Better Than Friday - 54 (Patreon)

Happy Friday ya'll! Thanks for the kind support. 

1. A book recently recommended to me - Omer Pasha Latas: Marshal to the Sultan 

Omer Pasha Latas is set in nineteenth-century Sarajevo, where Muslims and Christians live in uneasy proximity while entertaining a common resentment of faraway Ottoman rule. Omer is the seraskier, commander in chief of the Sultan’s armies, and as the book begins he arrives from Istanbul, dispatched to bring Sarajevo’s landowners to heel, a task that he accomplishes with his usual ferocity and efficiency. And yet the seraskier’s expedition to Bosnia is a time of reckoning for him as well: he was born in the Balkans, a Serb and a subject of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, a bright boy who escaped his father’s financial disgrace by running away and converting to Islam. Now, at the height of his power, he heads an army of misfits, adventurers, and outcasts from across Europe and Asia, and yet wherever he goes he remains a stranger.

Ivo Andrić, who won the Nobel Prize in 1961, is a spellbinding storyteller and a magnificent stylist, and here, in his final novel, he surrounds his enigmatic central figure with many vivid and fascinating minor characters, lost souls and hopeless dreamers all, in a world that is slowly sliding towards disaster. Omer Pasha Latas combines the leisurely melancholy of Joseph Roth’s The Radetzky March with the stark fatalism of an old ballad.

- Goodreads

2. Sun & Steel by Yukio Mishima is very expensive on Amazon - But this new one is $10! 

A kind patron clued me in to this new edition which is affordable and looks excellent. 

3. A Podcast about the Lore of Punk and Rock bands with amazing music recommendations 

Brought to my attention by a patron - Thanks Theresa!

This is a great sort of 'behind the music' podcast series discussing the influences and history of some of my favorite bands. 

4. Nobody was ever as cool as Alain Delon in Le Samourai 

I think reading about the anarchists planning to kidnap the American Ambassador in Jean-Patrick Manchette's Nada made me think of the film Le Samourai directed by Jean-Pierre Melville. 

5. Where Sunday wiki surfing leads me - a historical list of 'Battle Cries' 

How I get here is a mystery to me. 

I know not all of us have places to swim nearby, however, if you do, I highly recommend it. 

There's something incredibly calming about swimming outside in the sun.