McFarlin portrait of Charles Shere

Charles Shere:

Selected writings

home     bio     music

  Blogs  
  The Eastside View 2005-2020     On travel, books, music, restaurants, and anything else I'm thinking about

Eating Every Day 2008-2020  Just what it says

Alpwalk 2008-2016  Walks and hikes in Europe and California

Ancient weblog: 2004-2005     2003

 
 
 
   
  Books and monographs
  Standing By 2020 Standing By: Berkeley and the Bay Area, 1964-1974 Memoir. The beginning of a critic's career in public radio and television and the Oakland Tribune, with notes on musical compositions, a growing family, the early years of Chez Panisse, and the burgeoning art and music scene in the Bay Area at an epochal moment.
  The Company of Strangers 2019 The Company of Strangers On travel, art and architecture, theater, books, dining, and other subjects, originally posted at the blog The Eastside View, 2005-2006.
  A Critic's Farewell 2018 A Critic's Farewell: Writings from the Oakland Tribune Reviews and commentary on the art and music scene of the San Francisco Bay Area as it was thirty years ago, as reported in the daily and Sunday pages of the Oakland Tribune by Charles Shere throughout 1987, his final year as art and music critic. Indexed.
  Eastside Works and Days 2018 Eastside Works and Days, with art by Inez Storer. A cycle of verses describing the daily country life of grandparents.
  Where to Dig, and How Far Down 2017 Where to Dig, and How Far Down Rome: Contemplations of history, Christianity, and daily life as a resident tourist in the Eternal City.
  Veinen 2015 [publisher] Jean Coqt, Veinen A short novel set in the Our river valley, Luxembourg, at various times in the last two thousand years; the third part of Skagen, a novel of Europe. Translated by Charles Lunaire.
  Venice: and the idea of permanence 2014 Venice and the Idea of Permanence Essays on art, cuisine, music, and various other subjects, especially life in Venice, written while living there in June 2001 and June 2014.
  Tarifa: a short novel 2013 [publisher] Jean Coqt, Tarifa The second section of the eccentric novel Skagen, a novel of Europe by the reclusive 20th-century writer Jean Coqt, translated into a haunting, lyrical series of meditations by Charles Lunaire.
  Skagen: a short novel 2013 [publisher] Jean Coqt, Skagen A novel for readers with short attention spans, set in and around the village of Skagen on the northern tip of Jutland, Denmark, in and around 1980. Postmodern fiction, probably. Translated by Charles Lunaire.
  Improvised Itineraries 2012 Improvised Itineraries Walking in Limburg, Belgium, and Luxembourg, staying in small country hotels, eating what we find. Then racing across France looking for cave art, modern opera, old friends — and, always, something good to eat.
  Search for Meaning 2012 Search for Meaning A play in two acts. Five actors trying to find meaning in a life cluttered by experience.
  Eating Around the Netherlands 2010 Eating around the Netherlands Reports of a month of dining in The Netherlands, in restaurants fine and casual, in big cities and provincial villages, with recommendations, telephone numbers and addresses, and many color photos.
  Walking the French Alps 2009 Walking the French Alps The account of a walk from Lake Geneva to Nice, 400 miles through the French Alps, taken by a man in his seventies, a sidekick in his sixties, and a 15-year-old grandson. Appendix describes gear, accommodations, and a bibliography. With black and white photos.
  The Eastside View: 2007 2008 The Eastside View: 2007 Charles Shere's blog The Eastside View ranges among cuisine, art, music, books, and travel. This (2007) installment includes among other things notes on a month's walking in The Netherlands, on restaurants in Portland, on the theater season in Ashland, and a long review of Alex Ross's book The Rest is Noise.
  Mostly Spain 2007 Mostly Spain Travels in Spain and The Netherlands, with side trips to Paris and Torino. Comments (more often meditations) on restaurants, hotels, the landscape, the people, and their history; on paintings and music, museums and cathedrals; and politics; and language; and books.
  Getting There 2007 Getting There Memoir. Growing up in Berkeley, 1935-1945, and on a hardscrabble farm in Sonoma county, 1945-1952; college in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Berkeley; early marriage and children; beginning to learn about Modernism, writing, and the composition of music. The first thirty years, 1935-1964. 
  Roman Letters 2007 Roman Letters Reflections on daily life, politics, restaurants, art, and history during two months in Rome. With a detailed listing of restaurants.
  How I Saw Duchamp cover 2004 How I Saw Duchamp Healdsburg: Ear Press, 2004. A lecture given Sept. 12, 2003 at the Hogeschool voor de Kunsten Utrecht on the composition of the opera The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even. Available from Frog Peak Music.
  Charles Shere: Why I Read Stein cover 2002 Why I Read Stein, with foreword by Melody Sumner Carnahan. Oakland: Mills College Center for the Book. Available from the publisher or from Frog Peak Music.
  1996 Everbest Ever: Correspondence with Bay Area Friends, with Virgil Thomson and Margery Tede. Berkeley: Fallen Leaf Press, 1996. Available from Rowman & Littlefield or from used book dealers.
  1995 Remolif and Shere: stories and reminiscences by Charles Shere for his grandchildren. Privately printed, PDF available here.
  Charles Shere: Thinking Sound Music cover 1995 Thinking Sound Music: The Life and Music of Robert Erickson, with foreword by John Rockwell and a CD of music by Robert Erickson. Berkeley: Fallen Leaf Press, 1995. Available from Rowman & Littlefield or from used book dealers.
    1995 , even recent cultural history, place, art, and poetry in ordinary life Five lectures from the nineteen-eighties. Frog Peak, 1995. Available from Frog Peak Music.

 

 

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