Tag Archives: books

Read: Book Two Of Elena Ferrante’s Epic Trilogy

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The Italian writer Elena Ferrante is one of my favorite living novelists. She won me over with her heartbreaking 2012 novel, “My Brilliant Friend,” the first volume of a trilogy. It’s the story of two friends, Lila and Elena.

We start when the two are kids, and we follow them into their teenage years and Lila’s marriage. The two girls live in Naples and their families are dirt poor. The girls or people they know suffer many misfortunes. And yet this is an inspirational book. It’s narrated by Elena long after all that she recounts has happened.

There are two great pieces you can read to get up to speed on Ferrante.

The first ran last year in the New Yorker following publication of the first book of her trilogy. Read it here.

More recently, the New York Times ran this review of “Story of a New Name,” the second volume.

Hopefully the third volume will be published in a year or so.

Art Garfunkel’s Fave Books? Give Me A F***ing Break

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David Bowie’s list of favorite books is one thing. The art rocker is an innovator who has, time and again during his long career, made highly influential work.

A list of Bowie’s fave books provides insight into the mind of this intriguing artist.

Certainly I’d love to see fave book lists from Dylan and Leonard Cohen and Tom Waits and the late Captain Beefheart and the late Frank Zappa and Patti Smith and Kim Gordon and plenty more.

But now we get a list of every book Art Garfunkel has read since 1968. Really, Art, keep it to yourself.

For more on this, read this piece in The Guardian.

Welcome To My Blog

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Although I expect that much of what I post here will deal with music, I’ll also write about writing, especially related to the novel I completed earlier this year, “Days of the Crazy-Wild,” and a new one I’m currently at work on. I’ll also, on occasion, talk about books I’m reading, films I’ve seen, art and whatever else makes some kind of serious impression.

My first post, which went up yesterday and is about Bob Dylan’s Another Self Portrait, is the second music column I’ve written for the new Australian version of Addicted To Noise. I’m writing a monthly column for the new ATN.

I’ve also posted the first chapter of “Days of the Crazy-Wild,” and there’s a link to it next to the “About me” link near the top of this page. I hope you’ll read the chapter and let me know what you think. My hope is that it’ll pull you into the narrative dream, and as you read it you’ll feel like you’re experiencing what it was like on the West Coast back in the early ’70s when the counterculture and it’s ideas and ideals still seemed to be alive.

I’ll also sometimes post lists of what I’m currently into, and they’ll look like this:

1. Coming Apart, Body/Head (Matador).

2. “The Butler” (in theaters now).

3. “The God of Nightmares,” Paula Fox (W. W. Norton & Company).

4. The Worse Things Get, The Harder I Fight, The Harder I Fight, The More I Love You, Neko Case (Anti-).

5. The Isle of Wight recordings, Bob Dylan (Sony Legacy). Available as Mp3 downloads if you don’t want to buy the $100 Another Self-Portrait box set.

6. “Oh Come On, The Julie Ruin (TJR). Song and video.