what are you reading now?

[crackerjack]

I don't think that this is necessarily a problem. 12 Angry Men all takes place in one scene and Glengarry Glen Ross is obviously a play adapted to the screen but they are both brilliant. It was the story that I couldn't get into in The History Boys, what was the point of it? When I finished I thought... "oh".

Agreed. One of those semi-autobiographical plays/movies that makes me want to know less about the writer rather than more.

I liked the notion of the contrast between the educational purist and the opportunist (and the fact he was rumoured to be based on twathead Niall Ferguson), but didn't do nearly enouugh with it to my mind.

 

[IdleRich]

"It was the original cast in its entirety."

I didn't know that, it certainly seems the best way to do it.

"It's also a dig at schools becoming exam factories and slaves to league tables."

Fair enough. It's just that every time it seemed to be adding up to something and looking as though it might get good I felt it kind of stopped short and went off the boil again. It just never seemed to amount to anything.

 

[jenks]

Travels in teh Scriptorium - Paul Auster. Once more giving me the feeling that Auster wants to be seen as soem deeply significant writer, all meta as 'you' would have it but actually being pretty empty at its core.

Is he the most over-rated writer out there?

 

[slim jenkins]

I'm reading 'The 33 Strategies of War' by Robert Greene

&

'Raymond Chandler - A Literary Reference' (ed Robert F. Moss)

 

[Pestario]

just finished reading 'Philosophy and Social Hope' by Richard Rorty. It's about anti-Platoism and pragmatist philosophy. It's a good read and found myself agreeing with most of what he says.

 

[Mr BoShambles]

I've just finished a novel set in Nigeria at the time of the Biafra war.

CHIMAMANDA NGOZI ADICHIE - 'HALF OF A YELLOW SUN'.

A masterly, haunting new novel from a writer heralded by The Washington Post Book World as "the 21st-century daughter of Chinua Achebe," Half of a Yellow Sun recreates a seminal moment in modern African history: Biafra's impassioned struggle to establish an independent republic in Nigeria, and the chilling violence that followed.

With astonishing empathy and the effortless grace of a natural storyteller, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie weaves together the lives of three characters swept up in the turbulence of the decade. Thirteen-year-old Ugwu is employed as a houseboy for a university professor full of revolutionary zeal. Olanna is the professor's beautiful mistress, who has abandoned her life of privilege in Lagos for a dusty university town and the charisma of her new lover. And Richard is a shy young Englishman in thrall to Olanna's twin sister, an enigmatic figure who refuses to belong to anyone. As Nigerian troops advance and they must run for their lives, their ideals are severely tested, as are their loyalties to one another.

Epic, ambitious, and triumphantly realized, Half of a Yellow Sun is a remarkable novel about moral responsibility, about the end of colonialism, about ethnic allegiances, about class and race—and the ways in which love can complicate them all.​

Thoroughly recommended!!

 

[Mr BoShambles]

While I'm at it has anyone read any of Louis de Bernieres stuff pre Captain Corelli's Mandolin?

His first major work was a trilogy of books set in a fictitious Latin American country replete with revolutionaries, indigenous villagers, corrupt army and police, shamans, ineffectual politicians etc. It clearly falls in the 'magical realism' genre popularised by the likes of Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Isabelle Allende and Mario Vargas Llosa. Cynical and funny; a satirical taste of Latin America.

Check it/them out: (1)The War of Don Emmanuels Nether Parts, (2)Senor Vivo and the Coca Lord, and (3)The Troublesome Offspring of Cardinal Guzman.

 

[IdleRich]

"While I'm at it has anyone read any of Louis de Bernieres stuff pre Captain Corelli's Mandolin?"

I read The War of Don Emmanuel's Nether Parts or whatever it was called but I thought it was terrible.

 

[Mr BoShambles]

I read The War of Don Emmanuel's Nether Parts or whatever it was called but I thought it was terrible.

Fair enough, each to their own i guess. Still I'm surprised, everyone I've spoken to about it before found it enjoyable... (I read it while I was travelling in South America which probably added to its kinda real-/surreal-ness).

 

[IdleRich]

That wasn't a good reply really, sorry about that, I should at least have said what I disliked about it but it was such a long time ago that I read it. I just remember finding it annoying and kind of twee and directionless I think... I've never read Captain Correlli, what's that like?

 

[Mr BoShambles]

I've never read Captain Correlli, what's that like?

Not really sure... started it ages ago and then got distracted by something new. It's staring at me from my bookshelf so maybe I'll give it another shot soon. Have you read any Garcia Marquez like One Hundred Years of Solitude? I really love the blending of 'real' world with strange - magical - superstitions and events.

 

[IdleRich]

Yeah, I've read 100 Years of Solitude and Love In The Time of Cholera and All My Melancholy Whores or whatever it's called. Loved the first two, thought the other one was a bit of a waste of time tossed out at the ending of his career with a kind of "will this do?" feel to it. From what I've read I think he is way ahead of de Bernieres in terms of prose, scale, imagination, everything really.

 

[Mr. Tea]

CC'sM is a enjoyable book, if you can read it without Nicholas Cage's smacked-arse face popping up in your mind (another one for the Annoying Faces thread, perhaps?). But it's straight-up real realism, nothing 'mystical' happens in it as far as I recall (read it a while ago now) and I certainly wouldn't think of Solitude as in any way comparable - I really, really dug that book. Ought to check out Cholera too, if it's anything like as good.

 

[polystyle]

Mockingbird

Just finished Mockingbird by Walter Tevis.
'Future fable' written in 1980.
Picks up on some of the classic dystopian theme from F 451 , 1984 and BladeRunner,
Hoban's Riddley Walker or Oryx and Crake by Atwood.
Both sad and sweet ...
Recommended for those who like this sort

 

[empty mirror]

^ I have Mockingbird coming to me via the Free Library, so I am gonna give it a go after Hangover Square.

Recently finished Mann's Magic Mountain and the author has been vaulted to the near top of my favorite authors list. Fantastic novel. Read it whilst battling influenza and an ear infection.

Just read Bruno Schultz's The Street of Crocodiles novella. Incredible work of fiction from "the best Polish writer to have written between the world wars" (or somesuch). Apparently, it was composed for an audience of one with each chapter being mailed at a time . It feels intimate like that. Think Proust through the lens of Gabriel Garcia Marquez set in a de Chirico landscape populated by mutant birds and cockroaches. The author, apparently, had been kept as a pet by a Gestapo officer, kept alive on one bowl of soup and a slice of bread per day, before he was shot in the head by a rival of his captor. (Incidentally, the author's favorite book is Mann's Joseph and his Brothers--------anxious to give that 1400 page opus a whirl.)

 

[IdleRich]

"The author, apparently, had been kept as a pet by a Gestapo officer, kept alive on one bowl of soup and a slice of bread per day, before he was shot in the head by a rival of his captor."

Possibly the least important bit of what you said but somehow it leapt out at me. Sounds like The Street of Crocodiles is (yet) another one for the list - thanks a bunch Empty Mirror.

 

[IdleRich]

Got this Street of Crocodiles thing yesterday and I'm half way through it now. Very interesting, I don't see the Kafka similarities though although I'm prepared to accept that as I'm in a minority of one I might just possibly be wrong. Just noticed you mentioned Gabriel Garcia Marquez and I have to agree on that, very similar in feel and the matter of fact descriptions of peculiar events.

 

[nomadologist]

The Brief and Wonderous Life of Oscar Wao is pretty good. As is Drowned.

 

[jenks]

ReadDrowned when it first came out and was underwhelmed after all the positive press.

This latest also has very good write ups and I'm hoping it lives up to expectations when I finally get round to getting hold of a copy.

Doing Black Swans which I'm finding annoyingly egotistical in places. HP Lovecraft short stories and My Antonia by Willa Cather.

Am thoroughly enjoying the latter - would have made a good Dissensus book club read.

 

[mms]

just read japrock sampler and ballards autobiography - which just made me regard him even highly than i do already, japrock sampler, got to sample some of those bt i'm just not rock enough for copey i think
i'm reading something i would never consider reading at the mo, one of those how to get the job you want books, as i want to get paid what i should do and have job satisfaction and confidence etc yoo nooo.