What Book Are You Currently Reading?

[henwrench]

Complete Works of Shakespeare.
Finished Romeo and Juliet, King Lear and Love Sonnets. Just started Much Ado About Nothing.
   It'a amazing stuff. It's hard going for the first couple of pages, but my god, when you get into it, it truly is incredible, amazingly mind blowin' stuff.

                                       henwrench

[SteveB]

Complete Works of Shakespeare...It's amazing stuff. It's hard going for the first couple of pages, but my god, when you get into it, it truly is incredible, amazingly mind blowin' stuff.

                                       henwrench

HWH - Up to a few weeks ago I always had the complete WS on mybedside shelf. God, whoever did write the works of WS, they were certainly a one-off. It started for me on a school-trip to Stratford-upon-Avon. We were about 14 years old and the usual motely crew, including some less-than-academic brusiers from the school football (soccer) team. The play we saw was Coriolanus, and at the point in the play when the eponymous soldier faces a slippery tribunal who are trying to trip him up, he replies (something like): '...Where I have stood in battle, I have fled from words.'
At that point I realised that Education wasn't just necessary, it is vital.
I later took part in a few Am-Dram productions of Macbeth (mostly playing Seyton, Macbeth's steward). We did one version set on a building site, with the cast wearing hard hats, and the scaffolding serving as the castle battlements.
Shakespeare? Simply unique.

[Greeny]

One of the finest! I hope you've read all the Bukowski's. He's my favourite writer by far.

When you've finished with him, try John Fante who was Buk's hero / favourite writer. Read 'Ask the Dust' and you'll see why. He only wrote 4 novels, but he's great.

And 'Journey to the End of the Night' by Celine... another Bukowski influence.

Ahh... aren't books great?!

[nathanclarke]

The last train to Memphis - The Rise Of Elvis Presley.

Its very good.

[Ted]

Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle

Thoroughly depressing.

This is an interview with the author:

Chris Hedges describes the polarities of the two societies he says we are now living in: One side is based in reality and able to separate illusion from truth; the other side is rooted in fantasy. The latter, Hedges says, is the growing majority. The Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist talks about Empire of Illusion and what he views as the erosion of American culture.

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[LCB]

Well... im an anthropology lecturer at uni, so preparing some lectures based on Ferguson's Anti-Politics Machine, quite interesting critique of development.....

[SteveB]

Reading this...
An interesting account of the their individual lives, and then the sometimes-explosive relationship between these two. (It's also a reminder that popular music existed before the electric guitar.)
An interesting feature at the end of the book is to tell the subsequent careers of some of the other main characters. For instance, one of the original singers in the 'Savoy' operas only died in 1970. Which is right about the time that some of the Members of this Forum were breathing their first. Musical overlap, eh?

[Ted]

I finally finished the gloom and doom book I was reading.

Now I'm reading Three Kilos of Coffee, the autobiography of Manu Dibango.

[img align=right]http://www.press.uchicago.edu/Images/Chicago/0226144909.jpeg[/img]In 1948, at the age of fifteen, Manu Dibango left Africa for France, bearing three kilos of coffee for his adopted family and little else. This book chronicles Manu Dibango's remarkable rise from his birth in Douala, Cameroon, to his worldwide success—with Soul Makossa in 1972—as the first African musician ever to record a top 40s hit.

Composer, producer, performer, film score writer and humanitarian for the poor, Manu Dibango defines the "African sound" of modern world music. He has worked with and influenced such artists as Art Blakey, Don Cherry, Herbie Hancock, Harry Belafonte, Paul Simon, and Johnny Clegg. In Africa, he has helped younger musicians, performed benefit concerts, and transcribed for the first time the scores and lyrics of African musicians.

The product of a "mixed marriage" (of different tribes and religions) who owes allegiances to both Africa and Europe, Dibango has always been aware of the ambiguities of his identity. This awareness has informed all of the important events of his life, from his marriage to a white Frenchwoman in 1957, to his creation of an "Afro-music" which joyfully blends blues, jazz, reggae, traditional European and African serenades, highlife, Caribbean and Arabic music. This music addresses the meaning of "Africanness" and what it means to be a Black artist and citizen of the world.

[SteveB]

Have just started this. If you've ever seen the film 'The Man Who Never Was', well, this is the story behind it. It's already quite fascinating, with a cast of eccentrics that the British seem to be able to conjur up at will.

[antisocialworker]

just finished Dan Browns new one
The Lost Symbol

my favorite is called
the celestine prophecy
by james redfield