I wish I'd gone to this, Bookslam. It's touted as the first ever literary nightclub. I'm not a big nightclub fan, but this could change my mind. The latest event included readings from Patrick Neate (who's one of the organisers), Jonathan Safran Foer and Dave Eggers.
I just read Neate's 'Twelve Bar Blues', which I thought was great. Crossing time as well as space, it tells a story of jazz, prostitution, and identity and is a glorious romp of a story - particularly for someone who knows nothing about the first two and struggles, like the rest of the human race, with the third.
I did wade through 'A Heartbreaking of Staggering Genius' a while back now. It's clearly a cathartic book for Eggers, and you finish it hoping that he's a happier man now than he was then. But it had the clumsy naivety of a first novel which made reading the whole thing a challenge rather than a pleasure.
As for Foer, I'm ashamed to say that I've not yet read 'Everything is Illuminated'. It's on the shelves. For when I've finished, amongst other things, Will Self's 'How the Dead Live'. I'm ambivalent. Y'see, the thing is, Self writes beautifully. You sense that he gets great joy out of crafting these wild and raucous stories but, really, it's all a bit unpleasant. I'm reading it for a bookclub, rather than out of choice and am racing to finish it out of sheer desperation to move on to something more life-affirming. But it's all character forming isn't it?
One more recent read to note: 'Captives' by Linda Colley. All part of this year's drive to read more non-fiction. Hell, any non-fiction. She writes about Britain's aims with regards empire from 1650-1870 and how those aims weren't backed up by military might. What this meant was that lots of Britons that headed off in search of the wealth/glory/livelihood that empire might bring them simply ended up being captured. She uses captivity narratives to find out what happened to them. Particularly interesting on the commodification of women who tended to get caught in the crossfire. Quite literally at times.
I just read Neate's 'Twelve Bar Blues', which I thought was great. Crossing time as well as space, it tells a story of jazz, prostitution, and identity and is a glorious romp of a story - particularly for someone who knows nothing about the first two and struggles, like the rest of the human race, with the third.
I did wade through 'A Heartbreaking of Staggering Genius' a while back now. It's clearly a cathartic book for Eggers, and you finish it hoping that he's a happier man now than he was then. But it had the clumsy naivety of a first novel which made reading the whole thing a challenge rather than a pleasure.
As for Foer, I'm ashamed to say that I've not yet read 'Everything is Illuminated'. It's on the shelves. For when I've finished, amongst other things, Will Self's 'How the Dead Live'. I'm ambivalent. Y'see, the thing is, Self writes beautifully. You sense that he gets great joy out of crafting these wild and raucous stories but, really, it's all a bit unpleasant. I'm reading it for a bookclub, rather than out of choice and am racing to finish it out of sheer desperation to move on to something more life-affirming. But it's all character forming isn't it?
One more recent read to note: 'Captives' by Linda Colley. All part of this year's drive to read more non-fiction. Hell, any non-fiction. She writes about Britain's aims with regards empire from 1650-1870 and how those aims weren't backed up by military might. What this meant was that lots of Britons that headed off in search of the wealth/glory/livelihood that empire might bring them simply ended up being captured. She uses captivity narratives to find out what happened to them. Particularly interesting on the commodification of women who tended to get caught in the crossfire. Quite literally at times.
2 Comments:
You write beautifully
got to your blog via links on flickr...makes me want to read "Captives". It's very interesting to read new non-fiction books on history. My husband is working on a book about comedy history now and I know that in the past year that the ability to access archives has expanded dramatically - making formerly unavailable info readily available with a click of a mouse or a cheap plane ticket. That, and the viewpoint that the educated modern person brings makes it extra interesting (I think). Anyway, I enjoyed your post and will be sure to bookmark you.
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