365 days meme, the third

(From here, as before)

January 23 - What is your favorite book?
huh.

do i have a favourite book? i'm... i don't know!

huh.

i think i'll change the question a little. the book i'm most glad i read so far in book club is Capital, volume 1, marx. it's nice to have finally ground my way through that. (also about half of volume 2 and a bit of volume 3. volume 2 is pointless unless recursive cycles are a new concept in your life in which case it's probably revelatory? but without that... skip it.) i even learned that marx had a better grasp on labour-time than most marxists i've read, who generally leave that latter part off when it's so completely critical to the whole damn thing. (i have even bigger issues with his theory of value after reading it in depth now, though. but i also think that whole theory of value as some sort of intrinsic thing is chasing ghosts, so i have problems with everyone's theories of value.)

the book i've enjoyed most so far is emily wilson's new translation of the odyssey, which is so far fantastic and brilliant and very much unlike other translations and great. also? a fucking page-turner. which is why it's great. this is a crazy epic story for reasons and her explicit decisions not to do things like fake old-style english language and keep it in scansion (iambic pentameter in this case) and the same number of lines(!) as homer are all working beautifully.

ancient greece was so fucking weird you guys. so weird. and with all that artificial crap out of the way it really comes through. holy hell it does.

so, yeah. books!