Just finished Boy A having had it for ages, saw the TV adaptation was getting a lot of notice so gave it a go. Is pretty good, does anyone know if the TV version does it justice?
although not exactly uplifting, but the language used is brilliant and the sentence structure is actually really good too (literary geek escapes again). I'm not sure what it would be like as a film though, just can't quite picture it.
The writing is highly cinemagraphic in style, superb minimal dialog, great Gothic imagery. I believe there is a 87% chance this will get a fucked Hollywood treatment. John Hillcoat's credits include music videos for Nick Cave and Crowded House, so I would assume the bar has been set very very low. However, Ridley Scott is directing "Blood Meridian," so...
midnight's children (which took me absolutely forever even though it was quite excellent; i need to start reading faster). now i am reading the human stain by philip roth. i'm a few pages in and already there has been a reference to salman rushdie, which is one of those odd coincidences that i enjoy a lot because i'm weird.
Just finished the Gambler and House of the Dead - both of which were stunning(I always start with the short ones and work my way up lenghtwise, fnarr). But I'm having a bit of a break from old Fyodor at the moment to read Engleby by Sebastian Foulkes. Verdict so far: fair to middling.
Anyway... I'm reading Once, a kid's book about the Holocaust. It's a bit lightweight, but a girl I like recommended it to me so I thought I'd read it. 's OK
And I'm also reading The Religion by Tim Wollocks. Nothing too substantial, but I love that historical-fiction bollocks so it's right up my street.
a great graphic novel called 'button man' about assassins pitted against one another for millionaire's entertainment, read mark e smith's 'renegade' last week that was really funny and entertaining and am about thirty pages in to ray bradbury's 'something wicked this way comes' as of this afternoon.
No, yeah, it didn't used to be me that did these; they were already going when I got here. But now if I don't do them, I imagine they'd fall off for awhile.
I'm in two minds about it right now though, read 100 pages so far and I can appreciate that it turns conventional narratives and character development on it's head but I'm not sure if it actually achieves anything by doing this and strikes me as a bit self important and pretentious. Prior to that I re-read (for the third time) White Noise by Don DeLillo which I love so much.
by Douglas Coupland. far more interesting than reading about how visual illusions can provide information about normal vision which i really should be reading about. bloody exams!
Samuel Pepys diary
RULES
Though I'm meant to say something with a 'pop culture connection aren't I?
Oh some book probably with a title nicked from an 80s indie song that was big on the US college circuit in 1989
historical books >>> pop culture books
and i want to read this.
DiS at the moment
hilarious
you fucking twat
I'm flicking through Chat magazine
"When cats go BAD!"
I've just started reading A Star Called Henry (by roddy doyle)
yeah, good so far.
i gave up on Winter In Madrid. Anyone care to encourage me to give it another go? Does it get less dreary?
I finished 'The Day Of The Triffids' last night
and will probably start 'The Unbearable Lightness Of Being' over the weekend
everyone is talking about Triffids on here lately, it seems
(or actually i think it might just be you, multiple times, but anyway) i'm not much into science fiction, but would i probably like this anyway?
Me, multiple times
I'm obsessed.
and as for the main point of my post...?
oi!
could a non-science fiction type get into it?
Sorry!
Yes, I'd say so. Not too geeky by any stretch.
Unbearable Lightness of being is great
I challenge you not to have a tear in your eye at the end (those who've read it will know what I'm talking about).
A tear?
Are the pages going to jump out an papercut my eyeballs?
I'M SO FUNNY, HAR HAR HAR
THE END OF DOOM
Liar
Although I'd suggest a crack team of DiSers get to work on writing that
Mike Leigh on Mike Leigh
White Heat
Don't tell anyone, but I think Harold Wilson's about to devalue the pound.
The Amazing Adventures of Kavelier and Clay
by Michael Chabon.
A story about two cousins, one from Czechoslovakia and one from New York, who write a comic in th 1940s that becomes huge.
It's really good and full of nice geeky comic book references :)
Vile Bodies by Evelyn Waugh
a gift from my recent bday.
just finished HAM ON RYE by charles bukowski
its very funny, and incredibly rude.
i just started stump, by some cunt who cant write for shit - ive panned it after 3pages
I've just restarted
Lord Alan-Brooke's war diaries...
Maggie the Mechanic
by Jamie Hernandez. I'm not enjoying it as much as Gilbert's works so far.
Re-reading
Slaughterhouse Five
Just finished Boy A having had it for ages, saw the TV adaptation was getting a lot of notice so gave it a go. Is pretty good, does anyone know if the TV version does it justice?
I've not read the book
but the TV adaptation was the best piece of drama I saw last year.
I'll try and get around to it
I was concerned they'd water down some of the difficult elements and the lead actor seemed like a douche in the interviews I saw him in.
I'm having to read alot of 'classics'
because i'm now going to be an English teacher and can't rely on Cliffnotes any more
Disgrace by Coetzee
Not too sure about it, a bit too much like an obvious film at the moment.
Previously read The Road by Cormac McCarthy, which was good - and is soon to be at cinemas with Viggo Mortensen.
I hadn't heard that about The Road
if they get it right it will be amazing. But it's an easy book to fuck up, so much of it was in the prose style
this is on its way to me as we speak
from amazon- i hope its as good as many have said
It is good, very good
I would have thought it might have gotten repetitive, but not the case. Not the most summery of books though.
Although thinking about that statement, I did read it on a beach in the Phillipines, so ignore.
It really is brilliant,
although not exactly uplifting, but the language used is brilliant and the sentence structure is actually really good too (literary geek escapes again). I'm not sure what it would be like as a film though, just can't quite picture it.
absolute
The writing is highly cinemagraphic in style, superb minimal dialog, great Gothic imagery. I believe there is a 87% chance this will get a fucked Hollywood treatment. John Hillcoat's credits include music videos for Nick Cave and Crowded House, so I would assume the bar has been set very very low. However, Ridley Scott is directing "Blood Meridian," so...
Doom 2 Map Book
Haha
How to be Free - Tom Hodgkinson
bukowski's collected letters
and the God Delusion.
they're both pretty interesting.
the outlaw of iceland by victor hugo
it was £1 in oxfam bookshop and i have nothing else to read.
"God? LOL" - Richard Dawkins
A mixture of
Rip it up and start again, Pies and Prejudice, New Vistas in Psychology and Don Quixote.
just finished
midnight's children (which took me absolutely forever even though it was quite excellent; i need to start reading faster). now i am reading the human stain by philip roth. i'm a few pages in and already there has been a reference to salman rushdie, which is one of those odd coincidences that i enjoy a lot because i'm weird.
wow
good couple of choices there!
Lord of the flies
Brothers KreamKrackerazovs
just past halfway through.
Is ace.
I'm steeling myself up to tackle this...
Just finished the Gambler and House of the Dead - both of which were stunning(I always start with the short ones and work my way up lenghtwise, fnarr). But I'm having a bit of a break from old Fyodor at the moment to read Engleby by Sebastian Foulkes. Verdict so far: fair to middling.
The Grand Inquisitor
chapter is just about the best thing I have ever read
I love how it's usually you that starts these threads...
Anyway... I'm reading Once, a kid's book about the Holocaust. It's a bit lightweight, but a girl I like recommended it to me so I thought I'd read it. 's OK
And I'm also reading The Religion by Tim Wollocks. Nothing too substantial, but I love that historical-fiction bollocks so it's right up my street.
just read
a great graphic novel called 'button man' about assassins pitted against one another for millionaire's entertainment, read mark e smith's 'renegade' last week that was really funny and entertaining and am about thirty pages in to ray bradbury's 'something wicked this way comes' as of this afternoon.
white fang by jack london
nearly finished that. "zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance" plopped thru my letterbox this morning, just in time.
what? s'it ironic cause i'm not the type you'd think would read? eh? EH?
No, yeah, it didn't used to be me that did these; they were already going when I got here. But now if I don't do them, I imagine they'd fall off for awhile.
I wasn't being ironic.
I just like how I can glance down the social board, see a 'what are you reading' thread and not have to glance at the 'posted by' bit...
I was only joking anyway
m'kay
Starter for 10
by david nicholls. its really funny and reminds me a lot of myself, given that he is from southend and is in his first year of uni
i just learned of this book the other day, as it happens
The Scar - China Mieville
Futuristic.
Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon,
I'm in two minds about it right now though, read 100 pages so far and I can appreciate that it turns conventional narratives and character development on it's head but I'm not sure if it actually achieves anything by doing this and strikes me as a bit self important and pretentious. Prior to that I re-read (for the third time) White Noise by Don DeLillo which I love so much.
gah
i HATE thomas pynchon. total bag of wank.
New York Trilogy
Read it ages go but luckily I remember very little of it. s'good.
The Great Catsby
I love it. CATSBY. Has anyone else read it? Although it is absolutely crazy sometimes.
revision notes
but over the summer, lots of political/philosophy stuff.
Jon Snow Shooting History
His autobiography.
Aleksandar Zograf Regards from Serbia
A cartoonists diary of life during the '90s under sanctions and NATO bombing.
Persausion
by Jane Austen. it's my reading book in school at the moment. I hated Pride and Prejudice, but this is good. Fuck the Haters.
Much Ado About Nothing
Exams are no fun.
i did that last year for AS
but for coursework.
i'm still stuck on page four of Notes From Underground
maybe i should get off the internet and read it?
Generation X
by Douglas Coupland. far more interesting than reading about how visual illusions can provide information about normal vision which i really should be reading about. bloody exams!
The Remains of the Day
by Kazuo Ishiguro. It is a goooood book. RECOMMENDED.
Autopoietic Law: a New Approach to Law and Society
...