*What book are you reading ?

[starfish]

I got Robert Fisks, The Great War for Civilisation for Christmas & am working my way through that.

 

[ck]

"Strangeland" by Tracey Emin. Really easy read ; first thing I've read in ages and I've nearly finished it after starting it on Monday.

Good X-mas present from my sister I'd say ; it's actually something I wanted !

 

[dessiato]

Currently re-reading Sex Lives of Cannibals, can't remember the author's name though. It's a great,true, story about a couple moving from mainland US to a very small island in the Pacific.

 

[YouSir]

Robert Anton Wilson - Prometheus Rising

Getting in touch with my inner fnord.

 

[districtline]

alan hollinghurst - the line of beauty
geschichte der deutschen literatur, band 6 - von 1945 bis zur gegenwart

 

[MysteryGuest]

The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman

It's easier to read than I expected, as long as you don't expect a traditional plot.

Ah I think it's wicked, and really funny too. I read it back in the early 90s and keep meaning to read it again coz it's full of brilliant mad funny ideas and good stories.

 

[oi2002]

Paleo-con Scott McConnell reviews The Assassins’ Gate: America in Iraq by George Packer

The issue of how the Iraq War began will likely engage future historians as much as the beginning of World War I. It still remains, in a way, a mystery: Packer poignantly cites Richard Haass, the former director of policy planning at the State Department, as saying he will go to his grave not knowing why the United States invaded Iraq. “A decision was not made—a decision happened, and you can’t say when or how.”

Packer has written the most convincing explantion of how a dazed and confused DC blundered towards Baghdad. A questionable venture made hopeless by the neocon dogmatism of some of the main actors. If you read one book about Iraq this year pick this one.

I'm reading Night Draws Near by Anthony Shadid which gathers together many interviews with Iraq's to explain why removing a savage dictatorship has failed to liberate Iraq from its long history as some in DC dreamed. From the early 70s the country moves from a secular country of near European prosperity. To battered exhaustion in the WWI like Iraq-Iraq war. Saddam then clings to power by fighting hopeless wars, setting his divided people to squablilng and increasingly towards the Mosque.

As the M1As massed on it borders Iraqis still dreamed of nationhood but they were barely a nation anymore. The harsh ideologies of the Iranian revolution were already flooding into Basra. The Pentagons Iraqi exiles knew only the gilded Iraq they left in the 70s. Iraq's fanciful freemarket liberators tellingly thought looting was what freedom looked like, deeply averse to nation building that they came with no plans to do it and so blinkered by ideology that even dire necessity could not make them settle to that unwelcome task.

 

[Leica]

Anna Seghers, Der Aufslug der toten Mädchen (1945).

 

[Boogie Boy]

'The Case Books Of Simon Forman' A.L Rowse

A bloody good read.

BB

 

[J77]

Read The Wind Singer by William Nicholson, which was a bit much of a children's book for me.

Am now finishing Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell, which I'm enjoying very much

 

[stroober]

the trial - kafka

 

[belboid]

Just finished Peel's Margrave of the Marshes - a jolly entertaining read, and really quite interesting.

Now have two on the go, as they're both books of essays, Michael Powell: International Perspectives on an English Film-maker, edited by Ian Christie, first few are excellant and very interesting comments and insights into the masters' works. And then theres The Sound and the Fury: 40 Years of Classic Rock Journalism - A Rock's Back Pages Reader - which is what it says on the ....dust jacket. Some of the best rock writing from, mmmm, the last 40 years....

 

[Tank Girl]

I got a belated birthday present at the weekend, 3 books set in china, I'm undecided which one to start with first.

they are ....

to the edge of the sky - anhua gao
the binding chair - kathryn harrison
falling leaves - adeline yen mah


if anyone's read any of them, which would you recommend?

 

[foo]

a friend recommended The Binding Chair to me Spanks. she's lending it when she's done - soon, i hope.

are you sure none of those are 'tube' books? <stern look>

 

[MysteryGuest]

3 books set in china

Strange imagery for a second there. No doubt partly caused by the fact that "set" is, by quite some way, the most overworked word in the English language. Look it up if you don't believe me. My edition of Chambers 1998 has a few pages of small type given over entirely to various meanings and senses of this little word.

 

[Tank Girl]

foo - I certainly do hope that they're tube books

and MG, I'm not clever like what you are

 

[Dubversion]

read and mostly enjoyed Down & Dirty Pictures (skipped the Sundance stuff in the end, but the Miramax stuff was great).

now flying through The Princess Bride, which is bloody marvellous.

 

[belboid]

read and mostly enjoyed Down & Dirty Pictures (skipped the Sundance stuff in the end, but the Miramax stuff was great).

ooh blimey, I got given that for christmas n all.....but I've left it round someone elses house and keep forgetting to go back and pick it up - especially as they probably dont even reralise who the book belongs to...

 

[Dubversion]

ooh blimey, I got given that for christmas n all.....but I've left it round someone elses house and keep forgetting to go back and pick it up - especially as they probably dont even reralise who the book belongs to...

it is good, very good. the Sundance stuff is - IMO - initially interesting but then becomes very routine (Redford loses interest, sacks everyone, everyone sulks) but the Weinsteins are just great value, and it's fun to hear a) what a total cunt Tarantino is and b) how much Kevin Smith kisses Weinstein's arse

 

[Orang Utan]

Didn't the journalese grate a little?
He lays it on a bit thick - lots of ludicrously extended (and mixed) metaphors and inappropriate magazine article style writing.
It's nowhere near as good as Easy Riders, Raging Bulls - it gets far too bogged down in the minutae of marketing and production of pictures - an essential part of it, granted, but Easy Riders contained more about the actual pictures produced, and was all the more readable for it.
Still, it's got lots of scenes with Harvey losing it and frothing at the mouth which more than makes up for the shoddiness of the writing.

 

[Dubversion]

Didn't the journalese grate a little?
He lays it on a bit thick - lots of ludicrously extended (and mixed) metaphors and inappropriate magazine article style writing.
It's nowhere near as good as Easy Riders, Raging Bulls - it gets far too bogged down in the minutae of marketing and production of pictures - an essential part of it, granted, but Easy Riders contained more about the actual pictures produced, and was all the more readable for it.
Still, it's got lots of scenes with Harvey losing it and frothing at the mouth which more than makes up for the shoddiness of the writing.

oh god, yes. some of the writing is dreadful - almost amusingly so - but i got really good at skimming it

 

[Badgers]

So far have read the first three of the 'Flashman Papers' and am amazed that these never came to my attention before.............

Hilarious and full of history!

Flashman (1969)
Royal Flash (1970)
Flash for Freedom! (1971)
Flashman at the Charge (1973)
Flashman and the Tiger
Flashman in the Great Game (1975)
Flashman's Lady (1977)
Flashman and the Redskins (1982)
Flashman and the Dragon (1985)
Flashman and the Mountain of Light (1990)
Flashman and the Angel of the Lord (1994)

 

[Orang Utan]

oh god, yes. some of the writing is dreadful - almost amusingly so - but i got really good at skimming it

I couldn't bring myself to skim anything

 

[foamy]

i've finished reading 'the food of love' by Anthony Capella which in itself wasn't groundbreakingly prize winningly good but it had some excellent sides to it...
1) it taught me a lot of very bad italian swear-phrases
2) it taught me a lot about italian, and specifically roman cooking


now, under the recomendeation of my housemate i've started 'Love' by Toni Morrison.......

i've just realised i'm very jealous of the book group but theres no way i could get through the books at the rate they do stupid work. why cant i be a lush for a living?

 

[Sesquipedalian]

Marmaduke !!!!!

London Fields - Martin Amis.

 

[Dubversion]

i've just realised i'm very jealous of the book group but theres no way i could get through the books at the rate they do stupid work. why cant i be a lush for a living?

you seem to be labouring under the misapprehension that most of them ever read the bloody things

 

[Orang Utan]

you seem to be labouring under the misapprehension that most of them ever read the bloody things

I've been a member for over a year now and have read less than half of them
I just moan about the choices and enjoy the company

 

[SonOfGoatboy]

I've just finished 'The Crimson Petal and the White' by Michael Faber. Fantastic stuff; modern victoriana, lots of sexual politics and intrigue. Meaty.
Just starting 'Kingdom of Fear' by Hunter S Thompson. Should be fun.

 

[rennie]

Notes from a defeatest by Joe Sacco. a collection of his early drawings... some i like some i hate.

 

[Dubversion]

just finished the fantastic Princess Bride in the bath.

now torn between the Peel autobiography, the Occult book or a collection of TC Boyle short stories..