Orang Utan
Psychick Worrier Ov Geyoor
Yes, but it came as a bit of a disappointment after the wonderful Kavalier & Clay.
Wonder Boys was fun too.
*What book are you reading? (part 2)
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Wonder Boys was fun too.
belboid
Exasperated, not angry.
everything is a disappointment after Kavalier & Clay.
May Kasahara
take me to the feeling
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.
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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rubbershoes
not the only raver in the village
Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey
belboid
Exasperated, not angry.
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.
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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May Kasahara
take me to the feeling
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 
audiotech
wav, aiff, mp3, ogg, flac
Undercover: The True Story of Britain's Secret Police [Kindle Edition].
Orang Utan
Psychick Worrier Ov Geyoor
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.
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.
heinous seamus
Perfect in an empty room
A People's History of London - Lindsey German and John Rees
Orang Utan
Psychick Worrier Ov Geyoor
Do tell more
heinous seamus
Perfect in an empty room
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 
seventh bullet
sovietwave
Tyranny of the Weak: North Korea and the World, 1950-1992 - Charles K. Armstrong
ShiftyBagLady
Thinks she is a flower to be looked at
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.
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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DotCommunist
So many particulars. So many questions.
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.
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.
ShiftyBagLady
Thinks she is a flower to be looked at
Am reading Heart of Darkness now.
Dillinger4
Es gibt Zeit
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.
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.
maya
timewasting fool (in every universe)
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 
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.
belboid
Exasperated, not angry.
because they haven't had films made out of them
Dillinger4
Es gibt Zeit
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
Course it's allowed, you nanaI 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.
As long as you actually READ something at some point
Hey, and how come the emoticon emoticon looks like Homer having a stroke, but it doesn't appear in the selection?
kittyP
Pluviophile
Course it's allowed, you nana
As long as you actually READ something at some point
Hey, and how come the emoticon emoticon looks like Homer having a stroke, but it doesn't appear in the selection?
What one looks like Homer having a stroke?On the icons bar, immediately above where you type a post, the icon for emoticons. That one.
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