My dad and I didn’t like him either. But I can guarantee you neither one of us is going to give him another read.
Melbourne Dining Recommendation
Sel de la Terre. 74 Tookrak Road, South Yarra.
Expensive but very delicious French food, even to a native Frenchman (Christophe, no less! A man of high-class tastes).
Chicago Dining Recommendation.
De Cero. 814 W. Randolph.
Their taco list is awe inspiring and oh so yummy.
Big Screen: The Black Dahlia.
Some strong acting (Hilary Swank, for one, was wonderful. Completely forgot it was her in every scene). Strong directing (Brian de Palma’s been pretty much a god to me since the first time I saw “Body Double”). Really great illustration of noir. Good movie. But ultimately felt things moved a little bit slower than they could have.
There was one point in particular where a conversation between two people was being conducted soooo slowly and that was already 1h45 into the movie and I thought “This is GOOD, but it might go on forever…” (My dad disagrees; he quite liked the pacing.)
And if I haven’t mentioned it before, Aaron Eckhart’s picture is next to “yummy” in my dictionary…
Duff Says “READ!!” And, sometimes, watch a movie too.
Always Recommending Almost Anything By
- Phillip Roth
- Pat Barker
- David Lodge
- Haven Kimmel
- Jonathan Coe
- A.L. Kennedy
- Graham Swift
- Penelope Fitzgerald
- Marilynne Robinson
- Elizabeth A. Lynn
Moving into Greatness
- David Mitchell, particularly “Black Swan Green”
- Michael Cunningham, particularly “The Hours” and “Specimen Days”
Fun and Foibles in Academia
- Michael Malone “Foolscap”
- Richard Russo “Straight Man”
- Michael Chabon “Wonder Boys”
- Michael Frayne “Headlong” (not exactly academia, but feels like it)
- David Lodge (pretty much all his books)
- William Boyd (the novels are not IN academia but his characters could easily go there)
Good Things Come in Pairs
- Ann Patchett “Bel Canto” and Niall Williams “As It Is in Heaven”
- Nick Hornby “High Fidelity” and Tom Perrotta “The Wishbones”
- Joan Didion “The Year of Magical Thinking” and Philip Roth “Everyman”
Favored Among Others
- “King Hereafter” Dorothy Dunnett
- “The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay” Michael Chabon
- “In This House of Brede” Rumer Godden
- “Lonesome Dove” Larry McMurtry (and the three that go with it)
- “The Shellseekers” Rosamunde Pilcher
- “The History of Love” Nicole Krauss
- “Gone to Soldiers” Marge Piercy
- “Birdsong” Sebastian Faulks
- “The Lords of Discipline” by Pat Conroy (get over the fact that he wrote Prince of Tides and read this anyway)
My Top 7 Books on March 5, 1997
- “Kim” Rudyard Kipling
- “Possession” A.S. Byatt
- “The Engima of Arrival” V.S. Naipaul
- “As I Lay Dying” Faulkner
- “The Baron in the Trees” Italo Calvino
- “Paddy Clark Ha Ha Ha” by Roddy Doyle
- “Speak, Memory” Nabokov
Academically Dense
- A.S. Byatt
- Anne Carson
- Jasper Fforde, the Tuesday Next series (you can read these and just MISS most of the literary references, and they’re still fun, but you can tell when stuff is flying over your head…)
Serious Sci Fi
- Neal Stephenson “Cryptonomicon” is a great, great book.
- Maureen McHugh “Mothers and Other Monsters”
- Mary Doria Russell “The Sparrow” and “Children of God”
Time Travel
- Audrey Niffenegger “The Time Traveler’s Wife”
- Diana Gabaldon the Outlander series (I really love the first three, after that it falls off a bit)
- Connie Willis “Doomsday Book” and “To Say Nothing of the Dog”
Read This Book AND See This Movie
- Michael Ondaatje “The English Patient”
- Milan Kundera “The Unbearable Lightness of Being”
- Nick Hornby “About a Boy”
- Mark Bowden “Black Hawk Down”
- Read Stuart O’Nan “Wish You Were Here” and watch “A Walk on the Moon”
- Read Philip Caputo “Acts of Faith” and watch “The Constant Gardener”
Read This Book BUT do NOT See This Movie
- Michael Connelley “Blood Work”
- Cathleen Schine “The Love Letter”
- Nick Hornby “High Fidelity”
Looks Like Chick Lit But Isn’t (It’s Better!!)
- Darcy Cosper “Wedding Season”
- Rebecca Wells “Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood” and “Little Altars Everywhere”
- Elisabeth Robinson “The True and Outstanding Adventures of the Hunt Sisters”
Yes and No
- Ian McEwan. YES: “Atonement” NO: “Saturday”
- Zadie Smith. YES: “White Teeth” and “The Autograph Man” NO: “On Beauty”
- Nick Hornby. YES: “High Fidelity” and “About a Boy” NO: “How to Be Good” and “A Long Way Down”
- Alice Hoffman. YES: “Here on Earth” NO: “Turtle Magic”
- Michael Connelly. YES: “Bloodwork” “The Poet” and the first five or six in the Harry Bosch series. NO: Everything written since then.
- Dennis Lehane. YES: The (4 or 5?) Kenzie/Gennaro books. NO: The stand-alones.
One-Offs
- Patrick Susskind “Perfume”
- Martyn Bedford “The Houdini Girl”
Small-Town Blues
- Haven Kimmel “A Girl Named Zippy”
- Nicole Lea Helget “The Summer of Ordinary Ways”
Take Me to Another Place
- Hilary Lifton & Kate Montgomery “Dear Exile”
- anything by Bill Holm, but particularly “Coming Home Crazy”
- anything by Sara Wheeler, particularly her Antarctica books
- Anthony Bourdain “A Cook’s Tour”
- Bill Bryson
- Jenny Diski
- Jeannette Wells “The Glass House”
- Deborah Copaken Kogan “Shutterbabe”
- Alexandra Fuller “Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight”
- Bruce Chatwin
- Bruce Feiler
Books to Consider from Slightly Foxed #11
- L’Etranger, by Albert Camus (have I never read this?)
- Modesty Blaise books, by Peter O’Donnell (a fictional Emma Peel!)
- Asylum Piece or Julie and the Bazooka, by Anna Kavan
- Stranger on Earth, bio of Anna Kavan, by Jeremy Reed
- The Leopard, by Guiseppe di Lampedusa
- The Papers of A.J. Wentworth B.A., by H.F. Ellis
Is every artist on earth going to put out a new album this Fall?
Albums I Bought Last Week:
Scissor Sisters “Ta-Dah”
Submarines “Declare a New State!”
Albums I Did Not Buy Last Week:
Indigo Girls “Despite Our Differences”
Albums I Bought Yesterday:
Decemberists “The Crane Wife”
Hold Steady “Boys & Girls in America”
Jet “Shine On”
Beck “The Information”
Albums I Did NOT Buy Yesterday But Considered and May Potentially Buy Anyway in the Future, I Make No Promises:
The Killers “Sam’s Town”
Kasey Chambers new one
Evanescence new one
Lupe Fiasco debut
TV on the Radio
Albums I Meant to Buy But Forgot:
The Long Winters latest
Albums I Do Not Plan to Buy At All:
New Albums by John Mayer, Maroon 5, John Legend, Fergie solo album.
Album: Scissor Sisters “Ta-Dah”
Fun. Hyper happy hoopla. As enervating as their previous effort. Part Elton John, part Bee Gees, part ’70s dancehall mirror ball. If that floats your boat, this is for you. (Balme: you will LOVE this album.)
No ups vs. downs: it’s all ups.
Big Screen: The Illusionist.
Dreamy and nostalgic. You have to give in to the magic. But if you do, it’s quite enjoyable. Edward Norton is great. Magnetic. Paul Giamatti is also good.
The one false note for me in the movie was really the Crown Prince’s moustache. Perhaps it was real? But it was crooked, and I wanted to leap up there and rip it off for him!
Big Screen: Last Kiss
It’s taken me awhile to get around to talking about this one. I really can’t recommend it.
I heard it described today as Garden State 2. I assure you, THAT it is NOT. Garden State being actually a pretty great movie. This being… well… Not.
Well acted, for what it was. The problems lie in the script/the plot/the actions.
Four “grown up” boys. Making bad decisions.
I certainly do not recommend seeing this on a date — I’d hate to witness the arguments afterward as to who made what mistakes and which ones were worse.