*What book are you reading ?

[Dirty Martini]

I'm a bit intimidated by the thought of reading Gaddis

I have to confess I haven't read JR or The Recognitions (yet, I hope), they're fucking huge. But Carpenter's Gothic is great -- a lot shorter, not intimidating at all, catches the rhythm of verbal frustration beautifully. Has that great American knack of making the banal seem super-real and very funny. It's back in print now after a few years.

So many to read. Gaddis, Gass, Elkin, etc.

 

[walktome]

The last book I read was The Tao of Pooh by Benjamin Hoff.

 

[Clintons Cat]

The last book I read was The Tao of Pooh by Benjamin Hoff.

Nice,it beats The Gospel According To Peanuts into a crooked hat.


This Week I Have Mostly Been Reading Essays From the Minister of Defense By Huey P Newton


And The Fire Next Time By James Baldwin

 

[oi2002]

"A Problem From Hell": America in the age of Genocide Samantha Power.

Worthy but not worth a Pulitzer. Wriiten by a patriotic interventionist American appalled at her countries inaction against and rather distressingly frequently support for genocidal regimes.

The Rwanda section is shaming, with DC pressuring other countries not to intervene, she fails to mention London was instrumental in this as well. She only briefy touches on Biaffra and barely mentions Bangledesh.

The extreme reluctance of Americans to get involved militarilly in humanitarian missions may surprise some who've watched the Iraq war given the voluable post-facto use of this as a justification. It's rather ironic that Saddam at his most genocidal had the American farming lobbies vigourous support.

I came away thinking that the genocide convention that she defends has actually been a bit of a disaster too shackled in American minds to the unique circumstance of the holocaust to be useful.

It has some sharp insights. It had not struck me before how the Lincoln memorial and the Vietnam wall are next to the Holocaust memorial in DC which perhaps says something about America's victim dominated mental landscape.

 

[Boogie Boy]

I've just started 'Modern Muslim Intellectuals And The Qur'an' (Oxford) - , examining varied contemporary approaches and responses to the Qur'an. It isn't exactly light reading, but so far it has been quite enjoyable and thought provoking.

BB

 

[Bauhaus]

The Hobbit.

 

[Cheesypoof]

smile, you're travelling by henry rollins, and over the weekend, ulysses which is admittedly proving very difficult, lol.

 

[chooch]

Carpenter's Gothic is great

Must try that.
I'm reading the virgin suicides. Enjoying it plenty- found myself snorting a few times over perfect sentences.

 

[Pie 1]

Just finished John Le Carre's Absolute Friends (I do love a bit of the spymaster every now & then). Grest fun.
He's really still got it actually, and delivers a coherent & suprisingly angry polemic of recent events in it as well.

Just started Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Down...

 

[Dubversion]

I'm reading the virgin suicides. Enjoying it plenty- found myself snorting a few times over perfect sentences.

brilliant isn't it? what i loved about it is that - as opposed to, say, Fortress of Solitude, where the 'flair' of the writing actually slows things to a crawl, Eugenides can dazzle with some perfectly formed descriptions without ever sacrificing flow.

 

[foamy]

i'm reading brighton rock but have got stuck half way through, is it worth continuing?

 

[Dubversion]

i'm reading brighton rock but have got stuck half way through, is it worth continuing?

fuck, yeh

 

[chooch]

Eugenides can dazzle with some perfectly formed descriptions without ever sacrificing flow.

Aye. Perfect rhythm guitar, not otiose fretwankery.

i'm reading brighton rock but have got stuck half way through, is it worth continuing?

Yep. Best yet to come.

 

[foamy]

cheers, i was really into it for the first half but then put it down and now its really hard going getting back into it.
might go to brighton for the weekend to finish it off then knock off a few rival gang members

 

[Abjekt]

Reading "Taking The Train" by Joe Austin. It's about the "graffiti problem" in New York in the 1970s onwards and the ridiculous steps the mayor took to try and stop it. S'good.

 

[Orang Utan]

Just like a stick of rock - you can't eat it all at once because it'll make you sick

 

[starfish]

Still reading Robert Fisks Great War for Civilisation, about half way through. Its a challenge, nearly 1400 pages long. Thats like 4 or 5 normal books to me.

 

[exosculate]

I'm re-reading The Bell Jar

 

[fishfingerer]

Last books read:

I.Turgenev's Fathers and Sons. Load o'cobbla.
A.Skirda's Anarchy's Cossack. Truly awe inspiring.
U.Le Guin's The Dispossessed. Unputdownable.

Now halfway through Thomas Hardy's Jude The Obscure.

 

[Julie]

The Conspiracy Club - Jonathan Kellerman. Love a forensic/psych/thriller.

 

[Philbc03]

Now reading Ian McEwan's 'The Cement Garden' (1978). Strong stomach necessary if incest ain't your bag.

 

[Abjekt]

Just started a book which is a collection of articles written about hip hop throughout the 1980s and 1990s called "And It Don't Stop".

 

[rennie]

I started the constant gardener two days ago. so far so good. a fast read but very compelling!

 

[I'm at work]

I've just finished Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S Thompson. A working knowledge of drugs helps especially old fashioned Acid..

 

[I'm at work]

Just finished John Le Carre's Absolute Friends (I do love a bit of the spymaster every now & then). Grest fun.
He's really still got it actually, and delivers a coherent & suprisingly angry polemic of recent events in it as well.

Just started Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Down...

Never let me go??

Fantastic book - should have won the Booker , best of the list IMHO.

 

[spartacus mills]

Now on 'The Little Friend' by Donna Tartt.

 

[walktome]

I'm about to begin The Return of Martin Guerre for school.

 

[maya]

I'm about to begin The Return of Martin Guerre for school.

ha, you must go to a good school,
we never had to read anything,
and half my classmates came out illiterate...!

BTW i'm just re-reading:

Jonathan Swift: Gulliver's Travels (a lovely old, illustrated edition)

 

[Philbc03]

Now on Percival Everett's collection of short stories, 'Damned if I Do' (2004).

If you've never read any Everett make sure you check out Erasure (2001). It is an excellent novel and a biting polemic against academia's preoccupation with multiculturalism and identity theorising. Utterly unmissable.

 

[foamy]

Yay! finished brighton rock
enjoyed it but the ending left me wanting more....

now, whats next?