what are you reading now?

woops

woops

is not like other people
What am i reading now? Nothing. I haven't read seriously for a good two years.
Always been a bookworm but i got scared straight, or something.
I think about writers I used to like.
The Irish writer Michael Collins pretty much ruined me for literature. For all that he's great.
 
hucks

hucks

Your Message Here
Just finished Ragtime by EL Doctorow. Amazing sense of turn of 20th century America. I suppose, I mean I wasn't there. And the interspersing of real and fictional characters worked really well, didn't feel gimmicky. Loved it, made me want to go to New York and see Houdini perform. Turns out he's dead.

Feel like I'm on a roll now and have started Savage Detectives by Bolaño
 
hucks

hucks

Your Message Here
And have only just finished it now. I found the middle bit, where it's like 50 different people talking about Lima and Bolano, pretty hard going. Some of the stories were wonderful, but I need momentum when I'm reading and this was the opposite of momentum.

The first and last 100 pages were brilliant, tho.
 
S

scottdisco

rip this joint please
%7B96d4dd95-f03f-de11-afac-001cc477ec70%7D.jpg


De Waal & Co remain top boys on Horn affairs
 
jenks

jenks

thread death
The Case of Comrade Tulayev by Victor Serge alongside Stalingrad by Beevor. Both very good indeed, I had read the two Seabag Montifiore Stalin books but these two really add another layer to my paltry knowledge of proper Russian history.

Anybody read Figes' stuff (whilst ignoring the amazon trashing reviews hoohhah)?
 
grizzleb

grizzleb

Well-known member
hucks said:
And have only just finished it now. I found the middle bit, where it's like 50 different people talking about Lima and Bolano, pretty hard going. Some of the stories were wonderful, but I need momentum when I'm reading and this was the opposite of momentum.

The first and last 100 pages were brilliant, tho.
Click to expand...
I thought that the middle section was difficult to get into at first, but when I knew what it was about I got right into it. Some really excellent stuff, perspective from a hundred different places...
 
B

Brother Randy Hickey

formerly Dubversion
GK Chesterton's The Man Who Was Thursday which is pretty entertaining and nicely paranoid and has some wonderfully florid descriptions of "anarchists".

And about to read Geoff Dyer's The Ongoing Moment alongside it. Not exactly a photography buff but I love everything of Dyer's I've ever read. After that, it's Cormac McCarthy's sort-of new book Sunset Unlimited, which looks very odd indeed.
 
Mr. Tea

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
Just started Forster's A Passage To Inda - the prose is beautiful and it's full of lovely little clever, snide observations on the myriad complexities of social interaction as dictated by the conventions of class and race.

Looking forward to reading something modern and American afterwards by contrast, however. I've read some whopping books over the last few years, so any suggestions on something good and not too long would be most welcome.
 
empty mirror

empty mirror

remember the jackalope
^ i love the bit with the caves in "Passage"
some say postmodernism is born in that section of the novel

i just finished a couple Flannery O'Connor novellas, Wise Blood and The Violent Bear It Away. both have floored me. makes the Red Riding books (just read those) feel like a comforting bowl of oatmeal in comparison. a squirmfest and hilarious, both.

think i'll return to proust next.
 
Mr. Tea

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
empty mirror said:
some say postmodernism is born in that section of the novel
Click to expand...

Ha, someone on here said the same thing about Moby Dick, which I finished recently. :)

Thanks a lot for the PM by the way, I tried to reply but your inbox is full. I'll DL the podcast when I get home.
 
bandshell

bandshell

Grand High Witch
I'm not bored tbh. I got it for christmas and just decided to read it. It's not awful but it's not brilliant. I don't like the idea of having an unread book on my shelf.
 
Tentative Andy

Tentative Andy

I'm in the Meal Deal
Currently about halfway through The Island Of The Women, a short story collection by George Mackay Brown. Don't really know too much about GMB, but I'm enjoying it so far.
Also reading a lengthy extract from my friend's novel, which is gonna be a banger. Or at least it will if she gets together the confidence to actually finish and find a publisher for it.
 
Mr. Tea

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
Mr. Tea said:
Looking forward to reading something modern and American afterwards...any suggestions on something good and not too long would be most welcome.
Click to expand...

Well stuck into Pynchon's V. (cheers Rich), which is 50 years old and 500 pages but is at least American. And somewhat easier on the brain than Rainbow, though still maddeningly convoluted.
 
Last edited:
B

Brother Randy Hickey

formerly Dubversion
as well as dipping into the Dyer photography book and the occasional Ballard short story, I just finished Cormac McCarthy's bizarre "novelised play" Sunset Unlimited, which I was really disappointed with: it seemed simplistic, although not the way I think was intended, and the arguments put forward by the suicidal atheist seemed a weak representation of that mindset.

Enjoying another McCarthy much more - Outer Dark, from right at the beginning of his career (2nd novel i think, 1968) - but it's still very "southern gothic" (inbreeding, lynchings, varmints and snake hunters).
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top