2011 Nov 24 Bookshelf: Michael Pettis, Founder, D-22
The book on my shelf with the most sentimental value is probably the very tattered copy of Selden Rodman’s 100 Modern Poems, which I picked up in high school and read obsessively for years. The introduction was brilliant and the selection of poems ended up defining my taste in modernism.
If you only ever read one book about music, make it The Idiot’s Guide to Music, because you’re an idiot if you only ever read one book on music. But my favorite in the last few years is probably Alex Ross’ The Rest Is Noise, on the relationships between aesthetic and political changes in 20th century music. Few people have the sheer knowledge of and sensitivity to music as Ross.
My favorite books from childhood are the Lewis Carroll books, which were great when I read them as a kid and equally great every time I reread them. No one does a better job of pointing out the lunacy of what is normal.
The book that changed my life? Perhaps the last big one was Jonathan Spence’s The Search for Modern China, because it inspired me to come to China on a one-week holiday in 2001. It was in the middle of that holiday that I decided to quit my job on Wall Street and move to Beijing for two years.
The character in a book who I’d like to meet is Nick Carraway, to see whether he is honest, self-serving, or just naive.
The book I wish I hadn’t read was Frank Herbert’s Dune, which I read at the end of my freshman year in college. I was so fascinated that I immediately read the other two long books in the trilogy and then failed my Physics Lab course.
Have I ever judged a book by its cover? I once bought an old edition of one of Kerouac’s books because it had one of those very sleazy pulp covers – a “hip chick” in tight jeans near a motorcycle staring suggestively out at the viewer.
My favorite quote from a book: “That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,” said the Cat.
“I don’t much care where –” said Alice.
“Then it doesn’t matter which way you go,” said the Cat.
“– so long as I get somewhere,” Alice added as an explanation.
“Oh, you’re sure to do that,” said the Cat, “if you only walk long enough.”
Click here to see the November issue of the Beijinger in full.
Photo: Nature Zhang
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Bookshelf: Jeremy Goldkorn, Founder of Danwei.com (and editor of TBJ's very first issue)
The book on my shelf with the most sentimental value is a beautiful old illustrated hardback copy of The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling. My uncle gave the book to my mother as a tenth birthday present in 1951; my mother gave it to me for a birthday gift many years later.
The person in Beijing whose bookshelf I’d most like a peek at is Xi Jinping [China’s Vice President].
If you only ever read one book about China, make it China Candid by Sang Ye.
Are there books that I pretend to have read? When I arrived in China in early 1995, Amazon.com did not yet have a website and there were no decent foreign language bookstores in Beijing. But you could buy a huge selection of classic novels at the Wangfujing Foreign Language Bookstore. Whereas I had previously pretended to have read War and Peace and the complete works of Jane Austen and Dickens, by the end of my first year in China, I had actually read the lot.
Crazy Music, Crazy Ducks
We all know ducks can swim because of that coating of oil on their feathers. But did you know that music can be hazardous to duck health? Read on to learn more.
Bookshelf: Luka Lesson, Australian Poetry Slam Champion
The book on my shelf with the most sentimental value is The Road to Rembetika by Gail Holst. It's about the history of a certain style of popular music, 'Rembetika,' which developed in Greece during the ‘30s, ‘40s and ‘50s. There are great old photos, lyrics and stories of days long gone of brave men and women living through hard times by expressing themselves in both overtly angst-ridden and masterfully encoded ways. My parents are both Greek so it’s very dear to me.
Bookshelf: Seth Grossman, Co-owner, Home Plate Bar-B-Que
I am a photographer so all of the books I really love the most are my photographers’ monographs that are personally signed to me. (Those are all back home in New York, though.) And of course my dog-eared copy of Slightly Out of Focus, the biography of war photographer Robert Capa.
The Early Bird Gets the Bookworm Festival Tickets!
All, it’s that time of year again: The Bookworm International Literary Festival (BLF) is drawing near, bringing authors of great acclaim to our humble town. We hear some people mark their calendars for this event and, even though they’ve left Beijing years ago, plan two-week vacations to come back and attend the festival. (!!) It’s quite the shindig, and each year the authors and events just keep getting better.
