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The Bauhaus Group; Nicholas Fox Weber

Gropius was a misogynist who couldn't keep it in his pants, Klee was a bit mystical (read loony), Kandinsky was an anti-Semite, Albers was fascinated by salad bars and Van Der Rohe was an imperious prick.

The writing its stilted, over wrought and - as one would expect from the director of the Alber Foudnation for 33 years - completely knob-jobbing.

My favorite tidbit is that even to her deathbed Nina Kandinsky - wife of Wassily - was terrified of lightning bugs, completely convinced they would burn her skin despite others catching them and repeatedly demonstrating their harmlessness.

I'm about a third of the way through a history of Rolling Stone magazine but by the first three paragraphs I learned that Jann Wenner is a star struck, manipulative, narcissistic prick and it won't take me three sentences to share that with you.

Oh, and his real name was Jan. Jann is an affectation he adopted in his youth.

Stephen King's "Bag Of Bones".

Very long and drawn out plot arch, different than a lot of his other yarns. It takes half of the book for anything remotely interesting to happen. Not one of his best works, but I would give it a B-.

I usually don't care much for fiction but I'm almost 100 pages into James Frey's A Million Little Pieces and digging it. His style is strange, with short declarative sentences, random capitalization of objects as if they're people, no use of quotes and many paragraphs consist of single words but it all works. I don't care that he made it all up and I care even less that he sold it as a true story.

guest wrote:I usually don't care much for fiction but I'm almost 100 pages into James Frey's A Million Little Pieces and digging it. His style is strange, with short declarative sentences, random capitalization of objects as if they're people, no use of quotes and many paragraphs consist of single words but it all works. I don't care that he made it all up and I care even less that he sold it as a true story.

I know it's an unpopular opinion but I feel the same way. I think Oprah jobbed him. I mean, c'mon, half of Running with Scissors was made up but no one has freaked out on Augusten Burroughs yet. My Friend Leonard surprised me by being so good, typically the second book never matches the first.

Oprah is an unintelligent twat. Writing stories about one's past is inherently dishonest, and no one really expects an autobiography to be true. It's probably a good thing that Ben Franklin is dead; otherwise, someone else for Oprah to rake over the coals on the veracity of his autobiography.

It's rather funny when Franklin compares his wife to a beer mug. I suppose even metaphor is beyond Oprah's ken.

Orange is the New Black is interesting: Idle rich girl plays a minor role in a major drug ring, goes to prison 10 years later when someone else cops a plea. By that time, she has her life together. She meets a bunch of women who probably shouldn't be in Federal prison and exposes the absurdity of it all.

Thousand Autumns of Jacob DeZoet: Really, one of the loveliest books I've ever read. 1799, Dutchman gets standed in Japan where he finds love, intrigue, and war, and then he gets kicked out. The couple of passages that read like Dan Brown don't dimish the overall effect.

The Fall (book two of The Strain trilogy): The only reason shit like this gets published is because of the authors' names. Nonetheless, a quick, interesting read. I know the movies will be better.

That Orange is the New Black sounds good. I'm reading The Bell Jar for the first time right now as part of a book club. I like it better than I thought I would.

I remember liking Bell Jar more than I thought I would, but I could do without Esther Greenwood's weltshmerz. All those lit-major sad girls who found her a romantic character got it all wrong, I think.

Did you know Venice had the first Subsidized Medical system? Treatment was free for all citizens. But in return for the steady income and respect, the doctors couldn't leave when the plague came to town.

I was reluctant to begin reading anything with so repugnant a topic, but after about sixty or so pages, and a hundred or two to go before it gets into the G'n'R days, I'm fascinated. Dude was on a trip from childhood and it grips you from the first page.

I did look ahead and found a passage where he describes trying to get shit done with Axl, he likens him to Michael Jackson for his ability to waste time and money and to ultimately have nothing to show for it, but that's juts something to look forward to.

P.G. Wodehouse, Pigs Hae Wings

Exquisite Queen's English and cotton-headed gentry are woven into an absudist tapestry that really will cause you to laugh aloud. Example, a description of strong drink: "the cup which causes one to forget past regrets and calms future fears." Here is life beyond Bertie and Jeevest

Infanty Attacks, by Erwin Rommel

The Desert Fox serves up a stinker featuring WWI infantry exploits shenanigans with a German's eye for tedious minutae.

Now I know that the Italians and French both sucked really bad in two world wars.

'nuf said.

frank - up in grand blanc wrote:Infanty Attacks, by Erwin Rommel

The Desert Fox serves up a stinker featuring WWI infantry exploits shenanigans with a German's eye for tedious minutae.

Now I know that the Italians and French both sucked really bad in two world wars.

'nuf said.

I've added it to my wish list. Thanks Frank.

frank - up in grand blanc wrote:Infanty Attacks, by Erwin Rommel

The Desert Fox serves up a stinker featuring WWI infantry exploits shenanigans with a German's eye for tedious minutae.

Now I know that the Italians and French both sucked really bad in two world wars.

'nuf said.

Sounds, ummh, well... ponderous.

As soon as you're done with it, I'd like to not borrow it.

11/22/63, by Stephen King

Another other-worldly ramble filled with needless self-refencing and where the protagonist is (wait for it) an English teacher & writer living in (say it with me) Maine. The pretense is time-travel and a crusade for good, but the heart of the story is a doomed romance about which you will come to care and even cheer on. It's a fun read, but like most King's work you won't need to read it again.