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Floating Gold: A History of Ambergris by Christopher Kemp

dfglv wrote: Fri Feb 28, 2025 1:30 pm

zircona1 wrote: Wed Feb 26, 2025 8:36 am Now reading Jennifer Egan's A Visit From the Goon Squad.

i've never got round to this but Emerald City, her first collection of short stories? god, i adored that book.

Her novel The Keep is also good. (No relation to the whacked out 80s movie.)

Filterworld: How Algorithms Flattened Culture by Kyle Chayka.

Know thine enemy, I guess?

I've been down a wikipedia rabbit hole on the heat death of the universe and the Hubbell Deep Field image.

This, too, shall pass, is what I've taken from all of that, I guess.

llllllllllllllllllll wrote: Sun Feb 23, 2025 1:56 pm Book thread on the second page

Europe Central by William T. Vollmann.

Fucking great. Wasn’t sure if I was in for some sort of hallucinogenic Burroughs thing after that intro but it pulled together beautifully for the narrative.

It’s a historical novel set in the 20th century and I’m liking it as much as anything I’ve ever read by Robert Graves. National Book Award winner, which I’m only mentioning because it’s confirming my early opinion of the book.

Still on this one but my love for it is sealed.

Central Europe through the eyes of composer Dmitri Shostakovich, Lenin’s wife Nadezhda Krupskaya, German engraver Kathe Kolwitz, Soviet filmmaker Roman Karmen, Nazi generals turned Soviet, Soviet generals turned Nazi - truly one of the great books of the 21st century. And I’m not even finished with it yet.

Also, some of the best writing about music I’ve ever read. Breathtaking. Really getting into this writer.

Still on my southern lit trip. It seems inexhaustible. Just when I think I’m done, someone recommends someone else, and it’s a whole new vein of ore.

Brett Ralph recommended Tom Franklin when I dropped by his shop last year, and I’m knocking that stuff out. Currently reading Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter.

Just finished: On Fire by Larry Brown. Non-fiction about his time as a firefighter. Not his best work.

Currently reading: Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward. Good stuff, clearly Faulkner-influenced. Looking forward to getting acquainted with her body of work over the next couple of months.

Page 2 not on my watch

Beach reading in Southeast Asia:

The Devil's Chessboard: Allen Dulles, the CIA, and the Rise of America's Secret Government by David Talbot

I’m still at the WW II-era part where the OSS/CIA was essentially founded on Nazi collusion with the capitalist class. Wonderfully written, should be required reading as a reminder that class war has always been waged from the top down.