John West Book Recommendations & Book Mentions
This list consists of recommendations or mentions of books spotted in media, social media accounts, podcasts or other public websites.
John West on X
now: @wsj. once: @cortico, @medialab, and @qz. book: *lessons and carols*, @eerdmansbooks (2023). mfa: @bennmfa_writing. mastodon: @jsbw@internaut.club.
Sonnets
W. ShakespeareJohn WestLast night, I finished tuning a text generation model with Shakespeare's sonnets and gave it lines from one of the IPCC reports to chew on. Here's the result. Love the final couplet: To-day he is still warm, still alive, still breathing, And to-morrow night is colder still. https://t.co/ofnmpaPB26
Out of stock
Fake Accounts
Lauren OylerJohn WestIn her excellent novel, Fake Accounts, @laurenoyler nicely parodies literary fragments. Her narrator says, "you can just dump any material you have in here and leave it up to the reader to connect it to the rest of the work." And—lol—yes, that's true, but...
Paperback, 2022
$16.95$8.48 + Free shipping50% off your first book
Miscellaneous Aphorisms; The Soul Of Man
Sebastian Melmoth (Oscar Wilde)John WestI gave GPT-2 Oscar Wilde's MISCELLANEOUS APHORISMS: THE SOUL OF MAN and have thus created ~Botscar Wilde~, who is full of cutting wisdom.
Out of stock
The Sentence
Louise ErdrichJohn WestAnd here are two excellent, notable, non-seasonal books that feel urgent right now: Zadie Smith’s INTIMATIONS (PRH 2020) about pandemics and what ails us, and Louise Erdrich’s THE SENTENCE (Harper 2021) about pandemics and what haunts us. 6/
Paperback, 2022
$19.99$9.99 + Free shipping50% off your first book
Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow
Gabrielle ZevinJohn WestI'm super sick today, so I've been napping and reading TOMORROW AND TOMORROW AND TOMORROW by Gabrielle Zevin, and, honestly, a five star book, pretty much perfect. Can't recommend it strongly enough.
Paperback, 2024
$19.00$9.50 + Free shipping50% off your first book
Lessons
Charles M. JasakJohn WestThank you to @byronborger for his kind review of Lessons and Carols! "It is one of the most brilliant bits of creative writing I have come across in a long, long time." 😳 - Here it is (looks like it's on sale): https://t.co/4c7vm1WPmi. - Here's the book: https://t.co/IIk0d9LlIq.
Paperback, 2022
$13.00$6.50 + Free shipping50% off your first book
Death by Landscape
Elvia WilkJohn WestReading DEATH BY LANDSCAPE by Elvia Wilk (@3LVVIA). Three stray thoughts. 1. These are weird essays—in a deeply rewarding way—that inhabit a wild space between ekphrasis and theory, which has very ~resonant~ vibes in this current media moment.
Paperback, 2022
$16.95$8.48 + Free shipping50% off your first book
Miscellaneous Aphorisms
Oscar WildeJohn WestI gave GPT-2 Oscar Wilde's MISCELLANEOUS APHORISMS: THE SOUL OF MAN and have thus created ~Botscar Wilde~, who is full of cutting wisdom.
Paperback, 2022
$25.24$12.62 + Free shipping50% off your first book
Leaves of Grass
Whitman WaltJohn WestI'm contemplating a project in which I have Stable Diffusion illustrate Walt Whitman's "Song of Myself" from LEAVES OF GRASS and I have a bot perform the poem by posting each stanza, one a day, till the poem is done. Here's the twelfth section of the poem. https://t.co/ZvFGItq13r
Out of stock
Intimations: Six Essays
Zadie SmithJohn WestAnd here are two excellent, notable, non-seasonal books that feel urgent right now: Zadie Smith’s INTIMATIONS (PRH 2020) about pandemics and what ails us, and Louise Erdrich’s THE SENTENCE (Harper 2021) about pandemics and what haunts us. 6/
Paperback, 2020
$12.00$6.00 + Free shipping50% off your first book