May We Suggest...
Unless otherwise noted, you can assume I like everything by a particular writer or artist, but consider the recommended work among his/her/its best.
Recommended Reading
- The late, alas, Sarah Caudwell's exquisitely witty murder mysteries, The Sirens Sang of Murder, Thus Was Adonis Murdered, The Sybil In Her Grave
- The Johnston translation of Alexander Pushkin's Eugene Onegin.
- Short, sweet, and heartbreaking.
- Vikram Seth's The Golden Gate.
- A novel about Silicon Valley, written in the Onegin verse form. A tour de force, both emotionally gripping and technically sound.
- The Richard Howard translation of Charles Baudelaire's Les Fleurs Du Mal.
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Baudelaire is Poe without the inhibitions. The Howard translation is clear, lucid, and has the original French in the back so that you can compare sense and sound. The Penguin Baudelaire in English is also enlightening. I got addicted to Baudelaire courtesy of a reference on Angel -- who says you can't learn from television?
- Anything by Neal Stephenson, but especially Cryptonomicon.
- The Pillow-Book of Sei Shonagon
- Sei Shonagon lived in Heian Japan, nearly 1000 years ago. Yet her personality -- opinionated, witty, aesthetic -- leaps off the page of this "pillow-book", a random set of jottings. I like the Ivan Morris translation. If you're hooked, read his The World of the Shining Prince to understand her milieu.
- Cynthia Ozeki, My Year of Meats
- Stephen Pinker, The Language Instinct
- Stephen Wright, The Moral Animal
- Betty Kirke, Madeleine Vionnet.
- Close examinations, with pattern drafts, of the work of the 20th century's greatest draper, the designer who made brilliant use of the bias.
Recommended Listening
- Al Stewart, Between The Wars (out of print)
- Gorgeous songs, all set in the period between World War I and World War II, with amazing finger-style guitar work by Lawrence Juber.
"Lawrence of Arabia is waiting in the wings
He's got some Arab sheikhs and kings
And we're in debt to them somehow.
Lawrence of Arabia has got this perfect vision
Gonna sell him down the river,
There's no time for him now."
- Christine Lavin, Good Thing He Can't Read My Mind and Attainable Love.
- Alternately hilarious and rueful examinations of the human condition. The title song of the first is about all the things you pretend to enjoy so your date will like you.
"Some say eating sushi is like
Chewing on your own cheek
Or sucking down a bucketful of tentacled slime.
I do not like sushi
But, look, I'm eating sushi
It's a good thing he can't read my mind."
- Dar Williams, The Honesty Room and The Green World.
- "I won't forget how Peter Pan
Came to my house, took my hand
I said I was a boy
I'm glad he didn't check." ("I Was A Boy Too")
- "I could cut you off with a shoulder of stone
Smoke all night and leave the party alone
Screw myself with an inscrutable pout
But I just want you to come figure me out"
("I Don't Want To Be Another Mystery")
- John Dowland, In Darkness Let Me Dwell.
- Fascinating non-early-music interpretations of an early-music classic. Music to brood by. Flow, my tears.
- The Magnetic Fields, 69 Love Songs
- Stephin Merritt, the songwriter, is as witty a disappointed romantic as they come.
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