Tired of reading the same recommended books from the usual sources? Just think of our weekly What We’re Reading column as your non-committal book club with FADER and some of your favorite bands. For this installment, Tim Hoey of Cut Copy talks about his favorite short stories.
The Angel Esmeralda
By Don Delillo
On paper, touring presents itself with endless opportunities to immerse yourself in a book– airport lounges, planes, buses,vans, waiting for soundcheck, waiting to play. The reality is that I spend those moments catching up on sleep or I'm in such a state of delirious jet lag that it's almost impossible to absorb anything that requires attention and brain power. I've given up on reading novels when I'm touring, as I've found myself rereading the same chapters and even entire books over and over again without really absorbing anything. I now go for collections of short stories as they're easier to engage and grasp when our schedules are so sporadic and there's no sense of routine or structure to our days.
On this tour I've been reading Don Delillo's The Angel Esmeralda, which is a collection of his work spanning from 1979 to 2011. It's apparently a great document of how his writing style evolved from his early grand narratives to his more recent subtle and oblique stories. I've only read a couple of his novels, including White Noise which I loved, and I'm enjoying this book so far. Each story has an ominous, unsettling tone combined with Delillo's sense of humor and his thoughts on people's relationships with one another.
Werner Herzog's note to his cleaning lady
I have no idea on the authenticity of this letter, but its pretty amazing none the less.
