Late last year I requested a review copy of This is Serbia Calling from Serpent's Tail, a very cool sounding publisher in England. I don't know when I first heard about the book but I was fascinated by the idea of Serbian radio during the last Balkan War and wanted to read about how they helped keep free speech alive under Milosovic. Unfortunately the book was unavailable but they kindly sent me a couple of other books to consider instead. I just finally got around to reading one of them, Princes Amongst Men: Journeys with Gypsy Musicians and it is really quite well done. Weirdly enough I'm still reading about the Balkans only now about the Balkans and music. The book is sort of a combination travelogue and musical memoir as Garth Cartwright goes looking for gypsy music and life in the former Yugoslavia. It's very well written and quite interesting; I'm really enjoying it. This just moved to the front of my reviewing line-up for the summer edition of Eclectica and I'm looking forward to writing a nice long piece about the things I've learned from reading it.
Oddly enough, I was reading Jenny D's blog a couple of weeks ago (like I do everyday) and I came across her review of another Serpent book, Cathi Unsworth's The Not Knowing. (I'd love to link direct to the review but damn blogger won't let me, so here's the link to the archives for this month and scroll down to March 4th. I'm going to scream any minute now, so it's best that I just move on...) I also have this title (along with two other ST books that recently arrived) and I was intrigued when it came in by its noir sounding premise and the fact that the protagonists edit a magazine and are into the music scene. (The back cover includes this description: "With a soundtrack of Northern Soul and classic rockabilly, The Not Knowing vividly evokes the seamy side of London life as Diana is drawn ever closer to the killer.") It's quite clear to me that the ST folks like music! Jenny really liked this book so it has moved steadily higher on my stack and I was planning to start it anyway this week and then Jenny posted another entry about it, this time concerning an essay by Cathi Unsworth in a magazine I've never heard of, Strange Attractors.
Quick, go look at the website right now and then come back!
Okay, have you ever seen anything so wicked cool? I am a collector's cabinet junkie - I love reading about the Victorians and their need to find everything and fill their houses with it. (I'm not so happy that they had to kill everything and stuff it, but I'm willing to accept it was a long time ago and move on.) This magazine really sounds cool though and I especially find all the essay topics appealing. One of the more annoying things to me about most magazines is how they marginalize so much - I love Smithsonian because it still manages to carry articles on so many different ideas in one issue. Strange Attractors seems to be taking that idea even further and I'm pretty much certain I'm going to buy at least the last issue and get a peek. I'll keep you posted on what I find.
So, Cathi Unsworth sounds incredibly cool, Serpent's Tail is impressing the hell out of me and then today they send me a new book, 2 Girls, that sounds like Single White Female with a Turkish edge. I have no idea if this book will be appropriate for teens but I certainly hope it is because I'd love to include something like it in my column. How many teenagers have read something recently by a Turkish writer? Hell, have I ever read anything by a Turkish writer? (hmmmmm....) Expect to hear back from me on that in a couple of weeks. And here's hoping this book is as kick ass as everything else that ST has sent my way.
