*What book are you reading ?
- Thread starter ck
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onenameshelley
is Major Morgan's bitch
I loved both Brighton rock and the Clergyman's daughter both very enjoyable. Just finished Dorian by Will Self very good book, now i am off to read some James Patterson cack.
chemical_girl__
troll
im a stubborn person when it comes to books............. but i got too fed up in the 2nd part..........
so i read north and south by elizabeth gaskell (bloody nice book, chaps!), and felt the deficiencies of camus' characterisation, or lack thereof, even more acutely......
returned to the plague for a few pages, then stopped for good.......... now im halfway through one flew over the cuckoo's nest by ken kasey and thoroughly enjoying it!
i'll return to camus in a few years............ probably.
i would have thought that with the current climate now is a really good time to delve into 'the plague'.
a book emphasising a moral accountability at the heart of all public choices is very relative to what's going on in the world at the moment, methinks. most of us know we could and should be making certain choices. most of us know, or at least have an idea that certain horrors are unfolding in our name, but just how many of us question it? how many actually try and make a difference?
a moral obligation?
camus' ideal of a personal nobility born of honourable actions, is simply about the ordinary person doing the extraordinary for no other reason than common decency. something which is just a relevent today, as when he wrote it, post nazi europe.
it's a pretty damn good essay on morality.
[steps off of soapbox and returns to being in friday mode]
chegrimandi
associated with adultery
The Good Women of China....Xinran
very sad.....but good...
very sad.....but good...
Literary Outlaw - The Life Of William Burroughs by Ted Morgan.
700 fucking pages. but if anyone is worth 700 pages, i guess Lonesome Cowboy Bill is.
so far, so excellent - informative but reads like a novel (without ever stretching your credulity).
saves me having to bother with most of Burrough's actual books
700 fucking pages. but if anyone is worth 700 pages, i guess Lonesome Cowboy Bill is.
so far, so excellent - informative but reads like a novel (without ever stretching your credulity).
saves me having to bother with most of Burrough's actual books
onenameshelley
is Major Morgan's bitch
Alice in Wonderland
And then after that i plan to read "weapons of mass deception" should be good.
And then after that i plan to read "weapons of mass deception" should be good.
chemical_girl__
troll
power - that was what the plague was meant to be about??
i guess i can see that moral responsibility is a big theme inh the book..... and i dont deny that camus is skillful in getting his messages across........
but i think that you are being a little too optimistic about what these messages are......
my main problem was that i couldnt emotionally connect with the book. the characters dont connect with each other and have purely selfish motives for everything they do, even down to manipulating syntax for personal gain.......... i acknowledge his skill, but he certainly does not seem to acknowledge human decency or the tiniest scrap of selfishness............
(in other news, ive finished 'one flew over the cuckoos nest', and its brilliant!)
i guess i can see that moral responsibility is a big theme inh the book..... and i dont deny that camus is skillful in getting his messages across........
but i think that you are being a little too optimistic about what these messages are......
my main problem was that i couldnt emotionally connect with the book. the characters dont connect with each other and have purely selfish motives for everything they do, even down to manipulating syntax for personal gain.......... i acknowledge his skill, but he certainly does not seem to acknowledge human decency or the tiniest scrap of selfishness............
(in other news, ive finished 'one flew over the cuckoos nest', and its brilliant!)
medicineman
New Member
La Peste, Albert Camus - read it in French and thought it was wonderful... Kesey, too, excellent, as is Robert M. Pirsig, Hunter S. Thompson, Jack Kerouac, William Burroughs.... the list is long.
I've just finished Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas (Hunter S. Thompson), A Life Inside (Erwin James - and highly recommended), am part way through Lear's Nonsense Verse and Solzenitchyn's The Gulag Archipelago. That's hard work!
silentNate
1.618 xakep
Just bought "Globalisation and it's Discontents", have to get round to reading it by the sounds of things....
Just finished 'Sleb' by Andrew Holmes and absolutely loved it, not sure that it's humour will be appreciated by U75 boarders but the Robbie spoof character is spot on. Bear in mind that the twist at the end is deadly
hi chemical girl
the characters are meant to be selfish. that's the point. every one of them reacting to the plague in their own individual selfish ways. it's the eventual realisation that it isn't just about themselves as individuals, but about everyone uniting that eventually brings the story together.
to turn a blind eye to the horror, for whatever selfish reasons, will not make the horror go away.
the book is a very good statement about human indifference to human suffering, which i do believe is unfortunately very relevant today.
anyway, just coz it's a good moral story, doesn't mean anyone should therefore automatically like it. one man's floor is another man's ceiling.
but i'm definitely with you on 'cuckoo's nest'
ViolentPanda
Hardly getting over it.
Currently reading;
"The Media and the Kosovo Crisis"
and
"The Illuminatus Trilogy".
Oddly enough, they go really well together!
"The Media and the Kosovo Crisis"
and
"The Illuminatus Trilogy".
Oddly enough, they go really well together!
chemical_girl__
troll
ooh, this is fabulous! i read it about 5 years ago, almost new to the world of classics, and loved it....... i'll have to reread it for a uni module, so will probably have an even higher opinion of it after i have!
chemical_girl__
troll
Originally posted by Ciara
I'm re-reading Capt. Correlli's Mandolin for school but I'm just not finding the time to read itGreat book though
i read this book straight after i got my exams out of the way..... and was so impressed i was gonna start a new thread as homeage..... but it got lost somehow so i thought 'ok, my private musings r obviously meant to stay that way......
this book is more than great, it is unspeakably beautiful......... and the one and only book to make me cry, not just feel like it......
if i am ever able to write something as good, my life will have been fulfilled!!
(yet strangely i dont own a copy 
)Orangesanlemons
Inamorati Anonymous
Just finished this today. Personally prefered 'Fast Food Nation', purely because it was more focused. The drugs/illegal workers/pornography themes of RM weren't linked together comprehensively enough for my liking and the end result read a little too much like a collection of unrelated essays thrown together.
That said, the pornography section (relating the rise and fall of Reuben Sturman, 'the Walt Disney of porn') was absolutely fascinating, worth the price alone.
Well, have just finished Hard Times.
The views of my above post still hold. By the end Dickens had got into truely impressive soap-opera form but I still think the first book dragged a bit.
Still enjoyed it though
I'm going to lay off the classics now and read some sci-fi:
Redemption Ark by Alastair Reynolds
The views of my above post still hold. By the end Dickens had got into truely impressive soap-opera form but I still think the first book dragged a bit.
Still enjoyed it though
I'm going to lay off the classics now and read some sci-fi:
Redemption Ark by Alastair Reynolds
Throbbing Angel
this is no longer a place of honour
Jennifer Government by Max Barry
READ THE FIRST CHAPTER HERE !
...as some of you will know from the Nation States game, is a futuristic dystopian world where companies like Nike et al have more sway than the Govt.
Very good read, makes me wanna go out and buy Syrup, his first novel.
Very dark in places (Nike promote their new $2500 trainers with a campaign where someones hired to murder kids who buy the trainers to boost their public profile)
Excellent critique of Globalization & the Money mad market men on tomorrow (today?)
Naomi Klein (No Logo) liked it anyway, so did I
READ THE FIRST CHAPTER HERE !
...as some of you will know from the Nation States game, is a futuristic dystopian world where companies like Nike et al have more sway than the Govt.
Very good read, makes me wanna go out and buy Syrup, his first novel.
Very dark in places (Nike promote their new $2500 trainers with a campaign where someones hired to murder kids who buy the trainers to boost their public profile)
Excellent critique of Globalization & the Money mad market men on tomorrow (today?)
Naomi Klein (No Logo) liked it anyway, so did I
well, i left my william burroughs brick at work, so in the interim i read "The Girls Guide To Hunting & Fishing" by someone who's name i forget (i've been ill, ok 
) which was actually excellent. rather than the bland chicklit the cover threatens, it was sad, wise, funny and often very insightful. why they had to lumber it with such a generic dreadful cover i don't know, they're doing it a terrible disservice.
i also read Kurt Vonnegut's Slapstick or Lonesome No More because i haven't re-read one of his for ages, and it was lying around. not one of his best, which is a bit of a meaningless statement because 'not one of his best' roughly equates with 'shits all over his contemporaries' as far as i'm concerned.
now back to the Burroughs, mind... i'm daunted..
) which was actually excellent. rather than the bland chicklit the cover threatens, it was sad, wise, funny and often very insightful. why they had to lumber it with such a generic dreadful cover i don't know, they're doing it a terrible disservice. i also read Kurt Vonnegut's Slapstick or Lonesome No More because i haven't re-read one of his for ages, and it was lying around. not one of his best, which is a bit of a meaningless statement because 'not one of his best' roughly equates with 'shits all over his contemporaries' as far as i'm concerned.
now back to the Burroughs, mind... i'm daunted..
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