Thursday, May 16, 2019

Books bought in Toronto

Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut
Eye in the Sky by Philip K. Dick
The Road to Los Angeles by John Fante
Dreams from Bunker Hill by John Fante
Doppler by Erlend Loe
Graphic Ink: The DC Comics Art of Frank Quitely

+ I picked up Is This How You See Me? by Jaime Hernandez at the Fantagraphics stand.

Thursday, May 2, 2019

Some books I've read 39

Wait Until Spring, Bandini by John Fante
His first novel, about his childhood. A lot of it rings true, it gets a bit melodramatic towards the end. The book has the Fante voice, but it's not quite the masterpiece that Ask The Dust is.

The Brotherhood of the Grape by John Fante
A screenwriter helps his old bricklayer dad on a final job. 

West of Rome by John Fante
Two stories, the main one being My Dog Stupid. The middleaged Fante was a bit more sentimental than the young Fante.

Beatles '66 by Steve Turner
A month by month retelling of this year in the life of The Beatles. The recording of Revolver, "more popular than Jesus", the decision to stop touring, John meeting Yoko, George going to India, Strawberry Fields / Penny Lane.

Paul McCartney: The Biography by  Philip Norman
800 pages split evenly between The Beatles and Paul solo. Famously, Norman was quite dismissive of Paul in Shout! This biography is pretty fair, it seems to me but not leaving out the moments Paul was not "the nice  Beatle". Some new stuff, like the days he spent in jail in Japan, worrying if he would be locked up for years. Could maybe have cut a few pages about his ugly divorce.

Science Fiction by Serge Clerc
One of four big collections of Clerc's work, this one looking at his science fiction stuff, a mix of drawings and comics, a lot of it from the pages of Metal Hurlant. Not cheap, but includes a signed and numbered print in the front of the book.

Currently reading:
The Big Hunger : Stories 1932 - 1959 by John Fante
The True Adventures of The Rolling Stones by Stanley Booth