What are you reading?

[haydnguy]

I ordered the book, "The Rest Is Noise". I was wondering if anyone else had read it and how they liked it??? My copy is suppose to arrive in a couple of days. Thanks.

[Mischa]

I loved to read it, absolutely accessible, I can't think of any other approach to give such an entertaining and informative overview about a mine field like modern music.

I'm a regular guest on his blog, you'll find a lot of additional ideas and musical excerpts (here for instance for the Stalinistic regime) on Alex Ross' site.

Great read!

I'm currently paving my way through Volkov's "Shostakovich and Stalin"

[Florestan]

Originally Posted by haydnguy

I ordered the book, "The Rest Is Noise". I was wondering if anyone else had read it and how they liked it??? My copy is suppose to arrive in a couple of days. Thanks.

I bought it for Philingtons for his birthday. I fully intend to read it after him.

I also bought him the anthology of Edward Said's music essays - Music at the Limits, which I believe he is reading first.

The Rest is Noise had fantastic reviews. I don't think you can go far wrong with it.

[micrologus]

The World of the Bach Cantatas

Christoph Wolff & Ton Koopman

[Philidor]

Originally Posted by Florestan

Philingtons

[Héctor]

Brimming with lively wit and penetrating insight, Holy Terror (Oxford University Press, 2005) offers a profound and timely investigation of the idea of terror, drawing upon political, philosophical, literary, and theological sources to trace a genealogy from the ancient world to the present day. Famed critic Terry Eagleton offers here a metaphysics of terror with a serious historical perspective. Writing with remarkable clarity and persuasiveness, Eagleton examines a concept whose cultural impact predates 9/11 by millennia. From its earliest manifestations in rite and ritual, through its rebirth as a political idea with the French Revolution, to the 'War on Terror' of today, terror has been regarded with both horror and fascination. Eagleton examines the duality of the sacred (both life-giving and death-dealing) and relates it, via current and past ideas of freedom, to the idea of terror itself. Stretching from the cult of Dionysus to the thought of Jacques Lacan, the book sheds light into ideas of God, freedom, the sublime, and the unconscious. It also examines the problem of evil, and devotes a concluding chapter to the idea of tragic sacrifice and the scapegoat. Written by one of the world's foremost cultural critics, Holy Terror is a provocative and ambitious examination of one of the most urgent issues of our time.

[Florestan]

Interesting.



I am reading Iris Murdoch's The Message to the Planet and enjoying it very much.

[micrologus]

Now reading:

The Pope's Daughter: The Extraordinary Life of Felice della Rovere by Caroline P. Murphy

A Biography

[Philidor]

Rumpole

[stephen w]

Odysseus Unbound: The Search for Homer's Ithaca by Robert Bittlestone, James Diggle, and John Underhill (Hardcover - 6 Oct 2005)

If youre interested in Homer, or ancient greek civilisation, this is packed with interesting stuff. Bittlestone does approach his subject in a completely literal way, rather reminiscent of Solzhenitsyn analysing the movements of the Russian and German armies at the Masurian lakes on particular dates and times of day in August 1914, even down to arrows tracing the trajectory of the suitors' ship going off to ambush Telemachus, whereas I dont mind whether it all happened or not! But loads of fascinating material therein.