Book Recommendations

qcrisp said:
I am reading and very much enjoying E.F. Schumacher's A Guide for the Perplexed. I can't think it would be everyone's cup of tea, but I am significantly more than half in sympathy with it.

He seems to have been an interesting person. When I hear that someone was Chief Economic Advisor to the British Coal Board for twenty years, I don't immediately imagine that they would write a book that leans heavily on Scholastic philosophy, quoting Aquinas, Plotinus, Dante, Viktor Frankl, and many others, and talking about the likes of Edgar Cayce and Emanuel Swedenborg.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E._F._Schumacher
Click to expand...


Coming to this party two years late: Schumacher's A Guide for the Perplexed became one of my touchstone books the minute I first read it in the early 1990s. I had heard about it from Theodore Roszak. Something about Schumacher's argument and presentation articulated and activated thoughts, ideas, and insights that felt native to me.
 
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Westlake

Westlake, Donald E - The Comedy Is Finished

Radicals kidnap a Hollywood icon. Not for ransom, not for money, but to free political prisoners.
Local police is soon bolstered with the FBI, eventually the media circus.
Good, fast moving yarn of disparate, ‘60s relics, adrift in a later decade that couldn’t care less about ideals or “the cause.”
The snatched funnyman, Koo Davis, I simply pictured as Bob Hope.
Westlake does nice job of sketching Los Angeles, circa late 70s.

According to the blurb, Westlake sent a copy to Max Collins for his opinion.
And then, Scorsese’s The King Of Comedy came out, and, fearing readers would assume he had patterned his book after the film, Westlake simply shelved it.
And thirty plus years passed by.
After Westlake's death, Collins remembered he still had a xerox of the forgotten novel.
By such threads, do some works hang.
 
Murakami

Murakami, Ryū - Almost Transparent Blue

Third, perhaps fourth time I have read this headlong rush of a debut.
Narrative follows a group of youths, late teens, early twenties, seeking kicks.
Swaggering sex, a lot of it, oozes in the final gasp of the pre-AIDs era.
Drug use glories in staggering detail. Hash, heroin, amphetamines, alcohol.
Characters are, in turn, fed up, bored, restless, angry, lazy, wistful, violent.
They are worldly beyond their years, yet also unsupervised children, not quite adults.
Only Lilly, who is slightly older, seems more mature, though she turns tricks to earn a living.
Throughout, every sort of fluid is vibrantly described.

This always struck me as a book that will resonate more with readers who ripped boundaries after they fledged the nest.
Questionable friends, reckless abuse of substances, wallowing in carnality.
A fair percentage will quit this book early on, wash their hands of the filth.
Those who lived heedlessly, however, will relate to varying degree.

For movie buffs, Murakami wrote and directed Tokyo Decadence.
Murakami also wrote Audition which Takashi Miike made into an unforgettable love story.
 
Badfinger

Matovina, Dan – Without You: The Tragic Story Of Badfinger

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Extremely depressing book about a legendary group.
Their manager arranged the contract so he was a member, entitled to an equal share of revenue.
Their US business manager, royally fleeced all earning from recordings and touring.
(One of the girlfriends became the template for the blonde girlfriend in Spinal Tap.)
Songwriters Pete Ham and Tom Evans were ignorant they were due royalties for "Without You" which became a well covered standard.
Apple deleted their entire catalogue after tiring of threats and bullying from the business manager.
Warners deleted Wish You Were Here after seven weeks due to the manager threatening lawsuits.
Head First was similarly halted before it even came out.
In despair, Ham committed suicide by hanging.
Eight years later, Evans committed suicide by hanging.
It's a long way to the top, and for Badfinger, it was ugly and painful, up and down.
Brilliantly written, hundreds of photos, CD of unreleased material.
 
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Robert Goulart

Goulart, Robert – Cheap Thrills

2007 updating of the classic 1972 overview of the Pulp era.
Goulart does a nice job showing the origins of the periodicals, explores various genres, then details various reasons for their eventual demise.
Final 50 pages are copies of letters he received in 1969 from still surviving writers, artists, editors. Insightful and entertaining.
I am still boggled how they could churn out 10,000 - 20,000 words daily!
Most have faded from memory, though a few names linger on. Max Brand, king of the Western. Maxwell Grant, The Shadow. Ron E Howard, Conan. HPL.
Penny a word.

In my early teens, two buddies and I made semi regular trips to the nearest city - several hours away by bus.
There we hit the record stores and bookshops. I bought Horror, another focused on comics, the third friend collected pulps.
Even then, those things were nasty. Yellowed, brittle pages, extremely fragile. Just reading them could cause pages to crumble.
We ridiculed each others' choices, so I never paid attention to notice who had what favorites.
I do recall the “pulp“ friend kept his publications in mylar bags, several hundred last time I noted.
Both those childhood friends have been dead for a decades now.
Their collections, like most obsessions, blown to the winds.
 
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Re: Robert Goulart

I had that Shadow pulp - one of the most iconic images in the series - in excellent condition. It cost me about $150. I bought it at the annual Pulpcon. I believe it was in Dayton, Ohio that year. It was stolen in a burglary when I was working third shift. Crime does not pay. Ha!
 
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Otto Friedrich

Friedrich, Otto - City Of Nets

Addicting non-fiction about Hollywood in the 40s.
One year per chapter, though author Friedrich cheats a bit including 1939 and 1950.
Power grabs and turf wars by moguls. Violent union confrontations amidst organized crime goons.
Leading stars with their substance problems, sexual peccadilloes, personality disorders.
Congressional hearings on Communist infiltration.
Of particular interest was the Hollywood Ten, those writers who may - or may not - have been members of the Communist Party. They seemed more to get in trouble for refusing to name names to self-righteous politicians, rather than spying or undermining national morale.
Indeed, I wondered how many of those Representatives actually served in combat, as opposed to staying stateside, sent others’ children into harms way.
Oh wait, the same might be said for current “leaders.”
Fun as this book was, after many sordid tales, I often felt compelled to shower or wash my hands.
 
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Bukowski

Bukowski, Charles - The Captain Is Out To Lunch And The Sailors Have Taken Over The Ship

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Publisher John Martin persuaded Bukowski, very late in his career, to keep a journal.
This came out posthumously.
Lot of comments about the racetrack, his neighborhood, ailments.
Some repetition, and there would be long lapses between entries (can't tell if that was Bukowski or the editor).
One gets the feeling the writer knew his time was winding down, and he seemed to find less enjoyment in everything. Not that he was ever the beacon of merriment. As always, his observations are merciless, and skewer the facades we hide behind.
A quick read - no Chinaski - may prove better for hard fans.
Fabulous drawings by sympathetic soul, Robert Crumb.

Note: I only wish I had the edition shown!
 
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Max Collins

Collins, Max - London Blitz Murders

Bit of a change here, musings from my short-lived participation in a book club.
Collins, better known for hard boiled mysteries, delves into cozy pastiche.
Based on a real life spree killer, the Blackout Ripper, the plot follows a trio of sleuths (DCI Edward Greeno, forensic expert Bernard Spilsbury, and Agatha Christie) hunting for an escalating murderer.
The plot jogs along, with neat touches: life under blackout, the crowded arrival of thousands of Yanks, and circumstances of working girls with limited options.
Not a book of any great depth, but a quick page turner, nevertheless, and a fun beach read.
West End buffs will appreciate the “actresses” who worked the Windmill Theatre …

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6w0ZD5vLZ64

… as well as tried out for ongoing rehearsals of Christie’s new production, “Ten Little Indians” (“And Then There Were None” for Americans).
Differences between Agatha Christie and Agatha Mallowan are interesting, though old hat for serious Christie fans.
I had a problem with the “voice” of this. Despite watching documentaries of Christie, despite seeing her likeness at Madame Tussaud’s, I still kept picturing - and hearing - Joan Hickson.
So much so, I wondered if Collins inadvertently used the actress as his template.
Could have been me, though.
 
Richard Parry

Parry, Richard Lloyd - People Who Eat Darkness

True crime history of English girl, Lucie Blackman, who leaves Sevenoaks for Tokyo.
Chronicles how impossible it had become for her to live in England. To escape a needy, whiny mother. To climb out from a pit of debt.
She worked the international route as stewardess with British Airlines, but a Tokyo gig promised more money.
Hostess in a club in the seedy Roppongi district. Chatting and listening to lonely Japanese salarymen. Ensuring they repeatedly return to the club, and keep spending heavily.
The work was stressful, but harmless. Mostly.

Long interview with club owner explained strategies. Initial visitor to club would immediately receive the prettiest girl in the room, for one hour. After an hour, she was reassigned and a less attractive girl went to him. “Hey, where’s the first girl?” “Oh, she’s busy. You can pay extra for her company, or you can wait another hour when she’s free again.” Of course, salarymen pay by the hour in those clubs. Girls flirt, make the man the center of the universe, and keep the bills coming. Free dinners were involved, as were gifts. Sex was supposedly a no no.
She phoned a friend after a dinner date and said she was an hour away.
Then she disappeared.
Took months of political leverage and police prodding before detectives found the bags.
Absorbing, in-depth read of the unlucky soul encountering the serial hunter.
That, and the aftermath.
 
Gil Brewer

Brewer, Gil - A Taste For Sin

Jim works at a liquor store. To make ends meet, he boosts cases now and then, hoping his boss doesn’t notice.
Enter customer Felice. Nothing but firm curves under a black shirt, hitched high. White blouse, mostly unbuttoned, beckons with more moist delights.
Felice and Jim begin to yield to the electric charge between them, even though Jim knows she’s poison.
She’s 17, she’s reckless, she has a temper, she has a husband.
Yeah, that husband thing. Still, he works at the bank, he works nights, he has keys.
Jim is another of Brewer’s male losers. Guys transfixed stupid by hot snatch.
Oh, Jim comes up with a plan! Details and timetables so nothing - nothing - can go wrong.
The book hurtles at a frenetic pace, matching the Jim and Felice‘s activities every time they rip each others clothes off, which is often.
For tales of low rent lust and insane capers, Brewer is my go-to favorite.
 
Day Keene

Keene, Day - League Of The Grateful Dead

Collection of hard-boiled short stories written for 1940s era pulps.
Sharp paced plots, smart mouthed guys, dealing in hot lead and a quick uppercut.
Most were private eye cases, back when the job was glamorous and paid real dough.
A lot of fun, including some great titles such as "Dead: As In Mackerel."
Light read when you don't want to plow through 700 pages of teens realizing they are turning into their parents and will live another 60 years. Or enduring another memoir of a fossil griping about how painful their childhood was. Oops, was that the grown teenager?
League Of The Grateful Dead was cheap entertainment, not enlightenment.

Day Keene had been popular in the 30s, as well, but under his own, very Germanic name.
Once WWII commenced, he shifted to a pseudonym and never went back to his original.
In an interview, Jerry Garcia once said the band had gotten their name from a forgotten magazine story.
 
Photographs For The Tsar

Prokudin-Gorskii, S.M. - Photographs For The Tsar

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An excellent reference I consult whenever reading about pre-Revolutionary Russia.
Prokudin-Gorskii traveled Russia in a specially fitted Pullman coach, photographing the populace and wonders of the land.
Nicholas II approved this and was genuinely interested, though funding for the project ran out in 1917.
Prokudin-Gorskii was a pioneer in color photography (very expensive), and the book is full of images from 1906-1917.
That world, and the people in it, the villages, the buildings, the very landscape, vanished into the Great War, the Revolution, the Civil War, the Red Terror.
Luckily, his photos are easily found online.

Bonus!
Yes, you could Google around for images, but I have added a couple below:

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Pinkhus Karlinskii, 1909

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Greek tea gatherers, Kurdistan

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Schoolboys with Rabbi, Sammarkand

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Peasant women in the Ukraine

More? Larger? Go here – https://mashable.com/2014/09/30/russian-revolution-in-color/
 
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Zaharoff, I became fascinated with Prokudin-Gorsky and his work after I travelled through Uzbekistan in late 2018. Photographs of his are everywhere (for those who have eyes to see them, of course). In Bukhara, inside the old Zindan prison, where Stoddart and Conolly of the East India Company suffered a cruel fate in the bug pit, there are pictures of his depicting the way it was when it served as a debtor's prison in the emirate. I might have placed a pic or two in my travel diary.

I would strongly recommend you also take a look at the Turkestan Album, an astounding ethnographic and photographic survey of Central Asia in the late 19th century, as the Russian Empire was swallowing all those old emirates and khanates. Much of it is digitized, do check it out on the World Digital Library/Library of Congress.

We have many similar predilections, it seems.
 
Charles Bukowski

Bukowski, Charles - South Of No North

Stories culled from the Los Angeles Free Press and Doug Blazek’s “Ole.”
The narrator recollects growing up poor, living rough. Childhood, poignant, bleak, overlaid with an adult wonder of how everyone survived.
Companions drift in and out, fellow discards, clutching bent pipedreams.
Women stroll into the Life’s bar, give, take. When the gauge hits empty, they hit the breeze.
The sex stories are pretty funny. Sex itself can be funny, unless you’re one of those types who view the mortal coil oh so seriously.
Chinaski visits the doctor for various ailments. The doc, an ex-Nazi, treats him, yet wails about his own problems.
Chinaski sees a fellow starving poet. Only this guy is about climb out of the ditch. This story seems eerily prophetic.
Two honchos of a roller derby league take an over-eager achiever to task.
(The roller derby awakened an old memory. Years ago, for four months, in a period of sheer lunacy, I dated a jammer. That didn’t go so well.)
Sour luck, bad choices, narrow chances, liars, drunks, the crooked game.
These are timeless stories, always timeless.
Don’t believe it? Go on, be pleased with yourself. It won’t last. It never does.
Then, when you’re staring at your empty hands, these essays will resonate.
 
Since there is a Stalker discussion going on on the A Few Reviews thread, I recommend Zona: A Book About a Film About a Journey to a Room by Geoff Dyer; I read it recently and it is a very interesting book. It is fairly short too, so it won't take much of anyone's time.
 
Ready, Steady, Fo!

Levy, Shawn - Ready, Steady, Go!
Swinging London and the Invention of Cool.


The rise, exhilarating peak, and demise of Swinging London, circa 1960 - 68
To be frank, however, the blazing time you want to visit in your Tardis is 1962 - 66.
Music, movies, fashion, photography, art galleries are key areas.
I was fairly steeped in music of the British Invasion, cinema I had caught up with later.
Fashion, not really, though my wife is very knowledgeable.
That’s the thing, you roll from sphere to sphere, in fairly chronological time.
Levy does a great job focusing on key movers and shakers. Illuminated, sometimes dissected.
This is a period fondly recalled, though few, extremely few, swirled in the hot nucleus.
Meritocracy and class distinctions meant 99%, as now, never had admittance.
Addictive history with a surprising amount of blunt interviews. Little glossing over.
Smashing.

Bonus. Sounds from 1963.
Easy Beat and Pop Goes, two BBC radio shows, featuring a small group.
Decades later, songs were isolated, cleaned and anthologized.
Omitted was the electricity and good natured banter. The soul.
Each are around ten minutes.
Easy Beat
Pop Goes Beat
 
Albert Camus

Camus, Albert - The Plague

I first encountered this, a lifetime earlier, in college FLIT (Foreign Literature In Translation).
The book was not what I was expecting, me being 19-20 and simply reading the title of PLAGUE!!!
The novel stayed with me, though, to the point that I bought a used Modern Library edition and added it to the stacks.
I next read this in the 80’s, as AIDS spilled out from the margins, and looked to sweep like a scythe through humanity.
In the book, after the eruption of rats, key characters wither to their essence.
The resigned, the valiant, the selfish, the industrious, fighting an implacable foe, a microscopic adversary that seemed to posses a cunning intelligence.
Weeks ago, I started rereading this again, as the pace of the current panic escalated.
I read slowly, half hoping by the time I finished some sort of remedy or control might be at hand.
The fool and his delusions.
 
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