*What book are you reading ?

[dogDBC]

I finished 'Vernon God Little' (DBC Pierrre) last night. It was a stunning read. A real treat of a novel.

I only bought it because of an extract that I'd read last weekend. I liked the style and set aside everything I'd heard about the Booker (and Pierre's somewhat unconventional financial dealings (!)) and grabbed it on Tuesday night. Bliss. Caulfield, move over.

Thanks to Waterstone's 3 for 2 offer I'm sorted through until Monday I reckon.

Also purchased 'Twelve', Nick McDonnel and the third part of John Simpson's autobiog. 'News from No-Man's Land'.

I need to get back to 'Everything is illuminated' though 'cos the owner of this wants it returned. Unfortunately, I ran out of spliff a quarter of the way through it... I was spleened at this, do not dub me stoner...

 

[Swearing Nonna]

I bought a couple of cheap books yesterday. Checked what was available on the shelves at home and decided I couldn't bear re-reading another book so for £3 each I got:

Catcher in the rye - JD Salinger

Lanark - Alasdair Gray

Started Catcher in the Rye yesterday, early days yet.

 

[easy g]

just finished Northern Lights by Phillip Pulman...feel like im flying by the seat of my pants

stuck into The Subtle Knife now....

 

[Dubversion]

Now Dig This - The Collected Writings of Terry Southern.

strange fella

 

[Fozzie Bear]

Just finished:

Jonthan Franzen - The Corrections (thought it was pretty damn fine, but then I hardly ever read fiction)

David Toop - Ocean of Sound (on ambient music - pretty good, tho I must confess to skimming the more arty classical bits)

Just started:

Polly Toynbee - Hard Work (her account of going to live on low wages. Essentially "poverty porn" for well off Guardian readers, but quite good on statistics and stuff. Plus a weird insight into a world where people normally pay hundreds of quid to eat in restaurants on a regular basis and are horrified at the prospect that perhaps some of the rest of us are not able to).

Jon Savage - England's Dreaming (on the Sex Pistols)

Big up Hackney Libraries.

 

[Nina]

yeah the library seems to be working for me too.

Just got Graham Greene The End of the Affair.

Finished Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five yesterday...actually, I was a little disappointed.

 

[dogDBC]

Fozzie - the Polly Toynbee one sounds interesting.

Mrs Dog has just arrived back and given me prezzie: 'Eats, Shoots and Leaves' Lynn Truss - a lot of chat about this in the media.

I want 'Toast' by Nigel Slater as well. Sod it, I'll pick it up tomorrow...

 

[Jeow]

I finished "Ignorance" by Milan Kundera today, and before that, the ubiquitous Life of Pi (but it is good...)

easy g - NL (and the other 2) is probably my favourite book

 

[Yossarian]

Dervla Murphy - Muddling through in Madagascar.

Excellent travelogue about a middle-aged woman and her daughter travelling through Madagascar, the south of which sounds like one of the most surreal places on Earth.

 

[jayeola]

"Cryptonomicon" by Neal Stephenson. Recommended to me last week. Getting into it as I have got a most seriuos cold <sniffle>

 

[grubby local]

I've just read Bob Geldof's 1986 autobigraphy 'Is that it?', suprisingly gripping and in parts a little disconcerting when you know what happened next (ie after 1986).

Now on to Robert Fisk's 'Pity The Nation: Lebanon at war' which takes it's title from a Kahlil Gibran poem: "Pity the nation that welcomes its new ruler with trumpetings, and farewells him with hootings, only to welcome another with trumpetings again".

Am doing Thomas Mann's Death in Venice (I know it's only about three words long, but i'm only one-and-a-half words through it).

gx

 

[Pickman's model]

got three on the go:

robert service's biography of lenin;

mario vargas llosa'a "the war of the end of the world";

poul anderson's "three hearts and three lions".

though i imagine i'll have finished the anderson by tomorrow.

 

[newharper]

Just found 'Scoop', one Ive meant to catch up with for a very long time.

 

[oddjob]

just about half way through ian rankin's 'beggars banquet'

i bet him, ian banks, and irvine welsh are good mates

 

[chegrimandi]

Originally posted by easy g
just finished Northern Lights by Phillip Pulman...feel like im flying by the seat of my pants

stuck into The Subtle Knife now....

I've seen loads of people reading this fucker and it just looks like any other sci-fi snore.....am I wrong? It also looks like all those other phenomenon books, like harry shitter, books that are a 'must read'....but easy I would trust your judgement so I'm intrigued....



um 100 years of solitude by that colombian bloke I can't remember his name...

 

[Dubversion]

cheg - i can't abide sci fi or harry potter.

but pullman's books are in a different fucking league.

this is radical stuff, for kids especially. the Republic Of Heaven. Gay angels. the works.

trust us on this... you'll have to get used to the fact that it is written in the 'fantasy' idiom - talking animals and the like - but it all works beautifully. and the pay off is phenomenal.

 

[Janine]

Vermeer , a monograph by Sir Lawrence Gowing.

 

[chez]

Hannahs gift
Maris Housden

A heart wrenching story about a three year olds battle against cancer
a remarkable story, remarkably told.

 

[Orang Utan]

Originally posted by dogDBC
'Eats, Shoots and Leaves' Lynn Truss - a lot of chat about this in the media.

I'm gonna look out for this - I bet Justin would love it - come to think of it - where is he? He hasn't posted for a while

 

[mrkikiet]

youth by coetzee, after not being very keen on him at first i am really growing to his writing.

justin dissappeared after a set-to on P&P, i think.

 

[Rollem]

"do not pass go" by tim moore. tells the tale of the monopoly board, and the 'real life' of the streets / places chosen.

in fairness i only bought it to read what it said about the old kent road i dont even like the monopoly game....but i'm only three chapters in and have to say, its a pleasant surprise so far

 

[jd]

Cryptonomicon (Neal Stephenson) is feckin great...hard-ish work (for a novel) but tremendously good and worth it. Despite NS being Bill Gates' best mate or something.

I've just bought Quicksilver, a new Stephenson book. Also a Peter Cook collection called Tragically I was an Only Twin, and some other ones that I might keep or give away at xmas - Vernon God Little and Everything is Illuminated. 3 for 2 innit.

 

[Bond]

The Fall of the House of Usher and Other Writings - Edgar Allan Poe

The Raven is still one of my most favourite poems

 

[oddjob]

Originally posted by Bond
Edgar Allan Poe:

poor bastard is dead

the spookyest

 

[Bond]

Originally posted by Russ5
poor bastard is dead

the spookyest

Um yes, is public knowledge that he died in 1849. Unless there's another that died very recently of course

 

[oddjob]

Originally posted by Bond
Um yes, is public knowledge that he died in 1849. Unless there's another that died very recently of course

poe is the sabre

 

[J77]

Thought I'd bump this long lasting thread by saying that I've just started the 2nd volume of Tom Jones, which bizarrely starts half way through one of the books...

Bigger than Lord of the Rings, this one...

 

[Roadkill]

I've got two books on the go at the moment: one is The Restaurant at the End of the Universe by Douglas Adams, which I'm working slowly through. It's good, but often I don't fnd myself wanting to read it when I'm in the mood to read something. IYSWIM.

I'm also reading The Battle of the Atlantic by John Costello and Terry Hughes. I must have had this years: it's got my name and my old class at school when I was 13 written inside the front cover, but until now I'd never got round to reading it. It's really good, actually: it's easy to read and informative and it's got a lot of eyewitness accounts and comments which bring the subject to life a bit.

 

[alco]

Originally posted by chegrimandi
um 100 years of solitude by that colombian bloke I can't remember his name...

Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

Haven't read Hundred Years of Solitude yet but Of Love and Other Demons is excellent.

And me, not reading anything atm. Gave up on Crime and Punishment halfway through 'cos I thought it was boring.

 

[ziconess]

Don't forget 'Love in the time of cholera' alco




Am currently reading 'The rediscovery of man' a group of short stories by Cordwainer Smith.

Started brilliantly but has gone off track a little but has some cracking tales, best being 'The lady who sailed the soul' magical stuff


Have the new Alistair Reynolds to read next but will try & resist until christmas