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That Time of the Night

Now:

It’s a Saturday night and I’ve had my fill of morality plays and constructed subjectivity for one night. It’s been a while since I’ve written about books. I suppose that’s either because there’s no time or because I'm lazy. I'm not going to make a decision tree. I’m trying to sneak peaks at Brighton Rock in preparation for the Rowan Joffe film, and Alexandra Harris’ Romantic Moderns but without much continued success.

Book-Related:

A few weeks ago I spoke with Penguin Great Ideas superstar designer David Pearson in an interview for the Cherwell. I found a fellow-enthusiast in David; both of us fans of Penguin’s elegant volumes. In fact I’ve been a longtime Penguin groupie. (They have a good backlist and their visual art is impeccable. And the postcards...) I’ve begun a small collection of grande dames: Nancy Mitford, Rose Macaulay, Iris Murdoch, Muriel Spark. My favorite title is one I picked up in Woodstock last December, Reading for Profit.



I hoped that it would spell a sure way to find a job that enabled me to read and get paid obscene amounts of money for it. Instead it is a series of lectures on literature given by an Allied prisoner of war during the Second World War. Close guess.

The Sweetness of Life now is:

Late night glass of red; Iron & Wine; A bout de soufflé tomorrow; remembering a small boy yelling on the street at the top of his lungs ‘Will anybody find meeeeeeeee somebody to love’ this afternoon; the prospect of running in the crisp misted parks tomorrow morning; visitors coming from Seattle this Thursday to nest in a warm attic -

Comments

Ann said…
I love those Penguins too, they bring back so many memories of when I was first buying books. 'Reading for Profit' is one I haven't come across though and I as I very much enjoy reading about books I must see if I can get hold of a copy. Thanks for prompt.
Gfulmore said…
Please don't stop writing about books - too few people do now, as we drift slowly away from the written word to the often inferior visual word..same late night glass of red - but cold blue-sky Alberta and Ride Nowhere reissue, Divine Comedy, Electric Eden and Tinkers for comfort - enjoy your blog, please continue on with literary adventures...

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Before I go

I'm at the airport with too many bags. A last minute weigh in required me to pull all my books out of my bags and redistribute the weight, while the service representative had to call Iceland (where I pass through en route to London), and the fifty pairs of eyes behind me glared and grew glassy. Though this morning the weather was pure, clear and copper-sunned, the fog has descended so low that the tips of the trees are nearly obliterated. This is Seattle. This is the city I know. Here's something I wrote a month or so ago, an ode to this city, its literary scene, and its inhabitants. When I graduated from a small Midwestern liberal arts college with the music degree I knew I might never use, I felt lost looking for What To Do Next. Despite the pressure I felt alongside my friends – future accountants, teachers, and doctors - to map out a life just so, a much respected professor suggested that each step in one’s life seems microscopic, a darkened footpath occasionally lit by a