hahahaha TRU
tha girth of tha ztoryline iz tha moz inzane ive read 
tha mofo writez about vaztnezz in a mindblowin way but ztill gud enuff fo tha human brain to zumwhut comprehend pozz 
Bookz & sheeyat
Rob
#47
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vladspeedster
#49
If you liked the TV show (I haven’t seen it), you probably should read the real thing. It’s no mystery why she won the Nobel Prize – she puts together overwhelming collections.
Next up for me, her latest book (2013), Second-hand Time, about the fall of the SU and the new Russia. Interviews from 1991 - 2012. At 700 pages this is her longest book.
Brewtality
#50
I’m back from Italy with 3 books; Eco’s il pendolo di Foucault (couldn’t find il nome della rosa), and Calvino’s Se una notte d’inverno un viaggiatore and Il sentiero dei nidi di ragno. I’m starting with the latter because it’s the shortest. 
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iamcanadian
#52
Ah, that is an interesting read. Absolutely incredible use of 2nd person and frame narrative. If you’re reading it for the first time, your mind will be blown.
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iamcanadian
#54
You’re in luck. I very recently bought this new bio, which people are saying is the best one out there:
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Mephisto
#55
That’s great! Will definetly buy!
For some reason I have suddenly begun reading books again.
If this is of any interest, someone sent me Czerny’s autobio in 88st. Czerny’s Autobiography
I know people look qt Czerny as kind of boring, but there are still interesting tidbits there, like how he got to know about Beethoven, growing up poor, etc.
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xsdc
#57
Oh, thanks! I always have something like this running. von Lenz currently, but he’s kind of rambling.
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88
#58
Prokofievs own diaries - translated and annotated by Anthony Phillips, in three parts - are a MUST, they are most revealing and great fun to read.
vladspeedster
#59
Who?
Wilhelm von Lenz (born 20 May 1809 in Riga - died 7 January 1883 in Saint Petersburg) was a Baltic German Russian official and writer. Wilhelm von Lenz was a friend and student of many mid-century Romantic composers, including Franz Liszt, Frédéric Chopin and Hector Berlioz, Lenz’s most important and influential work was an early biography of the German composer Ludwig van Beethoven, entitled Beethoven et ses trois styles (1855), written in response to the disparagement of Beethoven by Alexander Ulybyshev in his Nouvelle biographie de Mozart (1843). Lenz promoted the idea (already suggested by earlier figures such as François-Joseph Fétis) that Beethoven’s musical style be divided into three characteristic periods. Lenz’s periodisation, with minor changes, is still widely used today by musicologists in discussing Beethoven’s compositions.[1]
xsdc
#60
Yes that’s him. In addition to the Beethoven biography mentioned there he wrote a memoir of sorts about his encounters with Chopin, Liszt, Tausig, Henselt, Cramer, etc. I don’t know exactly what his musical aspirations were, but he was a pianophile second to none and sought many of these people out - Liszt already as early as in the 1820s when he was still living with his mom in Paris. He’s a spirited writer and his text contains a lot of great memories, impressions and character sketches, but you also get tired of him pretty quickly since he’s not very organized, and there’s plenty of fluff along the way. My favourite part so far is when he tried to compare Chopin’s and Liszt’s playing styles, and after a long and abstract monologue concluded that Chopin is Liszt’s wife. 
3 Likes
vladspeedster
#61
I’m about a quarter through Second-hand Time. Among the entries is the perspective of those who believed in communism and now are just emotionally & mentally crushed by the change into capitalism. How it was done, coarsely and savagely, they now battle this feeling–also material & social–that their whole lives were wasted, everything meaningless, it’s a kind of torture. They despair in these long monologues. It’s sad and interesting and a perspective not often shown.
fattyfatman
#64
Nice read,
Hehe peak Liszt during crazy etude phase. Confused in every sense, lol. -> Czern burn
vladspeedster
#65
Anyone read anything by Italian writer Carlo Emilio Gadda?
Critics have compared him to other writers with a scientific background, such as Primo Levi, Robert Musil and Thomas Pynchon—a similar spirit of exactitude pervades some of Gadda’s books. Among Gadda’s styles and genres are baroque, expressionism and grotesque.
This book jumped out at me:
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