Benny Bunter
Well-known member
wicked. cheers faustus
what are you reading now?
blacktulip
Pregnant with mandrakes
So fucking funny: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Only_Built_4_Cuban_Linx...#Cristal
pattycakes_
Can turn naughty
slaughterhouse 5 - kurt vonnegut
enjoying it so far, 'bout halfway. nice use of nonlinear narrative. will have to seek out more by this guy when i'm finished.
"so it goes"
enjoying it so far, 'bout halfway. nice use of nonlinear narrative. will have to seek out more by this guy when i'm finished.
"so it goes"
bandshell
Grand High Witch
Vonnegut is excellent. I've read Cat's Cradle and Mother Night, both of which were top cow.
IdleRich
IdleRich
Actually, gonna revise my opinion upwards on this. The further in I get the more it kind of coalesces - from the diverse footnotes and half-mentions of things that later turn out to be important - into something a lot more focussed than it originally seemed. It reminds me in that sense of The Sound And The Fury - I really like the way that a part in the middle of a three page footnote listing the hilariously named films of an "apres-garde" director can actually turn out to have a bearing on things much later on in the book. I also like the way that the footnotes disorient you by changing from dry objective notes to those preceded by "presumably" or other examples of guesswork from the author.
Also you've got to love a book where years are named after brands (the honour being auctioned to the highest bidder), a woman who keeps her external heart transplant in her handbag is killed by a purse-snatcher and a feminist tennis player and lecturer writes essays such as The Toothless Predator: Breast-Feeding as Sexual Assault.
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Benny Bunter
Well-known member
just spent today reading all of Hemingways 'Old man and the sea' and it was a lovely way to spend the morning.
so glad you're enjoying it. i'm almost at the end of my second go through. it's my favourite book ever, i think. just the way it's so hilarious and moving at the same time, and so smart without being pretentious. the length is too daunting for most of my friends i recommend it to, but it gets better and better as it goes along.
it's on amazon.
i definitely want to read as much of his as possible, but each book is such a big commitment. might try The Royal Family next.
slim jenkins
El Hombre Invisible
Dying Inside by Robert Silverberg ('72) - so far so good tale of a telepathic New Yorker who makes money ghosting term papers for students but his mind-reading powers are failing. Intelligent, witty and convincing portrayal of what it would be like to have this ability. Part of the SF Masterworks series, but it's set in '76 and reads like a non-genre novel, if you get me drift.
empty mirror
remember the jackalope
I am reading my first e-book. On my Iphone. Borrowed from the local library. Imperial Bedrooms (finally getting 'round to it). Fast read, got through more than half of it in one go. Nice atmosphere of paranoia, desperation. Feels like a proper continuation of Less Than Zero, I got into not realizing that it was that or I'd have read it sooner. Reckon I will finish it today. Not at all daunted by the whole reading a book on a phone thing. It actually feels like you are proofing your friend's novel or something, more immediate than a printed thing, more akin to reading, say, Kerouac's typewritten scrolls (what I mean to say is that it feels like you are reading it in the same medium it was composed; I realize it probably wasn't written on an iPhone [can you imagine!] but yeah, on a screen, though, right?).
you
Well-known member
it probably was written on an iphone or similar device whilst watching the hills and waiting for trey to call and ignoring texts from katie....
Have you finished it? What did you think? I think it's one of his best, not satisfying, but ultimately more nihilistic for being so...ugh
Have you finished it? What did you think? I think it's one of his best, not satisfying, but ultimately more nihilistic for being so...ugh
empty mirror
remember the jackalope
i thought it was all right.
great atmosphere.
i love that it doesn't all connect. like The Big Sleep. and the completely detached fisting/buggering was pitch perfect, nothing readers of American Psycho would bat an eyelash at, and really, it reads like a (de sade's) to-do list.
i haven't read much from BEE, just <0, 'Merican Psycho, and the one we are talking about.
i like the effortlessness, in short, and the shallowness, and the references to banal pop culture signposts (remake of the Hills Have Eyes FFS?!)
great atmosphere.
i love that it doesn't all connect. like The Big Sleep. and the completely detached fisting/buggering was pitch perfect, nothing readers of American Psycho would bat an eyelash at, and really, it reads like a (de sade's) to-do list.
i haven't read much from BEE, just <0, 'Merican Psycho, and the one we are talking about.
i like the effortlessness, in short, and the shallowness, and the references to banal pop culture signposts (remake of the Hills Have Eyes FFS?!)
smokeyrobinson
Active member
Sinclair Lewis - Main Street. Enjoying it so far but only a few pages in. Pretty sure Moss Icon had read the first chapter of this at least haha
Mr. Tea
Let's Talk About Ceps
The Third Policeman, Flan O'Brien. Pretty good so far, a lot more surreal than I thought it would be. Haven't read enough to say much more, seems promising though.
Ha, saw a guy with one of these on the tube the other day...was Spanish by the sound of it.
Ha, saw a guy with one of these on the tube the other day...was Spanish by the sound of it.
hucks
Your Message Here
The Spanish love a rat's tail. Often quite cool, attractive Spanish girls will rock one. Does my head in.
The Third Policeman is great. The Best of Myles, a collection of O'Brien's columns from the Irish Times, is funniest book I've ever read. At Swim - Two Birds is nuts, though. Pretty much unreadable.
Mr. Tea
Let's Talk About Ceps
I know, right? So many Spanish girls have that "great face/body, shame about the hair" thing going on...so weird. I guess the fellas over there must like it, but then many have equally bizarre set-ups - a couple of lank, white-guy dreadlocks, a shaven patch on one side - jesus.
