*What book are you reading ?

[Traitor Ohio]

Currently I'm re-reading for the hundreth time is the Adrian Mole books, which I have read many a time before. Even though I know what happens I still find something new in them.

Traitor O.
----------

 

[Roadkill]

K. Theodore Hoppen - The Mid-Victorian Generation, 1846-1886

I'm not reading all of it: it's part-work part-pleasure so I'm skipping the bits that don't much interest me or aren't relevant, but either way it's superb. It's very readable, very comprehensive and very informative - just the way I like my history books.

 

[Orang Utan]

Just started reading Nelson Mandela's The Long Walk To Freedom cos it's about time I did, but saw Douglas Coupland's Hey Nostradamus in the shop for £3.99, so I think I might be reading that instead.

 

[Pickman's model]

have you had a glance at mandela's first book? something about walking, but forget exact title.

 

[Orang Utan]

I thought his autobiogarphy WAS his first book - it does have walk in the title

 

[ViolentPanda]

Free At Last: Benn Diaries - Tony Benn
Winter's Heart - Robert Jordan

 

[Dubversion]

Eric Hobsbawm's Age Of Extremes: A Short History Of The 20th Century.

and i will finish it. i will (grits teeth determinedly)

look, i tried.

i really did.

i just can't concentrate that much any more


so now i'm reading a pile of old Idler magazines

 

[pinky]

I'm currently reading 'Overnight to Innsbruck' by Denyse Woods & I am loving every second of - first book that has really grabbed me in ages....I am on the edge of my seat dying to find out what happens next, it's as gripping as any thriller & such a well written story.....

about 1/4 of the book left & at the mo i have it kinda half hidden under my keyboard so i can sneak a few pages when no-one is looking....

 

[rennie]

I've just started reading "From Beirut to Jerusalem" by Thomas Freedman, the NY Times correspondent in Lebanon during the war... interesting reading about one's society and city under constant bombing... so far ive got thru one chapter where he's trying to "describe" Beirut during the civil war and ends up constructing this image of order and chaos, fury, kindness and a total abscence of any semblance of order... a bit how i remember it... of course it's sligtly patronising coming from an american journalist, but it's good to know how you're being perceived, no?

 

[mango5]

Jusr finished The Time Ships by Stephen Baxter, a sequel to H.G.Wells The Time Machine. Also Alice Through the Looking Glass and John Brunner's Shockwave Rider which I can't recommend highly enough. A pre-cyberpunk novel that is "remarkably prescient" according to this round up of Brunner's best known work.

 

[ringolevio]

Homecoming - Earl Hamner Jr

This is a Christmas tale from Spencer's Mountain, Virginia; set in the Depression of the 30s, and was the book which inspired the TV series The Waltons.

Only half-way through, but really enjoying it so far.

 

[marty21]

i've got a ww2 thing going on, by my bed is "berlin the fall, by anthony beavour, and i'm carrying around "D-day", by stephen ambrose...enjoying both...

 

[zora]

I'm just reading There's A Boy In The Girls' Bathroom by Louis 'Holes' Sachar.

Quite similar to Holes in that it starts off pretty depressingly with a friendless kid in lots of trouble, but getting more cheerful, optimistic and happy without ever being cheesy.

 

[starfish]

Bill Hicks, Love All The People, which i just got today.

 

[chez]

My Permaculture Magazine

its only published 4 times a year so I try and read it slowly because as soon as I have finished one issue I am can't wait for the next.

the best definition I have heard for permaculture is revolutuion disguised as organic gardening

 

[Dubversion]

Waterstones' 3 for 2 deal dragged me in on Saturday. i'm about a 1/4 of the way through Drop City by TC Boyle which is brilliant so far, about the dark side of the 60s commune dream. and then after that i've got Holes by Sachar and GB 84 (a fictionalised account of the miners' strike) to look forward to.

 

[mrkikiet]

Brett Eastion Ellis - The Informers

not his greatest.

 

[J77]

Just finished Tom Jones by Fielding - an exhausting read, but ultimately worth it

Now it's time for some light SF reading:

Virtual Light by William Gibson.

 

[Orang Utan]

GB 84 (a fictionalised account of the miners' strike) to look forward to.

I think I went to the opening for this. It's David Peace ain't it? He writes detective thrillers set in the North around the timeof the Yorkshire Ripper - a friend has been bugging me to read him for ages. Let us know how you get on with it - this looks a lot more ambitious than his other work.

 

[PursuedByBears]

Now reading The Dice Man by Luke Reinhart. I'm about 12 chapters in and I'm still not sure what I think of it. It reminds me a lot of American Psycho (although less graphic).

 

[corporate whore]

Am reading Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll by Ian Balls, a biography of Ian Dury (no shit, I hear you cry).

It's good - done with the mighty fella's approval. Polio sounds fucking horrific.

Loadsa stuff I didn't know - he wasn't even from bleedin' Essex! Innit!

 

[bezzer]

Learning to Use Statistical Tests in Psychology - Judith Greene

Discovering Statistics Using SPSS for Windows - andy Field

its "lovely stuff"

hmm kinda

 

[rubbershoes]

Now reading The Dice Man by Luke Reinhart. I'm about 12 chapters in and I'm still not sure what I think of it. It reminds me a lot of American Psycho (although less graphic).

The Diceman was written along time before American Psycho, I think.

I don’t see a great deal of similarity between the books myself. The dice man is meant to be a comedy for a start and there aren’t a whole bundle of laughs in American Psycho.

 

[Orang Utan]

Whjat are you talking about it? American Psycho is full of laughs. It's a comic masterpiece. Patrick Bateman is only marginally more annoying and objectionable (and therefore hilarious) than Ignatius J Reilly.

 

[Dubversion]

The Diceman was written along time before American Psycho, I think.

I don’t see a great deal of similarity between the books myself. The dice man is meant to be a comedy for a start and there aren’t a whole bundle of laughs in American Psycho.

and whereas Patrick Bateman is an absurd awful character, you appear to be supposed to sympathise with the Dice Man character, despite him being a rapist amongst other things. there's some VERY dodgy messages in that book. like a lot of 60s free-love nonsense, to be honest...

 

[Dirty Martini]

American Psycho is full of laughs. It's a comic masterpiece

Agreed, a great comic novel

 

[mrkikiet]

diceman was written waaaaaaaaaaaaaay before american psycho.

i thought diceman was pretty limited. i'm not sure you were supposed to sympathise with Rhinehart, i got the impression he was meant to feel superior to you because he had escaped from norms of behaviour?

 

[wiskey]

i bought a copy of gullivers travels yesterday in the second hand bookshop because i've never read it.

so i'm going to start that . . . soon

 

[chegrimandi]

just finished the Bell Jar by Slyvia Plath....bit depressing and sad, but readable enough....was a bit disappointed tbh....

just started some biography about Franco....who had a big oedipus complex apparently....

 

[girasol]

diceman was written waaaaaaaaaaaaaay before american psycho.

i thought diceman was pretty limited. i'm not sure you were supposed to sympathise with Rhinehart, i got the impression he was meant to feel superior to you because he had escaped from norms of behaviour?

I don't think he tried to appear superior at all... To me he just looked completely stupid, but situations he got in were very funny indeed. In my mind the author was just taking the piss out of his own main character.

I thought The Dice Man was a million times funnier and more interesting than American Psycho. When I read Psycho I remember skipping loads of pages cause I hated the way he described everything in such painful detail - and I'm not talking about his crimes, I'm talking about his clothes, food, etc...

The Dice Man was written in 1969 I think, and American Psycho in early 90s?