*What book are you reading ?

[Appassionata]

<quote>

What Astral Weeks deals in are not facts but truths. Astral Weeks, insofar as it can be pinned down, is a record about people stunned by life, completely overwhelmed, stalled in their skins, their ages and selves, paralyzed by the enormity of what in one moment of vision they can comprehend. It is a precious and terrible gift, born of a terrible truth, because what they see is both infinitely beautiful and terminally horrifying: the unlimited human ability to create or destroy, according to whim. It's no Eastern mystic or psychedelic vision of the emerald beyond, nor is it some Baudelairean perception of the beauty of sleaze and grotesquerie. Maybe what it boiled down to is one moment's knowledge of the miracle of life, with its inevitable concomitant, a vertiginous glimpse of the capacity to be hurt, and the capacity to inflict that hurt.

Brilliant stuff.

That makes Cheesy look like a coked-up journo.

 

[May Kasahara]

Am reading Fearless Jones by Walter Mosely. It's alright so far, but I wouldn't agree with the Guardian's assertion that he's the best crime writer working today (mind you, individual reviewers have probably said that about any number of writers). Certainly he's got nothing on Joe R Lansdale in the entertainment stakes.

Hmmm, still reading it but really not impressed. Why does everyone go on about this guy being so brilliant? Maybe I've just picked a bad book of his, but the occasional nicely-worded sentence isn't doing much to make up for the distinctly average whole.

 

[maya]

Trying to read Three Stigmatas of Palmer Eldritch by Philip K Dick. I say trying, my eyesight is not what it was and i am consequenly not the reader i was, to my shame. I do like my genre fiction.

Was pleasantly surprised with that one- Apart from the extremely clumsy (and involuntarily funny) descriptions of sex/women, it's unputdownable- He just keeps on with his evil little twists and turns, just when you thought you had it all pinned down, he notches it up another level and the completely over the top headfuck plot becomes an even worse trip-
Even Dick himself was scared of that book, he refused to re-read it as he believed he'd touched on "absolute evil"...

It's great as a pageturner, but not up there with his three best ones, IMO...
Still, pisses down from a great, great height on most of the predictable genre fluff churned out today (and back then by his contemporaries)

 

[DotCommunist]

Was pleasantly surprised with that one- Apart from the extremely clumsy (and involuntarily funny) descriptions of sex/women, it's unputdownable- He just keeps on with his evil little twists and turns, just when you thought you had it all pinned down, he notches it up another level and the completely over the top headfuck plot becomes an even worse trip-
Even Dick himself was scared of that book, he refused to re-read it as he believed he'd touched on "absolute evil"...

It's great as a pageturner, but not up there with his three best ones, IMO...
Still, pisses down from a great, great height on most of the predictable genre fluff churned out today (and back then by his contemporaries)

One of my favorites from Phil is that. Better than the overrated 'Do androids dream of electric sheep?' and definetly unsettling. Gets right under your skin

 

[DotCommunist]

I've just read the first chapter of this ultra-cheesey 70's adult sci fi book called 'Spaceways of Alien bondage'

Unintentional comedy Gold

when I'm don I shall regale you with some choicee quotes from this truly awful book

 

[Mrs Magpie]

The Bus We Loved: London's Affair with the Routemaster by Travis Elborough. Wonderful.

 

[Nikkormat]

Canterbury Tales. Not in the original, but a nice translation.

 

[foo]

He writes in English, came over here when he was a toddler. Writes beautifully though, doesn't he?

yes, he does. i'd like to read another of his - can you recommend one?

 

[maya]

Better than the overrated 'Do androids dream of electric sheep?' and definetly unsettling. Gets right under your skin

I do have a soft spot for "Androids..." though, there's some very emotional scenes in there...
BUT, he could've done with a bit of pruning- As a whole, the book feels a bit too long- And since the pace is so slow, it's easy to lose interest if one expects the usual witty, breakneck- speed PKD incarnation...
Scenes like that of the two "parallel police stations" lead nowhere, and feels a bit undeveloped... If he'd made the book shorter, I'd rate it higher, but I guess this really is a question of taste- It's a more "thoughtful", introspective book than those which came before.
(But I'm probably biased, I like it because I loved Blade Runner... )

 

[maya]

erk! another double post!

must check fingers for arthritis...

 

[foamy]

just finished 'How Proust Can Change Your Life' by Alain De Botton.
now started 'The Camomile Lawn' By Mary Wesley

 

[Orang Utan]

The Line Of Beauty - Alan Hollinghurst
A stunning writer - amazed I haven't discovered this til recently

 

[chooch]

It's great as a pageturner, but not up there with his three best ones, IMO...
Still, pisses down from a great, great height on most of the predictable genre fluff churned out today (and back then by his contemporaries)

I reckon it´s his best. Not his best written, but his most unsettling.

 

[maya]

I reckon it´s his best. Not his best written, but his most unsettling.

It's absolutely terrifying! First time around I didn't dare to put it down, sat up all night reading to the bitter end, clutching the blanket and with lots of light on...

don't laugh

 

[tastebud]

Ooh, I started reading The Neon Bible today.
John Kennedy Toole.
15 pages in but I like it thus far.

I also found out that it's a film too! & only a mere few weeks ago, I thought it was just a (great) album by a great band.

 

[Vintage Paw]

Ooh, I started reading The Neon Bible today.
John Kennedy Toole.
15 pages in but I like it thus far.

I also found out that it's a film too! & only a mere few weeks ago, I thought it was just a (great) album by a great band.

And for some reason I'd thought he'd only ever written the one book ... weird.

 

[chooch]

Ooh, I started reading The Neon Bible today.
John Kennedy Toole.

I liked it. It's obviously the work of a teenager in parts, but it has some very strong writing.

 

[tastebud]

It's obviously the work of a teenager in parts

Yep!

 

[Throbbing Angel]

this week I am mainly reading 'On Writing' by Stephen King

 

[Vintage Paw]

Well, I finished The Book of Illusions (Paul Auster) today. Cracking read - very compelling. Would recommend.

Now moving on to Ragtime (Doctorow) - looking forward to it immensly.

 

[purves grundy]

I'm preparing for my MA, reading Agents of Atrocity by Neil Mitchell.

Put age-old enmities, ideology, and whatever to one side, we need to focus on the relationship between leaders and their followers in order to understand human rights violations.

Very nicely written.

 

[spoone]

do androids dream of electric sheep - Phillip k dick

and Im gonna start the second artemis fowl book soon.

 

[madamv]

Finished 'Extremely Loud'. JSF is so wonderful I could cry.

Started 'Magical Thinking' - Augusten Burroughs. *sighs*

 

[sojourner]

Aimee and Jaguar - a true story of a German woman married to a Nazi, who had an affair with a Jewish woman - to the point that they made a secret marriage contract. Aimee and Jaguar are their pen names - they wrote ferociously to each other when apart. Fascinating stuff - letters, poems, interviews with the surviving woman, and her friends and family - the Jewish woman.... (SPOILER ALERT)


















ends up arrested and sent to a camp, never to return

There's loads of detail about the slow creep of Nazi rule that I never knew - fascinating book

 

[Kripcat]

"Rich Dad, Poor Dad"
S'about what the majority of people supposedly don't know about money that the rich elite do. S'abit dicky and up its own arse at the moment.

 

[maya]

Aimee and Jaguar - a true story of a German woman married to a Nazi, who had an affair with a Jewish woman -

which got made into a film very recently... with the lovely heike makatsch(sp?)
although i haven't seen it myself, so can't vouch for its, erm, greatness...

 

[sojourner]

which got made into a film very recently... with the lovely heike makatsch(sp?)
although i haven't seen it myself, so can't vouch for its, erm, greatness...

I didn't know that. Now is where I start dithering over whether to watch it, cos it might be ruined by ridiculous changes in the story and characters

 

[maya]

Back to books, I've just started Tolstoy's "Hadji Murat"- A short, but powerful criticism of the Russian warfare in Checnya... That the novel is over a hundred years old, sadly doesn't detract from its current relevance...

 

[Strumpet]

I have the life stories of Lauren Bacall and Katharine Hepburn to read as of today.

 

[Pie 1]

Just finished William Boyd's Restless - Excellent stuff.
Just about to start Geoff Dyer's The Ongoing Moment.