{"id":9506,"date":"2022-04-20T08:13:00","date_gmt":"2022-04-20T07:13:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/?p=9506"},"modified":"2022-04-21T08:31:39","modified_gmt":"2022-04-21T07:31:39","slug":"a-gift-of-recommended-reading","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/2022\/04\/20\/a-gift-of-recommended-reading\/","title":{"rendered":"A GIFT OF RECOMMENDED READING"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A  GIFT  OF  RECOMMENDED  READING<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

a present for all Guardian readers from writer Geoff Dyer and passed on<\/strong> by Norman Warwick<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

We can read on line that Geoff<\/strong> Dyer<\/strong> is an English writer, born in 1958. He has authored a number of novels and books of non-fiction, which have won literary awards and been translated into 24 languages. Kathryn Schulz, writing in New York, described him as \u00b4one of our greatest living critics, not of the arts but of life itself, and one of our most original writers\u00b4. On the Wikipedia site you will find Dyer\u00b4s bibliography, awards and a selection of his wit and wisdom. Perhaps even more revealing than this brief biography, though, is an interview he gave, or a list he compiled, for The Guardian of his reading habits. I found it fascinating and the list has gone straight into the top ten with a bullet of a my list of best lists of books, that I will probably call Reading Recommended By Writers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dyer opened the box by revealing to his Guardian interviewer that the book he is currently reading is a actually a re-reading.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00b4I\u2019m in the re-reading phase of my life\u00b4,<\/em> he said. \u00b4\u00cd have Just finished <\/em>Shirley Hazzard<\/em><\/a>\u2019s The Transit Of Venus for the third time. Quite something, to be freshly overwhelmed by the greatness of a book you\u2019ve read twice before: every page, every paragraph, every sentence.\u00b4<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It sounds like it might be a book that has changed his life, but Dyer changes direction.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The book that changed my life\u00b4, he told readers, \u00b4\u00eds a play in the form of a book in the form of a record, to be precise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shakespeare\u2019s Richard III.<\/em> We were doing it for O-level. A woman my mum worked with at my old junior school liked Shakespeare and had an LP of an edited version of the play with one of those Hammer horror actors, Peter Cushing or Christopher Lee (I forget which), as Richard. She lent it to me and that, combined with the lessons by a wonderful teacher at grammar school, led to my becoming swallowed up in the currents and eddies of language. I still know huge chunks of the play off by heart. The nice thing about this story is that my mum and her friend weren\u2019t teachers<\/em> at the school; they both worked in the canteen as dinner ladies. It reminds me of that Play for Today<\/em> from about the same time, Shakespeare or Bust.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Asked what book he wished he\u00b4d written, however, Dyer sounded hesitant.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00b4Impossible to answer honestly except by saying \u201cNone\u201d. Naturally, I often find myself wishing that one of my poxy books had sold as many copies as an even poxier one by someone else but, as Walt Whitman<\/a> (right)<\/em><\/strong> put it: \u00b4I find no sweeter fat than sticks to my own bones\u00b4.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

\u00b4John Berger<\/a>, (left)<\/em><\/strong> without a doubt, is the author who has had the greatest influence on me, but I can\u00b4t narrow that influence down to a single book since the influence was, precisely, his range and endless formal innovation. Berger\u2019s influence was so strong it actually took me a while, along with multiple transfusions and organ transplants from other writers, to become myself\u00b4.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

John Peter Berger was an English art critic, novelist, painter and poet. His novel G. won the 1972 Booker Prize, and his essay on art criticism Ways Of Seeing, written as an accompaniment to the BBC series of the same name is, fifty years later, used as a university text.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dyer served as a judge for a prestigious prize and recalls that he and his fellow judges shortlisted The Name Of The World by Denis Johnson<\/a>. The other two judges wanted Philip Roth<\/a> to win for The Human Stain<\/a> but he persuaded them to give it to Michael Ondaatje<\/a> for Anil\u2019s Ghost<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Johnson\u00b4s  novel, published in 2000, tells of a traumatized widower is painfully and gradually recalled to life in this deceptively simple\u2014and surprisingly absorbing\u2014short novel by the well-known poet and author who had written Already dead in 1997.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00b4Looking back I wish we\u2019d chosen The Name Of The World in recognition of the unfettered wonder of Johnson\u2019s vision but I think we all felt that to give a biennial prize to a 120-page book reflected rather poorly on the state of literary production, that something more substantial was needed: bit daft, really, since genius can\u2019t be <\/em>measured\u00b4.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dyer seems honest in explain his \u00b4liked\u00b4selections and certainly doesn\u00b4t hide behind polite when he dismisses those he doesn\u00b4t like. One book thaty doesn\u00b4t appeal to him is The Adventures of Augie March<\/a> by Saul Bellow<\/a>, who is, suggests Dyer, \u00b4both a total bore and an interesting example of the influencer being so much less interesting than the influencee, <\/em>Martin Amis<\/em><\/a>\u00b4.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Asked to name \u00b4The book that changed his mind\u00b4 Dyer gave  The Gay Science by Nietzsche<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00b4I suppose it was my mind that was changed,\u00b4 he said, before recalling, \u00b4but it felt as if it was the world that changed\u00b4.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As if to remind us that he is going through a period of re-reading he says that \u00b4the last book that made me cry was Voyage in the Darkby Jean Rhys<\/a>, which I recently reread.\u00b4<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Similarly, though, that was also the book that last made him laugh.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00b4The point being that a book has to do both, ideally at the same time, in the same sentence even. Like the time when we hear that the protagonist, Anna, sent \u201ca postcard from Blackpool or some such place and all she said on it was, \u2018This is a very windy place,\u2019 which doesn\u2019t tell us much about how she is getting on.\u201d God, I love Jean Rhys\u00b4.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Voyage in the Dark was written in 1934 by Jean Rhys. It tells of the semi-tragic descent of its young protagonist Anna Morgan, who is moved from her Caribbean home to England by an uncaring stepmother, after the death of her father. Once she leaves school, and she is cut off financially by the stepmother, Hester, Anna tries to support herself as a chorus girl, then becomes involved with an older man named Walter who supports her financially. When he leaves her, she begins a downward spiral. Like William Faulkner’s The Wild Palms, the novel features a botched illegal abortion. Rhys’ original version of Voyage in the Dark ended with Anna dying from this abortion, but she revised it before publication to the more ambivalent and modernist ending in which Anna survives to return to her now-shattered life “all over again.” The novel is rich in Caribbean folklore and tradition and post-colonial identity politics, including black self-identification by its white protagonist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00b4And just today\u00b4, Dyer tells us, \u00b4 \u00b4\u00b4I was reading some stories in The Visiting Privilege by the aptly named Joy Williams. As one of her characters rightly concludes, \u201cThings had to be funny.\u201d They do indeed\u00b4.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dyer\u00b4s caustic wit enables him to slice and dice and get away even before the blood has begun to seep out. In naming a book he couldn\u00b4t \/ wouldn\u00b4t \/ didn\u00b4t read to the end he nominates \u00c1gua Viva by Clarice Lispector.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00b4Not finishing the book was no small achievement,\u00b4 he said,  \u00b4since it\u2019s only about eighty pages long but I somehow managed to tear myself away with plenty of time to spare.\u00b4<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He not only spoke of those books he never finished but also of books he never got around to starting. He feels no shame, though.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00b4I\u2019ve failed to read all the usual ones \u2013 Proust, late James, Musil \u2013 but nope, no shame\u00b4.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His earliest reading memory is of Beatrix Potter<\/a> while I was in hospital having my tonsils and adenoids out. (\u00b4Do they still do that? Seems like they just whipped \u2019em out without so much as a by-your-leave back in the 60s.\u00b4)<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dyer described David Thomson<\/a>\u2019s The New Biographical Dictionary of Film as his, \u00b4comfort read.An inexhaustibly wonderful cosmology\u00b4.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I had really enjoyed reading his his compilation in The Guardian, but when he concluded his listing by naming the book he gives as a gift.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

\u00b4 \u00b4 \u00b4Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry<\/a>\u00b4, (left)<\/em><\/strong> he said, \u00b4is like the gift of reading itself\u00a8.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That made me smile for all sorts of reasons, not least because we have in the pipleine an in depth feature at the tv series adaptation of the novel, so watch this space.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Larry McMurtry was a prolific novelist and screenwriter who demythologized the American West with his unromantic depictions of life on the 19th-century frontier and in contemporary small-town Texas. The author died at the age of 84 on at home in Archer City, Texas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The cause was congestive heart failure, said Diana Ossana, his friend and writing partner.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Over more than five decades, Mr. McMurtry wrote more than 30 novels and many books of essays, memoir and history<\/a>. He also wrote more than 30 screenplays, including the one for Brokeback Mountain (written with Ms. Ossana, based on a short story by Annie Proulx), for which he won an Academy Award in 2006.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

But he found his greatest commercial and critical success with Lonesome Dove, a sweeping 843-page novel about two retired Texas Rangers who drive a herd of stolen cattle from the Rio Grande to Montana in the 1870s. The book won a Pulitzer Prize in 1986 and was made into a popular television mini-series.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mr. McMurtry wrote Lonesome Dove<\/a> as an anti-western, a rebuke of sorts to the romantic notions of dime-store novels and an exorcism of the false ghosts in the work of writers like Louis L\u2019Amour<\/a>. \u00b4I\u2019m a critic of the myth of the cowboy,\u00b4 he told an interviewer in 1988. \u201cI don\u2019t feel that it\u2019s a myth that pertains, and since it\u2019s a part of my heritage I feel it\u2019s a legitimate task to criticize it\u00b4.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

One of the reasons I smiled at Dyer\u00b4s reference to Lonesome Dove is I have so many childhood memories of watching with  my dad westerns in black and white on tv in the sixties. My dad would refer to programmes like Gunsmoke, Rawhide and Wagon Train as \u00b4cowboys and Indians\u00b4 and he loved watching the punch ups and the gun fights and the good guy getting the girl.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Along came Bonanza and High Chapparal which I think dad thought were a bit too mujh like soap operas and, of course, they were in colour, and lightened the tone.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

By the time Lonesome Dove took flight dad had already become disappointed that the wild west was being tamed. Dad was never one for revisionism, whether it was needed or not. I was married by the time the series, which I loved, was televised and dad and I would discuss the episodes in the pub whenever we met up for a drink. He was not as enamoured of the programme as I was, although it did feature one or two of his favourite actors.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

By the time I went to university as a mature student (very much so in years, less so in attitude) I was reading the works of Cormac McCarthy who, despite some violent scenes in novels, was beautifully re-writing the history of the wild frontiers.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dad could never come to terms with westerns that sought to tell a more a historically accurate account of the Native American Indians and the cowboys and soldier blues who would colonise their land.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

When the film Dances With Wolves was then shown on UK television dad so much preferred golden oldies like the original version of 3.10 to Yuka, and had his video of that on a pretty permanent loop.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

 Geoff Dyer\u2019s See\/Saw: Looking at Photographs is published by Canongate (\u00a325). To order a copy go to <\/em>guardianbookshop.com<\/em><\/a>. Delivery charges may apply.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

The prime source for this article was a piece written by Jeff Dyer for The Guardian<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In our occasional re-postings Sidetracks And Detours are confident that we are not only sharing with our readers excellent articles written by experts but are also pointing to informed and informative sites readers will re-visit time and again. Of course, we feel sure our readers will also return to our daily not-for-profit knowing that we seek to provide core original material whilst sometimes spotlighting the best pieces from elsewhere, as we engage with genres and practitioners along all the sidetracks & detours we take.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
SAMSUNG CAMERA PICTURES<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

This article was collated by Norman Warwick, (right) a weekly columnist with Lanzarote Information and owner and editor of this daily blog at Sidetracks And Detours.<\/strong> Norman has also been a long serving broadcaster, co-presenting the weekly all across the arts programme on Crescent Community Radio for many years with Steve Bewick, and his own show on Sherwood Community Radio. He has been a regular guest on BBC Radio Manchester, BBC Radio Lancashire, BBC Radio Merseyside and BBC Radio Four.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a published author and poet Norman was a founder member of Lendanear Music, with Colin Lever and Just Poets with Pam McKee, Touchstones Creative Writing Group (for which he was creative writing facilitator for a number of years) with Val Chadwick and all across the arts with Robin Parker.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

From Monday to Friday,<\/strong> you will find a daily post here at Sidetracks And Detours and, should you be looking for good reading, over the weekend you can visit our massive but easy to navigate archives of over 500 articles.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

The purpose of this daily not-for-profit blog is to deliver news, previews, interviews and reviews from all across the arts to die-hard fans and non- traditional audiences around the world. We are therefore always delighted to receive your own articles here at Sidetracks And Detours. So if you have a favourite artist, event, or venue that you would like to tell us more about just drop a Word document attachment to me at <\/strong>normanwarwick55@gmail.com<\/strong><\/a> with a couple of appropriate photographs in a zip folder if you wish. Beiung a not-for-profit organisation we unfortunately cannot pay you but we will always fully attribute any pieces we publish. You therefore might also. like to include a brief autobiography and photograph of yourself<\/strong> in your submission. We look forward to hearing from you.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sidetracks And Detours is seeking to join the synergy of organisations that support the arts of whatever genre. We are therefore grateful to all those share information to reach as wide and diverse an audience as possible.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

correspondents                                Michael Higgins<\/p>\n\n\n\n

                                                            Steve Bewick<\/p>\n\n\n\n

                                                            Gary Heywood Everett<\/p>\n\n\n\n

                                                            Steve Cooke<\/p>\n\n\n\n

                                                            Susana Fondon<\/p>\n\n\n\n

                                                            Graham Marshall<\/p>\n\n\n\n

                                                            Peter Pearson<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hot Biscuits Jazz Radio                      www.fc-radio.co.uk<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

AllMusic  <\/strong><\/a>                                          <\/strong>https:\/\/www.allmusic.com<\/p>\n\n\n\n

feedspot                                              https:\/\/www.feedspot.com\/?_src=folder<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jazz In Reading                                  https:\/\/www.jazzinreading.com<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jazziz                                                 https:\/\/www.jazziz.com
<\/a>Ribble Valley Jazz & Blues                https:\/\/rvjazzandblues.co.uk<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rob Adams                                         Music That\u00b4s Going Places<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lanzarote Information                        https:\/\/lanzaroteinformation.co.uk<\/p>\n\n\n\n

all across the arts                                 www.allacrossthearts.co.uk<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rochdale Music Society                     rochdalemusicsociety.org<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lendanear                                           www.lendanearmusic<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Agenda Cultura Lanzarote<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Larry Yaskiel \u2013 writer<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Lanzarote Art Gallery                  https:\/\/lanzaroteartgallery.com<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Goodreads                                        https:\/\/www.goodreads<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

groundup music                                  HOME | GroundUP Music<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Maverick                                             https:\/\/maverick-country.com<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Joni Mitchell newsletter<\/p>\n\n\n\n

passenger newsletter<\/p>\n\n\n\n

paste mail ins<\/p>\n\n\n\n

sheku kanneh mason newsletter<\/p>\n\n\n\n

songfacts                                           en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/SongFacts<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dyer\u00b4s caustic wit enables him to slice and dice and get away even before the blood has begun to seep out. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":9518,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9506","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-literary","category-uncategorised"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9506","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9506"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9506\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9522,"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9506\/revisions\/9522"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9518"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9506"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9506"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9506"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}