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*What book are you reading? (part 2)

BoatieBird said:
I haven't got round to reading any of his stuff so far, but that bit above makes me want to read some.
*adds to wish list*
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It's a quantum leap from Heart Shaped Box imo (which I also enjoyed, but not like this). His book of short stories is amazing too. I read it at least a year ago and still frequently find myself thinking about it at odd moments.
 
rubbershoes said:
it is a fantastic book but the man sounds a complete egotistical cock
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100% AGREE. Danny Sugerman is regarded as a cocky kind of guy, and I have just finished John Densmore's book, and he describes him as an 'empire builder.' I also thought 'No one here gets out alive' was fantastic, but it painted a one-dimensional 'JIMBO' Morrison as a drunken shambolic schmuck.

All Morrison's friends HATED that book, and say it depicted only one side of a complex guy who was also shy, intellectual, funny and most importantly, serious about the music. For instance, when The Doors started out, Jim Morrison suggested splitting the money equally four ways even though him and Robbie wrote all the songs. Morrison wanted unity within the band and it avoided petty squabbling over songwriting that many bands experience. He was also offered the chance to go solo by some shady managers the band once had, and sacked them immediately. The stupid dumbass fillum too, mocked The Doors and was hated by Morrisons close friends (such as Paul Ferrara, Ray Manzarek, Babe Hill, Tony Funches, and Frank Lisciandro) - most of these guys were film makers who had studied with Jim at UCLA. The film was based on Danny's book.
 
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Building Stories by Chris Ware.

Tis a graphic novel (I suppose) that comes in a box with 14 components (that can be read in any order, tho there does seem to be a chronological sequence to them), flip-books, tabloids, broadsheets, cloth-bounds and 'normal' comic books. Mainly about one (unnamed) tenant of an old building (which is a character in its own right), and her, rather lonely and isolated, life. Everyone in it's lonely and isolated, pretty much, so it's hardly a cheery read. But it really is quite superb, very moving in spots.

The one exception are the two (or hopefully more) parts about the adventures of Branford, the Best Bee in the World. Which are hilarious - even tho he's kinda lonely and isolated too.
 
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Astray, by Emma Donoghue. A collection of stories about people travelling to, from and within America, based on historical snippets of various kinds. Mostly involving so far :)
 
Escape From The Rave Police - Jon Blake

Time-travel adventure in which two teenagers are transported to a future in which youngsters are forced to dance at raves by breakdancing bodypopping cops.
 
Okay. It's basically a history of London and its various revolutions and class struggles. I'm about 50 pages in and we're upto the English Civil War. So far a lot of people have ended up with their head on a spike on London Bridge :p
 
Just finished reading Tristram Shandy. Took me two bloody weeks to read it. Two weeks spent sitting in various playgrounds with the background din of children squealing, trying to wrap my head around capricious 18th century philosophical outpourings.
But it didnt beat me.
Parts of it I actually enjoyed, not as much as I thought I would and not as much as I should have enjoyed it but a day or two after having put it down I am still thinking about it and finding new themes and arguments upon reflection.
 
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Breaking of the Northwall

1000 or so years after a nuclear holocaust the semi fuedal and the fully tribal societies that arose after the nuclear winter are beginning to spread out and meet each other. Half way through and it needs to get better quickly else lifes too short. One reviewer said 'He avoids all of the post apocalypse cliches' which is a massive, massive lie. He's hitting them by numbers.
 
Cannery Row, by Steinbeck. Bit of a shock to the head cos I've been so deeply immersed in Ray's writing style. Brilliant though, naturally. Can't help but think that Tom Waits must have read this.
 
ShiftyBagLady said:
Just finished reading Tristram Shandy. Took me two bloody weeks to read it. Two weeks spent sitting in various playgrounds with the background din of children squealing, trying to wrap my head around capricious 18th century philosophical outpourings.
But it didnt beat me.
Parts of it I actually enjoyed, not as much as I thought I would and not as much as I should have enjoyed it but a day or two after having put it down I am still thinking about it and finding new themes and arguments upon reflection.
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I often find the best books are like that. It is something that goes beyond enjoyment. They trouble you, and they linger. It is only when you reflect on them afterwards that you start to unpick all the things they were doing as you were reading it. There are not many books that have that effect. There are a handful that I still find myself thinking about, years later.
 
Dillinger4 said:
I often find the best books are like that. It is something that goes beyond enjoyment. They trouble you, and they linger. It is only when you reflect on them afterwards that you start to unpick all the things they were doing as you were reading it. There are not many books that have that effect. There are a handful that I still find myself thinking about, years later.
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The Master and Margarita is like that for me. I kept getting feelings of weird and nauseating disorientation whilst reading it, and remember having to put it down sometimes, to walk around and re-acquaint myself with the 'real' world.
 
sojourner said:
The Master and Margarita is like that for me. I kept getting feelings of weird and nauseating disorientation whilst reading it, and remember having to put it down sometimes, to walk around and re-acquaint myself with the 'real' world.
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His prose is really beautiful, even in translation... I've read it in three different languages, and even second hand it still sounds beautiful and it's still a masterpiece. (The mark of a truly great author, IMO: He's got such a distinct 'voice' that it survives even the most inept translator.)

There's a pretty decent russian TV series of it from just a few years ago IIRC, where they managed to convey the universe of the novel pretty accurately- Good actors, good direction... Even the more outlandish and fantastic scenes in the theatre were pretty faithful to the book, and portrayed realistically enough not to be cheesy. Even the 'Roman' scenes of the story were decent. (Just wish someone'd give it the subtitles treatment it so sorely deserves, my knowledge of russian is a bit slim...)

I read somewhere long ago that all the satirical scenes from 'the author's union'(or whatever it is translated as in the english version) set in Moscow are actually thinly veiled criticism of the oppressive cultural/political climate of the day which led to mind-numbing uniformity, hypocrisy and cowardice, collapsing into nepotism and decadence. In the first translation I read, these scenes actually annoyed me at first because the tempo and tone of the language was so different that it jarred with the internal consistence of the book IMO, the different scenes didn't segue into each other as nicely as they ought to (it sounded and felt like a different book, and I thought that if he wanted to he could've made sure the internal logic of the novel would've been tantamount and made the whole story more believeable by keeping some sort of authorial tone intact during these scenes...) The second time I read it, I didn't notice any of this at all, and it all felt good... I guess it could've just been that I used such a long time to read the novel through the first time around, that when I got back to certain chapters it took a bit of effort to get back in, as it were... ?

No idea, but he's a brilliant author- Read his 'the heart of a dog' to see how having to live through an oppressive regime's censorship and persecution of any artist or person who dare to think outside the box does to a sane mind... It's a good allegory, steeped in magic realism (the dog-man hybrid, but as a metaphor obviously) via science fiction bleakness... What is it with russian authors and a way with language? I could read some of these authors all day, and never get tired of it- In Bulgakhov's case, I just wish he'd written more books!
 
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Yes absolutely Maya - it was a total 'fuck you' and exposure of the Stalinist regime (with its attendant full-on censorship of anything deemed to be derogatory of said regime) but written so as to avoid being 'disappeared', like so many writers of the time were. That adds a whole other dimension of pleasure to it, for me. Having the nuts to write that, knowing that if it WAS suspected of being in any way insulting, or satirical, you'd lose your life...well, just fucking WOW :cool:
 
Jar City by Arnaldur Indridason. An Icelandic author. Jar City is his third book in a detective crime series, but the first to be translated into English. Not sure why the first two weren't.
 
I can't read at the moment but I have just started the unabridged audiobook of The Teleportation Accident.
Is that allowed?
Only about a chapter in last night before I fell asleep but it seems pretty good. :)
 
disorganised said:
Jar City by Arnaldur Indridason. An Icelandic author. Jar City is his third book in a detective crime series, but the first to be translated into English. Not sure why the first two weren't.
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I quite liked that one. I went through a phase of reading European crime fiction.

It was translated into English because it was also made into a film.

Edit: what belboid said
 
kittyP said:
I can't read at the moment but I have just started the unabridged audiobook of The Teleportation Accident.
Is that allowed?
Only about a chapter in last night before I fell asleep but it seems pretty good. :)
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Course it's allowed, you nana

As long as you actually READ something at some point :p

Hey, and how come the emoticon emoticon looks like Homer having a stroke, but it doesn't appear in the selection?
 
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