Suggest a Book for the dissensus book club!
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Wanda
Member
Thanks, droid
I'd like to change my nomination to Zoe Whittall's 'The Best Kind of People'. Sounds more scandalous!
luka
Well-known member
Lol!
you
Well-known member
Fistfights With Muslims In Europe: One Man's Journey Through Modernity - was HMGovt's suggestion. You should chuck that in too.
droid
Well-known member
Updated list.
1. Tea: CJ Stone, Fierce Dancing: Adventures in the Underground
2. Wanda: Zoe Whittall's 'The Best Kind of People'
3. You: Jennifer Egan, A Visit from the Goon Squad
4. Luka: Some unspecified cleverer book
5. HM Govt: Fistfights With Muslims In Europe: One Man's Journey Through Modernity
6. Droid: Pavane, Keith Roberts
How many more can we expect?
1. Tea: CJ Stone, Fierce Dancing: Adventures in the Underground
2. Wanda: Zoe Whittall's 'The Best Kind of People'
3. You: Jennifer Egan, A Visit from the Goon Squad
4. Luka: Some unspecified cleverer book
5. HM Govt: Fistfights With Muslims In Europe: One Man's Journey Through Modernity
6. Droid: Pavane, Keith Roberts
How many more can we expect?
Mr. Tea
Let's Talk About Ceps
Give us a sec and I'll see if I can think of some written by bros instead of dudes.
TBH I picked this as a lame gag on 'e-books' because it's about rave culture and - obviously - MDMA, but I remember leafing through it in a bookshop years ago and it looked pretty good, to say nothing of being up many/most regular Dissensians' streets, so I'm going to stick with it as my choice.
I know, isn't it great?
luka
Well-known member
actually no idea what youre on about but im happy youre enjoying yourself.
luka
Well-known member
Leaving aside point scoring this gets to the nub of what I look for in a book or an ouvere.... I like books that take years to read, and a lifetime to begin to understand. That's what I look for. Books that become part of my life. Books that are so dense with information that every rereading of every page reveals new meaning. That's the sort of book I'd be inclined to campaign for and the sort of reading I'd want to prod dissensus towards.
Not that other modes of reading are bad. Comics can be enjoyable. I read genre fiction sometimes. I just think we should all be as curious and engaged about books as we are about music.
Have you read any Flann O'Brien? He's better than James Joyce and funny too. I'm currently reading At Swim-Two-Birds. It's supposedly his best, but I much prefer The Third Policeman. You shouldn't be wasting years of your time on the tedious Joyce.
Mr. Tea
Let's Talk About Ceps
I've not ready any Joyce, so can't compare, but I'd like to second the opinion that Flann O'Brien is fucking superb. I'd love to have one of those gizmos from Men In Black so I could selectively erase all memory of his novels from my brain and have the pleasure of reading them afresh all over again.
HMG, have you read his other novels? I remember really enjoying The Poor Mouth and The Hard Life. The Dalkey Archive is good too, perhaps a bit inconsequential and self-indulgent in places, but it features Joyce as a character, which is nice. It also features de Selby, from the footnotes in T3PM.
HMG, have you read his other novels? I remember really enjoying The Poor Mouth and The Hard Life. The Dalkey Archive is good too, perhaps a bit inconsequential and self-indulgent in places, but it features Joyce as a character, which is nice. It also features de Selby, from the footnotes in T3PM.
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luka
Well-known member
Yes I like him.
I read the Poor Mouth first, it was given to me by a fantastic Irish girl when we were madly in love, with her handwritten Gaelic dedication on the inside of the cover that was so steeped in impenetrable idiom it took me years to decipher it. That was 20 years ago. I was reading the Dalkey Archive but lost it when moving house. The Third Policeman is the one for me, so much so I'm thinking of reading it to my son at bedtime to excite his appetite for the paradoxical, but I really need to work on my oirish accent first.
droid
Well-known member
Your professing your superiority with every second post by recommending books you haven't actually read.
The points score themselves.
luka
Well-known member
If I was running a bookclub, me personally, I wouldn't want to do something like flan o Brian cos ok everyone has a grand time reading the book. All well and good. But what do you do with the discussion which is the point of the thing. Oh I really liked that bit about bicycles it was hilarious. Yes I loved that bit too, hilarious.
It doesn't go anywhere.
It doesn't go anywhere.