It must be from all those old film noirs I'm obsessed with--Double Indemnity, The Postman Always Rings Twice, Out of the Past, and the like. Or maybe it stems from my love of Faulkner's Sanctuary, which I read as an undergrad and never let go of. Hence, now I'm in the middle of Pulp Masters, a collection of hard-boiled crime novellas edited by genre writer Ed Gorman and Martin H. Greenberg. First in the set is The Embezzler by James M. Cain (author of the novels Double Indemnity and Mildred Pierce), and now I'm in Donald Westlake's Ordo, about a navy chap who learns from a magazine article that his ex-wife is the newest sex goddess of the big screen. Naturally, the guy has to go looking for her. Good stuff, and I feel that the novellas get better as I go through the collection.
I'm also reading around in Clive James' Cultural Amnesia, a collection of biographical essays on 20th-century cultural and political figures--some of them important but lesser known. Inside we get essays on everyone from Hegel, Borges, and Charles de Gaulle, to Louis Armstrong, Terry Gilliam, and Dick Cavett.
I'm also finally getting to Bob Dylan's Chronicles, Vol. 1, which has some fine spirit behind it. With that I've taken up The Complete Bob Dylan Songbook for an artistic point-of-view behind Zimmy's personal history, and to improve my guitar chops by learning personal favs "Jokerman," "Not Dark Yet," and others (as best as my talents will allow).
-Matt Sorrento
Labels: biography, crime novellas, music
posted by Matt Borondy at 2/11/2008 07:05:00 PM
So here's something: of course I look at Amazon. I've been published long enough now to have the Amazon ranking not matter so much to me, but there is something else I find addictive about Amazon: what books are offered at a discount if you buy it with one of mine. There is an algorithm to this, I'm sure. Or something. Clearly the decisions aren't being made by actual people (I'm guessing) because Christ you'd need an army. But I'm not sure what it's based on. Always fascinating to me, though. Sometimes it's easy: sometimes Amazon offers one of my books with another of my books. Boring (but encouraged, from a college-fund-for-my-daughters standpoint). Other times the selection is just way too predictable (offering
The Ice Beneath You with something by Tim O'Brien, for instance. Not that I don't love O'Brien, I do, but you know what I'm saying). Other times I'm stymied to find the connection, and it's at those times that I get most excited. About a month ago, Amazon was offering
Voodoo Lounge with the novel
Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai. I'd heard good things about this first novel, so I jumped and picked up a copy. What a great read! I lived in India for a year at a very impressionable age (I was 13), at about the time the novel was set. A wonderful and subtle voice, Desai has.
My brother-in-law gave me a copy of
DeKooning: An American Master, by Mark Stevens and Annalyn Swan, which won the Pulitzer for biography not too long ago. Big book, and an endlessly fascinating read. I have zero ability in the visual arts, so am always very curious as to the inner workings of those who do. I found a lot to like and identify with in DeKooning, as well.
Two by Roth, recently:
The Plot Against America and
Everyman.
Plot started very strong, but disappointed me somewhat in the end.
Everyman I thought better than the bad reviews it got.
Labels: Amazon, biography, Christian Bauman
posted by Matt Borondy at 9/27/2007 11:57:00 PM 
