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    Stardust by Joseph Kanon, a crime novel set in Hollywood in 1945 as the witchhunt was just starting to emerge from the embers of WW2. Dialogue and pacing are excellent, but with a more sympathetic approach to flawed, damaged characters than one would usually find in an LA noir novel.

    I'm keen to check out his other work.
    Last edited by Satchmo Distel; 21-12-2019, 20:12.

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      Haven't posted here in a while. What I've read recently:

      Chaos: Charles Manson, the CIA, and the Secret History of the Sixties - Tom O'Neill: a bit long, but enjoyable read even though the hoped for big reveal about Charles Manson never comes. It's a book about doing research as much as anything else, and O'Neill is upfront in talking about how much he suffered in trying to write the book. The quick pitch is that Vincent Bugliosi wasn't truthful in Helter Skelter as you may assume, leaving out information that could change the believability of the whole race war basis for Manson's murders. That's what set O'Neill off down the road that led to drug connections, either incompetent or corrupt cops, oh, and the CIA's MK ULTRA mind control program.

      My Year of Rest and Relaxation - Otessa Moshfegh: as entertaining and darkly comic as all of the reviews said. It drags a bit in the middle, but still a novel that I tore through.

      Furious Hours: Murder, Faud, and the Last Trial of Harper Lee - Casey Cep: brilliant in parts, but I still feel like it's three different stories kind of imperfectly smushed together.

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        I got about 50 pages into Gravity's Rainbow and didn't really have the faintest idea what was happening, or why I should care, or who the people were. It was turgid going and I'd read a few sentences and just get bored. I might go back to it at some point when I have an extended period of time and no other distractions, but I was getting nothing of value.

        I've now started reading the Booker winning Milkman, which is altogether much less of a drag.

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          I was early for my Welsh class yesterday so had a nose in thd Humanities Library next door. Brought back good memories. Delighted to find I have borrowing rights so took out 'The Roman Cult of Mithras' by Manfred Clauss. It's a topic I've wanted to read up on.

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            Finished Mrs Caliban, started Black Leopard Red Wolf by Marlon James.

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              I was looking to obtain Gerald Kersh's Night and the City, as it's reckoned to be an British noir classic. But somehow got sidetracked into buying Fowlers End instead and bugger me, I'm so glad I did.

              Kersh, for those unfamiliar, was a Jewish/British journalist and pulp author active from the late 30s through the 50s. He then moved to the US where he died in 1968. Fowlers End is a sort of farewell fuck-you memoir to the UK and one of the funniest books I've read in years. Michael Moorcock, who wrote the introduction to my copy, compares it to Ealing comedies of the same era. He's not wrong but, be warned, it's also a darn sight grubbier.

              Kersh was a cinema manager, bodyguard, debt collector, fish and chip cook, travelling salesman, French teacher and wrestler while trying to make it as a writer. In uniquely twisted ways Fowlers End draws on each of those experiences. There is a story, but it's fairly thin and irrelevant. The book is basically a series of monologes and conversations between the characters, who I could list but anything I said wouldn't come close to doing justice to them. This is Wodehouse quality stuff, but from an entirely different perspective. Give yourself a treat and find a copy.

              Oh, one caveat. If you're not familiar with London Jewish dialect and expressions, or Cockney rhyming slang, you may find some passages tricky. There's a fairly comprehensive glossary in the book, which helps, but it'd interupt the wonderful flow of dialogue.

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                Currently coming close to finishing Lot by Bryan Washington, which has been absolutely great. Giving me modern day Last Exit to Brooklyn vibes in both subject and style.

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                  Originally posted by via vicaria View Post
                  Currently coming close to finishing Lot by Bryan Washington, which has been absolutely great. Giving me modern day Last Exit to Brooklyn vibes in both subject and style.
                  I read the first few pages of that in Blackwell's a few months ago - would have bought it but was struggling for suitcase space so had to leave it off my pile as it's still in hardback. Had it on my Xmas list but no one delivered - will probably wait for the paperback now.

                  Currently reading 'Albert Speer: Eine deutsche Karriere' by Magnus Brechen. You need something to cheer you up in a grey January in Mitteleuropa.

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                    Originally posted by Patrick Thistle View Post
                    I was early for my Welsh class yesterday so had a nose in thd Humanities Library next door. Brought back good memories. Delighted to find I have borrowing rights so took out 'The Roman Cult of Mithras' by Manfred Clauss. It's a topic I've wanted to read up on.
                    Finished this. It was really accessible and unlike some other books just presents the archaeological evidence without speculating on what it all means.

                    Have borrowed another couple of books off the religious history shelves.

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                      Have been reading and hugely enjoying 'The Salt Path' by Raynor Winn and 'Diary of a Bookseller' by Shaun Bythell.

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                        Raynor Winn's next book is coming out soon, imp. Have heard very good things about The Salt Path so may well give that a go soon.

                        As for me at present, I've been trying to get through The Taiga Syndrome by Cristina Rivera Garza but I'm just not connecting with it. It's the sort of thing that's usually right up my street - that sort of surreal, magical realism that you get in a certain strand of Latin American fiction - but it's just left me cold (appropriate, given the title)

                        However I've also stumbled upon the fact, having somehow missed it up until now, Kapka Kassabova has a new book out this week. It's called 'To The Lake' and sounds like it treads similarish paths to her previous books (probably closer to Border, with less memoir elements than Street Without a Name). Definitely next on the list.

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                          Originally posted by imp View Post
                          Have been reading and hugely enjoying 'The Salt Path' by Raynor Winn and 'Diary of a Bookseller' by Shaun Bythell.
                          That's our Book Group choice for this month.

                          I've been playing touch rugby with a very nice Dutch guy a little younger than me. Turns out he's Tommy Wieringa, and he gave me a copy of his novella "A Beautiful Young Wife" last week, so I have to read that before we play again tomorrow. He's off back to the Netherlands next week, too. We don't get many celebs in Moshi.

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                            Originally posted by Vicarious Thrillseeker View Post
                            That's our Book Group choice for this month.
                            Winn or Bythell? I can easily imagine them both as Book Group shoe-ins, though perhaps Winn more so because the book follows the publisher- and agent-demanded journey. Bythell stays gratifyingly grumpy throughout.

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                              I finished Saturnin (cf. Books you got for Christmas), which was lovely. A gentle, Czech comedy of a man and his valet. More Jerome K. Jerome than Wodehouse (in writing style).

                              I've been working through the Slow Horses series and I think I'm getting a bit tired of it. The writing is still good, and it gallops along but it's managing to be a bit samey and also plots are more and more incredible.

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                                Originally posted by imp View Post

                                Winn or Bythell? I can easily imagine them both as Book Group shoe-ins, though perhaps Winn more so because the book follows the publisher- and agent-demanded journey. Bythell stays gratifyingly grumpy throughout.
                                The Salt Path, sorry for being less than clear.

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                                  Anybody else read any Sadie Jones novels? I started with The Snakes and am now tackling debut The Outcast.

                                  Lots of slivery metaphors in the former, which is a bit of a didactic morality tale about the evils of excessive money and narcissism with a few twists and a clunky unexpected ending, but I like her prose style - nothing terribly trying and the plots romp along nicely.

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                                    Originally posted by imp View Post
                                    'Diary of a Bookseller' by Shaun Bythell.
                                    This is a marvellous book. A gem of something or other on every page. Thanks for the tip.

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                                      Ah, pleased to hear it. I was actually talking to people in public when I was England (not something I've ever made a habit of) asking them what they were reading so I could then show them the Bythell book and recommend it. There was a sequel came out in August, but I'll wait for the paperback.

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                                        Finished Stuart Cosgrove's brilliant 'Detroit 67: The Year That Changed Soul' last week, and will look forward to reading the sequels. Started reading Adam Nevill's 'The Reddening', a folk horror tale. Must have seen an ad for it on the tube, I don't really read much contemporary fiction, let alone horror. Enjoying what i've read so far.

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                                          Originally posted by imp View Post
                                          Sea Room by Adam Nicolson. Posh English bloke inherits three uninhabited Scottish islands, the Shiant Isles in the Outer Hebrides, off his dad, who bought them off Compton McKenzie in the 1930s. I would never have dreamt that I would enjoy such a book so throughly from start to finish. Beautiful writing about an isolated, inhospitable (unless you're a bird, sheep or rat) but mystical, magnificent place. It was written in 2000 - Nicolson was planning to pass the islands on to his son in 2005 on his 21st. birthday. If you fancy going, he prints both his own and his son's email address - they will happily send you the key to the two-room house if you fancy staying, but there's no running water or electricity.
                                          Just started 'The Seabird's Cry' by Nicolson. It's beautiful. The writing is sublime. Very visual, very poetic. He mentions the land in the Shiant Isles. It sounded remote, bleak, lonely and beautiful. I'd love to go.

                                          I shouldn't be reading this so soon after watching The Lighthouse. I think I must be the only one who saw that film and thought it aspirational. I'm getting a hankering for a storm battered rock, the screams of seabirds, and a nice jumper under a practical waterproof jacket.

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                                            'The Seabird's Cry' is such a beautiful book - I've started buying copies for friends now, it's one of THOSE books. It's also on offer for 0.99 on Amazon for a short while. I accidentally ordered 'Sea Room' last month - that will be read over the Easter holiday.

                                            Lighthouses are brilliant. Point of Ayr lighthouse was up for sale about five years ago, and we checked down the back of all our sofas to see whether we had enough spare change to buy it, but no dice.

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                                              Originally posted by EIM View Post
                                              Just started 'The Seabird's Cry' by Nicolson. It's beautiful. The writing is sublime. Very visual, very poetic. He mentions the land in the Shiant Isles. It sounded remote, bleak, lonely and beautiful. I'd love to go.

                                              I shouldn't be reading this so soon after watching The Lighthouse. I think I must be the only one who saw that film and thought it aspirational. I'm getting a hankering for a storm battered rock, the screams of seabirds, and a nice jumper under a practical waterproof jacket.
                                              Thanks for adding yet another fucking book to my reading list.

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                                                Strong recommendation for The Big Goodbye from Warren Ellis.
                                                “What kind of ointment is that?” Elia Kazan, Sylbert’s first feature director, had asked of one of Sylbert’s sketches for Baby Doll. Sylbert had drawn a fluted column beside an old rocking chair, and on the floor a squeezed-out tube of ointment. “Gee, I don’t know,” Sylbert answered the master. “What kind of ointment is that?” “It’s pile ointment,” Kazan improvised. Lesson learned—and never forgotten. In a Sylbert film, if something was in the frame, it was either because Sylbert put it there or because he allowed it to be there. All other design departments on the picture reported to him.


                                                THE BIG GOODBYE: CHINATOWN AND THE LAST YEARS OF HOLLYWOOD by Sam Wasson is a fascinating book. It's been so long since I watched CHINATOWN that I frankly recall very little about it, but the story around its making, and the stories of the people who made it, range between engaging and quite riveting. It is also entirely the most sympathetic portrayal of Robert Evans I've ever read, and that includes his autobiography. It sits interestingly next to Biskind's EASY RIDERS RAGING BULLS on the same period, and while Biskind often has more texture and detail, Wasson is cold where Biskind is vicious, and Wasson is gentle when Biskind is pissy.

                                                And Wasson has receipts Biskind didn't. Chiefly, that Robert Towne isn't Robert Towne. Robert Towne, writer, was, for forty years, Robert Towne and Edward Taylor. Unacknowledged in Taylor's time, and, indeed, at Taylor's funeral.

                                                ​​​​​​
                                                In retrospect 1974 represents the final flowering of a film garden passionately tended by liberated studio executives and an unspoken agreement between audiences and filmmakers. As Towne had once observed, the American films of World War II benefited from shared beliefs; now, “there was a common assumption that something was wrong,” he said, “in the wake of Vietnam and Watergate and assassinations and riots” that gave rise to “a hunger on both sides for something new” and produced a Hollywood year as powerful as 1974. But the poison was in the perfume: These films, Towne said, “did their jobs too well. There was”—presently—“nothing left to expose.”


                                                It is an extremely well-structured story of the end of an era, giving primacy to female voices and perspectives wherever possible, and well worth a read on a number of levels.

                                                THE BIG GOODBYE: CHINATOWN AND THE LAST YEARS OF HOLLYWOOD (UK) (US)

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                                                  Originally posted by RobW View Post
                                                  Finished Stuart Cosgrove's brilliant 'Detroit 67: The Year That Changed Soul' last week, and will look forward to reading the sequels. Started reading Adam Nevill's 'The Reddening', a folk horror tale. Must have seen an ad for it on the tube, I don't really read much contemporary fiction, let alone horror. Enjoying what i've read so far.
                                                  Finished The Reddening today. Pretty gripping, and occasionally scary (particularly as I heard a weird animal noise early Sunday morning, which could have been straight out of the book). Hadn't realised that Nevill wrote The Ritual, the film adaptation of which came out a couple of years ago.

                                                  Probably back to non-fiction next. Couple of Xmas books to choose from. Probably will begin Dalrymple's book on the rise of the East India Company.
                                                  Last edited by RobW; 24-02-2020, 10:51.

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                                                    Originally posted by Vicarious Thrillseeker View Post
                                                    'The Seabird's Cry' is such a beautiful book - I've started buying copies for friends now, it's one of THOSE books. It's also on offer for 0.99 on Amazon for a short while. I accidentally ordered 'Sea Room' last month - that will be read over the Easter holiday.

                                                    Lighthouses are brilliant. Point of Ayr lighthouse was up for sale about five years ago, and we checked down the back of all our sofas to see whether we had enough spare change to buy it, but no dice.
                                                    99p on Kindle right now. My brother bought my mum a copy of it, so i'll wait until she's finished.

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