*What book are you reading? (part 2)

[ViolentPanda]

I thought it'd be something of a literary curio but it has dated surprisingly well and is very funny.

I'm wading through these at the moment.

Beating the Fascists: The German Communists and Political Violence - Eve Rosenhaft.

A very good book, IMO.

A Very British Strike - Anne Perkins. About the 1926 general strike.

I've got a book about 1926 lined up for reading too, "The Great Lock-Out of 1926" by Gerard Noel.

 

[DotCommunist]

I have aquired a copy of Focaults Pendulum by means I cannot recall, so I'm going to make a start on that

 

[Rainingstairs]

"Dragonfly in Amber" It threatened to become a romance novel at a few points where I would then be very sad for myself it were to happen. Turning into a nice historical fiction about the Jacobite rising though so i'm happy

 

[Dillinger4]

I have aquired a copy of Focaults Pendulum by means I cannot recall, so I'm going to make a start on that

Oh, you will enjoy that, I reckon. I did.

 

[Fictionist]

I have aquired a copy of Focaults Pendulum by means I cannot recall, so I'm going to make a start on that

It is a very interesting book - very much up your street DC.

 

[Dirty Martini]

The Idiot by F. Dostoevsky.

 

[Rollem]

am about to start Mudbound, by hillary jordan

 

[Fictionist]

Frankenstein - Mary Shelly

 

[DotCommunist]

Frankenstein - Mary Shelly

If you don't come away despising the narrator I'll be suprised

 

[marty21]

just finished "Broken Angels" Richard Morgan, found it difficult to put down and was sad it finished, brilliant sci fi imho, luckily I have another Richard Morgan in my to be read pile - "Black Man" which I will be starting shortly

 

[Fictionist]

If you don't come away despising the narrator I'll be suprised

What makes you think that DC?

 

[DotCommunist]

What makes you think that DC?

He is a sodding coward. A really mealy-mouthed coward. His whole narrative is 'poor me' and it's only when his creation has destroyed everything he loves that he grows a pair. He let someone (a woman iirc) go to the gallows for the murder his creation committed!

 

[DotCommunist]

Also, look at the texts the monster educates itself from. Plutarchs lives, sorrows of werter, and significantly: Paradise Lost.

The narrator is a complete bastard and his monster is the tragic hero of the piece.

 

[DotCommunist]

http://www.urban75.net/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=245897
contains my exasperation and annoyance with the text

 

[Pieface]

DC is right. We trashed that arsehole in Eng Lit A-level

His name was MUD! What is he called again? Walton? Waltby? Something like that...

 

[Santino]

I just finished Netherland and it was rubbish.

 

[DotCommunist]

I just finished Netherland and it was rubbish.

As was your mum

 

[Pieface]

Is that the Michael Chabon one about baseball and fairies?

 

[Santino]

No, it's about cricket and New York and unexplained plots that go nowhere and an irritating narrator.

 

[Pieface]

oh yes.

haven't read it

 

[Fictionist]

http://www.urban75.net/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=245897
contains my exasperation and annoyance with the text

Well I'll let you know my reaction when I finish. I'm desperately trying to avoid the temptation to read 'Q' again at the same time......

 

[Orang Utan]

No, it's about cricket and New York and unexplained plots that go nowhere and an irritating narrator.

my brother gave me it for xmas and it went straight on the 'gift never to be read' shelf - was i right to put it there?
i saw an interview with the author and decided he was a cunt.
i don't know what to read next - someone please choose for me.
These are all sat on my inshelf, waiting to be read:
pat barker - union street/blow your house down
stephen king - on writing
margaret atwood - the blind assassin
jonathan safran foer - extremely loud & incredibly close
haruki murakami - kafka on the shore
will self - the book of dave
oliver sacks - uncle tungsten
david peace - 1983
philip roth - the plot against america
naomi klein - the shock doctrine
nassim nicholas taleb - the black swan
katherine dunn - geek love
simon schama - rough crossings
graham jones - last shop standing - whatever happened to record shops?
marjane satrapi - persepolis
junot diaz - the brief wondrous life of oscar wao
john ajvide lindqvist - let the right one in

trouble is, i'm having trouble concentrating right now
sime

 

[Santino]

Well I'll let you know my reaction when I finish. I'm desperately trying to avoid the temptation to read 'Q' again at the same time......

Ooh, maybe I'll re-read Q

 

[Santino]

my brother gave me it for xmas and it went straight on the 'gift never to be read' shelf - was i right to put it there?
i saw an interview with the author and decided he was a cunt.

You were right to do so.

My copy has an interview at the back, and there's a bit about the narrator's voice, and how the reader wants to spend time with it, and I thought 'Do I fuck, he was an irritating wanker with more money than sense who almost let his family fall apart'.

 

[Orang Utan]

doesn't he live in an hotel in NY with his beautiful family or am i getting him mixed up with another priviledged cunt writer?

 

[Santino]

doesn't he live in an hotel in NY with his beautiful family or am i getting him mixed up with another priviledged cunt writer?

Yes, the Chelsea Hotel. The narrator of the book lives there too.

 

[weltweit]

I am reading

Quit Smoking The Easy Way

By Allen Carr.

Its a self help book as you might have gathered

 

[El Jefe]

Yes, the Chelsea Hotel. The narrator of the book lives there too.

,yeh, a book dominated by incessant internal monologue at the expense of an actual plot is OK, but not if the monologuist isn't a smug bore.

Still reading the Scar and enjoying it a lot more than Perdido Street Station.. Despite being a more ambitious plot, it holds together much better and Mieville has stopped showing off.

 

[Orang Utan]

hey jefe - can you recommend me a book from the list posted above? i need someone to make a decision for me - i keep reading internets and magazines and nowt else

 

[El Jefe]

my brother gave me it for xmas and it went straight on the 'gift never to be read' shelf - was i right to put it there?
i saw an interview with the author and decided he was a cunt.
i don't know what to read next - someone please choose for me.
These are all sat on my inshelf, waiting to be read:
pat barker - union street/blow your house down
stephen king - on writing
margaret atwood - the blind assassin
jonathan safran foer - extremely loud & incredibly close
haruki murakami - kafka on the shore
will self - the book of dave
oliver sacks - uncle tungsten
david peace - 1983
philip roth - the plot against america
naomi klein - the shock doctrine
nassim nicholas taleb - the black swan
katherine dunn - geek love
simon schama - rough crossings
graham jones - last shop standing - whatever happened to record shops?
marjane satrapi - persepolis
junot diaz - the brief wondrous life of oscar wao
john ajvide lindqvist - let the right one in

trouble is, i'm having trouble concentrating right now
sime

OSCAR WAO! OSCAR WAO! OSCAR WAO!



Oscar Wao