Sunday, August 22, 2010

25: The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet, David Mitchell

A&A sent this to me for my birthday.

It was excellent! The cloistered empire! The Dutch! Nagasaki! Dejima! Ships! Cannons! Intrigue! Scary monks in scary sects!

Wednesday, August 04, 2010

24: Buddy Bolden and the Last Days of Storyville, Danny Barker

Not as good as A Life in Jazz, but still plenty entertaining.

The Buddy Bolden and Storyville sections, which take up most of the book, are interesting for flavour and background—for feeling, if you will. I found the assorted short essays at the end more interesting, because they felt less edited, less fictionalised. I of course do not know whether they are or not.

Anyway: good stuff.