Books you've read recently and would unreservedly recommend

R

Rambler

Awanturnik
White Raven - Andrzej Stasiuk.

My own cultural preferences make me a sucker for anything by East Euro writers. This one has become a bit of a cult novel in post-1989 Poland apparently. About a group of 30-something chaps who head out for a completely mental hike in the mountains in the dead of winter. Needless to say, it all goes pear-shaped through the vodka and the cold. Some of the imagery is so powerful it becomes hard to read - this is a perfect winter book, read it before February's out, it won't work in Spring.
 
B

bassnation

the abyss
"i claudius" by robert graves for about the fifth time. never get tired of reading about the debauched caesars murdering one another for political gain. not sure how historically accurate it is but graves is a great writer who manages to bring this period to life in a vivid way. making readers feel so much at home serves to make the treatment meted out to people doubly shocking, when it happens.

"mapping the deep - the extraordinairy story of ocean science" by robert kunzig. not sure if this threads meant to cover non-fiction but this book is great - covering the discovery of the tectonic plate system and the gradual realisation that the sea floor is literally teaming with the strangest lifeforms.
 
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jenks

jenks

thread death
Another good winter read is The People's Act Of Love by James Meek.

This was on the booker list but didn't win (i'm still scratching my head over that but haven't read the banville yet)

Set in Siberia after the revolution, there is a cadre of czechs who have got themselves stuck in the blasted wastes due to comlicated circumstances, they are in charge of this village of religious mystics when a stranger arrives, apparently from a labour camp in the arctic.

It has elements of the best Russian writers but is in fact written by a well respected journo who writes for the Guardian and the Observer.

It has a few faults but has an ambition I cannot help but admire, he's really tried to engage with Dostoevskian themes without becoming a ventriloquist spouting pseudo 19th century textual attitudes.

i think it's just come out in paperback
 
R

Rambler

Awanturnik
jenks said:
Another good winter read is The People's Act Of Love by James Meek.

This was on the booker list but didn't win (i'm still scratching my head over that but haven't read the banville yet)

Set in Siberia after the revolution, there is a cadre of czechs who have got themselves stuck in the blasted wastes due to comlicated circumstances, they are in charge of this village of religious mystics when a stranger arrives, apparently from a labour camp in the arctic.

It has elements of the best Russian writers but is in fact written by a well respected journo who writes for the Guardian and the Observer.

It has a few faults but has an ambition I cannot help but admire, he's really tried to engage with Dostoevskian themes without becoming a ventriloquist spouting pseudo 19th century textual attitudes.

i think it's just come out in paperback
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This sounds great! Thanks...

The missus is often telling me to read Graves. I probably should one day.
 
IdleRich

IdleRich

IdleRich
Both I Claudius and (possibly to a slightly lesser degree) Claudius the God are excellent. I'm not certain as to their historical accuracy but I believe that Robert Graves was a historian and an expert on this period so I would expect that, subject to the demands of telling a good story, they are fairly accurate.
I work in Borders bookshop and I am allowed to borrow books from the store but I am always fairly busy at work when I borrow the books so I often go in to the store and grab the first thing that looks interesting. Last week I took The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood, not necessarily something I would have expected to enjoy but I loved it, I devoured all 600 pages in a weekend. Not exactly a cult book or anything but it was just a great (and sad) story unfolding slowly and powerfully and I would definitely recommend that to anyone.
 
B

bassnation

the abyss
jenks said:
It has a few faults but has an ambition I cannot help but admire, he's really tried to engage with Dostoevskian themes without becoming a ventriloquist spouting pseudo 19th century textual attitudes.
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ashamed to say this but i've never read any dostoevski - what is great about his writing? any recommendations on where to start?
 
jenks

jenks

thread death
bassnation said:
ashamed to say this but i've never read any dostoevski - what is great about his writing? any recommendations on where to start?
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crime and punishment - it really does read like a thriller whilst at the same time carrying weighty philosophical stuff.

came late to him myself - always thought he was one of those 'difficult' guys - worthy etc but not exactly a pageturner but C+P was the perfect intro. Didn't get on with Demons (sometimes translated as, oh i forget now :eek: ) but really enjoyed The Idiot.

i think like much of this stuff it needs time - the odd 5 pages now and again really diminishes its effect whereas a 30-50 page jaunt can really catch you.

also i would say to look for a modern translation - somethimg in the last ten years - translations of Russian Lit have improved dramatically leading to far more readable and reliable versions - something that has never been a problem for French texts in English - i suppose there has always been plenty of French speaking english users but relatively few Russian speaking ones
 
rewch

rewch

Well-known member
re. dostoievski... i was really taken with how modern notes from underground was... it's a sort of fictionalized memoir of his time in the gulag, filled with agonizing about identity... always takes one by surprise how modern russian authors can be... even in the middle of the nineteenth century... having said that the translation may have helped... but highly recommended...
 
J

jasonh

Newbie
On the recently read list...

Steve Aylett - Lint (very funny mock biography of a Philip K. Dick-esque sci-fi author)
Jon Coutenay Grimwood - Pashazade/Effendi/Felaheen (great sci-fi/thrillers set in an alternative now where WW1 didn't end as it did - if you like Gibson/Richard Morgan et al give them a whirl)
Michel Houllebecq - Platform (severely twisted!)
Ian MacDonald - River Of Gods (Hindu cyberpunk, cool!)
Joel Bakan - The Corporation (read this, then watch the documentary)
Jonathan Coe - Like A Fiery Elephant (great biography of B.S. Johnson - read Christie Malry's Own Double Entry for another good read)
Bret Easton Ellis - Lunar Park (my fave of last year, and his best since American Psycho)

Just about to start reading McCarthy's "No Country For Old Men", which looks v. good. If it measures up to "Blood Meridian" it will be a classic.
 
matt b

matt b

Indexing all opinion
'1968: the year that rocked the world' by mark kurlansky

history of said year, with a focus on the civil rights/ anti-war movements and 'the kids', on both sides of the iron curtain (and mexico).

engaging and sometimes funny.

only touches on groups like the weathermen etc, so not a definitive account, but neverthelessfulfils the criteria.

and


'one day in the life of ivan denisovich' aleksandr solzhenitsyn
 
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D

droid

Guest
matt b said:
'one day in the life of ivan denisovich' aleksandr solzhenitsyn
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Brilliant book! Have you read 'Cancer Ward' or 'The Gulag Archipaeligo'? I was pleasantly surprised at how easy they were to read...

Currently ploughing through Robert Fisk's tome - 'The Great War For Civilisation'. Extremely interesting from a historical perspective, and deeply moving in its descriptions of the consequences of war. His earlier book about the invasion of Lebanon 'Pity the Nation' is also extremely well written and engrossing.
 
matt b

matt b

Indexing all opinion
droid said:
Brilliant book! Have you read 'Cancer Ward' or 'The Gulag Archipaeligo'? I was pleasantly surprised at how easy they were to read....
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yeah, me to. read it after reading quite a bit on the gulags, and still enjoyed it. similar in some ways to primo levi. the others are on my to read list, but it is very long.

droid said:
Currently ploughing through Robert Fisk's tome - 'The Great War For Civilisation'. Extremely interesting from a historical perspective, and deeply moving in its descriptions of the consequences of war. His earlier book about the invasion of Lebanon 'Pity the Nation' is also extremely well written and engrossing.
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got this for christmas- its very heavy (literally), which means its unsuitable for taking out of the house, but i've read the first couple of hundred pages- excellent insights etc, but his ego pops out every now and then.
 
D

droid

Guest
matt b said:
got this for christmas- its very heavy (literally), which means its unsuitable for taking out of the house
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Yeah - I get to pretend that im some kind of serious literary type on the bus in and out (dust jacket removed of course)... :)
 
matt b

matt b

Indexing all opinion
droid said:
Yeah - I get to pretend that im some kind of serious literary type on the bus in and out (dust jacket removed of course)... :)
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its that big, i'm suprised you don't have to get a special ticket when you get on the bus.
 
S

simon silverdollar

Guest
jasonh said:
Michel Houllebecq - Platform (severely twisted!)
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i'm reading that at the moment. feel very embaressed reading it on the tube- people looking over my shoulder probably think i'm a nutter.
 
IdleRich

IdleRich

IdleRich
Michel Houllebecq - Platform (severely twisted!)

Read this and enjoyed it but then I read Atomised (The Elementary Particles) and this made Platform seem like a pale imitation. Atomised without such big ideas (and probably not as twisted). Then a month or so ago I read his latest one The Possibility of an Island which seemed very similar to Atomised with almost the same theme. Still, I do enjoy reading his stuff, bleak and twisted but funny with something to say and I can't really think of anything that is similar although I'm sure someone could suggest something.
 
O

OldRottenhat

Active member
Another Booker Nominee...A Long Long Way by Sebastian Barry. In a sense, the loss of innocence experienced by young soldiers in a brutal war is a soft touch in terms of getting an emotional response from the reader, but I was moved by the section where the protagonist, Willie Dunne, returns from the front on furlough to a Dublin that has radically changed since the Easter Rising, and finds himself rejected by his father and stoned by children in the street for the uniform he's wearing.
 
O

owen

Well-known member
not wanting to be mean, but the word 'booker' tends to make my heart sink- apart from james kelman i can't think of anyone not offensively north london to have ever won the thing (and margaret attwood, i guess- recently read the handmaid's tale after getting it 2nd hand for aboput tuppence, and was surprisingly impressed, way better than the respected lit figure does sci-fi tag would imply- alternate histories always a bit of a fixation of mine)- it does always evoke reams and reams of leaden, smug bildungsroman

anyway i also recently read and would unreservedly recommend Europeana: A Brief History Of The Twentieth Century by Patrik Ourednik, which is a kind of compendium of 2oth c anecdotes, atrocities and statistics seemingly composed in a random order as if by a database, in a kind of gertrude stein writing school history style. it's very unnerving and very funny

i've had a second hand copy of the gulag archipelago on my shelf for 8 years now without reading the bugger. the original owner wrote on the inside (in 1974) 'this book is long, but my love is longer'. bless...
 
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IdleRich

IdleRich

IdleRich
Margaret attwood, i guess- recently read the handmaid's tale after getting it 2nd hand for aboput tuppence, and was surprisingly impressed
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I was just saying "upthread" how much I'd enjoyed The Blind Assassin by MA and that I wasn't expecting to like it so much. Maybe I should check out The Handmaid's Tale then.
Since then I've read Underground by Haruki Marukami. For those who don't know, it's a compilation of interviews with survivors of the sarin gas attack on the Tokyo underground in (I think) 1995. Very simple but very interesting, compelling even and quite disturbing. There is something about reading the same story (almost) again and again that adds to the impact, each time you read someone saying "..and then I noticed how dark it was" you think, here we go again (it's dark because the gas causes the pupils to contract but they normally haven't realised they've been gassed at that stage). I think Murakami gets it about right with his comments but that may just be because I'm fairly well disposed towards him having enjoyed several of his fiction books.
I've also started Underworld by Don Delillo, not really sure what I make of it so far but it's readable enough. I've got another 300 pages to go and I hope it's going to come together into something.
 
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