craner

Beast of Burden
Has anybody had a crack at the Stephen Kotkin Stalin biographies yet?

They look to be on an epic Isaac Deutscher-on-Trotsky scale, but I just do not have the time.
 

catalog

Well-known member
Reading 'the sellout' by paul beatty. it's the sort of book i don't really like, reminds me of 'confederacy of dunces' and 'infinite jest', both of which i gave up on, cos they're too self-consciously literary. but it's pretty funny so far.
 

DannyL

Wild Horses
Has anybody had a crack at the Stephen Kotkin Stalin biographies yet?

They look to be on an epic Isaac Deutscher-on-Trotsky scale, but I just do not have the time.

They sound immense. I was reading about them a few nights ago, looking for the definitive Stalin biography. A loose parallel might be Ian Kershaw's volumes on Hitler. Just get the first one and pretend its two or three books.

I do wonder what might be in print in Russian though (or German, with the Kershaw book). Are there equivalent or better studies in the homelands (and languages) of either man? Or does the Anglo-American academy really produce these uniquely great and definitive works?
 
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luka

Well-known member
I just saw Jenks! Top reader. Now one of four dissensus people to have visited me at work.
(Woebot. Padraig. Danny L.)
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
I enjoyed the Opium Eater book, some of it is very funny. Aren't there two versions? Different edits basically. He also wrote Suspiria which I must read.
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
I enjoyed the Opium Eater book, some of it is very funny. Aren't there two versions? Different edits basically. He also wrote Suspiria which I must read.

Basically I skipped most of intro and it turns out to be quite good once he stops wanking on about Petrarchan sonnets and Homeric irony and starts writing about opium. Then I read on Wikipedia that there are two versions, and I've got the revised version from the 1850s with the massively expanding first section, and that universal opinion is that the earlier edition is far superior.
 

jenks

thread death
Jenks has read every novel ever written.

That made me laugh!

i am currently reading:

Alice Jolly's Mary Ann Sate, Imbecile (he tale of a serving woman in 19th-century rural Gloucestershire as it says in Te Guardian review)
Surrender by Joanna Pocock (essays from Fitzcarraldo Editions)
Nicola Barker's I Am Sovereign (i think she's a genius)
A whole bunch of Anita Brookners (I am going to guess I'm alone on this one Dissensus)
Ducks Newberryport (which i am struggling with)
Plastic Emotions by Shiromi Pinto (about a Sri Lankan architect who had an affair with Le Corbusier)
Elizabeth Hardwick - Sleepless Nights (https://www.theguardian.com/books/2...ide-elizabeth-hardwick-novel-sleepless-nights)

and i've just finished the new collection of Ian Penman essays from Fitzcarraldo
 

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
I've been reading that Penman collection. Up to Sinatra essay. Slightly ambivalent about his style at times but also, often, deeply envious. I really liked the opening essay on Mod, and it's empty, archival recreations. And it's got me listening to James Brown and Charlie Parker and even the Kinks!

Jenks how does reading all those books at once work out?
 

jenks

thread death
I've been reading that Penman collection. Up to Sinatra essay. Slightly ambivalent about his style at times but also, often, deeply envious. I really liked the opening essay on Mod, and it's empty, archival recreations. And it's got me listening to James Brown and Charlie Parker and even the Kinks!

Jenks how does reading all those books at once work out?

I just pick what to read depending on my mood. Also I like to have a few short ones while I am ploughing through a big tome. I suppose it’s no different to listening to different kinds of music. Also because my to be read pile is so massive it’s a way conning myself that the stack by the bed is actually diminishing.

I really like Penman - been reading him on and off since the 80s. It’s the feverish approach and also he’s taking on big names - Parker, Sinatra, Elvis to investigate the popular song.
 

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
I was trying that sort of approach earlier this year. Perhaps it's the healthiest or sanest way to do it in the Internet age, when our minds are attuned to switching attention anyway?
 

version

Well-known member
I was trying that sort of approach earlier this year. Perhaps it's the healthiest or sanest way to do it in the Internet age, when our minds are attuned to switching attention anyway?

That or reading individual books written in that fragmented style.
 
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