*What book are you reading ?

[Dirty Martini]

try again. i reckon it needs at least two goes. guarantee that you will enjoy it.

I know I should do. It wasn't that I wasn't enjoying it, more that I couldn't tune into his singular style for long enough periods at a time.

 

[spartacus mills]

Ah, that one's staring guiltily at me from the pile. I stopped 100 pages in. Failure to concentrate properly.

It's one of my all time favourite books.

I'm reading Three Plays by Sean O'Casey.

 

[maya]

Natasha's Dance, a cultural history of Russia by ???

a book on Islam by Ziauddin Sardar (sp?).

 

[Leica]

So now i'm going to read Under The Volcano

If you like it, have a look for the John Huston film - also very good.

 

[MysteryGuest]

So now i'm going to read Under The Volcano by Lowry because people are always banging on about it and because it's set during the Day Of The Dead.

Oh that reminds me - it's mentioned in the book I've just finished reading - Out of It: A Cultural History of Intoxication by Stuart Walton. Good, quite wordy - I spotted a "metonymically" in there - and like all pro-legalisation stuff, prone to occasionally being a bit rose-tinted-specs (his description of ketamine effects/use would be entirely unrecognisable to someone who's sampled the delights of the squat party), but he puts his case well and I enjoyed his articulate style. So that's a thumbs up from me.

 

[maya]

The Granta book of India...nice anthology.

 

[Orang Utan]

Oh that reminds me - it's mentioned in the book I've just finished reading - Out of It: A Cultural History of Intoxication by Stuart Walton. Good, quite wordy - I spotted a "metonymically" in there - and like all pro-legalisation stuff, prone to occasionally being a bit rose-tinted-specs (his description of ketamine effects/use would be entirely unrecognisable to someone who's sampled the delights of the squat party), but he puts his case well and I enjoyed his articulate style. So that's a thumbs up from me.

I liked that too, especially when he says that a person locked in a padded cell would resort to holding their breath to get out of it, such is our drive to feel different from normal IYKWIM.
My dad told me he suspected I would like drugs as I got older when he observed me enthusiastically playing the stick game when I was wee.
(The stick game involves spinning around very fast whilst holding a stick at arm's length, then stopping and dropping the stick and attempting to jump over the stick)

 

[tastebud]

Halldor Laxness - The Atom Station.

I also started Ian McEwan - The Comfort of Strangers. He's certainly improved a great deal as a writer over the years. I'm pretty intrigued though.

 

[CharlieAddict]

the fall - albert camus.

 

[Orang Utan]

That reminds me - I got round to reading Saturday - not nearly as insufferable as Atonement - my god he can write but I wish he'd write about people who weren't rich Mercedes-driving cunts.

 

[Dubversion]

If you like it, have a look for the John Huston film - also very good.

i might actually move straight to the film, to be honest

 

[tastebud]

That reminds me - I got round to reading Saturday - not nearly as insufferable as Atonement - my god he can write but I wish he'd write about people who weren't rich Mercedes-driving cunts.

Yeah BA's reading my copy at the mo' and really likes it too. I'm jealous. I think it's possibly McEwan's best yet.

 

[sleaterkinney]

finished - Moondust by Andrew Smith - Very good book indeed, esp if you're a bit into science. It was so good I went out and bought another copy so I could finish it after I lost the first one.

just got - The Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson, Not really into sci-fi, but will give this one a go.

 

[mrkikiet]

just finished ballard-millenium nights, alright, felt like he was trying a little bit too hard to be on the pulse of everything happening in contemporary britain.
still going with the very short introduction to the Spanish Civil War

 

[Thimble Queen]

Kingdom of Fear Hunter S Thompson

 

[Leica]

i might actually move straight to the film, to be honest

Fair enough... perhaps at some point you will think that the time is right to give the book another chance. I kept it for about a year before going past the first page.

 

[Dubversion]

Fair enough... perhaps at some point you will think that the time is right to give the book another chance. I kept it for about a year before going past the first page.

i think it's everyone telling me it took 3 goes (including the bastard who wrote the introduction) that makes me want to give up. That, and the opening sentence of chapter 3

anyway, get thee to the Capote thread, we need to argue

 

[maya]

Halldor Laxness - The Atom Station.

that's SO beautifully written!
(at least in the original version)
...have you read the first chapter yet?
just his words alone on the page, made me cry

 

[jodal]

Doyle Brunson - Super System

Bloody hell its a big book. Thankfully its got pictures and large font.

I've also got Super System 2 to read afterwards.

 

[Orang Utan]

that's SO beautifully written!
(at least in the original version)
...have you read the first chapter yet?
just his words alone on the page, made me cry

That's weird - I'd never heard of him til last week and now I'm seeing him being mentioned all over the place.
My mum's reading The Fish Can Sing - translated by the second most famous Icelandic person, Magnus Magnusson, fact fans.

 

[maya]

That's weird - I'd never heard of him til last week and now I'm seeing him being mentioned all over the place.

that's just because you Anglo-centric folks aren't paying enough attention to the obscurities of the non-englishspeaking worlds, innit-

IIRC, his most famous books are also extremely boring,
so steer well clear of the books (trilogy?) which are called smth like "Brekkukot saga" or summat... ! it bore me to tears.

however, "Salka Valka" and "The Atom Station", on the other hand, (especially the latter) are among the most beautiful books i've ever read... (!)

...author(ships) can be strange sometimes!

apparently he's their [Iceland's] modern Shakespeare...


...talking about Iceland, i'm very fond of Einar Már Gudmundsson, who wrote "Angels Of The Universe", among others...

 

[foamy]

this week i will be mostly reading
Saturday by Ian McEwan
enjoying it so far but the text was a bit too rich for my poor little brain on the commute this morning

 

[Philbc03]

this week i will be mostly reading
Saturday by Ian McEwan
enjoying it so far but the text was a bit too rich for my poor little brain on the commute this morning

What is it about everybody reading bloody Saturday at the moment? Me too!

At least Cat, my wife isn't. She's on John Kennedy Tooles' 'Confederacy of Dunces'.

 

[foamy]

I dont know, what is it?
i love seeing people on the tube reading books i've read, today i saw a woman reading Cloud Atlas and i just wanted to tell her she was in for the long yet unrewarding haul

 

[jeff_leigh]

I dont know, what is it?
i love seeing people on the tube reading books i've read, today i saw a woman reading Cloud Atlas and i just wanted to tell her she was in for the long yet unrewarding haul

yeah i remember once in the dentist waiting room some woman was reading The Possessed and had an urge to say " Stavrogin commits suicide in the end"

 

[walktome]

Running in the Family by Michael Ondaatje.

 

[forked brain]

The Rule of Four by Caldwell and Thomason

 

[Orang Utan]

I dont know, what is it?
i love seeing people on the tube reading books i've read, today i saw a woman reading Cloud Atlas and i just wanted to tell her she was in for the long yet unrewarding haul

You'd be wrong though - (Cloud Atlas was a very rewarding read for me, but not as good as Ghostwritten)

 

[citydreams]

Just finished Peter Carey's "Bliss" (awwww....) and gone straight out and bought Jack Maggs.

*snarls*

 

[CharlieAddict]

steppenwolf - hernan hesse, so far so good. great writing.