*What book are you reading ?
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Orang Utan
They cannot crucify you if your hand is in a fist
I hadn't started it last night though! Is it bad form to quote yourself if you have something to add?geordietim said:haven't you just quoted yourself? good to see your opinions haven't changed too much overnight, or that you haven't finished it yet
onemonkey
winmonkey
one of my new year's resolutions was to keep a note of the books i read this year, here's what i got through in january:
Don't Panic - Neil Gaiman
A good book for Douglas Adams/HHGTTG anoraks - recently revised edition, Neil Gaiman's typically crystal clear style with lots of gentle in-jokes for the enthusiasts.
A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
slightly ruined by over-hype, it was funnee but ultimately the irredeemable grotesqueness of Ignatius J. Reilly riles too much.
After the Quake - Haruki Murakami short book of short stories all somehow related to or inspired by the Kobe earthquake.. some good, some average - an elephant vanishes is a better collection.
Attention - Harold Pashler (ed.)
summary of psychological research on attention - inevitably mostly boring - but the connectionist chapter was reet gradely.
Company for Henry - P G Wodehouse
typical wodehouse - feckless toffs and eccentric americans tootling back and forth from town to country house while purloining paperweights (C17 french!) while others fall in love.. utterly excellent - Wodehouse is a genius.
When We Were Orphans - Kazuo Ishiguro
u75 jan bookgroup choice - an implausibly plotted, poorly characterised faux 1930's detective-story-that-isn't.. and compared to Toole & Wodehouse, (say) it's written in a very workmanlike fashion.
Inner Vision - Semir Zeki
His thesis is that "art is the brain of the beholder not his eyes" - fair enough but the book is neither fish nor fowl.. and fails to convince you that he is saying anything new or all that interesting. (but i may just be bitter because he wouldn't give me a job.)
Portrait of the Artist as an Old Man - Joseph Heller
Joseph Heller was getting on a bit when he wrote this tale of old age, writers block and failing libido.. clever and witty rather than funny and bitter.
Confessions of a Dangerous Mind - Chuck Barris
CIA hitman & the TV producer who invented Blind Date & the Gong show (a talent show for the talentless) - someone should have shot him! - actually they tried and failed.. an entertaining biography but not one in which you will find anything you actually wanted to learn
Mad Pride - Pete Shaunessey (ed.)
tales from survivors of the mental health system, it's a wonder how they kept the little sanity they start out with.
Postmodern Pooh - Frederick Crews
Frederick Crews has a frighteningly large brain, he dislikes the pomposity and ignorance of postmodern literary theory and in deeply malicious and mischevious style he parodies some of the worst offenders as they might read Pooh.
Don't Panic - Neil Gaiman
A good book for Douglas Adams/HHGTTG anoraks - recently revised edition, Neil Gaiman's typically crystal clear style with lots of gentle in-jokes for the enthusiasts.
A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
slightly ruined by over-hype, it was funnee but ultimately the irredeemable grotesqueness of Ignatius J. Reilly riles too much.
After the Quake - Haruki Murakami short book of short stories all somehow related to or inspired by the Kobe earthquake.. some good, some average - an elephant vanishes is a better collection.
Attention - Harold Pashler (ed.)
summary of psychological research on attention - inevitably mostly boring - but the connectionist chapter was reet gradely.
Company for Henry - P G Wodehouse
typical wodehouse - feckless toffs and eccentric americans tootling back and forth from town to country house while purloining paperweights (C17 french!) while others fall in love.. utterly excellent - Wodehouse is a genius.
When We Were Orphans - Kazuo Ishiguro
u75 jan bookgroup choice - an implausibly plotted, poorly characterised faux 1930's detective-story-that-isn't.. and compared to Toole & Wodehouse, (say) it's written in a very workmanlike fashion.
Inner Vision - Semir Zeki
His thesis is that "art is the brain of the beholder not his eyes" - fair enough but the book is neither fish nor fowl.. and fails to convince you that he is saying anything new or all that interesting. (but i may just be bitter because he wouldn't give me a job.)
Portrait of the Artist as an Old Man - Joseph Heller
Joseph Heller was getting on a bit when he wrote this tale of old age, writers block and failing libido.. clever and witty rather than funny and bitter.
Confessions of a Dangerous Mind - Chuck Barris
CIA hitman & the TV producer who invented Blind Date & the Gong show (a talent show for the talentless) - someone should have shot him! - actually they tried and failed.. an entertaining biography but not one in which you will find anything you actually wanted to learn
Mad Pride - Pete Shaunessey (ed.)
tales from survivors of the mental health system, it's a wonder how they kept the little sanity they start out with.
Postmodern Pooh - Frederick Crews
Frederick Crews has a frighteningly large brain, he dislikes the pomposity and ignorance of postmodern literary theory and in deeply malicious and mischevious style he parodies some of the worst offenders as they might read Pooh.
Orang Utan
They cannot crucify you if your hand is in a fist
Do you have a job? 
That's a lot of books! Show-off!
That's a lot of books! Show-off!
Snakefeather
has his funky trousers on
I just started reading "All Tomorrow's Parties" by William Gibson. I read "Neuromancer" and found it gripping, evocative, but totally oblique. "All Tomorrow's Parties" is far more accessible but less evocative in its style and prose.
Neither book seems to me to evoke the same kind of "dark future" qualities as the more cinematic and otherwise mostly-superficial (e.g. "Ghost In The Shell", various anime, roleplaying games, et cetera) examples of the cyberpunk genre that Gibson seems to have inspired, if that makes sense. I'm not sure if I'm not just not quite reading his work from the right viewpoint or what. I think maybe the point where he was innovative passed shortly after "Neuromancer", and what he's saying has become such common iconography that it's lost on me.
I also read "Johnny Mnemonic" in a compilation whose title I've forgotten, and it seemed totally pointless to me. Nothing significant happens in it, the protagonist does almost nothing for himself, and the ending just resonates with "Ah, well, never mind, eh?". In fact. everything of his I've read so far breaks all of the rules that editors teach each other about how stories should be written, including the rare sensible ones. From the viewpoint of somebody who gets abuse from these people all the time for breaking the same rules, this annoys me.
Not that I harbour any kind of resentment towards Gibson for this. Or others, like Lovecraft for instance (off the top of my head). It just annoys me that editors who claim to love this kind of literature are such hypocrites about other people's. The rules they apply are totally arbitrary until an author owned by somebody else breaks them in public, and then he's a genius. But nobody else is allowed to do it.
/bitter rant
Neither book seems to me to evoke the same kind of "dark future" qualities as the more cinematic and otherwise mostly-superficial (e.g. "Ghost In The Shell", various anime, roleplaying games, et cetera) examples of the cyberpunk genre that Gibson seems to have inspired, if that makes sense. I'm not sure if I'm not just not quite reading his work from the right viewpoint or what. I think maybe the point where he was innovative passed shortly after "Neuromancer", and what he's saying has become such common iconography that it's lost on me.
I also read "Johnny Mnemonic" in a compilation whose title I've forgotten, and it seemed totally pointless to me. Nothing significant happens in it, the protagonist does almost nothing for himself, and the ending just resonates with "Ah, well, never mind, eh?". In fact. everything of his I've read so far breaks all of the rules that editors teach each other about how stories should be written, including the rare sensible ones. From the viewpoint of somebody who gets abuse from these people all the time for breaking the same rules, this annoys me.
Not that I harbour any kind of resentment towards Gibson for this. Or others, like Lovecraft for instance (off the top of my head). It just annoys me that editors who claim to love this kind of literature are such hypocrites about other people's. The rules they apply are totally arbitrary until an author owned by somebody else breaks them in public, and then he's a genius. But nobody else is allowed to do it.
/bitter rant
Martin Millar - Love & Peace With Melody Paradise
more out of loyalty really, used to love his stuff. this is quite sweet, but i'm not sure i'm enjoying having him actually in the book, and trying to maintain some kind of ironic distance from all the hippy nonsense
his early stuff - Lux, Alby Starvation etc - wasn't quite as twee, somehow..
got Wiseblood by Flannery O'Connor on the top of the pile for when i finish this..
more out of loyalty really, used to love his stuff. this is quite sweet, but i'm not sure i'm enjoying having him actually in the book, and trying to maintain some kind of ironic distance from all the hippy nonsense
his early stuff - Lux, Alby Starvation etc - wasn't quite as twee, somehow..
got Wiseblood by Flannery O'Connor on the top of the pile for when i finish this..
MysteryGuest
beyond boring and interesting
Just starting TSOG: The Thing That Ate The Constitution. It’s nice to see a Robert Anton Wilson book that isn’t a film script, dictionary etc, for the first time in years. It’s still quite bitty, being as far as I can see a collection of stuff from his website, although it also looks like it has a theme and will fit together as I go through it. Plus he seems to be on typically droll, sarcastic form, but warm with it (does that make sense?). I know people have said this before, but he'd make a great granddad. 
Orang Utan
They cannot crucify you if your hand is in a fist
It's pay day so I've just gone on a book bonanza and have come back with these:
The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night-Time - Mark Haddon
Eats, Shoots & Leaves - Lynne Truss (Justin would love this)
The Little Friend - Donna Tartt
Jennifer Government - Max Barry
The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night-Time - Mark Haddon
Eats, Shoots & Leaves - Lynne Truss (Justin would love this)
The Little Friend - Donna Tartt
Jennifer Government - Max Barry
Simultaneously, N.P. by Banana Yoshimoto, which I had to put aside for a bit because I was feeling really depressed for other reasons. It is deeply sad (in a very sweet kind of way) and is based around a series of intricately related suicides. There's also a lot of incest and other weird stuff going on. It's both a very gentle and very disturbing book.
So to buck myself up a bit I borrowed Tim Moore's Frost on My Moustache off Mrs Magpie. Like all his books, it's extremely funny.
So to buck myself up a bit I borrowed Tim Moore's Frost on My Moustache off Mrs Magpie. Like all his books, it's extremely funny.
Random One
Gwanin
i started Big Fish.
fractionMan
Custom Title
Yet more Iain M Banks. Against a dark background this time.
souljacker
innit
Just finished Michael Moore, Dude wheres my country. Totally wasted on me as I knew most of the stuff in there anyway. Hopefully lots of yanks will read it because it's aimed at them.
I'm going to try On the Road again now. Hopefully I'll actually be able to finish it this time
Also reading Cisco CCNA self study books for an upcoming exam. But you don't really want to know that do you.
I'm going to try On the Road again now. Hopefully I'll actually be able to finish it this time
Also reading Cisco CCNA self study books for an upcoming exam. But you don't really want to know that do you.
ViolentPanda
Hardly getting over it.
"The Dawn of the French Revolution" by Mandel Pio Correa
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