Special note to those of you on here who I know read but don't let us know what you're reading: shape up and post it, for fuck's sake.
Special note to those of you on here who I know read but don't let us know what you're reading: shape up and post it, for fuck's sake.
im reading
solar lottery by philip k dick
About to start The Metamorphosis
by Kafke. It's short but meant to be brilliant.
It is
:)
ooh yes
i read this just the other week.
its sad though
and im reading the master and margarita
x
^ c'est tres bon! There's a good graph novel of it out now too
Of the Master & Margarita?
Oh man, do you know who it's by?
i spotted a graphic version of The Trial as well in Borders the other day
definitely buying both of these next
THANK YOU SO MUCH
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Trial-Graphic-Kafkas-Classic-Classics/dp/0955285690/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1213101970&sr=1-3
ooooh, is it the whole short stories collection you have??
it's alright
i'd actually say it was one of Kafka's more average works. It doesn't have the same sense of terror, humour or convincing surrealism as some of the others. I mean i Like it, but I always feel it kinda misses the mark...
youre just being
indie about it tristan, sigh
"I prefer his early stuff" etc
did you see the guy on here the other day
who said they liked 'pitchfork's early work' ?
fuckin' LOL
Were they being serious? Amazing scenes.
i think so
i dont think he realised what he was saying though but i made sure and pointed it out so its okay (y)
haha, he's my housemate!
and i don't prefer Kafka's early work. I just massively prefer his novels. I think his short stories can be much more juvenile and don't generate the same momentum of humorous terror.
You know we're just teasing.
Momentum is spot on. An excellent way of describing it.
yeah
like, in The Trial, it sort of starts off being pretty weird, but it reaches a really horrible, spectacular zenith in the Cathedral. Like the unreality starts invading his life to the extent that he can't do anything but die.
also
the bit when he realises that nobody else has even heard of the court.
and the painter and the infuriating advocate
and just AWFUL
yano
i think a lot of what youre talking about maybe gets lost in translation with metamorphosis, a lot of the nuance disappears when its moved into english.
this may just be speculation though...
it's not just alright
nothing Kafka did was average. it doesn't have the terror of in the penal colony or the humour of the trial but i think it is convincing as surrealist literature if that even means anything. i take the whole thing as his negated dreams and self have invaded reality because his family and job has subjugated him and he is just becoming what he believes himself to truly be, quite like josef k.
i dont think it missed the mark. i think he gets to a better state in the form as an insect, like more of his primitive self.
Metamorphosis was quite early though. the novels sort of answer the questions of it.blah blah blah
it's definitely a good starting point.
I honestly believe he becomes an insect
Literally.
I think Kafka is trying to demonstrate the effects of being a despised outsider in the most disturbing, uncomfortable, literal terms he can.
It is also notable that Samsa and Kafka are very similar, just like K.
yesyesyesyesyes
my favourite book ever. i'm cheating though since it's in the complete short stories. it was the first kafka thing i read. it makes me actually want to learn German to get even more out of it.
it's rubbish
one of the most boring things i've ever read. overrated to the max.
Wild Swans by Jung Chang.
Autobiographical piece about 3 generations of a family living through Communist China.
Was bought as a secret Santa and had remained untouched; exceptionally pleased i picked it up now, however
I like Chang's biog. of Mao
It was really good.
i may investigate said book upon completion of this one
Werewolves In Their Youth by Michael Chabon
and Naked Lunch by William Burroughs
The book of laughter and forgetting
by Milan Kundera
Is it good?
I've been meaning to pick up another Kundera book since I finished Unbearable Lightness of Being.
-Can't Remember
-ROFL
is it as good as the unbearable lightness of being?
yeh it's really good
i just love his style of writing. It's a little more easy going than unbearable lightness which makes it all the more enjoyable and a lot harder to put down.
White Heat, which is about the sixties
I think this Enoch Powell guy might say something inflammatory before too long.
Underworld by Don Delillo
and Descarte's Error by Antonio Damasio. Are you not on ZsaZsa's face-book-club, alley?
I've read Underworld
I would describe it as 'long'.
"Underworld is, without a doubt
the most definately a book I've read all year"
Nope
Plus that's a London thing, isn't it? Unless there's a new one for the book a week thing, but anyway, "What are you reading?" is an old feature, older than me in DiS time, I think. Where have you been?
Oh
I meant the book a fortnight thing. I just meant I hadn't seen you posting on there; not that this wasn't a worthwhile thread or owt!
I've been drunk in spain. Hooray!
A riot of our own
by Johnny Green
it's quite enjoyable
Sam Harris:
Letter to a Christian Nation.
Very short should have it finished shortly but excellent reading.
A report
I've written about how to promote work zzzzzzz.
For fun, I'm reading a Cara Black novel - French crime fiction. To be honest, it ain't no Ellroy/Leonard and I won't be reading any more of her work.
almost finished
the human stain by philip roth, which is pretty amazing.
these threads just remind me what a horribly slow reader i am these days, because i usually end up posting the same book about three times.
Eh, me too.
I've vowed to devote more time to it now though. And it's easy with all my non-work time at work.
Pretty girl in crimson rose (8)
Sandy Balfour
Bettany's by Thomas Keneally
So far, so good, but it's not keeping me up at night with not wanting to put it down.
*Bettany's Book
Pride and Prejudice
It's actually really, really good and I've been totally surprised at reading a Jane Austen book that's actually funny and involves characters who do more than just simper. It's made me LOL on more than one occassion.
i find this hard to believe
No, I second it.
rostov's post I mean, to be clear. Except the surprise part; it's the only one of her books I've read so I had no expectations from past experience with her work.
Easy Riders and Raging Bulls
It's about the glory years of Hollywood, from the late 60s to the start of the 80s, when all the classic innovative blockbusters were made. It's brilliant. 60 pages in and Dennis Hopper is already threatening people with a shotgun high on mescaline.
I thought you had to dash?
Harumph or something.
^
I read this a while back. Goes on a bit but good.
PS your DiSname always reminds me of chickens:
lemon-chicken
http://tinyurl.com/46glhg
chicken-brick
http://www.habitat.co.uk/fcp/product/browse/Chicken-brick/95516
chicken-combo-meal
http://www.krispychicken.co.uk/page3.html#ccmeal
i read this not long ago
oddly as a result of it i have little desire to ever see most of the films involved that i havent already seen. except things by hal ashby. he sounds cool.
The '90s one which deals with Miramax and the Weinsteins is excellent.
I can't remember what it's called at the moment though...
It's called Down and Dirty Pictures
I think I actually preferred it to ERRB.
just finished "Then We Came To The End" by Joshua Ferris
for the N16 book club. I liked it a lot - about a third of the way in I couldn't help feeling it seemed a bit inconsequential, for all its humour, but then it suddenly changes tack and becomes rly gd.
Just started reading the playscript of Mark Ravenhill's "Shoot/Get Treasure/Repeat", because I didn't manage to see any of the plays in the cycle and it seemed like a really interesting idea (telling an epic story in fragments, in the form of a number of short plays at different venues around London).
I've got Dickens' "Great Expectations" to start sometime soon, although I've not actually finished the book on Franco's Spain I was reading a while back. And someone was urging me to read the rest of "Steppenwolf", which I put aside because it was making me incredibly depressed. AND I just found a stash of old Adrian Tomine and Daniel Clowes stuff that I've not looked at since I moved to London. Too. Many. Books.
I might start photocopying novels and reading them in the office so it looks like I'm doing work.
whoa
epic post, sorry.
Nonsense, there can never be too much book talk in the "What are you reading?" threads.
Also, good tip with the photocopying.
haha
I have to confess that was a nerdy injoke. One of the characters in "Then We Came To The End" does it and spends all day reading at his desk.
oh, i read it as you had already done so
Oops. I haven't slept, to be fair.
Dickens is the most overrated english author
and there are a lot of overrated english authors
Your second point is correct
Your first is way off.
I just really never got on with Dickens at all
He's too melodramatic for me. All his characters are very flat and stereotypical it seems. I quite enjoyed A Tale of Two Cities, but the rest of his stuff was all a bit comic book for me. And yes, I know they were originally serialised in newspapers yadder yadder.
oh man
i wish I'd known you wanted to see this - I had a ticket but was so hungover I didn't bother going!
x
.
'Hopscotch' by Julio Cortazar
It makes me feel joyful to be alive.
oh
and just finishing 'Norwegian Wood' by Haruki Murakami.
The Quake is my favourite Murakami
i might start readubg this today
i have had it sitting on my desk for many moons and cortazar is awesome
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
I've spent the last few years of my life trying to get someone to read it.
Nobody ever does.
It's actually the best book ever.
ive been reading
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cyberiad
this today, i dont usually read scifi but lem is awesome
Lanark by Alasdair Gray
So the thread on here a few weeks back, then saw it on my dad's bookshelf and decided to give it a go.
It's really brilliant. Well, the first book of it anyway. The future world is horrifying and attractive at the same time.
I *REALLY* *REALLY* need to read this
since I am running a clubnight from September called UNTHANK IS GLASGOW
Watchmen,
although I've not really had much chance.
RahXephon v1
I'm becoming a complete mecha freak. I think I'll start collecting Gundam models or something.
i'm still reading Jude The Obscure
it's still hassle
Blackhole by Charles Burns / Hellblazer: Reasons to be Cheerful
Blackhole
is great.
Apparently David Fincher is directing the film version.
i don't post everything that happens in my life!
i am currently reading salmon fishing in the yemen, by paul torday. falls into the good-and-very-readable-but-not-great category.
'The Honorary Consul' by Graham Greene
and 'Experience' by Martin Amis
yes!
The Honorary Consul is so wonderful. i just re-read it last week actually, would probably put it up there in a graham greene top 5.
conveniently thread-wise i'm currently reading norman sherry's mammoth 3-volume autobiography of greene. it's sort of preventing me from actually living my own life for a while.
I'm reading Kingdom Come by JG Ballard
I only started it last night, but I'm enjoying it so far...
I read a very good Ballard a while back
But I can't for the life of me remember what it was called. I'll scour my bookshelves and report back.
Other than a couple of short stories,
it's the first thing of his that I've read.
Sense and Sensibility
I'm reading all the Jane Austen books, I'm only on my second though
Stop wasting your time
And read some Aldous Huxley and Hunter S Thompson instead.
or do both
since Austen, Huxley and Hunter Ess are all awesome?
Austen is bilge, though
Seriously. Chick lit for the 19th century.
Tedious boy reaction
to Austen. It doesn't all have to be dystopian visions of the future and drug addled nightmares. Austen's writing style is brilliant and witty and a little devious, leading to wry smiles and gasps of admiration. Kind of perfect for reading in a park on a sunny day too, and you know, just for reading something that doesn't involve vomit and paranoia. I'm aware my argument is rubbish.
no, i would say that's pretty good, the austen-focused part at the least
and in any case, you're right
I'm not saying it does
I love Thomas Hardy and I really enjoyed Wuthering Heights. But Austen's writing style bores me to tears. I'm sorry, but the dialogue is poorly written, and doesn't stand the test of time. Give me White Teeth or Vernon God Little over Pride & Prejudice any day of the week.
White Teeth is great
until about three qurters of the way through, when it turns into a Tom Sharpe novel.
it's great the whole way through
Brick Lane was a bit iffy though.
oh course it doesn't stand the test of time
but people don't speak like a Hardy or Bronte character in the 21st century either, so that's absolute bollocks.
of*
^That sums it up perfectly..
definitely not a rubbish argument! I really like Jane Austen books.
I mean
rostov's argument, obv.
Swann's Way
jesus what a book.
a love of swann's which comes next is lovely too.
I'm re-reading Die Trying by Lee Child.
Recently finished Judge and Jury by James Patterson, quite good!
Lark RIse by Flora Thompson
it's cute and tres English
Flashman on the March
by George Macdonald Fraser.
(Y)
I own every single Flashman novel
I'm a bit obsessed.
YES.
Excellent stuff. I love Flashman.
ok
i'm reading High-Rise by JG Ballard. it's quite short so i should finish it soon.
*bites lip, doesn't make obvious joke*
grrr
>:(
At the moment
Never Surrender by Michael Dobbs.
Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
It's really good so far (c.80 pages in). I loved The Virgin Suicides so thought I'd give it a go.
I finished reading Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murikami a couple of days ago and I thought that was ace.
The Posthumous Papers of The Pickwick Club
The Pickwick Papers to you. Good Dickens.
The heart Is A Lonely Hunter
I'm actually re-reading before I go book shopping on thursday. I love this book though.
that's a wonderful book
:D
I'm glad somebody else here has read it. I thoroughly recommend it to everybody.
The Filth by
Grant Morrison again, I hadn't read it in a while, simultaneous with Mason & Dixon. After that, Hush.
Hells Angels - Hunter S Thompson
I've almost finished it and it's very, very, very good
Something by Derek Jarman.
I love Derek Jarman.
Have you seen any of his films?
No
You know me and film.
I want to though. I need to absorb everything he has done, I think he's rapidly becoming my favourite artiste.
I went to the small exhibition at the Serpentine the other week, and there was something that grabbed my eye, narrated by someone from Hollywood, I can't remember who, that I want to see. Unfortunately my memory is as awful as my film knowledge.
tilda swinton is in a lot of his films
it mightve been her
you should watch sebastiane
That might be her, it rings a bell.
I want to see Jubilee firstest.
i have seen caravaggio and wittgenstein
as well, both of which are pretty interesting and i'd recommend if youre interested enough in either person. i think sebastiane most memorable. caravaggio stars dexter fletcher from the press gang. he did some interesting short films but i dunno how readily available they are.
tilda swinton was the ice queen in the last narnia film but started out acting with jarman. i'm curious as to how she reconciles her anti-authoritarian origins with acting with george clooney. i guess she doesnt care.
Ooh, OK.
I need to get on it. I'm a fledgling Jarmin-ite. After falling in love with one of his quotes after seeing it in the inlay of a Chumbawamba album, it took me about 10 years to actually look at any of his stuff. Now I'm fascinated, properly enthralled. I'll try and find copies of the things you mention. Thank you x
They published a book about this garden as well.
..if you're into that sort of thing (it's more interesting than it sounds).
*this garden?
his garden
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Derek-Jarmans-Garden-Jarman/dp/0500016569
Yeah I saw that in the gift shop thingy.
I want to go and see it I fink, before I get my read on.
it was the posthumous documentary
which is either called 'Jarman' or 'Derek Jarman'. Tilda Swinton narrates it.
Thanks!
Can you also tell me what me name is and where I live? Cheers x
i'm still reading
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_is_History%3F
Cloud Atlas
Not read a bad David mitchell book yet!
I recommend 'Cloud Atlas', nicely done. Actually 'GHost Written' is also amazing
I really didn't like Cloud Atlas.
I can see why people like it but it just didn't grab me at all. I didn't find it particularly engaging and I didn't really find myself caring about any of the characters in it.
I just finished Watchmen
for the DiS comic club. It's one of the best things I've ever read ever. Utterly terrifying in places.
Wait.
There's a DiS comic club? Why wasn't I informed?
Something about you and 'comic' not mixing.
is that honestly the best putdown you can muster?
WRETCHED
I'm having a shocker of a day.
I'm sorry.
Don't tell me, you missed your print slot again.
Newsy Weekly Retail Newsagent Weeknews are going to start taking those fines out of your pocket money if you're not careful.
We have 23 minutes to finish 4 pages.
Our subs are WACK. I'm gonna miss Stereolab at this rate.
Daniel Kelly needs a job
get him to help out. Not that that's much use with 23 minutes to go, obviously. Although it does raise the question of why you're on here right now.
Reading the epic spain vs russia thread
There's not much I can do till I get the proofs.
HO HUM. EIGHT ZILLION POUND FINE ON ITS WAY.
how do I ge involved in this
comic club?
I think it currently only exists in Facebook form
Link here: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=18807515754&ref=mf
I am reading a thread on the internet
wuthering heights
blimey its emotional
It's bloody brilliant that book.
Like, my favourite book that I've read.
Yeah it sure is
I think it's my favourite ever book too. It's astonishing, especially when you consider it was written in the 1840s by a woman who spent most of her thirty years in a vicarage in Yorkshire, and it still stands as being one of the most violent books ever written. Like screaming and howling into the void violent.
east of eden
for my, er, book club.
CHUFF, YOU BETTER HAVE READ IT.
Still Tender is the Night
but have a little pile of books waiting to be read which I'm quite excited about - The Road by Cormac McCarthy, Misery and Animal Sematery by Stephen King, Drinking Coffee Elsewhere by ZZ Packer, and Joshua Spassky by Gwendoline Riley - think the last two came from recommendations by zsazsagaboring.
about to start 'a personal anthology' by borges
i bought from a rather charming second hand bookshop in manchester that was playing scartched ella fitzgerald and billie holiday records on a gramophone. the chap behind the counter gave me a free orange.
wow!
where is that?
Evelyn Waugh - Decline and Fall
<3
<3
the book shop
was just a bit further up from zavvi, on the opposite side of the road.
<3
yes!!
Waugh is great
that's my third favourite
Scoop at one, Vile Bodies at two
The Female Eunuch
and On The Road.
World War Z!
chaucer
fucking chaucer
Is that the Sepultura re-edit?
\m/
.
keats bloody keats
dave gormans unchained america
something quick and light for traveling to work
Is that any good?
I nearly bought that at the weekend.
it's quite good
i don't really read travel books so i don't know how it compares to similar stuff but i'm flying through it and keep wanting to visit the places they've been.
Just started 'Kill Your Friends'
Good so far, similar writing style to Brett Easton Ellis
I'm currently reading
Down Under by Bill Bryson. I love travel books.
Next I'm planning to read Auschwitz by Laurence Rees.
FUCK YES
Best "What are you reading?" thread in ages. Do you see? Let's all participate if we have an answer from now on, yeah? xxx
Currently...
... Oil by Upton Sinclair and just finished City Of God by Paulo Lins, for what its worth I would recommend them both
an introduction to choice theory
then an introduction to Linguistics
then an introduction to antisemitism
I'm never reading fiction again
"an introduction to antisemitism"
You mean like Mein Kampf?
I've just bought that
The Master and Margarita. Can't believe i hadn't heard of it before!
a brief stay with the living
Marie Darrieussecq
The Neutronium Alchemist by Peter F Hamilton
these sci fi writers and their middle initals, honestly. It's good, pretty long but I'm 2/3rds through. Fairly easy Space Opera with a fair dollop of horror (legions of undead possessing everyone).
Also The Great Escape as my bedtime book, nice n easy, and still reading Conscilience by Edward O Wilson, though I haven't picked that up for a couple of weeks.
I've never fully understood
the fashion for middle initials, extending even to Iain Banks sticking the M in to make a distinction between his sci-fi output and his mainstream fiction. Or deliberately weird spellings, like the fact that C.J. Cherryh's real surname is Cherry.
Amusingly, Iain Banks submitted his first novel ("The Wasp Factory") under the name Iain M. Banks, but his editor suggested dropping the M because it looked too fussy - and also because it sounded too much like Rosie M. Banks, a romantic novelist from P.G. Wodehouse's Jeeves stories.
fact o' the day!
I find it quite handy with Banks tbh
i'm not sure how to fully explain it, but there is a difference between his with and without 'M' books. The M books are rampant sci-fi maybe?
Full on pseudonym would be better though.
Street of Crocodiles by Bruno Schulz.
So beautiful in its images of decay and madness. The descriptions in it are amazing, probably some of the best and writing I've ever read.
The film of it is stunning too.
i started Tender is the Night yesterday
i absolutely love the Great Gatsby. Anyone read TITN?
yeah
which edition do you have. Who is it published and when? It's relvant!
Tender Is The Night - the bits where they are all young and glamorous blew my mind because they're just amazing, lush description, glamorous but all very angsty and sad too.
Some of the later plot I didn't really love so much, just because I think he was describing emotions so subtle and adult that I couldn't understand them without having ever experienced them. But even then it was absolutely AMAZING
1995 wordsworth edition
it was only a £1. are there a lot of different editions. i know he wrote lots of different drafts.
"emotions so subtle and adult that I couldn't understand them"
I think this is part of the reason I really didn't like it. I read it when I was 17 or 18, having loved The Great Gatsby and Fitzgerald's short stories, and I really couldn't feel anything for the characters. I put it down after about 100 pages, I think, and never picked it up again.
I keep meaning to give it another shot, because I'm sure I'll appreciate it much more with the benefit of added experience and heartbreak.
maybe i shouldn't read it
i've had the </3 before though.
no, read it
I'd hate to think of someone putting a book aside just because I didn't like it. My opinion really shouldn't count for that much.
it's a bit more than </3 really
it's sort of middle aged, tedium heartbreak. Which is why I didn't get it.
I think you should definitely read it though, because the young glamorous people bits are awesome. and also because sometimes it's good to read something that's totally alien to you, even if you don't understand it completely.
I'm about halfway through "Out"
By Natsuo Kirino, I finished "Grotesque" a couple of weeks ago and looked for a couple more books by her, genre defying crime fiction.
Out is very good
.
i'm tempted
to re-read Mick Foley's first autobiography. i remember it being immensely fun and well written.
at the minute-accountancy books
some mad Goosebumps shit
I'm still
ploughing my way through Gravity's Rainbow, nearly finished it and I remain utterly unconvinced that it merits it's status as a defining piece of postmodern literature. Actually let me completely change that to something that comes closer to what I'm trying to say, it probably deserves it's status as a defining piece of postmodern literature, HOWEVER that does not in any way, shape or form make it a good book. If you ask me it's turgid, overcomplicated just for the sake of it (doesn't seem to add anything to the plot of the book), I dislike the writing style and it's knowingly oh so clever.
I just want to say at the same time I'm still glad I decided to read it, just it wasn't at all enjoyable to me.
re-reading Taras Bulba by Nikolay Gogol
Reading The Master & Margarita for the first time, and Norwegian Wood.
Most of my attention is on Norwegian Wood. Stayed up reading it until about 5am last night, enthralled.
Legal Drug v2
I want to marry CLAMP. Or at least keep them locked in my attic and make them create 24/7.
The Powerbook
Jeanette Winterson
i am reading....
Noise/Music: A History - Paul Hegarty
The Aquariums of Pyongyang - Kang Chol-Hwan
Notebooks of a Naked Youth - Billy Childish
Dada and Surrealism: A Very Short Introduction - David Hopkins
i always more than one on the go.
what's Billy Childish like?
I like the pomes of his I've read in The Stool Pigeon and elsewhere.