*What book are you reading ?

[Blagsta]

Iain Sinclair - Lights Out for the Territory

 

[Dubversion]

Originally posted by Blagsta
Iain Sinclair - Lights Out for the Territory

genius, isn't it? but don't you just wonder how some people got to be so fucking smart?

 

[Blagsta]

Only bought it today, I'm on page 8, so I'll tell you in a couple of days...

 

[zora]

Meant to be reading the bookgroup book, Nights At The Circus by Angela Carter, but got interrupted by Michael Moore's Dude, Where's My Country.
Also on my bedside table but on the back burner at the mo: The House At Pooh Corner and Chomsky's Rogue States.

 

[Blagsta]

Originally posted by Blagsta
Only bought it today, I'm on page 8, so I'll tell you in a couple of days...

Well I'm now on page 78 and its pretty fucking engrossing. His style of prose, how he fluidly goes from one concept, line of thought or reference to another, sometimes seemingly at a tangent, but always connected, is almost hallucinatory.

 

[Orang Utan]

I can't get with Sinclair - I never finished Lights Out - found his prose a little to allusive to things I know nothing of and therefore rather difficult to get a handle on.


Just got these out the library:
Pattern Recognition - William Gibson - this looks cool - set NOW and in London.
Red Dog - Louis De Berniere - I have been pining for a pet recently, but this will have to suffice.
Asylum - Patrick McGrath - I loved Martha Peake, so I hope this will match it in its Gothic portrayal of derangement and doomed love.

 

[zora]

Slight thread derailment: On Sunday I also listened to the audiobook of Jim Dodge's FUP - a magical tale involving a whiskey swilling 99year old gambler, his grandson and a big very hungry duck.

 

[onemonkey]

Originally posted by zora
Slight thread derailment: On Sunday I also listened to the audiobook of Jim Dodge's FUP - a magical tale involving a whiskey swilling 99year old gambler, his grandson and a big very hungry duck.

Jim Dodge rocks n rolls.. sadly his books are as rare as duck's teeth.. there are only four of them the tiny tale of Fup Duck, (which unlike Tiny is tiny), a slim volume of poetry with more than a hint of zen about it. Of his two big books, Stone Junction is gripping in its own unusual way but Not Fade Away is utterly brilliant.

witness this post

 

[onemonkey]

i'm now reading more of The Meaning of Things by A C Grayling..

mainly because he hasn't yet repsonded to my letter

 

[kool_benny]

does it count if I finished it yeterday??

Dispatches, by Michael Herr - awesome tales of his time with the 'grunts' in Vietnam as a war correspondant.

He then got involved in Apoacalypse now and Full metal jacket, and I can see why!

 

[Donna Ferentes]

Also, does it count if you're reading them for review?

 

[Rollem]

Originally posted by Rollem
about to start 'girlfriend in a coma', by douglas coupland...

am about half way through, and am completely engrossed.

 

[Lollybelle]

I'm reading 'A Town Like Alice' by Nevil Shute, which seems to be full of vaguely racist language but it was written in the 50s so I suppose it's of its time. It's a lovely story so far, heroism and crucifixions no less, I reckon I'll probably bawl at some point.

 

[Dubversion]

Originally posted by Rollem
am about half way through, and am completely engrossed.

i've mentioned this before, but even if girlfriend... wasn't a great book (and it's a fucking great book ), it would still be worth attention for the look on Mark Lawson and Tony Parsons face when Tom Paulin went into raptures about it on the late Review.

he was fucking frothing at the mouth.

this is a man who generally doesn't like anything new enough to have involved electricity in its creation..

 

[Donna Ferentes]

That's kind of what's so great about Paulin. He's not only rigorously honest (compare Tony Parsons who'll say anything if it sounds provocative enough) but he brings to bear, on contemporary works, a sensbility that's steeped in the appreciation of Milton and Sophocles. When you have critics (step forward Miranda Sawyer) who give the impression of never having read a book that's older than they are then it's particularly important to have a figure like Paulin who understands that literature has a rather greater purpose than to supply the background to what-the-media-set-in-London-are-talking-about-this-week.

 

[Mr Retro]

Good as Gold by Heller, got a loan of it recently and started it last night. It's started a bit slowly though.

 

[higster]

Good as Gold is good, but not as good as Catch 22, though as Heller said, what is?

Apart from struggling through If On a Winter's Night a Traveller, by Italo Calvino, I'm sailing through The Clock Winder, by Anne Tyler. I think I'll have read all her books when I finish it - I think she's remarkable.

 

[onemonkey]

Originally posted by higster
Good as Gold is good, but not as good as Catch 22, though as Heller said, what is?

our very own yossarian, yossarian recommends Something Happened..

I'm kind of reading A portrait of the artist as an old man, which is kind of good.

but I'm kind of inclined to agree with JH, there aren't many books as good as Catch 22.. Slaughter House 5 isn't bad , Tin Drum is great & the last u75 book group choice The Good Soldier Svejk is as close as you can get to a Catch 22 for WW1 - although i suspect it has lost a lot of it's bite in translation.

 

[shoddysolutions]

Sophie's World by Jostein Gaardner (I think)

A potted history of philosophy in the form of a (Platonic?) dialogue between a 15-year-old girl and a mysterious stranger. About a third of the way through it at the moment, and I'm engrossed.

 

[Roadkill]

I tried to read Sophie's World when I was about 15 and couldn't get into it at all. I've found my old copy at my Dad's house, though, and it's sitting on my bookshelves waiting for me to get round to giving it another try...

 

[shoddysolutions]

Originally posted by Roadkill
I tried to read Sophie's World when I was about 15 and couldn't get into it at all. I've found my old copy at my Dad's house, though, and it's sitting on my bookshelves waiting for me to get round to giving it another try...

I'm really getting into it because I'm studying psychology at the moment, and the themes that run through the book are the building blocks of the other stuff I have read.

 

[Donna Ferentes]

Originally posted by onemonkey
our very own yossarian, yossarian recommends Something Happened..

I recommend not bothering.

 

[onemonkey]

i'm studying psychology too.. which is why i need to break up all those experiments and questionnaires with a little thought and wider reflection.. philosophy fits the bit.. quite liked Sophie's World but not sure how much philosophy one would actually learn in reading it.

i'm reading The Meaning of Things by AC Grayling- more dipping into it because it is a loose collection of mini essays and polemics on... well... the meaning of things.. Mercy, Fear, Love, Sin, Memory, Ambition, Age, all sorts.

Based on his saturday guardian column, and you can see him skimming over some stuff in journalistic shorthand, but it's thoughtful and thought provoking, worth a look.

roadkill & shoddy, you might also be interested in this little project of mine:

phil.onemonkey.org

 

[Dubversion]

Originally posted by shoddysolutions
Sophie's World by Jostein Gaardner (I think)

A potted history of philosophy in the form of a (Platonic?) dialogue between a 15-year-old girl and a mysterious stranger. About a third of the way through it at the moment, and I'm engrossed.

see, we were given this to read as part of a philosophy degree course, which seemed a bit odd somehow.

i guess the easy way you're led into inquiring into things 'philosophically' (ahem) is interesting, but to be honest i thought the whole concept (learn about Kant with a little girl) was a bit bogus really

 

[onemonkey]

still infinitely preferable to learning about Kant with Kant, he was an appalling writer. Hume is bad enough but Kant ack ack ack..

 

[onemonkey]

breakfast for champions is now my new favourite Vonnegut novel..

i'm laughing out loud while reading it. well.. more of a broad smile breaking through into a suppressed chuckle.. i am british, after all we don't laugh out loud in public unless we've previously been told it's okay .. sorry!

oh and we apologise far more than we need to too.. sorry!

oh damn, sorry! argh! s..

 

[shoddysolutions]

Originally posted by Justin
I recommend not bothering.

I'll second that ... nothing happens, really.

 

[wildwildlifer]

Ignatius P O' Reilly

renewing acquaintance with

"Confederacy Of Dunces" by John Kennedy Toole
a candidate for funniest book of all time
interesting story behind it as unpublished during author's life. He committed suicide and mother found the book under his bed!
thank the lord or someone

also recently got into John Burnside 'Living Nowhere' which i really rated
anyone else got any suggestions for others of his?

 

[oddjob]

philosophy

I think i'll add kierkgaard; 'the sickness unto death' to my philosophy reading



nice one

 

[Voley]

Ignatius P O' Reilly

Originally posted by wildwildlifer
renewing acquaintance with

"Confederacy Of Dunces" by John Kennedy Toole
a candidate for funniest book of all time

Totally agree. Genuinely laugh-out-loud funny pretty much all the way through.

IP Reilly really is the business. His Mum asks him to get a job and he comes out with stuff like 'Fortuna alone knows what other monstrous effronteries you intend to visit upon my person, Mother!'