what are you reading now?

Mr. Tea

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
luka said:
i dont have a problem with owen hatherly though. i quite approve. at least he carved out his own niche.
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I'm not a disciple or anything, but I've read some things by Hatherley that I thought were quite good. He clearly cares about and has intelligent things to say about modern architecture and urban planning, and god knows Britain could do with more people like that. Preferably in town planning units and offices of government, rather than just in blogland and academia. Also I can't help but love a blog called "Sit down man, you're a bloody tragedy".
 
craner

craner

Beast of Burden
Why, thank you very much for that encouraging and happy observation Luke, that certainly started my day off with a zing.
 
craner

craner

Beast of Burden
and god knows Britain could do with more people like that. Preferably in town planning units and offices of government,
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This is true, as long as you like sheer concrete and Le Corbusier.
 
Mr. Tea

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
craner said:
This is true, as long as you like sheer concrete and Le Corbusier.
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I'd rather that than sickly yellow brick, mock-Tudor kitsch, stone-clad abominations and vile po-mo plastic gaudiness. And I'm sure Hatherley appreciates the good architecture we do have and doesn't just want to cover the country in concete for concrete's sake.

80% of Eindhoven is post-war as it got bombed to buggery, but there's some really good brutalist architecture here, it's not depressing at all. Much of the centre is pedestrianised, it doesn't take five minutes to cross the major roads and all the streets have cycle paths parallel to them. It's not like a new British town at all.
 
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slim jenkins

slim jenkins

El Hombre Invisible
faustus said:
i've only read a couple of short stories, but he always struck me as a bit precious.

he's massive here in spain though. last weekend i was looking for a book by an author whose surname is Villalobos, and in every shop I had to fight through shelf after shelf of Vila-Matas editions, wondering if the book I wanted might have been in between or behind. but it wasn't.
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Funny that, a writer like him being so popular. I wonder what that says about Spanish readers. He is not, after all, a Great Storyteller, the kind which The Public (here at least) normally embrace. I haven't read his short stories, but his 'novels' (that I've read) seem so specifically about the nature of Literature, Authorship, Writing & the Reality/Fiction matrix that I would have thought their appeal fairly limited. Top marks to Spain, I say.
 
F

faustus

Well-known member
I recently finished The Fat Years, a Beijing-set part-thriller part-political diatribe in which a month has been erased from everyone's collective memory.

I put a review up here, which is something I haven't done before. Would be interested to hear what people think of it (the review, I mean, as well as the book).
 
jenks

jenks

thread death
I picked up Bashevis Singer's A Friend of Kafka in a second hand shop the other day - not read any of him before and thought it was going to be Bellow-lite but it's not, really interesting stories of both pre and post war yiddish life both in the States and Poland. Not quite the hyper-real kind of thing which seems to be the preserve of this thread nowadays but certainly someone who knows his Dostoevsky.
 
slowtrain

slowtrain

Well-known member
I am reading Manly P. Hall's "The Secret Teachings of All Ages"

It is utterly insane and crazy, I don't know why Penguin published this as anything other than a novel.

He is currently asserting that the Great Pyramid was built about 70,000 years ago. His evidence: a mate calculated that if it was built then, a certain star would shine down into the secret crypt.

My favourite line so far: "scientist estimate the age of the human race in tens of thousands of years; occultists, in tens of millions"
 
B

BareBones

wheezy
Can you lot recommend me something good to read? for the first time in ages i'm without a book and i'm totally stumped as to what to read next. The books I normally read are by American males and so something that's not written by an American male would be good. Or an American male novel is fine just as long as it's not a "Great American Novel". Something like Borges or Bolano I guess is what i'm looking for, something a bit fantastical and not too dry. Also recommend me some good female authors as shamefully I hardly ever read anything that's not written by a male (American). Thankyou.
 
grizzleb

grizzleb

Well-known member
I couldn't do the Pessoa in a onner, too dense. It is pretty fantastic though, different from anything else I've ever read. One of my favourite books actually.
 
Mr. Tea

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
BareBones said:
Also recommend me some good female authors as shamefully I hardly ever read anything that's not written by a male
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Same here, though I've just started Cat's Eye by Margaret Atwood. Any Atwood fans in da house? I quite enjoyed The Handmaid's Tale, which I read for Eng Lit A-level many years ago.
 
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