BOOK THREAD

Sukebe_GG

Haven't actually read Lowry but the credit sequence to the filmic version of "Under the Volcano" is excellent.

There's a book called "La Bala Perdida" or "The Lost Bullet" that covers Burroughs time in Mexico and it starts with a long list of all the ex-pat authors who spent time in Mexico...I will try to track down that part of the book fwiw.
One author probably not on that list is David Rattray - been year but I remember loving this book.
https://mitpress.mit.edu/9781635900729/how-i-became-one-of-the-invisible/
Note that he was a translator of Antoni Artaud who also infamously spent time in Mexico:

In 1935, Artaud decided to go to Mexico, where he was convinced there was "a sort of deep movement in favour of a return to civilisation before Cortez". The Mexican Legation in Paris gave him a travel grant, and he left for Mexico in January 1936. After arriving the following month, he "became something of a 'fixture' in the Mexican art scene", though he was often under the influence of opiates, and spent much of his time "seated and immobile, 'cual momia' [like a mummy]".

Artaud also lived in Norogachi, a Rarámuri village in the Sierra Tarahumara. He claimed to have participated in peyote rites, though scholars have questioned this. During this time he stopped using opiates and suffered withdrawal.

https://www.contramundumpress.com/journey-to-mexico

Emil M. Antonowsky

Anyone else read Jerry A's autobiography Black Heart Fades Blue? I'm halfway throu Vol.1 and it's amazing.

Nathan Loud

Haven't read the book yet but saw Cory Doctorow talk tonight about Enshittification. Very funny and thought-provoking and honestly kind of maddening because we've let the zillionaires get this far already. Technology could have been cool, but hmm, guess not.

Señor Scratchy

Funny Because It's True: How The Onion Created Modern American News Satire - an oral history of The Onion. For me personally, a fun reminiscence on Madison WI in the 1990's and one of my all time favorite publications. But also a somewhat depressing saga of corporate greed and how we ended up in our current internet/media landscape.

Allez Al

Sukebe_GG

It's fine if you really like the business of the movie business. I just struggle to care about grosses and aftersales reports. Even thought it's pre-Me Too Weinstein is NOT described nicely at all. Almost every mention of him involves him belittling people, bullying etc. Just doesn't mention of his sex crimes.

problemface

Allez Al a much better and more entertaining book about Hollywood from the same time period is ‘You’ll Never Eat Lunch in This Town Again’ by Julia Phillips. she produced Taxi Driver and several other big films in the 70s and 80s. no one is spared. it was definitely a precursor to ‘me too’. I read it during Trump’s first term and i remember her talking shit about Trump in the book - from 1991.

Sukebe_GG

Allez Al Speaking of books on the biz side, who has read this?
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/222640985-the-economic-history-of-the-grateful-dead

Second question: Why?
Although I have to admit that "Living with Dead" book was really entertaining - and the band apparently weren't happy with it, I imagine because it really exposes their various drug habits and other foibles...

Finally reading "Terminalian Drift" by Jerry Gordon, a long-time American ex-pat Osakan.
https://www.triarchypress.net/terminalia.html
Jerry is mainly a musician but so far this novel is really good, post-moderny but already integrating the character of Japan's best city...
His music and there's a free audiobook of "Terminalian Drift"
https://moontriangle.bandcamp.com/music

nonsenseorgan

Anybody read Monolithic Undertow? Just curs as I picked it up at a used bookstore. Please and thank you.

BARELY HUMAN

Nathan Loud oh sick! how are you finding it?? I really need to try again to read Murnane (my fiction stuff is published by the same publisher!)... he's got so many fans here in australia, people who go so deep into his work and can't come back out again... a friend of mine visited him for an interview and saw parts of his archives and the like, and still he seems like a mystery. i read 'The Plains' maybe ten years ago and just couldn't get into it, but i feel there'll come a day when i find time to start digging through his stuff. really bizarre to me that he's one of the favourites to win the nobel prize for literature every year too.

Nathan Loud

BARELY HUMAN

I've been enjoying it so far. Coincidentally I'm in the middle of one of his stories that indirectly points to the persona he's created for himself. I wonder how much of that is a bit he's doing, how much is a posture. Not that it matters.

I don't think he's that widely read in the States, though I learned about him from a New Yorker(?) profile that mentioned his Nobel proximity. Curious to see what he's like in the longer form.

Anybody here read Krasznahorkai? He just won the Nobel. Glad he did. This seven-hour movie is based on one of his novels. Loved the book; haven't see this:

Lincoln

BARELY HUMAN I'm gonna hunt down one of your novels Max!

Lincoln

Nathan Loud where should I start with Krasznahorkai? I was thinking of grabbing The Melancholy of Resistance

Nathan Loud

Lincoln

I enjoyed that one but I think Satantango is more accessible. Both books are bleak as hell though. I have his short stories right here, very curious to take a dip.

Nathan Loud

Lincoln

Speaking of the Nobel Prize, have you looked at any of the Garth Merenghi books?

I haven't yet, but heard good things about TerrorTome.

"If you possess a brain, you will want to fill that brain with my visions."

BARELY HUMAN

Lincoln it might be hard to find outside of oz! can sort you out and ship direct if you have no luck tho 🙂

Lincoln

Nathan Loud I picked up Terror Tome the day it came out. It's fun, but it's hard to capture that Darkplace magic.

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