*What book are you reading? (part 2)

[sojourner]

I got some new books today. I got

On Photography by Susan Sontag

ooo my lass would be interested in that

 

[sojourner]

How much did your haul cost you?

 

[rollinder]

Tony Attwood - The Complete Guide to Asperger's Syndrome
Ben Elton - High Society

just bought John Peel (& Shelia) - Margrave of the marshes

 

[belboid]

Robert Peston's How Rules Britain?

Seems quite good on the coruscating effects of letting the super-rich get away with murder, but entirely useless when it comes to having any idea of what to do about it.

 

[Dillinger4]

ooo my lass would be interested in that

Get it! I have read a bit and it is fantastic. Something she would like, I reckon.

 

[Voley]

I'm reading Bill Bryson's book on Shakespeare atm. It's a bit of a longwinded way of saying 'we don't know much about him'. It's OK but I'll be glad when I've finished it.

 

[mentalchik]

Pushing Ice - Alistair Reynolds

 

[El Jefe]

Finally finished Perdido St Station - on balance an excellent book, but along the way littered with some really really awful writing

 

[El Jefe]

going to read Colin McInnes' London Novels now

 

[Dirty Martini]

Finished the Maclaren-Ross collection, which was highly enjoyable. Some of his stories are magnificent, and he writes the best openings of any writer ever. Film criticism not bad either.


Now it's Isolarion: A Different Oxford Journey by James Attlee.

 

[Ms T]

I've just discovered Neil Gaiman and am loving it. I'm reading Neverwhere atm and I'm remembering why I used to love fantasy novels as a kid.

 

[MightyAphrodite]

Infinity Blues - Ryan Adams D)

whos getting married, which is awesome news im over the moon for him xxx :-D

 

[DotCommunist]

I've just discovered Neil Gaiman and am loving it. I'm reading Neverwhere atm and I'm remembering why I used to love fantasy novels as a kid.

Go to American Gods next, it's the tits

 

[Blagsta]

John Reed - Ten Days that Shook the World

 

[the button]

Richard Morgan -- Black Man

Good knockabout stuff.

 

[Dead Cat Bounce]

Necronomicon - The Best Weird Tales Of H. P. Lovecraft.

All my favourite stories in one hardback edition.

 

[El Jefe]

Necronomicon - The Best Weird Tales Of H. P. Lovecraft.

All my favourite stories in one hardback edition.

i find him largely unreadable.

it's all about someone's uncle who read a book about a bloke who's grandad met a guy in bar who knew who someone who once saw something awful

 

[Orang Utan]

Heh - fascinating all the same IMO

 

[Ms T]

Go to American Gods next, it's the tits

Thanks for that. Will see if they've got it in the library.

Finished Neverwhere last night - the ending was a bit predictable but all in all an enjoyable read.

 

[DotCommunist]

Thanks for that. Will see if they've got it in the library.

Finished Neverwhere last night - the ending was a bit predictable but all in all an enjoyable read.

obscure info: Neverwhere was made into an awfuly cheap and low-rent bbc mini series starring Patterson Jones of Peep Show and Survivors fame in the role of De Carrabas

 

[Orang Utan]

I saw that - it was shit and responsible for my low opinion of Gaiman, til I saw Mirrormask

 

[Ms T]

obscure info: Neverwhere was made into an awfuly cheap and low-rent bbc mini series starring Patterson Jones of Peep Show and Survivors fame in the role of De Carrabas

Wasn't it the other way round - the TV series came first and then he made it into a book. That was the impression I got from the book's introduction. It could have been a great TV programme.

 

[Shirl]

The Blunderer by Patricia High-Smith, it's not great but I'm working my way through all her books. Nearly there now

 

[trevhagl]

Woop, got a cracking haul of books from the YM this affy:

Salman Rushdie - Midnight's Children
Carlos Ruiz Zafon - The Shadow of the Wind
Andrea Levy - Small Island
Hillary Jordan - Mudbound
Gert Ledig - The Stalin Organ
Alan Parker - The Sucker's Kiss

all for the grand total of £4.94!

Has Salman Rushdie got a book out about being on the run from the funda-mentalists? That would be interesting i guess?

 

[DotCommunist]

Wasn't it the other way round - the TV series came first and then he made it into a book. That was the impression I got from the book's introduction. It could have been a great TV programme.

yes, he put up with all cuts to his script cause he was thinking 'I'll put it in the book'

 

[mentalchik]

Gonna finally start Altered Carbon later..........

 

[weepiper]

"Shadows of the Workhouse" by Jennifer Worth, autobiographical social history stuff

 

[DotCommunist]

Has Salman Rushdie got a book out about being on the run from the funda-mentalists? That would be interesting i guess?

Read Satanic Verses, it is well worth your time. The mans prose is far superior to his plotting.

 

[purplex]

Read Satanic Verses, it is well worth your time. The mans prose is far superior to his plotting.

I read about half of it, i like his humour

 

[DotCommunist]

Gonna finally start Altered Carbon later..........

You'll love it, I'm sure. But there is a hollowness to Morgans work, an essential emptiness that he cloaks in sex and violence. He is an interesting author, and given how many non sci-fi people he ropes into buying his works he must be doing something right. I really enjoyed him, but another poster had it right when he described him as grubby, and not good grubby.
For me he is cut-rate Alistair Reynolds. Very good, a sci fi genius, but there is a lack o his works, a certain something missing.