2024 Reading List Monthly Update: June

Books read in June of 2024:

"The Book of Marvels and Travels" (Sir John Mandeville/Anthony Bale translation) 6-4-24

"The Edge of the World: How the North Sea Made Us Who We Are" (Michael Pye) 6-9-24

"The Three Cornered World" (Natsume Soseki) 6-15-24

"A Kingdom of Frozen Tears" (Tom Champagne) 6-21-24

"Michigan Basement" (Thomas Ligotti & Brandon Trenz) 6-22-24

"The Stronghold" (Dino Buzzati) 6-24-24 

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2024 Reading List Total:

-

1. "The Explosion of a Chandelier" (Damian Murphy) 1-7-24

2. "Empire of the Sun" (J.G. Ballard) 1-11-24

3. "The Consolation of Philosophy" (Boethius) 1-14-24

4. "CAW: Colossal Abandoned World" (James Champagne) 1-17-24

5. "The Green Fly and Other Stories" (Robert Scheffer) 1-19-24

6. "Godzilla and Godzilla Raids Again" (Shigeru Kayama) 1-22-24

7. "Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982" (Cho Nam-joo) 1-27-24

8. "The Planetary Omnibus" (Warren Ellis) 1-28-24

9. "A Song in the Night" (Daniel Mills) 1-31-24 

10. "The Princess of Darkness" (Rachilde) 2-13-24

11. "i'm still growing" (Josiah Morgan) 2-15-24

12. "Winona" (Robert Rich) 2-16-24

13. "Alexandria: The City That Changed The World" (Islam Issa) 2-21-24

14. "Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (And Other Concerns)" (Mindy Kaling) 2-27-24

15. "Self-Portraits" (Osamu Dazai) 2-27-24

16. "The Siren's Lament: Essential Stories" (Jun'ichirō Tanizaki) 3-10-24

17. "The Secret History with Related Texts" (Prokopios) 3-13-24

18. "The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up" (Marie Kondo) 3-14-24

19. "Crampton" (Thomas Ligotti & Brandon Trenz) 3-16-24 +

20. "Stitches" (Hirokatsu Kihara + Junji Ito) 3-26-24

21. "Artists and Their Cats" (Alison Nastasi) 3-28-24

22. "Great Cities of the Ancient World" (L. Sprague de Camp) 4-3-24

23. "Terminal Boredom" (Izumi Suzuki) 4-12-24

24. "Dragon Palace" (Hiromi Kawakami) 4-16-24

25. "Alexander the Great: His Life and Mysterious Death" (Anthony Everitt) 4-21-24

26. "The Antichrist: A New Biography" (Philip C. Almond) 5-24-24

27. "The Old Capital" (Yasunari Kawabata) 5-16-24

28. "The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World" (Bettany Hughes) 5-20-24

29. "The Cat Inside" (William S. Burroughs) 5-22-24 +

30. "A Travel Guide to the Middle Ages: The World Through Medieval Eyes" (Anthony Bale) 5-29-24

31. "Diary of a Void" (Emi Yagi) 5-29-24

32. "The Book of Marvels and Travels" (Sir John Mandeville/Anthony Bale translation) 6-4-24

33. "The Edge of the World: How the North Sea Made Us Who We Are" (Michael Pye) 6-9-24

34. "The Three Cornered World" (Natsume Soseki) 6-15-24

35. "A Kingdom of Frozen Tears" (Tom Champagne) 6-21-24

36. "Michigan Basement" (Thomas Ligotti & Brandon Trenz) 6-22-24

37. "The Stronghold" (Dino Buzzati) 6-24-24 

*= book I have read at least once in the past
+= book I have read before, but not this reprint/edition/translation

Currently Reading: 

"The Death of King Arthur" (Sir Thomas Malory/retold by Peter Ackroyd) 
"Sir Gawain and the Green Knight" (Unknown/translated by Keith Harrison) 

Bathroom Reads #9: THE TRUE HISTORY OF THE BLACK ADDER by J.F. Roberts

 

I first became a big fan of the comedic talents of Rowan Atkinson in the spring of 1996, when some channel began broadcasting episodes of MR. BEAN to audiences in the USA... perhaps the channel was PBS? I know the first episode that I ever saw was "Tee Off, Mr. Bean" (the laundromat/mini golf one), and that at the time my mother and I had to watch them on the small TV in the kitchen because my other brothers and my dad were watching THE DANA CARVEY SHOW on the bigger TV in the living room. I told my brothers they were wasting their time with the latter program and should be watching MR. BEAN instead, and when THE DANA CARVEY SHOW was cancelled (very quickly, after a mere 6-7 weeks, if memory serves), they all gravitated to MR. BEAN as well and also became fans. This was a little over a year before the release of the first MR. BEAN movie, which of course made the character more of a household name in the States, so in that aspect at least, we were ahead of the curve. 

My interest in MR. BEAN has, over the years, led me to explore some other famous British sitcoms (though it should be mentioned here that my real interest in British comedy perhaps can be traced to seeing MONTY PYTHON & THE HOLY GRAIL in the early 90s), such as the immortal FAWLTY TOWERS, along with THE VICAR OF DIBLEY, FATHER TED and, naturally (what with my interest in Atkinson as an actor) BLACKADDER. Another thing that inspired me to give BLACKADDER a spin was my fascination in history, because each of the 4 main seasons of BLACKADDER is set in a different historical time period of England: the late Middle Ages, the Elizabethan Era, the Regency, and finally the trenches of World War I. History was (along with Art and English) one of the only subjects I was actually good at in school, and I love reading books on the subject, playing video games set in the past, watching TV shows and movies that recreate different historical eras, and so on. So it's no surprise that I became a big fan of BLACKADDER. I even greatly enjoyed the much maligned first series, which (while admittedly not as funny as the 3 series that come after it) featured some really beautiful costume work and sets. And the show certainly boasted an impressive cast: outside of Atkinson, one could also mention Tony Robinson, Tim McInnerny, Miranda Richardson, Stephen Fry, Hugh Laurie, Brian Blessed, and smaller guest roles for everyone from Miriam Margoyles to Jim Broadbent to Rik Mayall to Robbie Coltrane. 

Perhaps the definitive text about BLACKADDER is the book that serves as the focus of today's entry, THE TRUE HISTORY OF THE BLACK ADDER by J.F. Roberts, published in 2012. An exhaustice chronicler, Roberts not only interviewed almost all of the actors who appeared on the show (including the man Atkinson himself, which was quite the coup), but also the various behind-the-scenes people who brought the show to life, including its creator (and main writer) Richard Curtis (who would later go on to co-create/co-write both MR. BEAN and THE VICAR OF DIBLEY, to say nothing of directing a number of very successful films), its other main writer (Ben Elton), its main producer (John Lloyd), various directors and crew members, even its musician Howard Goodall (who I first knew as the man behind the music for MR. BEAN: in fact, the first episode of MR. BEAN premiered around two months after BLACKADDER came to its end). 

2024 Reading List Monthly Update: May

 Books read in May of 2024:

"The Antichrist: A New Biography" (Philip C. Almond) 5-24-24

"The Old Capital" (Yasunari Kawabata) 5-16-24

"The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World" (Bettany Hughes) 5-20-24

"The Cat Inside" (William S. Burroughs) 5-22-24 +

"A Travel Guide to the Middle Ages: The World Through Medieval Eyes" (Anthony Bale) 5-29-24

"Diary of a Void" (Emi Yagi) 5-29-24

-

2024 Reading List Total:

-

1. "The Explosion of a Chandelier" (Damian Murphy) 1-7-24

2. "Empire of the Sun" (J.G. Ballard) 1-11-24

3. "The Consolation of Philosophy" (Boethius) 1-14-24

4. "CAW: Colossal Abandoned World" (James Champagne) 1-17-24

5. "The Green Fly and Other Stories" (Robert Scheffer) 1-19-24

6. "Godzilla and Godzilla Raids Again" (Shigeru Kayama) 1-22-24

7. "Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982" (Cho Nam-joo) 1-27-24

8. "The Planetary Omnibus" (Warren Ellis) 1-28-24

9. "A Song in the Night" (Daniel Mills) 1-31-24 

10. "The Princess of Darkness" (Rachilde) 2-13-24

11. "i'm still growing" (Josiah Morgan) 2-15-24

12. "Winona" (Robert Rich) 2-16-24

13. "Alexandria: The City That Changed The World" (Islam Issa) 2-21-24

14. "Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (And Other Concerns)" (Mindy Kaling) 2-27-24

15. "Self-Portraits" (Osamu Dazai) 2-27-24

16. "The Siren's Lament: Essential Stories" (Jun'ichirō Tanizaki) 3-10-24

17. "The Secret History with Related Texts" (Prokopios) 3-13-24

18. "The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up" (Marie Kondo) 3-14-24

19. "Crampton" (Thomas Ligotti & Brandon Trenz) 3-16-24 +

20. "Stitches" (Hirokatsu Kihara + Junji Ito) 3-26-24

21. "Artists and Their Cats" (Alison Nastasi) 3-28-24

22. "Great Cities of the Ancient World" (L. Sprague de Camp) 4-3-24

23. "Terminal Boredom" (Izumi Suzuki) 4-12-24

24. "Dragon Palace" (Hiromi Kawakami) 4-16-24

25. "Alexander the Great: His Life and Mysterious Death" (Anthony Everitt) 4-21-24

26. "The Antichrist: A New Biography" (Philip C. Almond) 5-24-24

27. "The Old Capital" (Yasunari Kawabata) 5-16-24

28. "The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World" (Bettany Hughes) 5-20-24

29. "The Cat Inside" (William S. Burroughs) 5-22-24 +

30. "A Travel Guide to the Middle Ages: The World Through Medieval Eyes" (Anthony Bale) 5-29-24

31. "Diary of a Void" (Emi Yagi) 5-29-24

*= book I have read at least once in the past
+= book I have read before, but not this reprint/edition/translation

Currently Reading: 

"The Book of Marvels and Travels" (Sir John Mandeville/Bale translation) 

"The Edge of the World: How the North Sea Made Us Who We Are" (Michael Pye) 

Bathroom Reads #8: MIDNIGHT IN CHERNOBYL by Adam Higginbotham

For most of my life I've had a  quite frankly morbid fascination with disasters, stretching back all the way to my childhood. Why this is, I have no idea, though perhaps it might have something to do with my youthful interest in the classic monster movies (I was one of those typical children who took delight in constructing cities in SimCity, only to destroy them with disasters afterwards). One subcategory of disasters I find especially compelling is industrial disasters, specifically those involving hazardous/toxic waste, and also the problem of the handling, storage and disposal of said toxic waste (on that note, I highly recommend Expert Judgement on Markers to Deter Inadvertent Human Intrusion into the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, which was a report that Sandia Laboratories composed for the American office of Nuclear Waste Isolation in 1993: you can read the PDF here: https://wipp.energy.gov/library/cca/CCA_1996_References/Chapter%207/CREL3328.PDF). Here, I can at least identify the fountainhead for that interest, and it was the explosion and meltdown of Reactor Number Four at the Chernobyl Atomic Energy Station that occurred on April 26, 1986. Growing up in the 1980s, I remember that this story was all over the news, and it was an event that I followed with much interest. Really, I suppose one could also say that my interest in all things related to the Soviet Union can also be traced back to the Chernobyl accident. 

Midnight in Chernobyl: The Untold Story of the World's Greatest Nuclear Disaster, by Adam Higginbotham, might just be one of my all-time favorite nonfiction books. I got this one early in 2020, when it had just been released in paperback, around the same time that I was watching the HBO Chernobyl miniseries (a miniseries that, while well-made and with great production values, plays very hard and loose with the facts, which is very ironic when you consider that its tagline was "What is the cost of lies?"). The author spent more than 10 years conducting hundreds of hours of interviews with many people involved in the accident, along with utilizing letters, unpublished memoirs, declassified documents, and other such material. The end result is a very well-researched and gripping read that chronicles not only the Chernobyl disaster and its aftermath but also the terminal decline of the Soviet Union, and I highly recommend it. It's all here: chapters on the design and construction of the Soviet RBMK reactors, the events leading up to the disaster, the disaster itself (and the frantic around-the-clock attempts to prevent a second explosion/further meltdown), the construction of the Sarcophagus to contain the reactor's remains, the investigation into the cause of the accident (and the trial for those held responsible)... even the Elephant's Foot gets its own chapter. There's also a nice picture selection, and many helpful maps and diagrams (including a detailed map of the city of Pripyat). 

The book is very well-written. Consider this passage in the chapter on the erection of the Sarcophagus: "When Slavsky arrived to survey the project once more, on November 13, the Sarcophagus was all but complete - a terrible edifice of black angles, still and ominous, which perfectly expressed its purpose, like a medieval fantasy of a prison to hold Satan himself. It was an extraordinary achievement, a technical triumph in the face of horrifying conditions, and a new pinnacle of Soviet gigantomania: the engineers boasted that the structure contained 440,000 cubic meters of concrete, 600,000 cubic meters of gravel, and 7,700 tonnes of metal. The costs had risen to more than 1 million rubles - or $1.5 million - a day. As he gazed up at his masterpiece, a cathedral of brutalism in concrete and steel, it was said that tears welled in the old man's eyes." 

And although Higginbotham does a good job explain such complex matters as nuclear physics to the layman, the book never forgets the human heart of the struggle, and much time is spent with the plant technicians, firefighters, doctors and nurses, scientists, and soldiers who put their lives on the line (and in some cases sacrificed their health and/or life) to stop the disaster. When I think of the bravery of those men and women, many of whom knew they were marching off to their respective dooms, it's hard not to get a bit choked up. One of the best chapters in the book, "Inside Hospital Number Six," deals with the patients suffering from acute radiation syndrome, and the horrifying suffering and death that accursed those who were exposed to the worst of the radiation and fallout. It's all quite poignant, and one of my favorite passages in the book occurs at the end of the chapter: "By the end of the third week in May, the death toll from the accident had reached twenty, and Alexander Yuvchenko grew frightened. His white blood cell counts plunged to zero, and his remaining hair fell out. When will it be my turn? he wondered. Alone in their rooms, the most seriously injured survivors began to fear the darkness, and the lights in some wards were kept on constantly. A good Communist, Yuvchenko wasn't religious and knew no prayers. Yet each evening, he lay awake and pleaded with God to let him live through one more night." 

This year Higginbotham had a new book published, this one dealing with the Challenger explosion, another disaster that fascinated me as a child. I asked for it for my birthday next month. A potential future bathroom read? 

 

Bathroom Reads #7: KING PULP by Paul A. Woods

 

Today’s topic of discussion revolves around my fascination towards the film director Quentin Tarantino. I first became interested in Tarantino (both his life and work) sometime in the first half of 1997. Why? I’m not entirely sure. I know I had the hots for Uma Thurman at the time and I remember that back in the 90s her image on the famous Pulp Fiction movie poster was very ubiquitous (for example, the local video rental store we went to back in the day had a Pulp Fiction poster on display). And I remember some of my classmates talking about the movie in high school every now and then, which further stoked my interest. The thing was, at the time our parents were very strict about what kind of films my brothers and I could watch, the rule being that we could start watching more adult films when we were 18 . . . and I was around 16-17 when I became interested in Tarantino. In fact, I purchased the Pulp Fiction screenplay from a Waldenbooks at Lincoln Mall in June of ’97, around the time I had my 17^th birthday, the summer before I started senior year in high school. It seems weird to me now, but I was so obsessed with this director whose work I had never even seen that I actually read the screenplay some months before I saw the actual film, though in November of that same year (even though neither of us were yet 18) our parents relented and let me and one of my younger brothers finally watch the movie (fun fact: around the same time we also saw the well-cast Tarantino rip-off 2 Days in the Valley). That kind of opened the floodgates: soon enough I had also seen Reservoir Dogs, and in January 1998 my mom took one of my brothers and me to see Jackie Brown at the cinema (as it was still in theaters at that point, having only been released the previous December). I also began collecting some of his other screenplays, along with buying the CD soundtracks, and any book I could find dealing with Tarantino.

Earlier I mentioned how it was strange that my first exposure to Pulp Fiction was via the written word, but in one sense it was also appropriate, what with the literary flourishes that Tarantino brings to his films (indeed, I know a fair amount of fellow writers who admire Tarantino, and I suspect it might be for those aforementioned literary flourishes: the way his films are often divided into chapters like most novels do, his at times non-linear structures and use of flashbacks, things like that). I can’t say Tarantino was the first film director I idolized: as a typical 80s kid, at an early age I gravitated towards George Lucas and Steven Spielberg, and in truth (as I've noted in the past on this blog) my earliest ambition was to be a film director. But with Tarantino, not only was there the added bonus that he also wrote his own films (which the writer in me admired), but he also had a cool/hip factor that, to me at least, was a new thing (I also think that, like Bret Easton Ellis, he’s far more intelligent/erudite than his inarticulate public image often suggests). Certainly he had a big impact on my life as an artist: before I read the Pulp Fiction screenplay, the books I was writing in high school up to that point were all plot, plot, plot: but with Tarantino’s films I saw that not everything you did in a work of fiction had to just advance the story forward . . . I realized that you could also have characters just hanging out and bullshittin’ with each other about pop culture. In a funny sort of way, even though my novel Harlem Smoke was conceived and marketed as my Lovecraft novel, in some regards it was also kind of a subconscious Tarantino-inspired project, in that a lot of the book is really just characters hanging out and shooting the shit (much like the first half of Jackie Brown, my favorite Tarantino movie): I even brought back the character of Iris Brant, the star of my 1998 novel Arthouse (which was one of the first of my post-Tarantino books). It was also through Tarantino that I got interested in indie films in general (and really, the 90s was a great period for indie films), which led me in turn to discover the work of the Coen Brothers and David Lynch (again, in 1998).

Today’s featured book in my ongoing Bathroom Reads series wasn’t the first book on Tarantino’s life and career I ever purchased: that would be Quentin Tarantino: Shooting From The Hip by Wensley Clarkson, which I got shortly after the Pulp Fiction screenplay, at the very same Waldenbooks. And yet, while I’ll still flip through the Clarkson book every now and then out of nostalgia, I don’t do it as an annual bathroom read like I do today’s book, which is King Pulp: The Wild World of Quentin Tarantino, by Paul A. Woods (first published in 1996, expanded in 1998: for the curious, the writer also did a book on David Lynch for the same publisher, which I can also recommend). I’m not quite sure when I got this book, but I believe it was at a Borders sometime in 1998. Bad cover art/unflattering photo of Quentin aside, it’s a decent enough summary of Tarantino’s 90s output, divided into 8 hefty chapters, with a generous selection of (mostly black & white) photographs. Chapter 1 deals with Tarantino’s early years and upbringing, his time working at Video Archives, his early screenwriting attempts, and so on. Chapter 2 deals with Reservoir Dogs, Chapter 3 revolves around True Romance, Chapter 4 concerns itself with his various movie influences (including a long and fascinating section on Italian exploitation movies), Chapter 5 is about Pulp Fiction, Chapter 6 tackles Natural Born Killers, Chapter 7 investigates some of his post-Pulp work (including Four Rooms and From Dusk Till Dawn: I confess I’ve yet to see the latter), while the final chapter is all about Jackie Brown. In other words, perhaps it is a bit outdated (though I think a third edition may have been released in 2005, covering the Kill Bill films), but still of interest to anyone interested in all things Tarantino.

2024 Reading List Monthly Update: April

Books read in April of 2024:

"Great Cities of the Ancient World" (L. Sprague de Camp) 4-3-24

"Terminal Boredom" (Izumi Suzuki) 4-12-24

"Dragon Palace" (Hiromi Kawakami) 4-16-24

"Alexander the Great: His Life and Mysterious Death" (Anthony Everitt) 4-21-24

-

2024 Reading List Total:

-

1. "The Explosion of a Chandelier" (Damian Murphy) 1-7-24

2. "Empire of the Sun" (J.G. Ballard) 1-11-24

3. "The Consolation of Philosophy" (Boethius) 1-14-24

4. "CAW: Colossal Abandoned World" (James Champagne) 1-17-24

5. "The Green Fly and Other Stories" (Robert Scheffer) 1-19-24

6. "Godzilla and Godzilla Raids Again" (Shigeru Kayama) 1-22-24

7. "Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982" (Cho Nam-joo) 1-27-24

8. "The Planetary Omnibus" (Warren Ellis) 1-28-24

9. "A Song in the Night" (Daniel Mills) 1-31-24 

10. "The Princess of Darkness" (Rachilde) 2-13-24

11. "i'm still growing" (Josiah Morgan) 2-15-24

12. "Winona" (Robert Rich) 2-16-24

13. "Alexandria: The City That Changed The World" (Islam Issa) 2-21-24

14. "Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (And Other Concerns)" (Mindy Kaling) 2-27-24

15. "Self-Portraits" (Osamu Dazai) 2-27-24

16. "The Siren's Lament: Essential Stories" (Jun'ichirō Tanizaki) 3-10-24

17. "The Secret History with Related Texts" (Prokopios) 3-13-24

18. "The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up" (Marie Kondo) 3-14-24

19. "Crampton" (Thomas Ligotti & Brandon Trenz) 3-16-24 +

20. "Stitches" (Hirokatsu Kihara + Junji Ito) 3-26-24

21. "Artists and Their Cats" (Alison Nastasi) 3-28-24

22. "Great Cities of the Ancient World" (L. Sprague de Camp) 4-3-24

23. "Terminal Boredom" (Izumi Suzuki) 4-12-24

24. "Dragon Palace" (Hiromi Kawakami) 4-16-24

25. "Alexander the Great: His Life and Mysterious Death" (Anthony Everitt) 4-21-24

*= book I have read at least once in the past
+= book I have read before, but not this reprint/edition/translation

Currently Reading: 

"The Antichrist: A New Biography" (Philip C. Almond) 

Bathroom Reads #6: SEINFELDIA by Jennifer Keishin Armstrong

 

In a previous entry in this series, I talked about my interest in 90s sitcoms, especially the NBC "Big Three" of FRASIER, FRIENDS and SEINFELD. The latter show is the subject of today's blog entry. Of the three aforementioned shows, I believe it was SEINFELD that we first latched onto, sometime around mid-season 5: the first episode we ever saw was "The Stall," so this would be sometime in 1994 (shortly after that we began watching FRASIER, then late into its first season, while FRIENDS we would not start to watch until sometime in season 4: by "we" I mean me and my brothers). By this point in time SEINFLED had become syndicated, so we were able to catch up with the past episodes we had missed very easily. One thing I remember about this time in my life was it was that pre-to-early high school period where we were still getting sent to bed at 9 p.m., which meant that our parents would tape new episodes of the show on VCR  and we'd watch it the following day: sometimes when I was falling asleep I could hear the show playing downstairs, and I can distinctly remember hearing (before watching) that season 6 episode where Kramer loudly passes a kidney stone while at the circus. I also remember that SEINFELD was very popular with my fellow students during my high school days, and how it would often be discussed in class the day after each new show aired. And certainly I remember the hysteria and media frenzy when the show announced it was going off the air in 1998. At that time in my life, I couldn't really appreciate the impact it had on the sitcom as a medium: certainly on some level I was aware that it was a very different type of show than the 80s sitcoms I was more familiar with (PERFECT STRANGERS, FAMILY MATTERS) in that it seemed to have zero interest in putting across a moral message, and also the complexity and intertwined nature of each episode's plotlines. I would come to appreciate all that years later, but back in the day, all I really cared about was that I found it funny and it made me laugh. 

I'm not quite sure when it was that I got Jennifer Keishin Armstrong's book SEINFELDIA: HOW A SHOW ABOUT NOTHING CHANGED EVERYTHING. It might have been shortly before the pandemic, or maybe shortly after it started: anyway, I got the book at work one night a couple of years ago. At around 300 pages with fairly large print it's a brisk and breezy read, covering how the show was conceived by Jerry Seinfeld and Larry David, the early seasons where it struggled to find its footing, its inconceivable rise to become one of the most popular TV shows of all-time, and the effect it had on pop culture as a whole. In my opinion it only has one big flaw: while Armstrong interviews many people associated with the show (chiefly the writers, along with assorted network executives, or people with some link to the show, like the guy who played the Soup Nazi, or Kenny Kramer, who inspired the show Kramer), she didn't interview any of the show's four main stars or Larry David himself, so as a result the book, while affable in tone and very readable, can come off as a bit lightweight. But certainly it does a good job examining the impact the show had on 90s pop culture (and beyond). 

Bathroom Reads #5: FIRE CANNOT KILL A DRAGON by James Hibberd

 

I began watching the GAME OF THRONES TV show in 2013, having purchased the DVD box set of the first season on a whim at the (now closed) Newbury Comics in Bellingham, Massachusetts (yeah, I had $60 to blow that day). I quickly became a big fan, not only of the TV show itself but also the book series that inspired it: shortly after I watched the first season I read the first book... then in the summer of 2013 I read the second book before watching the second season... then I read the remaining 3 books (in fact by the end of 2013 I had the entire 5 book series read) before watching season 3. At some point I got some of my younger brothers interested in the show as well, so I watched the first 3 seasons again (this time with them), and by the time we were done with that season 4 had just been released on DVD, so we caught that as well. By season 5 we started to watch the shows as they aired in real time (our dad subscribed to HBO for the two months or so they were on, then cancelled once the season was done, only to repeat the process the following year). At some point our parents also got interested so we watched the early seasons with them: as a result of all this I actually ended up seeing the first 3 seasons 3 times and saw seasons 4, 5 and 6 twice. It's a period of my life I'm quite nostalgic about: I remember, from season 5 on, how after each watching each new episode I would go onto various web forums and see how the fanbase had reacted to it, places like the Westeros forums and the (now sadly defunct) Watchers on the Wall site, along with reading reviews of the episodes from various websites that did such things, like ROLLING STONE and the A.V. CLUB. I also began to collect some of the other media that spun off from the show, such as the trading card sets and the CD soundtracks and also some of the associated books (while on the subject, I HIGHLY recommend GAME OF THRONES: THE COSTUMES by Michele Clapton, which is just a beautiful book). It's gotten to the point that a lot of my friends like to tease me about my obsession with the show, and it's hard for me to pinpoint just why I fell for it: I think some big things were the show's quasi-medieval look/feel and also the fact that it had a big ensemble cast: I like shows and books and movies with big ensemble casts (one reason why I've gravitated to THE OFFICE (American version) in recent years). And in all actuality it was a very well-made show, with (mostly) impeccable production values, great sets, incredible costumes... I remember how one of my friends at the time, the now sadly deceased Kevin Killian, once told me he was really impressed because the show really put its money on the screen. 

One fairly recent associated book is FIRE CANNOT KILL A DRAGON by James Hibberd. Unlike some of the other books I've featured in this series, this book I read in an official context, when it first came out in the autumn of 2020, so as a result it shows up in my reading lists. It's one of those "oral history" pop culture books which I notice have become increasingly popular: in recent years I've also got one for the making of David Lynch's DUNE, DAZED & CONFUSED, and STAR WARS (the latter of which I'll spotlight at some future point). With such books the author interviews a bunch of people associated with the show or movie in question, then breaks the quotes up into a chronological order. Such books tend to be breezily readable and the different viewpoints/contrasting opinions offered up by the contributors in regards to the pop culture artifact on discussion can be interesting to observe. In regards to FIRE CANNOT KILL A DRAGON, Hibberd was EW's official GAME OF THRONES writer, and over the years he visited the show's sets many times and spoke to many of the people involved with the show. Some of the material that appeared in his EW articles reappear here (yes, I collected the EW GOT issues as well), but there's also lots of new interviews as well, not only with many members of the show's cast but also the people involved in the making of the show, from producers to the showrunners to even George RR Martin himself. It's well illustrated with over 80 color photographs, and provides some highly interesting observations: for example, we find out the reasons why the book character Lady Stoneheart was cut from the adaptation (reasons I agree with, incidentally). I know some people have accused Hibberd of being a shill and a bit too fawning when it comes to the showrunners, but really, considering how much over-the-top vitriol that has been directed at the show by the toxic fandom since its controversial conclusion in 2019, it's nice to see someone with something positive to say about it (speaking as someone whose defense of the show on the A SONG OF ICE AND FIRE reddit forums is notorious: yeah, if you see someone on there defending the show with the handle James_Champagne, it's me... needless to say, I get downvoted a lot, but I like to think I'm a well-informed and articulate defender, at least). 

2024 Reading List Monthly Update: March

Books read in March of 2024:

"The Siren's Lament: Essential Stories" (Jun'ichirō Tanizaki) 3-10-24

"The Secret History with Related Texts" (Prokopios) 3-13-24

"The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up" (Marie Kondo) 3-14-24

"Crampton" (Thomas Ligotti & Brandon Trenz) 3-16-24 +

"Stitches" (Hirokatsu Kihara + Junji Ito) 3-26-24

"Artists and Their Cats" (Alison Nastasi) 3-28-24

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2024 Reading List Total:

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1. "The Explosion of a Chandelier" (Damian Murphy) 1-7-24

2. "Empire of the Sun" (J.G. Ballard) 1-11-24

3. "The Consolation of Philosophy" (Boethius) 1-14-24

4. "CAW: Colossal Abandoned World" (James Champagne) 1-17-24

5. "The Green Fly and Other Stories" (Robert Scheffer) 1-19-24

6. "Godzilla and Godzilla Raids Again" (Shigeru Kayama) 1-22-24

7. "Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982" (Cho Nam-joo) 1-27-24

8. "The Planetary Omnibus" (Warren Ellis) 1-28-24

9. "A Song in the Night" (Daniel Mills) 1-31-24 

10. "The Princess of Darkness" (Rachilde) 2-13-24

11. "i'm still growing" (Josiah Morgan) 2-15-24

12. "Winona" (Robert Rich) 2-16-24

13. "Alexandria: The City That Changed The World" (Islam Issa) 2-21-24

14. "Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (And Other Concerns)" (Mindy Kaling) 2-27-24

15. "Self-Portraits" (Osamu Dazai) 2-27-24

16. "The Siren's Lament: Essential Stories" (Jun'ichirō Tanizaki) 3-10-24

17. "The Secret History with Related Texts" (Prokopios) 3-13-24

18. "The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up" (Marie Kondo) 3-14-24

19. "Crampton" (Thomas Ligotti & Brandon Trenz) 3-16-24 +

20. "Stitches" (Hirokatsu Kihara + Junji Ito) 3-26-24

21. "Artists and Their Cats" (Alison Nastasi) 3-28-24

*= book I have read at least once in the past
+= book I have read before, but not this reprint/edition/translation

Currently Reading: 

"Great Cities of the Ancient World" (L. Sprague de Camp) 

Bathroom Reads #4: THE BIG LEBOWSKI: THE MAKING OF A COEN BROTHERS FILM by William Preston Robertson

Sometime around 1997/1998, I became very interested in the world of indie films, mainly through my discovery of the work of Quentin Tarantino. Luckily, the 1990s was a great decade for indie films in general, and from Tarantino I went on to explore the work of other directors such as David Lynch, Mary Harron, and, of course, the Coen Brothers. The first Coen Brothers film I ever saw was FARGO, sometime in the spring of 1998, around the same time that this book, THE BIG LEBOWSKI: THE MAKING OF A COEN BROTHERS FILM had been released. As there weren't many Coen Brothers books available at that time (aside from the screenplays, that is), I naturally purchased a copy, even though at that point I still hadn't even seen THE BIG LEBOWSKI, or a few of the other Coen Brothers films that predated it (such as BLOOD SIMPLE and HUDSUCKER PROXY)... though by the autumn of 1998, around the time I started freshmen year in college, I had eventually caught up with all of their older work and, of course, THE BIG LEBOWSKI itself, which I believe I rented in August 1998, after returning home from a vacation in Montreal. 

This book was written by William Preston Robertson (and edited by Tricia Cooke, Ethan Coen's wife). Robertson, a friend of the Coens from their college days (and who also provided some voicework for their films: he did the voice of the radio evangelist in BLOOD SIMPLE, for example), decided to devote an entire book to detailing a typical Coen Brothers film production, and this was the result. After a fascinating introductory chapter providing some information on the origins and early life of the Coen Brothers, he then devotes the rest of the text to showing how THE BIG LEBOWSKI was made, starting from the concept, to how the script was written, to interviews with not only the Coen Brothers but also the cinematographer (Roger Deakins), the production designer (Rick Heinrichs) and the costume designer (Mary Zophres). It's a quick and breezy read (not even 200 pages long), and unlike some of the other books I've covered in these entries I can usually finish it off in a week of bathroom visits. There are also a lot of photographs, plus many examples of storyboard illustrations and sketches for the costumes. 

The funny thing is, though, I'm not even a super-huge fan of THE BIG LEBOWSKI, and find the cult that has accumulated around it over the last two decades baffling. Don't get me wrong, it's still an enjoyable and well-made movie, very amusing at times and well-casted (and with a killer soundtrack to boot), but of the 10 or so Coen Brothers films I've seen I'm not even sure I would place it in their top 5. Perhaps the issue is that I find it a bit too self-consciously "zany" or "wacky" for my tastes (I have the same problem with RAISING ARIZONA incidentally) and I tend to gravitate more towards their darker or more somber works (BARTON FINK, MILLER'S CROSSING, NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN, and so on... though I am super-fond of THE HUDSUCKER PROXY, which I guess is also pretty "zany" and "wacky").