*What book are you reading ?

[sojourner]

Good call OU - am lovin it so far

 

[Dirty Martini]

Finally, after a slow start, I'm getting into We Need To Talk About Kevin. There's still a lot of writing in it, but I'm eager to see what happens.

In the meantime I read some Frank O'Connor short stories, which were very funny and beautifully written.

 

[Vintage Paw]

It's been a while since I updated on this thread.

Currently reading Theodore Dreiser's Sister Carrie - seems to be shaping up nicely.

After that is Edith Wharton's The Custom of the Country. Can you tell I'm taking a 20th century Am. Lit. module this year?

Want at some point to be able to read more Brautigan - I've got 3 unread sitting on my shelf at the moment.

 

[Cerberus]

Am currently reading 'Brighton Rock' - Graham Greene. Been meaning to get round to this for years. shaping up nicely

Just finsished - 'Rabbit, Run' - John Updike. Fine book i`m sure but way, way too close to home at the moment for any kind of objectivity . Complete fluke in picking it up from a second hand stall too. Might well become a believer in fate after all

 

[El Sueno]

I remember reading Brighton Rock when a girl I wanted to impress was enthusing over it, years ago... watched the movie too, as well as nailbiting drama there are some unintentionally hilarious scenes in that piece of cinematic antiquity.

I'm flitting between 'The five people you meet in Heaven' - Mitch Alburn and 'Blind to the Bones' - Stephen Booth. Except I can't find either right now so I think I'll start 'A world of my own' - Robin Knox Johnston which my flatmate give me for xmas.

i'm reading Something Happened by Joseph Catch-22 Heller.. i guess it is a more grown up book but it's not as good.

I tried that too... left me cold, nothing else he's done is a patch on Catch.

 

[Cpatain Rbubish]

Right now I'm reading... A Joe Strummer biography, The Progressive Patriot - Billy Bragg, Out Of It (a cultural history of intoxication - Stuart Walton and re-reading the Flashman Papers inbetween

 

[sojourner]

Can you tell I'm taking a 20th century Am. Lit. module this year?

Ooo, is Willa Cather's My Antonia on the list?

 

[pootle]

I'm reading Stephen King's "On Writing" and I'm enjoying it very much. A interesting insight into the craft of writing, his life, where he gets his ideas from and he defends "popular" - be it music or writing or whatever against the snobbery it so often comes up against. I like this quote:

Critics and scholars have always been suspicious of popular success. Often their suspicions are justified. In other cases, these suspicions are used as an excuse not to think. No one can be as intellectually slothful as a really smart person; give smart people half a chance and they will ship their oars and drift...dozing to Byzantium, you might say.

 

[BL2ALLb]

Just read Death in the Hands of the State by Proff David Wilson next Lies, Spies and Whistleblowers by Anne Machon but before that read A Shed with a View by Micheal Wale lovely meandering tales bout down the allotment + he is a cox for rowing boats so bits about the river thrown in and politics as well calls himself an allotment activist.loved it.

 

[jd]

I've just finished an enjoyable book about tea and tea trade, The Gunpowder Gardens by Jason Goodwin.

 

[chooch]

In the meantime I read some Frank O'Connor short stories, which were very funny and beautifully written.

I like those.

Now reading A.M.Homes, the end of alice. Sharply written but I keep thinking of Humbert Humbert.

 

[madamv]

I'm on 'Possible Side Effects' - Augusten Burroughs

Laugh out loud funny for the first couple of stories/chapters.

 

[citydreams]

Well I'm reading Jeanette Winterson - Written on the body. It's amazing!

I started this yesterday on the train.. Still had the book in my hand six hours later.

Absolutely love it!

Perfect.

 

[sojourner]

I started this yesterday on the train.. Still had the book in my hand six hours later.

Absolutely love it!

Perfect.

Excellent book, one of my faves.

 

[citydreams]

innit.. so many laugh out loud moments..

"now it's a serious matter to have PERVERT written on your NHS file and some indignities are just a romance too far"

"this urinal is a symbol of patriarchy and must be destroyed"

I haven't finished it yet.. I'm still in bed with Louise

 

[sojourner]

innit.. so many laugh out loud moments..

"now it's a serious matter to have PERVERT written on your NHS file and some indignities are just a romance too far"

"this urinal is a symbol of patriarchy and must be destroyed"

I haven't finished it yet.. I'm still in bed with Louise

The thing I found most fascinating about it is that it is impossible to assign gender to the author - a truly androgynous bit of writing

 

[citydreams]

The thing I found most fascinating about it is that it is impossible to assign gender to the author - a truly androgynous bit of writing

Aye, I thought that.. The writing style feels very feminine to me, but maybe that's because of the openess / ease of discussing feelings?

Have you read any of her other books?

 

[citydreams]

Can't decide between The Fifth Child by Doris Lessing next, or Marquez, Love in the Time of Cholera

Which Dorris Lessing did you like? I tried A Brief Decent into Hell, but struggled to get past the first few pages.

 

[sojourner]

Aye, I thought that.. The writing style feels very feminine to me, but maybe that's because of the openess / ease of discussing feelings?

Have you read any of her other books?

It didn't feel feminine to me, but I can see what you're saying.

Yeh, got a few of hers, Oranges, The Passion, and Sexing the Cherry, but she got further up her own arse with each novel I thought.

 

[sojourner]

Which Dorris Lessing did you like? I tried A Brief Decent into Hell, but struggled to get past the first few pages.

I've only read Shikasta, years ago, but thought it was excellent. I've got Memoirs of a Survivor on the shelf to be read, but picked this up in a recent haul

 

[Mrs Magpie]

The Forgiveness of Nature: The Story of Grass
Graham Harvey.
All about species of grass, and how grasses have shaped human life and there's even a bit about the development of grasses specific to the Beautiful Game. Really good, beautifully written.....

 

[Boogie Boy]

'War and Peace'. What a waste of time and effort it was working through this tired monstrosity. The basic story is weak enough, but the attempts to place the characters (such as they are) within a larger philosophical framework is laughable. This is not a book I shall be re-reading in the next few years.

BB

 

[mrkikiet]

i finished the tin drum by gunter grass last night, and don't really know where to go from there.

It was pretty intense. worth a read if you want something to get you thinking. Then you can have a laugh at all the online criticism written before Grass outed himself as a member fo the Nazi armed forces.

 

[Dirty Martini]

I finished We Need To Talk About Kevin.

I really enjoyed it, if that's the word. The ending's devastating, achieves a chilling effect, but rather skews the book. I appreciated the elegance of insight into married life, contemporary American culture and childrearing. The writing's beautiful, in part perhaps too much so -- although it could be argued that the overwriting (or overediting) is an attempt by the narrator, a reluctant American, to place a conscious distance between her literacy and the blandness of the culture she sees around her. Her babyboomer's despair leads her to see high school massacres as blandness more than anything else.

I think it's a bit daft that we can't discuss the ending in public, just in case anyone hasn't read it yet. I think it's really important to the book.

---

Now reading 'Craven House' by Patrick Hamilton, a great secondhand find. Like too much stuff by this comic genius, it's out of print.

 

[Dubversion]

I
Now reading 'Craven House' by Patrick Hamilton, a great secondhand find. Like too much stuff by this comic genius, it's out of print.

I've just bought 20,000 Streets...... looking forward to it

 

[Dubversion]

I've kinda run aground with Herrera's Frida biography.

I think this is the case with almost every biog i've read. Not sure why - maybe there's a point where you're pretty informed about the subject's attitudes, behaviour, likely reactions, and then it becomes a mere list of events. ?

i'm determined to finish it but might skim the last 1/3rd

 

[Dirty Martini]

I've just bought 20,000 Streets...... looking forward to it

Great stuff. You'll love the London stuff, the black comedy and the Komic Kapitals, and then you'll want to read everything he ever wrote

 

[Dubversion]

well i got that and some Julian McLaren Ross at the same time

(oh, and your CD is burned and ready to post, I just have a memory like a sieve )

 

[Dirty Martini]

well i got that and some Julian McLaren Ross at the same time

(oh, and your CD is burned and ready to post, I just have a memory like a sieve )

Of Love and Hunger, or the memoirs? I haven't read the latter, but Of Love is brilliant.

(No worries. When it comes. The number of CDs I have to send out but haven't is embarrassing )

 

[Final]

Currently reading: Star Wars episode 0.1

(aka Dune).