Currently reading
Vineland (Classic, 20th-Century, Penguin)
Tristes Tropiques
Richard III
The Dwarf
The Collected Poems of Wilfred Owen
Labyrinths
Giotto to Dürer: Early Renaissance Painting in the National Gallery
Michel Foucault: Beyond Structuralism and Hermeneutics
Gravity's Rainbow
A Gravity's Rainbow Companion: Sources and Contexts for Pynchon's Novel
Many of these NYRB's are wonderful, but the truth is that not infrequently one gets the sense that they are scraping not the bottom of the barrel, of course... but not the cream either -- and that what they are republishing often are the second and third level books... of first-rate writers or first-rate books of second (or third-rate) writers... interesting books that are... certainly 'good'.... but not always great. The books look great, though -- and so I buy them... but they don't always live up to the hype.Some of the reviews I saw of this one (more on AMZN than on GR) led me to think that this one, too, might not quite live up to the hype, and so it sat around for a couple of years... falling lower and lower in the TBR pile... until suddenly I decided WTF to crack it open... and
O, what a gem..., what a gem of a book...!
It is raw, gritty, honest... almost never feels like the author is "striving for effect" -- just genuine, humane, intelligent... and authentic... and...
What especially caught me is the way the book, as it moves from the 1930s to the 1960's captures the feel of those changing times... it 'freshens', so to speak, as it moves along... even as the story deepens...
Consider this a 'pound the table', gotta-read-this review... of a fabulous book.