May 3rd, 2010 / 10:17 pm
Snippets
Snippets
Adam Robinson—
It was my own mother, incidentally, whom I can scarcely recall ever seeing with a book in her hand, who told me one day when I was reading The Fifteen Decisive Battles of the World that she had read that book years ago herself–in the toilet. I was flabbergasted. Not that she had admitted to reading in the toilet, but it should have been that book, of all books, which she read there.
That’s Henry Miller, in his fantastic nonfic, The Books in My Life.
Shome Dasgupta has a similar thing going on over at his blog, The Laughing Yeti. A bunch of people talking about their reading habits, including Mike Young, Roxane Gay, Stephen Eliot (oh, and me).
Awesome–thanks, Adam.
Must be something in the air, Adam- I’m reading Tropic of Capricorn right now. My first time with Miller in many years. It’s totally ridiculous and overblown and deranged and whiny, but also somehow very beautiful and tons of fun.
Awesome–thanks, Adam.
When I was 19 my dad took me on a bonding vacation to Vietnam. We rode up and down the coast in a small Swedish pleasure vessel and did some sightseeing and whoremongering in such succulent cities as Saigon, Hue, and Danang. However, we spent most of our time on the ship, watching the other tourists delight in wolfing down homemade herring and listening to them kibbitz about how the shifty-eyes locals must be thinking bad thoughts, how could they not, we were Americans, it had been less than twenty years since we had commenced with our wanton destruction of their country. My dad and I did not contribute during these discussions. My dad mostly sat and listened. I read. I brought ten books with me. One of them was Michael Stevens’ ‘The Brooklyn Book of the Dead.’ It was while I was reading this book that one of the other tourists sat down next to my dad and had this exchange with him:
“Your son is always reading.”
“He likes to read.”
“He seems very immature.”
“What.”
“Your son is very immature.”
“Fuck off.”
I’m sure that’s not really how the conversation went. I’m sure that my dad never even had a conversation with anyone else on that boat. But I would like to think that he did.
Must be something in the air, Adam- I’m reading Tropic of Capricorn right now. My first time with Miller in many years. It’s totally ridiculous and overblown and deranged and whiny, but also somehow very beautiful and tons of fun.
When I was 19 my dad took me on a bonding vacation to Vietnam. We rode up and down the coast in a small Swedish pleasure vessel and did some sightseeing and whoremongering in such succulent cities as Saigon, Hue, and Danang. However, we spent most of our time on the ship, watching the other tourists delight in wolfing down homemade herring and listening to them kibbitz about how the shifty-eyes locals must be thinking bad thoughts, how could they not, we were Americans, it had been less than twenty years since we had commenced with our wanton destruction of their country. My dad and I did not contribute during these discussions. My dad mostly sat and listened. I read. I brought ten books with me. One of them was Michael Stevens’ ‘The Brooklyn Book of the Dead.’ It was while I was reading this book that one of the other tourists sat down next to my dad and had this exchange with him:
“Your son is always reading.”
“He likes to read.”
“He seems very immature.”
“What.”
“Your son is very immature.”
“Fuck off.”
I’m sure that’s not really how the conversation went. I’m sure that my dad never even had a conversation with anyone else on that boat. But I would like to think that he did.
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