Friday Hip Hop « Conversational Reading

Bring Back the Mass Market Paperback!
I'd really like to see it happen. As I understand things, there are two possibilities for why this hasn't already happened: 1)... »
Bestseller Database
As Max has it, this database of 337 bestsellers with extensive notes is bibliographic crack. For instance: Upon The... »
BTB Press
So we announced the Best Translated Book Award winners yesterday. Here's the winners at Three Percent. And Omnivorcaious has... »
Presenting The Offending Adam
(This posts comes to us from Andrew Wessels, who contributes to The Quarterly Conversation, as well as a number of other... »
Are E-Books a Revolution?
Interesting discussion going on at The Constant Conversation surrounding Levi Asher's recent point that e-book adoption is... »
Best Translated Book Award Winner and Party
Alas, so much cool stuff happens on the East Coast that I'm not able to attend. And here's a great example: tomorrow Chad Post... »
Reality Hunger
I can usually tell that I'm enjoying an essay when I think as I read it "I should really blog about this." And one of the marks... »
About a Mountain — Read It
Since I'm currently reading John D'Agata's book-length essay, About a Mountain, for an upcoming review, I don't want to say too... »
An Idea Every Independent Bookstore Should Steal
Last Friday I helped host the "bookswap" at San Francisco independent bookstore The Booksmith. (I also do a translated fiction... »
New Review in the LA Times
It's not every day you review a Nobelist in your hometown paper: my review of Kenzaburo Oe's The Changeling in this week's LA... »

@readysteadybook you should flesh that out. I've read both, and I don't see why the two need be mutually exclusive. [link]
Abstract Expressionist stamps. Now your mail can inspire either great adulation or disdainful scorn http://tinyurl.com/yerusb4 [link]
BTB Press: So we announced the Best Translated Book Award winners yesterday. Here?s the winners at Three Percent.... http://bit.ly/8Y8RaE [link]
RT @ubuweb: Film of Jean Baudrillard: "The Violence of the Image" (85 min, 2004): http://is.gd/a9jA9 [link]
"Give Ryan credit. It?s difficult to raise taxes on 90 percent of Americans while reducing overall tax revenue" http://tinyurl.com/ykusx2z [link]
Sweet photos of '70s-era mass-market paperbacks from Barth, DeLillo, etc http://bit.ly/blJakz [link]
Reality Hunger: Reality HungerI can usually tell that I?m enjoying an essay when I think as I read it ?I should re... http://bit.ly/a0sXGz [link]
On Roth, Houellebecq, and Hedonism: Most of the time when I see something about Michel Houellebecq, I sigh deeply,... http://bit.ly/cj9tfx [link]
An Idea Every Independent Bookstore Should Steal: Last Friday I helped host the ?bookswap? at San Francisco indepe... http://bit.ly/cq4lpS [link]
RT @PD_Smith, this sounds absolutely awful "The future of eBook readers could be text that knows it's being read" http://bit.ly/9OFj3G [link]

Rereading Wallace Stevens March 12, 2010
Since buying The Selected Poems of Wallace Stevens at City Lights, I’ve been rereading many Stevens poems and trying to understand it from a more mature perspective.Â Last time I read a vast amount of Stevens was when I was 22 for a class on Stevens, T.S. Eliot, Yeats, and Marianne Moore.Â With fifteen years [...] […]
Soo Jin Oh
Best Translated Book Award 2010 March 12, 2010
The 2010 Best Translated Book Awards were announced last night at Idlewild Books, Manhattan. The Confessions of Noa Weber by Gail Hareven, translated by Dalya Bilu won the fiction award, and the poetry award went to Elena Fanailova for The Russian Version, translated from the Russian by Genya Turovskaya and Stephanie Sandler. Check out the [...] […]
Jeff Waxman
NBCCA March 12, 2010
The National Book Critics Circle Award is announcing their winners tonight.Â The diversity of their nominations, from the better known (such as Hilary Mantel and Mary Karr) to the less mainstream (such as Rachel Zucker and Eula Biss), makes the blog entries on the nominees an interesting read.Â I added Stephen Burt’s Close Calls with [...] […]
Soo Jin Oh
Different Ways of Translating al-Khamissi March 12, 2010
Translator Jonathan Wright said last night that he felt, for the English-language reader, "religious references [in Arabic literature] are in general problematic." […]
M Lynx Qualey
Dear Camera: Bees and Poems. â€œAn accidental moltingâ€� March 12, 2010
Poems and Paintings by Salena Gerdes and Joseph P. Wood in the newest issue of Dear Camera […]
Carrie Olivia Adams
Norwegian Wood Film Adaptation March 12, 2010
Haruki Murakami’s breakout novel, Norwegian Wood, is being made to a film. But wait! There’s more! It’s being scored by Radiohead. […]
Scott Esposito
Out of Print, Out of Mind March 12, 2010
To mark the one-year anniversary of his outstanding literary webzine, The Second Pass, editor John Williams asked a whole bunch of reading folks to wax on about their favorite OP titles. […]
Jeff Waxman
â€œIt is one of the hardest days of the year to bear. Truly a memorable 10th of March,â€� or, Time travel with Thoreau March 12, 2010
Despite Eliot's oft-quoted line about April, we all know that March is really the cruelest month, refusing to set us free of winter's bleakness even as it tantalizes us with hints of spring. This year however, Thoreau's journals in hand, I've decided to choose my own March. […]
Levi Stahl
Mass-market paperback postmodernism March 12, 2010
or, Artifacts from a World I Do Not Recognize I love coming across mass market editions of books by writers whom you wouldn’t normally associate with that format (at least for those of us who were born in the seventies or later). Below are a few I’ve come across in used book stores. I always wonder: [...] […]
Scott Bryan Wilson
â€œAlphabet graves in your hairâ€� March 12, 2010
Selections from Andrew K. Peterson's "Bonjour Meriweather and the Rabid Maps." […]
Carrie Olivia Adams

Seeing Sounds by NER*D Review

Seeing Sounds by N*E*R*D ReviewShare

When I think of what defines postmodern popular music, I place my criteria into two groups: sounds and subject matter. Sonically I think of music that draws on the forms and sounds of the two last great traditions in popular music: rock and hip hop. Topically, I think of the sometimes . . . continue reading Seeing Sounds by N*E*R*D Review

Friday Hip Hop: J-Live

Friday Hip Hop: J-LiveShare

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I’m using the Amazon clips widget to preview J-Live’s new album here. Click on the above box to listen to clips from any one of the album’s tracks.

J-Live has been one of my favorite MCs for going on 7 years now, and I constantly am surprised that more people . . . continue reading Friday Hip Hop: J-Live

Friday Hip Hop: Common–I Used to Love H.E.R.

Friday Hip Hop: Common–I Used to Love H.E.R.Share

It just doesn’t get much better than this. Wait, of course, for the last 8 words.

Friday Hip Hop: Southernplayalisticcadiilacmuzik

Friday Hip Hop: SouthernplayalisticcadiilacmuzikShare

Here’s a classic for you all.

Friday Hip Hop: Edgar Allen Floe

Friday Hip Hop: Edgar Allen FloeShare

Now this is what its all about–a rapper whose name is a literary reference. That’s nice.

I’m a pretty big fan of Little Brother and, since Edgar Allen Floe is a part of their crew (also known as the Justus League), I figured I’d give his album Floe Almighty: The Remixture . . . continue reading Friday Hip Hop: Edgar Allen Floe

Friday Hip Hop: No Hook by Jay-Z

Friday Hip Hop: No Hook by Jay-ZShare

Now that he’s had as many number 1 albums as Elvis, people are finally beginning to recognize the kid of cultural force that Jay-Z represents. You can argue whether he’s the MC that deserves all this attention, but it’s pretty clear to me that American Gangster is his best . . . continue reading Friday Hip Hop: No Hook by Jay-Z

Friday Hip Hop: Lovin’ It by Little Brother

Friday Hip Hop: Lovin’ It by Little BrotherShare

Here’s a live version of one of my favorite songs by one of my favorite hip hop groups. If you are at your job, I recommend not doing what Phonte recommends.

This track is off of this album. If you like hip hop, you should definitely hear Little Brother.

Friday Hip Hop: My Melody by Eric B, and Rakim

Friday Hip Hop: My Melody by Eric B, and RakimShare

They don’t get much more classic than this.

Check out Eminem’s homage at the beginning of verse three on I’m Back.

Conversational Reading

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Bring Back the Mass Market Paperback!

Bestseller Database

BTB Press

Presenting The Offending Adam

Are E-Books a Revolution?

Best Translated Book Award Winner and Party

Reality Hunger

About a Mountain — Read It

An Idea Every Independent Bookstore Should Steal

New Review in the LA Times

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