Your BOOKS Coronavirus Recommendation email no. 57
#2 on the sides #4 on the top, keep the length at the back
Hello friends,
Hope everyone’s well, here’s 5 for you today:
I v much enjoyed this Radio 4 doc on religion & grime, from the development of gospel through to SPAC Nation.
Thanks to Margo for the link to this extremely 80’s programme on Keith Haring collaborating with 500 chicago kids on a mural which is v fun.
Spaghetti Club is truly one of my favourite things of all time so was nice to read a little writeup on the exhibition in Fr*eze. Cannot wait for the book.
Slight digression but indulge me. There’s a guy who comes through the shop maybe 3 times a year to sell me a bag load of black Penguin Classics & he’s one of those fairly common types of people who sell me stuff who have an ingrained need to hand me the books one by one and deliver a short lecture on the contents of each. I have quite a few regulars like this so don’t get me wrong I love it. Anyway sorry the point is one time he handed me a collection of Kleist and asked if I’d read Michael Kohlhaas (obviously I hadn’t) and that it was the most violent thing he’d ever read. Bearing in mind he’d just sold me the Nibelungenlied my interest was piqued as he described the petty infraction that leads to just pure insane revenge. I think he described it as ‘someone won’t open a gate for him so he basically starts a war’. Anyw I read it and it’s fucking great, one of my all time faves for sure - SO (sorry, the point) I was v psyched to see this piece in the New Yorker about the influence of Michael Kohlhaas on the modern novel. You can read the actual story here as well if you can manage that long a text onscreen (it’s like 100 pages or so).
Apols again for 2 paid links in as many days but longtime BOOKS newsletter heads who will remember my support of The Tatami Galaxy* may be interested 2 know I watched it’s sister production Night is Short, Walk on Girl which is on Netflix and is v v good. I maybe even loved it. Easier to get into than Tatami Galaxy and the pace is slower and also it’s a single hour& a half contained entity rather than the parallel world format but anyway - if you can and want to - dive in.
Until tomorrow comrades.
P x
*cba finding the link again but u can sift through the backlog to find it :)