of Camera Obscura!! I can’t believe this guy exists!
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So most of us read multiple books at once. I’ve decided that I want to quit doing this. I’m still doing this.
Reading:
Finnegans Wake : Joyce
Infinite Jest : DFW
Mythologies : Roland Barthes
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October 8th, 2009 / 5:18 pmKevin O'Neill—
It’s so tempting though.
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October 8th, 2009 / 5:43 pmKen Baumann—
Yeah.
My reading habits (and attention span) is definitely internet addled, now. Trying to get back to a bit more level a level.
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October 8th, 2009 / 5:20 pmdarby—
I’m reading Finnegans Wake also, but it’s like a decades long process for me so i don’t mention it.
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October 8th, 2009 / 5:44 pmKen Baumann—
I must be insane, because I read it in 40-80 page chunks… I’m obsessed.
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October 8th, 2009 / 6:14 pmdarby—
I did that in the beginning, then slowed way down to like a page per month or something. I started reading it in 2002 and I’m at page 350 now.
October 8th, 2009 / 7:05 pmChristopher Higgs—
I, too, am reading Finnegans Wake — have a course on it this semester in which we are only reading book four.
For fun, my wife and I started reading it out loud to each other, which really makes it come alive — hearing it, I can pick up on so many of the words-as-sounds that otherwise go mute on the page.
I guess my reading experience of FW is very strange, simultaneously coming at it from two different angles over a long period of time. But I’m enjoying the hell out of it.
October 8th, 2009 / 9:17 pmKen Baumann—
Chris: Me, too. I think it’s so damn entertaining, and full of all sorts of enchanting myth. One of the most beautiful things I’ve read. And yeah: reading aloud is good. I tend to keep quiet, but really make sure I read deliberately, and not let myself skip over the music.
October 8th, 2009 / 6:30 pmmimi—
FW & IJ at the same time? Dang.
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A Peculiar Feeling of Restlessness: Four Chapbooks of Short Short Fiction by Four Women (Amy L. Clark, Elizabeth Ellen, Kathy Fish, and Claudia Smith)
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October 8th, 2009 / 5:52 pmjereme—
are the chicks short too? that would be cool. they should add that in the title.
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going away for the weekend.
bringing
bandit letters by sarah messer
how to mend a broken heart with vengeance by leigh klein
empire of dreams by giannina braschi
and probably a big book with imagist poetry in it because i’m supposed to read about imagism.
i was reading dara weir’s selected but i put it down.
i’m sort of still reading bad bad and poemland.
and the mothering coven.
and also still sort of working on the battlefield where the moon says i love you. i’m pretty much just over exactly half-way through.
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October 9th, 2009 / 4:03 pmCatherine Lacey—
it’s stein not klein
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October 9th, 2009 / 4:18 pmsasha fletcher—
lies.
leigh stein.
lee klein.
whatever.
i don’t care.
i
don’t
care
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October 9th, 2009 / 6:46 pmsasha fletcher—
it’s really good though. really. it’s pretty goddam incredible.
also should really go back to o’hara and read a lot of mayakovsky soon, since i was just assigned my paper for avant-garde, and my paper is on o’hara performing mayakovsky.
so.
that too then.
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Three lives – Gertrude stein
just started my first full re-read of infinite jest
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Oh, and just finished The Autumn of the Patriarch by Garcia Marquez, which was fucking amazing.
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Started The Cantos by Ezra Pound today, too. Apparently I’m obsessed with tomes.
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just finished Derrida’s Archive Fever which owes a lot to Bergson, and whose titles is oddly like Amishs book. Now I’m reading the Rough Guide to Japan.
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bouvard and pecuchet by flaubert and landing on the wrong note: jazz, dissonance, and critical practice by ajay heble
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Infinite Jest home stretch.
Stories in an Almost Classical Mode by Harold Brodkey
Excitability by Diane Williams
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The Human Condition, Hannah Arendt
The Lost Symbol, Dan Brown
American Short Fiction, Fall 2009 issue
Annalemma 5
A Gate at the Stairs, Lorrie Moore
Airships, Barry Hannah
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October 9th, 2009 / 5:36 amalec niedenthal—
what do you think of a gate at the stairs?
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October 9th, 2009 / 4:24 pmRoxane—
I’m liking it quite a bit. I’m not very familiar with Moore’s work so I went in with no expectations. I’ll probably write about it before the end of the month.
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October 9th, 2009 / 7:57 amjensen—
i read Airships over the summer. so great.
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October 9th, 2009 / 4:23 pmRoxane—
Jensen, I’m loving and hating Airships. Some stories are so so amazing but other stories bug the hell out of me.
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October 9th, 2009 / 4:26 pmRyan Call—
which stories out of airships dont you like?
[...] What Some People Are Reading What are you reading right now? [...]
Boom:
http://looceefir.wordpress.com/2009/10/18/what-some-people-are-reading/
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