SUMMER FUNDRAISING DRIVE: Dear readers, here is a summer special edition on books, music, and films, which was imagined, organized, and put together by Manuel García, Jr. -- with the help and guidance from Swans editors. We hope you enjoy the result and have an enriched and peaceful summer. But keep in mind, to maintain Swans with the quality and dependability you have grown used to over the years we need financial help. Ask yourselves the value of our work, and whether you can find a better edited, more trenchant, and thoughtful Web publication that keeps creativity, sanity, and sound thoughts as first priorities. Please help us. Donate now!
(Many thanks to Walter Trkla and Charles Pearson for their generous financial contributions.)
We have chosen to skip the usual grim realities of social violence and the economic and financial crises that are battering Europe and the U.S. (and most of the world, besides the BRIC), which are creating mayhem with no end in sight. Instead -- this is summer, after all -- we are offering you undiluted Arts & Culture. This entire issue is about recommended books, music, and films -- some 225 of them. It was conceived and put together by Manuel García, Jr. with the help and support of Swans editors. Gilles d'Aymery explains the process that took place in a short introduction. We hope you will appreciate the effort, enjoy the result, and have a peaceful summer. A couple of Letters to the Editor on France and the eurozone conclude this edition. (This special issue will remain posted on the front page until August 27. We all need to relax and take a rest.)
# # # # #
Gilles d'Aymery: Introduction To This Special Summer Edition
A look behind the scenes at all of the effort to create this Special Summer Edition of recommended books, music, and films. More...
Jan Baughman: Summertime Escapes
Books by Gabriel García Márquez, Irving Stone, Garth Stein, Milan Kundera, and D. M. Thomas; music by Joaquin Rodrigo, Pavarotti and Friends, Mariza, John Lee Hooker, Gipsy Kings, and Chopin; films by James Ivory, Carlos Saura, Alain Resnais, Werner Herzog, and Robert Wise. More...
Peter Byrne: My Delights
Books by James Joyce, James M. Caine, Samuel Beckett, Paul Morand, and Jean Genet; music by Blind Willie Johnson, John Coltrane, Tom Waits, Léo Ferré, and Kurt Weill; films by Jean Renoir, Charles Chaplin, Federico Fellini, Orson Welles, and Peter Brook. More...
Gregory Elich: My Summer 2012 Picks
Books by Matthew Frye Jacobson, C. W. Ceram, Kim MacQuarrie, Michael Burlingame, Peter Hart, and Lawrence S. Ritter; music by Kaija Saariaho, Franz Schubert, Luigi Nono, Jean-Philippe Rameau, and Helmut Lachenmann; films by Lee Chang-dong, Hong Sang-soo, William Wellman, Masaki Kobayashi, Charles Reisner, and Lu Chuan. More...
Gilles d'Aymery: Read, Watch, And Listen
Books by Julien Benda, Raymond Aron, Charles de Gaulle, Albert Camus, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, and Albert Cohen; films by the one and only Marcel Pagnol; and music by Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, Keith Jarrett, Puccini, the Three Tenors, and Edith Piaf. More...
Fabio De Propris: My Favorites
Books by Alaa Al-Aswany, Orhan Pamuk, Antonio Tabucchi, Wislawa Szymborska, and Vikas Swarup; music by George Gershwin, Donizetti, Adoniran Barbosa, Cole Porter, and Domenico Modugno; and films by the Coen brothers, Hayao Miyazaki, Paolo Sorrentino, Pablo Larrain, and Joel Surnow and Robert Cochran. More...
Guido Monte: My 2012 Summer Postcard
Books by Primo Levi, Dino Buzzati, Tiziano Terzani, Dostoyevsky, and Victor Hugo; music by Ravi Shankar and Philip Glass, Michael Nyman, John Surman, Joni Mitchell, and Weather Report; films by Jacques Cluzaud, Tony Kaye, Niki Caro, Matteo Garrone, and Danny Boyle. More...
Christian Cottard: Mes recommandations
(Le coin français) Livres par Jean Giono, Phillipe Djian, Christian Bobin, Gustave Flaubert, et Claude Roy; musique par Bach, Stephan Eicher, Chet Baker, Allain Leprest, et Eels; films par Terence Mallick, Jean Daniel Pollet, Bertrand Blier, Jean Louis Trintignant, et John Cassavetes. More...
Manuel García, Jr.: My Favorite Classics
Books by Thucydides, Alexandre Dumas, Dostoyevsky, Mark Twain, Albert Camus, and Alan Watts; music by Mozart, Brahms, Puccini, Ella Fitzgerald, Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim, and The Doors; films by John Huston, Michael Curtiz, Howard Hawks, Akira Kurosawa, David Lean, and Richard Lester. More...
Michael Barker: My Selections
Books by Mark Curtis, Murray Bookchin, Alex Carey, Joan Roelofs, Timothy Schwartz, and James Forman; music by Dubmarine, Grace Petrie, Kooii, The Coup, Lowkey, and the Grassroots Street Orchestra; films by Ken Loach, Armando Iannucci and Chris Morris, Luc Besson, and Scott Noble. More...
Edmund Berger: Recommendations For Your Summer Entertainment
Books by Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, Albert Camus, Jean Genet, Ernest Hemingway, and Kurt Vonnegut; music by Can, The Velvet Underground, Steve Reich, Don Cherry, and King Tubby; films by Francis Ford Coppola, Jean-Luc Godard, Martin Scorsese, Serge Leone, and Stanley Kubrick. More...
Glenn Reed: Suggestions For Summer Enjoyment
Books by Shirley Jackson, Ray Bradbury, Albert Camus, Richard Wright, and George Orwell; music by Miles Davis, Pink Floyd, The Tragically Hip, The Beatles, and Patti Smith; films by Stanley Kubrick, Atom Egoyen, Ridley Scott, Marc Caro and Jean-Pierre Jeunet, Majid Majidi, and Ingmar Bergman. More...
Isidor Saslav: My Offerings For Your Pleasure
Books by Victor Davis Hanson and John Heath, Douglas A. Blackmon, Judith and Herbert Kohl, William Safire, Thomas DiLorenzo, and Preston Cloud; music by Adolphe Adam, Gaspare Spontini, Louis Joseph Ferdinand Hérold, Daniel François Esprit Auber, Arthur Foote, and Josef Woelfl; films by Harold Ramis, Jim Jarmusch, Anthony Mann, Don Siegel and Robert Totten, Penny Marshall, and Lasse Hallstroem. More...
Raju Peddada: Choices For The Summer Lolling
Books by Marcel Proust, Stendhal, Philip Goldberg, Tacitus, Peter Longerich, and Orhan Pamuk; music by Michael Levy, Jethro Tull, Mozart, Beethoven, Puccini, and Billie Holiday; films by Erich von Stroheim, Satyajit Ray, Terry Gilliam, Vsevolod Pudovkin, and Hayao Miyazaki. More...
Harvey E. Whitney, Jr.: Mind Food And Epicuriosities
Books by Immanuel Kant, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Robert Pirsig, Ralph Ellison, and Allan Bloom; music by King Crimson, Sonic Youth, Soundgarden, The Boards of Canada, and Manuel Migs; films by Stanley Kubrick, L. Q. Jones, Larry and Andrew Wachowski, Ridley Scott, and Louis Malle. More...
On François Hollande and the new French paradox -- earlier retirement and higher taxes -- that will only make the situation worse as the wealthy flee the country, and the turbulence in the entire eurozone -- is it a failed experiment? More...
# # # # #
Let us know if you wish to receive an e-mail regarding each new edition (twice a month) with the Note from the Editors, and please become a subscriber. See our Donate page.
« Previous | Current Issue | Next »