slim jenkins
El Hombre Invisible
Recent s/h find...I Seem To Be A Verb - R.Buckminster Fuller. Another little design classic to sit alongside The Medium Is The Massage and War And Peace In The Global Village
what are you reading now?
john eden
male pale and stale
Ah, top tip! Heard about that a while ago I think, but never saw it, got round to looking... nice one.
Round up on my recent non-fiction* reading here: http://www.uncarved.org/blog/2008/07/books-what-i-have-read-recently/
*i.e. all my reading!
STN
sou'wester
yes, we'd fucking noticed.
Just finished _The Ghost Map_ which was a really entertaining book about the London cholera epidemic of 1853. But it's really about the development of cities and the drastic increase in the likelihood that people will end up eating their own shit as a result of urbanization --plus the slow recognition of the reasons why that might be a bad idea. It's especially interesting because of its focus on the social information necessary to make that mental leap (away from "people die of cholera because they are unhygenic and have weak constitutions").
It's really a work of medical sociology, and the sociology of science, with lots of interesting details and pretty good portrayals of the important figures and forces in Victorian London.
It's really a work of medical sociology, and the sociology of science, with lots of interesting details and pretty good portrayals of the important figures and forces in Victorian London.
jenks
thread death
Yes, The Ghost Map - I picked it up mainly because it was about London but ended up finding out so much about how disease is spread and living conditions.
Very gripping narrative and I like the way he moves between the various prtagonists - one of whom is the disease itself. In fact I am just getting a unit of work together on Victorian literature and I am planning on using a chunk of The Ghost Map to show the social background and compare it with Mayhew, amongst others.
I am nearly finished teh 800 page epic that is the Mitford - god, it gets sad when one of them dies - this voice just disappearing from the letters. Odd family, no doubt about that.
Am 80 pages into Lord Jim - not sure waht i feel about it although I know there is much love for Conrad round these parts.
saw that reading list John - pretty impressive!
Very gripping narrative and I like the way he moves between the various prtagonists - one of whom is the disease itself. In fact I am just getting a unit of work together on Victorian literature and I am planning on using a chunk of The Ghost Map to show the social background and compare it with Mayhew, amongst others.
I am nearly finished teh 800 page epic that is the Mitford - god, it gets sad when one of them dies - this voice just disappearing from the letters. Odd family, no doubt about that.
Am 80 pages into Lord Jim - not sure waht i feel about it although I know there is much love for Conrad round these parts.
saw that reading list John - pretty impressive!
matt b
Indexing all opinion
just finished yukio mishima's 'spring snow'
repressed feelings and desires; impending doom; buddhist philosophising; main character an upper class toff; author a crazy fascist/nationalist- not the sort thing i normally go for. but it was brilliant.
has anyone else read the rest of the sea of fertility series? should they be read in order? as no.2 is tricky to get hold of.
as an aside, like many japanese novels it has an obsession with ladies' necks (esp. the bit of the neck normally hidden by clothing)- highlighting how tightly controlled and formalised japanese society was/is. this seems to be echoed in some of the modern day erotic quirks the japanese have.
repressed feelings and desires; impending doom; buddhist philosophising; main character an upper class toff; author a crazy fascist/nationalist- not the sort thing i normally go for. but it was brilliant.
has anyone else read the rest of the sea of fertility series? should they be read in order? as no.2 is tricky to get hold of.
as an aside, like many japanese novels it has an obsession with ladies' necks (esp. the bit of the neck normally hidden by clothing)- highlighting how tightly controlled and formalised japanese society was/is. this seems to be echoed in some of the modern day erotic quirks the japanese have.
IdleRich
IdleRich
I'm reading London City of Disappearances (compiled) by Iain Sinclair which my girlfriend grabbed for me from a charity shop - a compendium of various musings on London, you know the kind of thing. Really enjoyed the first bits which were about all the book shops on Charing Cross Road (which is where I work now) in the sixties and the staff lifestyle of spending all night at the UFO Club before kipping on the shop floor and then opening it to people such as Jean-Paul Belmondo and William Burroughs.
I'm alternating that with a book called The Sex Life Letters from Forum Magazine that I found on a book stall by London Fields - it's from the seventies and it's a pop-psychology thing in the same vein as those Nancy Friday books with replies to loads of letters from readers, some of whom have questions but a surprising number of whom want to share their "knowledge" - which basically boils down to telling everyone else that they are doing it all wrong. A lot of it is, unintentionally I guess, hilarious although some of it is clearly intended to be funny. The best letter so far I think is from a guy who fell in love with a vacuum cleaner.
I'm alternating that with a book called The Sex Life Letters from Forum Magazine that I found on a book stall by London Fields - it's from the seventies and it's a pop-psychology thing in the same vein as those Nancy Friday books with replies to loads of letters from readers, some of whom have questions but a surprising number of whom want to share their "knowledge" - which basically boils down to telling everyone else that they are doing it all wrong. A lot of it is, unintentionally I guess, hilarious although some of it is clearly intended to be funny. The best letter so far I think is from a guy who fell in love with a vacuum cleaner.
Mr. Tea
Let's Talk About Ceps
*adds to compendium of IdleRich posts about the erotic potential of vacuum cleaners*
fokse vektaire xeven
Arab Nazi
i read them in reverse order, and it was fine. mishima is a don!
having been slightly acquainted with him i just read howard goorney's history of the theatre workshop. really a bygone era. it's virtually impossible to imagine anyone entering the arts with the such high ideals now. the fortitude they all showed was pretty remarkable and says a lot for the power of collective organisation...
I think you need to read them in order actually. One of the big things about the books is how they show japan transforming over time. Also I definitely wouldn't skip the 2nd book as it was my favorite, and I'm not sure the series would make sense without it.
Affluenza by Oliver James, and Status Anxiety by Alain de Bottom (sic). It's proto-research for a book I might write about equality.
Next up is Badiou's Logics of Worlds, when my copy finally arrives. I've been boning up on Lawvere (Sets for Mathematics) and Goldblatt (Topoi) in the meantime.
Next up is Badiou's Logics of Worlds, when my copy finally arrives. I've been boning up on Lawvere (Sets for Mathematics) and Goldblatt (Topoi) in the meantime.
john eden
male pale and stale
Yeah I'm waiting for my other half to finish Affluenza so I can have a go. I keep meaning to reread all those Vance Packard books as well.
Anyway I have had to make do with "Who Wants It?*" by Colin Ward and Chris "Chubby" Henderson in the meantime, as well as the new issue of Datacide.
*not me, thanks very much.
slim jenkins
El Hombre Invisible
Healthy kind of punter to have browsing in your shop. Sounds like a dream team. I like to imagine Belmondo acting in something directed by JLG and written by WB.
The Sinclair connection: I'm currently into 'Wide Boys Never Work' by Robert Westerby, which has an intro by Sinclair.