kyser_soze
Hawking's Angry Eyebrow
'The System of the World', book 3 in Neal Stephenson's Baroque cycle.
And fucking ace it is too!
Anyone read 'Blink' yet?
And fucking ace it is too!
Anyone read 'Blink' yet?
*What book are you reading ?
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kyser_soze
Hawking's Angry Eyebrow
Klaatu said:
Not the 1st review I;'ve seen that says it's way too long and dwells on too many examples - I had the same view on GG&S.
Altho Collapse is in paperback now, so it's both portable and cheaper!
Read Yuri Malov's Brezhnevite apologia 'The Communist Party in Socialist Society' (1987) and Peter Taaffe's 'Empire Defeated' (2004) over the weekend. The latter was quite pacy and interesting for what could have been a plodding book. I'd recommend it to anyone looking for a quick primer on Vietnam.
Now I'm reading Kathleen Ann Goonan's 'Light Music' (2002), and Capital ....
Now I'm reading Kathleen Ann Goonan's 'Light Music' (2002), and Capital ....
subversplat
writer of wrongs
I just finished The Contortionists Handbook by Craig Clevenger (yes, I only read it based on the accolades from Irvine Welsh and Chuck Palahnuik 
) and I thought it was a stonking good read, up until the ending which all seemed a bit rushed and 
, like he wanted to wrap the thing up but forgot the sellotape.
Still, I'm now going to get his second book from the library and read that, because I think he's got definite potential.
I'm really into this sort of contemporary noir type fiction (Palahnuik, Welsh, Easton Ellis and now Clevenger) so can anybody recommend me some other authors that write a similar novel?
) and I thought it was a stonking good read, up until the ending which all seemed a bit rushed and , like he wanted to wrap the thing up but forgot the sellotape.Still, I'm now going to get his second book from the library and read that, because I think he's got definite potential.
I'm really into this sort of contemporary noir type fiction (Palahnuik, Welsh, Easton Ellis and now Clevenger) so can anybody recommend me some other authors that write a similar novel?
gave up on trying to systematically read the Boyle short stories (i have an issue with short story collections, especially by writers as excellent as Boyle, in that i immerse myself in one character or narrative for 20-odd pages then i'm supposed to move onto the next one, and i can't quite do it that easily).
So i'm now brandishing a copy of Stone Junction by Jim Dodge, because he's very good
So i'm now brandishing a copy of Stone Junction by Jim Dodge, because he's very good
Dirty Martini
gets what he cant want
Dubversion said:So i'm now brandishing a copy of Stone Junction by Jim Dodge, because he's very good
I'm about three-quarters of the way through it and enjoying it more as it goes on. There's a good discussion to be had about this book, and about Dodge, at some point
MysteryGuest
beyond boring and interesting
andy2002 said:
If it's the one with A Firing Offense in, I've read it and it's wicked. (Though the one I've got features four stories, I've just noticed.)
jeff_leigh
What happened to Dubversion ?
Dubversion said:So i'm now brandishing a copy of Stone Junction by Jim Dodge, because he's very good
thought you'd already read that Dub?
Slowly working my way through 'Life and Fate' by Vasily Grossman. It's kinda like a Soviet War and Peace, except with Stalingrad as its centre point rather than Napoleon's Russian Campaign.
Rushing through Mathew Parris' 'Chance Witness' autobiography too. He comes across as quite vain and not terribly likeable but there's some interesting stuff on late/post colonial Southern Africa.
Rushing through Mathew Parris' 'Chance Witness' autobiography too. He comes across as quite vain and not terribly likeable but there's some interesting stuff on late/post colonial Southern Africa.
MysteryGuest
beyond boring and interesting
andy2002 said:
duh... it is three stories - I can see the spine from where I'm sitting now and the third story (Down by the River...) has a long title that is split into two lines...
Anyway - Nick's Trip... yes it is a corker actually. I ain't saying too much, but towards the end I was practically sick with tension - it's powerful stuff.
Quality writing too. 
jeff_leigh said:thought you'd already read that Dub?
nah, read Not Fade Away before Christmas and Fup last week.
Finished 'On Beauty' by Zadie Smith a couple of days ago, which I loved.
I then picked up E.M.Forster's 'Howards End' (On Beauty is intended as a 'Homage' to it), not really expecting to get into it - but I'm loving it, too. Not least for its interesting observations on aglo-german relations pre-WWI and one of its main characters, Mrs Munt.
I then picked up E.M.Forster's 'Howards End' (On Beauty is intended as a 'Homage' to it), not really expecting to get into it - but I'm loving it, too. Not least for its interesting observations on aglo-german relations pre-WWI and one of its main characters, Mrs Munt.
Orang Utan
They cannot crucify you if your hand is in a fist
I have to say, Jim Dodge is very you IYKWIM, which is probably why people think you've already read him!Dubversion said:
Maggie by John Seargant. Bought it at Heathrow for the extremly long and arduous flight (and the extremly long and arduous Heathrow). Actually OK but this is the closest I get to light summer entrainment. Hey it's summer down under so that counts, and this is better than his previously overated chummy autobiography; there is far too much lauding by close colleagues eager to revies these memoirs. But it name drops like crazy, though non-economic bods should like the simple ERM stuff.
I'm at work
Member
I've just finished Gift of Stones by Jim Crace - it was superb in every way . When was the last time you read a book set in a bronze age village??
If you see this - get it , a better book I haven't read for a long time.
If you see this - get it , a better book I haven't read for a long time.
The Graft, Martina Cole.
I've hit the bottom of someone elses bookshelf!
Essex is a very bad place
I've hit the bottom of someone elses bookshelf!
Essex is a very bad place
Dirty Martini
gets what he cant want
Finished Stone Junction.
It's a funny one. Dodge writes beautifully, perhaps almost too much so -- very smooth and controlled. He has total mastery of the characters and of plot. The book makes an interesting contrast to Pynchon's Vineland, which came out the same year I think -- similar themes, similar feel, very much the last gasp of the predigital age, nostalgic and defiant at the same time. But where Pynchon has the paranoid style, Dodge's is ecstatic, which means that everything's a little too perfect. All the good characters are good -- they speak the most articulate American prose, they all cook well and have access to the most exquisite ingredients, the finest booze, the best drugs, and the set-ups always work. Get trained up, become a master of disguise in six months; get trained up, become America's finest young gambler in six months. Give away loads of money, and come down on the cartoon characters that are the baddies in the most satisfying way possible. It's what we all dream of. Want to give away the 10,000 bucks you just won on a throw of the dice in the casino (again)? Done, just like that. More money is given away in Stone Junction and Fade Away than in the whole of American literature
I dunno, it's almost as if the author's looking round for some sort of approval for his worldview. It's a world that he keeps telling us is complex, but his writing is all about smoothing out the edges, coming up with solutions that satisfy the kind of reader Dodge imagines is his. Pitting an impossibly fascinating bunch of outlaws and alcemists against a world of fakers in the way that Dodge does it says nothing about the world. It promises to, but fails.
I may be missing the point badly here. I liked the book, picked it up whenever I had a free few minutes, but it's a Northern Californian's fantasy about how the world should be -- not free of money, for example, but free to let you give it away, guilt-free, to the downtrodden and the meek. The world's going to shit, but in the meantime there's the finest wines known to humanity, tons of money to be made, and the picturesque roads of the Western United States to be driven. All perfectly
And the last 30 pages clunk audibly, like they did in Fade Away.
It's a funny one. Dodge writes beautifully, perhaps almost too much so -- very smooth and controlled. He has total mastery of the characters and of plot. The book makes an interesting contrast to Pynchon's Vineland, which came out the same year I think -- similar themes, similar feel, very much the last gasp of the predigital age, nostalgic and defiant at the same time. But where Pynchon has the paranoid style, Dodge's is ecstatic, which means that everything's a little too perfect. All the good characters are good -- they speak the most articulate American prose, they all cook well and have access to the most exquisite ingredients, the finest booze, the best drugs, and the set-ups always work. Get trained up, become a master of disguise in six months; get trained up, become America's finest young gambler in six months. Give away loads of money, and come down on the cartoon characters that are the baddies in the most satisfying way possible. It's what we all dream of. Want to give away the 10,000 bucks you just won on a throw of the dice in the casino (again)? Done, just like that. More money is given away in Stone Junction and Fade Away than in the whole of American literature
I dunno, it's almost as if the author's looking round for some sort of approval for his worldview. It's a world that he keeps telling us is complex, but his writing is all about smoothing out the edges, coming up with solutions that satisfy the kind of reader Dodge imagines is his. Pitting an impossibly fascinating bunch of outlaws and alcemists against a world of fakers in the way that Dodge does it says nothing about the world. It promises to, but fails.
I may be missing the point badly here. I liked the book, picked it up whenever I had a free few minutes, but it's a Northern Californian's fantasy about how the world should be -- not free of money, for example, but free to let you give it away, guilt-free, to the downtrodden and the meek. The world's going to shit, but in the meantime there's the finest wines known to humanity, tons of money to be made, and the picturesque roads of the Western United States to be driven. All perfectly
And the last 30 pages clunk audibly, like they did in Fade Away.
Orang Utan
They cannot crucify you if your hand is in a fist
I think it all goes tits up when he finds the diamond - I don't think Dodge is a great finisher of books
Dirty Martini
gets what he cant want
Orang Utan said:
Yep, or perhaps when Jenny Raine gets introduced through her diaries. Hear that ending being engineered into place.
Or a great starter of books. He hasn't written anything for 15 years, has he?
Anyway, now rereading 'Carpenter's Gothic' by William Gaddis. Scrappy, dogeared, magnificent.
Orang Utan
They cannot crucify you if your hand is in a fist
I'm a bit intimidated by the thought of reading Gaddis
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