*What book are you reading? (part 2)

[TruXta]

Terry Pratchett's 'Snuff'

Also poor. Pratchett's always been one for recycling his jokes but not usually so often in the same book. The plot, such as it is, is pretty feeble and padded out with too much unbearably gentle social commentary.

Everything that makes other discworld books so good is still there somewhere, but in such a watered-down, phoned-in way that this will probably be the first Pratchett book I couldn't be arsed to finish.

I thought it was fine, about the average for a later Pratchett book.

Hyperion by Dan Simmons. Only half way through but I can see I'll have to get the sequel.

Starts well, goes down the shitter IMO. And the author's a fucking arsehole.

 

[xenon]

first time with Paradise Lost? knotty work and I had to slog the fucker many years ago. Due a re-read perhaps

Read that for A level English. Well, the first few volumes. Just up to where Satan crosses the chaotic void to Earth. Tutor was a bit serious and remember sorta having a diversionary discussion by asking him, just how big is Satan. The simmilies describing him were a bit controdictory.

 

[SpookyFrank]

I thought it was fine, about the average for a later Pratchett book.

I dunno, some of his recent ones are among my very favourites, Wintersmith, Nation and Thief of Time in particular.

 

[TruXta]

I dunno, some of his recent ones are among my very favourites, Wintersmith, Nation and Thief of Time in particular.

Are those in his YA series? Not read any of them I think.

 

[DotCommunist]

I thought it was fine, about the average for a later Pratchett book.


Starts well, goes down the shitter IMO. And the author's a fucking arsehole.

spot on,

Spoiler: hyperion

introducing ressurectedKeats was fail

but why is he an arsehole? dirt!

 

[TruXta]

spot on,

Spoiler: hyperion

introducing ressurectedKeats was fail

but why is he an arsehole? dirt!

He's basically done a Frank Miller and gone hyperconservative batshit crazy with a strong sideline in islamophobia.

As for Hyperion, I just thought there was a complete plot meltdown, made no sense to me what happened, so I lost interest, but ploughed on regardless cuz I hate leaving books unfinished.

 

[DotCommunist]

what a cunt


right after the dissapointment of Long Earth now finished (shan't be bothering with the sequels)- onwards to China Meiville's new one for young adults 'Railsea'

 

[Bassism]

Wonderland Avenue next?

thank u xx

 

[porp]

"Rainbow Pie: a memoir of redneck America" by Joe Bageant. From the library.

Loved this. Growing up in the rural-urban transition of a poor white rural family in Blue Mountains Virginia, mixed in with plenty of on-target argument / polemic on the politically motivated and deliberate dumbing-down of the class he comes from.

Great stuff, but puzzled that he uses the word "arse" a lot rather than "ass". Is that clumsy editing for the UK edition or Virginian usage?

 

[starfish]

Hartmann the Anarchist by Edwards Douglas Fawcett. Picked it up at a wee stall at a graffiti festival in Bristol a couple of weeks ago.

 

[andy2002]

New Model Army by Adam Roberts - Haven't read any Roberts in a while and had forgotten how good he is.

 

[jeff_leigh]

Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events

 

[ringo]

Rub-A-Dub Style: The Roots Of Jamaican Dancehall - Beth Lesser.

Knowledgable and inimate story of early 80's Jamaican sound system culture and recorded music. Massively let down by poor proof reading. Looks like it was done with spell checker on auto correct because every two pages there's a glaring error which breaks up the flow of the read and becomes quite annoying. Just small things, like singer replaced with signer, but wearing if such things irritate you as they do me.

Otherwise very, very good and free to download in pdf format from her website:

http://theimportedgoods.com/2012/08...-of-modern-dancehall-beth-lesser-free-e-book/

 

[dooley]

recently finished these two http://www.troubleandstrife.org/new-articles/brain-wars/

now reading evolutions rainbow by joan roughgarden

 

[belboid]

just about finished Miranda July's book of short stories No One Belongs Here More Than You.

And ordered the new Michael Chabon book, Telegraph Avenue, which has lots about the joys of record shops, and was, apparently, written whilst listening to Yes!

 

[porp]

X-teen years after it was on my university course reading list...I have got around to Raman Selden's "Readers' Guide to Contemporary Literary Theory". I find literary theory very slippery and ungraspable, and Selden is a clear writer and good explainer of difficult stuff. I've read the chapter on New Criticism and Leavis (boo hiss?),and now on to Russian Formalism.

At some point, I'll work out why I am subjecting my self to this.

 

[flypanam]

Chris Ealham - Anarchism and the city. Wonderful book.

 

[Mrs Magpie]

Got two on the go at the moment.
Rachel Hewitt's Map Of A Nation: A Biography of the Ordnance Survey & J.H. Andrews's A Paper Landscape: the Ordnance Survey in Nineteenth-Century Ireland.

 

[DotCommunist]

coming to the end of Railsea, the steampunk moby dick.

After that onwards to Mary Gentles 'Grunts'

 

[suenos]

Free Rides by John Edale.

Short stories about hitch-hiking, mixed with anarchist / anti-fascist politics.

 

[izz]

A biography of Wilkie Collins by Peter Ackroyd. What a life the man had. Collins, not Ackroyd.

 

[Orang Utan]

Although I've heard some stories about Ackroyd. Well one. But it's a blinder.

 

[toblerone3]

The City of London - Volume IV (1945-1980) David Kynaston. Interesting to read about the history of the City in the 1940s and 50s.

 

[colbhoy]

Darkness Take My Hand by Dennis Lehane.

 

[Yu_Gi_Oh]

I'm reading The Odyssey. Odysseus is starting to piss me off now.

 

[JimW]

I'm reading The Odyssey. Odysseus is starting to piss me off now.

Ur-archetype of the taxi driver who takes you the long way home.

 

[Yu_Gi_Oh]

Ur-archetype of the taxi driver who takes you the long way home.

This is why I prefer buses!

 

[JimW]

This is why I prefer buses!

If they'd had Easyjet back then, Homer would have had no story.

 

[Frances Lengel]

Room, by Emma Donoghue - interesting so far

What did you make of it? I read a couple of reviews that said Jack was too articulate for a five year old but I'm not having that - He was still childish, but his circumstances had given him a unique voice. IMO Emma Donoghue did a superb job in making Jack entirely believable. In a way Room reminds me of a novel called Dogboy by Eva Hornung about a kid in Moscow raised by dogs - Partly because there are some similarities in the subject matter but mainly because both books caused me to think how the fuck did someone think this up - Both staggering works of the imagination. Well, I think so anyway.

 

[kittyP]

I have just ordered this The Teleportation Accident
Found a National Book Tokens gift card that the FIL gave me for my birthday about 2 years ago and it worked on line yay!

I can't remember where I heard about it now, maybe the radio...

HISTORY HAPPENED WHILE YOU WERE HUNGOVER When you haven't had sex in a long time, it feels like the worst thing that could ever happen to anyone. If you're living in Germany in the 1930s, it probably isn't. But that's no consolation to Egon Loeser, whose carnal misfortunes will push him from the experimental theatres of Berlin to the absinthe bars of Paris to the physics laboratories of Los Angeles, trying all the while to solve two mysteries: whether it was really a deal with Satan that claimed the life of his hero, the great Renaissance stage designer Adriano Lavicini; and why a handsome, clever, charming, modest guy like him can't, just once in a while, get himself laid. From the author of the acclaimed Boxer, Beetle comes a historical novel that doesn't know what year it is; a noir novel that turns all the lights on; a romance novel that arrives drunk to dinner; a science fiction novel that can't remember what 'isotope' means; a stunningly inventive, exceptionally funny, dangerously unsteady and (largely) coherent novel about sex, violence, space, time, and how the best way to deal with history is to ignore it. LET'S HOPE THE PARTY WAS WORTH IT