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*What book are you reading? (part 2)

Finished 'Dandelion Wine' last night. Fuck me. I worry about reading even more cos I'm starting to think I could never possibly write as well as that! :eek:

Anyway, couldn't resist, so started 'The Illustrated Man' at lunchtime. Read prologue and first chapter. Vaguely remember the film from being a kid but clearly this is far better :cool:
 
I wonder if this will ring any bells.....
Come in, Doctor. Yes, it is a quaint old place - chilly though...
I seem to have lost my appetite. Maybe something didn't agree with me.
I can't seem to settle down. In fact I can't sit still for two minutes.
No, I don't have any visitors.
I'm not sleeping well. My old bones seem to be playing up again.
Do you think it's all imagination? Doctor...? DOCTOR, WHERE ARE YOU...?
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Into John Grisham at the moment. I like his no-nonsense prose, eccentric array of characters, page turning story lines.

And he stands up for the little guy when all the chips are down, against the corporate and political giants.
 
Orang Utan said:
Actually, gonna put it on its own thread and watch it sink like a stone.
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Nonsense! My two love that book, just as my bro and I did :cool:

I find it interesting that the sellotaped bits of their copy are in different places to ours :D

sojourner said:
Finished 'Dandelion Wine' last night. Fuck me. I worry about reading even more cos I'm starting to think I could never possibly write as well as that! :eek:
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lolz, always have the exact same thing with Bradbury.

I finished The Rain Before It Falls last night, very moving and seamlessly written. I was impressed with the fact that it is an all-female cast of characters and none of them felt forced or 2D to me. That said, if I have a criticism it's that his menfolk are entirely absent from the narrative - while all the women are handing down dysfunctionality to their kids, the dads apparently offer no opinion either way.

I need a really good book to take on holiday next week. Started IQ84 last night but not sure I'm in the mood for Murakami. Library raid tomorrow perhaps.
 
May Kasahara said:
Nonsense! My two love that book, just as my bro and I did :cool:

I find it interesting that the sellotaped bits of their copy are in different places to ours :D



lolz, always have the exact same thing with Bradbury.

I finished The Rain Before It Falls last night, very moving and seamlessly written. I was impressed with the fact that it is an all-female cast of characters and none of them felt forced or 2D to me. That said, if I have a criticism it's that his menfolk are entirely absent from the narrative - while all the women are handing down dysfunctionality to their kids, the dads apparently offer no opinion either way.

I need a really good book to take on holiday next week. Started IQ84 last night but not sure I'm in the mood for Murakami. Library raid tomorrow perhaps.
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Neal's Cryptonomicon. Its holiday length and very funny
 
May Kasahara said:
Nonsense! My two love that book, just as my bro and I did :cool:
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Well, no one else seems to remember it as the thread got zero replies!
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Didn't realise you could still buy it!
My flatmate got it off a mate in Amsterdam
Got a mega proustian rush looking through it!
 
I haven't heard of The Rain Before It Falls.
Is it a later novel of Bradbury's?
Makes me think of the Michel Faber collection, which is ace
 
Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain by Oliver Sacks. Very interesting reading! Several lightbulb moments for me personally, and it did make me laugh that in the Earworms section, he has picked one of the main tunes that I am subject to - Mission Impossible. Think I'd have fallen off the chair if he'd also mentioned Hawaii Five-O
 
Room Full Of Mirrors, a biography of Jimi Hendrix, by Charles R Cross. Pretty good so far. Just finished Francis Wheen's biography of Karl Marx which was good if you want to get a feel for what his life was like rather than the trickier points of Volume IV of Capital.

I had the sneaking suspicion that I'd read it before, though. You ever get this? You're a few chapters in and it's all a bit over familiar? I expect it'll happen increasingly often as I get older. In the coming years, you can expect rave reviews of this startling new book I've just discovered called '1984' and how I can't believe you've not read it.
 
Orang Utan said:
Well, no one else seems to remember it as the thread got zero replies!
Didn't realise you could still buy it!
My flatmate got it off a mate in Amsterdam
Got a mega proustian rush looking through it!
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I bought that for my kids the other week in a charity shop. They love it as much as I did in the 70's.
 
just started Donna Tartt's The Little Friend. Very good opening chapter.

Tempted to put it aside tho, as I've just picked up David Peace's Red or Dead, and Simon Garfield's On The Map.

I want to read them all, now.
 
silverfish said:
Eckart Tolle, the power of now, a revisit in a futile attempt to balance my karma
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I got more out of it the second time I read it, so it isn't necessarily futile. Sometimes he just hits the nail right on the head when you are going through some turmoil in your mind.

I'm reading Lying on the couch by Irving Yalom. It's interesting, but not gripping. I also have the Analects by Confucius which I am reading here and there. I didn't realise he was such a manipulator when it came to class.
 
just finished Wonderland Avenue by Danny Sugerman. As a massive Doors fan i knew it'd be well written (as the author also co wrote, the teen bible 'No one here gets out alive') but this far exceeded my expectations. It's a stunning masterpiece of rock n roll madness of Laurel Canyon in the late 60s and 70s. Rippling with sex, drugs, and even more drugs, i have never read ANYTHING as mental as the amount of narcotics him and his cronies were consuming....!!!:eek: .But it is far more than this. The book zips back to his childhood (Sugerman was a Beverly Hills kid who started hanging out at the Doors office at the age of 12) and became the unlikely protege of a myterious and shamanic Jim Morrison.

At least 250 pages regales his facinating friendship with Jim, who saw he was troubled and encouraged him in his education and to be an individual. Danny's a fanboy pain in the a** showing up all the time, and Jim Morrison gives him a JOB of sorting out the fanmail...turns out Danny is really good at this and answering the phones, he bursts headlong into the scene, flunking school much to the fury of his millionare, conservative father.....Defying all convention he plunges headily into the rock n roll underworld....eventually notching up a $500 a day heroin habit and Iggy Pop for a flatmate....At age 21 the author finds out his liver is fucked and he has a week to live, his battles are cautionary, horrifying, hilarious, and brilliantly written. I thoroughly enjoyed this book.:cool:
 
silverfish said:
My internal critic still keeps distracting me from what he's saying so I haven't got a hold on the quiet mind yet:D
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your gut is right!:). I dont know why this book - like that utter bollocks The Alchemist - reached such acclaim....neither of them said anything groundbreaking or new. Tonics for the masses, but good to read before you knock it *just in case...*:cool:
 
Cheesypoof said:
your gut is right!:). I dont know why this book - like that utter bollocks The Alchemist - reached such acclaim....neither of them said anything groundbreaking or new. Tonics for the masses, but good to read before you knock it *just in case...*:cool:
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retires to depression thread to seek alternatives :D
 
silverfish said:
retires to depression thread to seek alternatives :D
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aww mate, i read a tonne of those books a few years ago to stay sane! The Tolle book helped salve things for a few mins - but it didnt stick. Steve Hagens 'Buddhism Plain and simple' really helped, as did Striking Thoughts, by Bruce Lee. The Gift of Fear was fairly interesting but did nothing for me. I find reading about how others overcome their own challenges can be more insightful. For instance, the book i just read above (Danny Sugermans 'Wonderland Avenue') is quite a cautionary tale about a man's struggle with addiction, with lots of reflections on the human condition, as well as rock n roll madness!! :eek::D
 
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