James Elkins Book Recommendations & Book Mentions
This list consists of recommendations or mentions of books spotted in media, social media accounts, podcasts or other public websites.
James Elkins on X
On Twitter I mostly follow literature. My book reviews are on Goodreads. All the art stuff is over on Academia.
New Finnish Grammar
Diego MaraniJames Elkins@johnstonglenn Trieste, city where translation and literature loom large again in Diego Marani's wonderful "New Finnish Grammar."
Paperback, 2021
$15.99$7.99 + Free shipping50% off your first book
Watt
Samuel BeckettJames ElkinsIf Beckett's "Watt" is not the strangest book of the 20th century, what is? By "strange" I mean unaccountable to itself, in terms of logic, structure, and style. https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3130904612
Paperback, 2009
$18.00$9.00 + Free shipping50% off your first book
Ducks, Newburyport
Lucy EllmannJames ElkinsFinished Lucy Ellmann's "Ducks, Newburyport." I find the reviews are too general and loose: this isn't a single sentence (or a sentence at all); it isn't stream of consciousness; and it does not work, for me, as a representation of inner monologue. https://t.co/lhyJxcCZRP
Paperback, 2019
$22.95$11.48 + Free shipping50% off your first book
Milkman
Anna BurnsJames ElkinsFinally read Anna Burns's "Milkman," Man Booker Prizewinner from 2018. Did anyone else think the last 100 pages are a mistake? Burns inserts a plot, with many resolutions, into an exisential study that should remain irresolvable. https://t.co/DZChKUwerz
Paperback, 2018
$17.00$8.50 + Free shipping50% off your first book
The Tunnel
William H. GassJames ElkinsRe-reading William Gass's "The Tunnel." This is the edition of Hardy he describes on p. 66 ("nor was the cover any inducement, for it showed a vacuously handsome young man"). I wonder what effect it would have had if he'd reproduced this, given that the book has many graphics... https://t.co/OgnKLc6QIh
Paperback, 1999
$16.95$8.48 + Free shipping50% off your first book
Septology
Jon FosseJames ElkinsCatching up on Jon Fosse's 800-page Septology. I have an idea that he was after a more deeply dissociative narrator than reviewers have imagined. Any thoughts on that? https://t.co/VqhgvgMDzU
Paperback, 2023
$22.95$11.48 + Free shipping50% off your first book
Melancholy: As It Proceeds From the Disposition and Habit, the Passion of Love, and the Influence of Religion
Robert BurtonJames Elkins@signals_noise A perfect illustration of what Robert Burton called "despair" in Anatomy of Melancholy: a "doctor" who can reaosn better than anyone around him, and cannot be persuaded not to die of despair. The most dangerous and incurable form of melancholy.
Hardcover, 2016
$38.95$19.48 + Free shipping50% off your first book
Dear Friend, from My Life I Write to You in Your Life
Yiyun LiJames ElkinsJust finished Yiyun Li's "Dear Friend, From My Life I Write to You in Your Life." Her imagination is filled with conservative 20th c. writers. Does that matter, since her book is about depression? https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3223477688
Paperback, 2018
$17.00$8.50 + Free shipping50% off your first book
Bottom's Dream
Arno SchmidtJames Elkins@Webwight Just stumbled across your group--are you reforming? I'd read Anthony Wu's "Journey to the West." Currently I run an international reading group on Arno Schmidt's "Bottom's Dream" (in case you still like "erudite"!); previously several years on "Finnegans Wake"
Out of stock