can you tell me more about this book? I wanna wiki/amazon it, but i'm afraid it might give too much away

Bought this on a whim off of a bum on the street during a drunken walk home from the pub with my girlfriend.

Just getting started on it and loving it so far. Can't wait to watch the movie as soon as I'm done.

m proust. the way by swann's

I've had this sitting on my shelf for about a year now. I'm dying to read it, but I keep getting distracted by other books. I have the edition below. The entire set is gorgeous and whenever I'm at the bookstore I'm tempted to buy the rest.

looks beautiful. i have the same translation. i've been reading it a while, but it's very beautiful indeed. with some sarcastic observations. i'm hoping to get to the next volume and not stop at the first book...

about to start:

pretty good. looks interesting based off the artwork

I enjoyed this quite a bit and it gave me some insight on these bands that I did not know.

I've been on a music kick recently.But I really don't know what I'm going to be getting after this. Anyone have any music book recommendations?

I enjoyed this quite a bit and it gave me some insight on these bands that I did not know.

I've been on a music kick recently.But I really don't know what I'm going to be getting after this. Anyone have any music book recommendations?

Have you readChuck Klosterman? His opinions occasionally make me see red, but he's a teriffic writer. Killing Yourself to Live is a little better than Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs.

Otherwise, almost anything Peter Guralnick writes is great. His two-volume bio of Elvis is considered the definitive work on The King.

And avoid Clinton Heylin at all costs. Especially his writing about Dylan - never have I seen someone so consistently wrong about a man he is alleged to be "the world's foremost expert" on. Other hand, Greil Marcus's That Old Weird America, about Dylan and The Band's Basement Tapes recordings is first rate.

And finally, if you want some fun, the two anthologies of Lester Bangs's work are outstanding.

Infused with melancholy. Surrounded by people in the city but still incredibly lonely. Still at the party long after you've stopped having fun, still at the club.

I want to read a book that has the same mood as Interpol's Turn On The Bright Lights. The same atmosphere as Burial's Untrue. DJ Shadow's "Midnight in a Perfect World." Is there such a book? Infused with melancholy. Surrounded by people in the city but still incredibly lonely. Still at the party long after you've stopped having fun, still at the club. Orange light of street lamps, the red glow of stop lights. Recommendations?

I want to read a book that has the same mood as Interpol's Turn On The Bright Lights. The same atmosphere as Burial's Untrue. DJ Shadow's "Midnight in a Perfect World." Is there such a book? Infused with melancholy. Surrounded by people in the city but still incredibly lonely. Still at the party long after you've stopped having fun, still at the club. Orange light of street lamps, the red glow of stop lights. Recommendations?

What about Bret Easton Ellis, pre-American Psycho?

Haven't heard any of that music. All I got is Catcher In the Rye. What about Bret Easton Ellis, pre-American Psycho?

...a vibrating monolith, a horrific choral frenzy, as monumental and mysterious as the leviathans of which it sings.

Audio Culture: Readings in Modern Music attempts to map the aural and discursive terrain of vanguard musical culture today. Rather than offering a history of contemporary music, this book traces the genealogy of contemporary musical practices and theoretical concerns, drawing lines of connection between recent musical practices and earlier moments of sonic experimentation. It aims to foreground the various rewirings of musical composition and performance that have taken place in the past few decades and to provide a critical and theoretical language for this new audio culture. Via writings by philosophers, cultural theorists, and composers, the book explores the interconnections among such forms as Minimalism, Indeterminacy, musique concrete, Improvised Music, the Classical Avant Garde, Experimental Music, Avant-Rock, Dub Reggae, Ambient Music, Hip Hop, and Techno. Rather than focusing on the putative "crossover" between "high art" and "low art" in the new audio culture, the book takes all of these musics as experimental practices on par with, and linked to, one another. While cultural studies has tended to look at music (primarily popular music) from a sociological perspective, the concern here is philosophical, musical, and historical. As such, the book poses and seeks to answer questions such as: What new modes of production, circulation, reception, and discourse do these new musical practices mobilize? How do these practices complicate the definition of "music" and its distinction from "silence," "noise," and "sound"? In what ways do they challenge traditional conceptions of authorship, textuality, and ownership? The book includes writings by: Jacques Attali, John Cage, SimonReynolds, Brian Eno, Glenn Gould, Umberto Eco, Michael Nyman, Ornette Coleman, Karlheinz Stockhausen, and many others.

read this last week. what do you think?

i dug it. book definitely has its issues, but it's enjoyable and very relate-able. at least to me.

The Yiddish Policeman's Union - Michael Chabon. I haven't finished a book in months...I'm already excited about the story: dark, fantastical & gritty city crime yarn. I've read ...Kavalier & Clay and Italian Secretary. Confession: I didn't finish Italian Secretary.

The Coens are working on the film adaptation for this. I bought the hardcover when it came out, but haven't read it yet. It's probably next on my list.

it's not his greatest. but his over-reliance on judaic/genre hybrids has started to bore me. it reads easily, but if you were to read one book this year, this shouldn't be it.

i finished the new philip roth today, and it was pretty good. one of the easiest reads he's ever done. not dense at all. it works quite well as a male counterpart to the bell jar and all those hysterical female narratives. and today i also started the new sarah vowell book, which is about the pilgrims and puritans and the effect of the "city upon the hill" speech on america. it's educational, frequently hilarious and wonderfully composed. i'd highly recommend it to pretty much anyone with a brain.

Actually, I bought it in an airport on the way back from Vegas last year, and read the first 50 pages or so on the plane. It didn't grab my interest immediately, so I put it down and never came back to it.

How am I supposed to finish it in the wake of those two enthusiastic dismissals?

i'm a book snob. don't fret about my dismissals, it's just some mild bitchiness. the book is better than 99% out there, chabon's capable of more. if you're liking this, far be it from me to criticize that. the book gets steadily better as it progresses, the ending is not disappointing and you end up caring about the characters. this is no failed novel, just a mildly problematic (for me) one.

Chabon strikes me with each new book as slipping further and further toward being the new Chaim Potok. Which would be ok, I suppose, if Potok had written more than three novels I could stand. What happened to the Chabon who wrote Mysteries of Pittsburgh and Wonder Boys? Now every single book is like some kind of "I'm a Jew and proud!" manifesto.

Mr. Chabon, no one asks for you to be ashamed of your Judaism - just write a book about something else once in a while?

I am entirely open to the proposition that this is as absurd as asking Toni Morrison to stop writing books about black people, btw, although I intensely dislike Morrison as an author, as well.

Just picked it up this weekend and hope to start it tonight. I have loved all things Klosterman up to this point, though, so I'm really looking forward to it.

About five chapters in and LOVING it! Maybe because I moved from the northern burbs to a rural teaching job when I turned 23, but I agree that this book is totally relate-able.