I can't decide what to do with all of my old copies of the New Yorker now that I have the Complete New Yorker on DVD. I know I should get rid of them. I'm thinking it would be fun to save the covers and buy a hundred frames and make a wall of New Yorker covers. I know someone who did that a long time ago. It could work for me. Or I could keep them. But I know its silly to hoarde them when I have them on DVD now. I always keep crap like this so to be able to even consider throwing out 15 years of the magazine is a major breakthrough on my part. And if I tossed them, I would gain an entire closet.
More Ross Thomas books are coming in the mail each day. I got The Porkchoppers today. I read the back cover and thought it sounded stupid. When I read the first chapter at lunch, I was delighted to find that its a wonderful book. I think Thomas was cursed by bad book design. My copy of The Money Harvest has the world's worst cover. I can't find a picture of it anywhere (and there's no info on who did the art or the design - but this guy did a lot of bad stuff in the 60s and 70s). Its all red with tacky paitings (unintentional caricatures most likely) of what the artist considers dangerous/glamorous/seductive rich people lounging about. The book is so ugly that I'm a bit embarrassed to be seen reading it. If I saw someone read a book this ugly (without knowing what it was) I'd think the person was a complete loser. But its a wonderful book. There's no way to reconcile the awfulness of the cover and the nearly perfect writing inside the book. One other thing - it is set in Washington, DC - more or less in my neighborhood, too.
I ordered Michael Connelly's new book, The Lincoln Lawyer, today. And a paperback copy of Philip Roth's The Plot Against America. And I picked up Stephen King's new book, The Colorado Kid. I am not much of a King fan (of King the writer - I'm a huge fan of King the person/humanitarian) but the new book is a paperback original meant to look like a 1950s pulp novel. And its short (by his standards) so I figure its a low risk proposition.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
Wow -- you got the NYer on disk! I'm envious. I vote for the wall full of NYer covers -- gets rid of the bulk, but a really cool reminder of all that you've read. And virtually every cover is exquisite.
I see that you have Mary Gaitskill's new book on your list. Evidently there was a profile or something of her in the NYTimes, and through the wonder of click through, I just read this article about her: http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&contentId=A2018-2004May4¬Found=true Who'd have thought that she was such a soft touch? Hope all is well with you! S.
I packed up all the old copies and am putting them in storage. I love the framing idea - that will be done whenever I move. I decided against tossing the old copies because I had so much fun flipping through them as I packed them up that I couldn't go through with it. In a week, the boxes will be in storage.
Thanks for the Gaitskill link.
Post a Comment