I am in the process of reading Capote's complete short stories, most of which are brilliant, and just finished The Bell Jar and Girl Interrupted, and a book called Naive, Super, by Erlend Oye, which was also quite good. After this I am going to read Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides, which I am dubious about, but loved the Virgin Suicides, so hopefully it'll prove me wrong.
Has anyone read the new Dave Eggers book? I really want to but my library doesn't have it, and it's too expensive at the moment. Worth reading?
Greek Myths by Robert Graves.
Absolutely brilliant! Zeus is a bastard (don't kill me zeus)
I want this^^^^^
I'm constantly bidding for it on ebay.
I stole it from my mum's
bookshelf.
i'm currently reading Valis
by Philip K Dick. it's.. challenging.
i think the best thing i've read recently has been Pulp by Bukowski.
The Brothers Karamazov
at the moment. Just finished reading Turgenev's Fathers and Sons and Gogol's Dead Souls. On a bit of a Russian lit/audio lecture binge.
^
The Grand Inquisitor = best chapter ever
good luck
never finished it. So very tedious. Nothing happens for about 400 pages. Crime and Punishment is amazing so I thought I might like it.
I think
that's kinda true, I guess I was lucky in that i read it on the trans-siberian and I'd read my other two books, so three days with no option meant I had to forge on. Cracking last 200 pages though
Reading now: Blue Suede Slippers by Neil Burman
Intending to: Dunno. Harry Potter?
Just read: Thundbolt Kid by Bill Bryson
Recommend: The Peculiar Memories of Thomas Penman by Bruce Robinson
I finally finished
the last Dark Tower book a few weeks ago.
Now I'm reading The Stand. One of the characters from The Dark Tower books is in it. As are a lot of the characters and references in his other books.
I read The Pornographer Diaries before that, that made me laugh out loud on a megabus.
i just bought johnny got his gun from amazon
have to see how that one goes
this:
at the moment - The Beach House by James Patterson (nearly finished, it was ok.)
intending to read - more Stephen King, I still have 'Christine' that I got for Christmas unread, so I may start that.
just read - Harry Potter 7 at home, Red Dwarf at work (re-read)
recommend - anything by Lee Child.
oh, and 'I Am Legend'
as soon as I get round to buying it.
What We Talk About When We Talk About Love
by Raymond Carver. Not read much of it yet, it's a collection of short stories and I've read 4, but it's wonderful so far.
I'm just finishing the last Harry Potter book
I only started reading Harry Potter books the other week.
I'd avoided them for years but Will Self being a cunt the other week pissed me off so much I decided to read them for myself. I'm genuinely surprised by how intersting & imaginiative the boosk actually are.
After that I've got the new Christopher Brookmyre novel to read. I love Christopher Brookmyre and really can't wait!
^ I'D FORGOTTEN THIS
This is now on my 'intending to read' list. Super work.
they are actually quite good books
thats the thing book snobs dont seem to understand
Harry Potter?
You're right - I was caught by surprise.
Althouhgh obviously the amount of they've sold is ridiculous (as it would be for any book that much) I genuinely think JK Rowling's succeeded simply 'cos she's a really skilled and imaginative storyteller.
yeah sorry i should have been more clear
yeah shes just managed to write gripping books that have appealed to pretty much a generation. i like them so the fact that shes been succesful i dont begrudge at all.
Definitely
I'd way sooner see someone writing something like Harry Potter (which is gripping, imaginative and - although obviously influenced by its genre - very original) rather than something lowest-common-denominator.
I actually think her success is something of a triumph as it goes to show that someone can stick to their own vision, strike out to do something a bit different to everything else out there and be successful which, in a world, where so many publishers/film producers etc. tend to follow trends and not take risks, is a very positive thing indeed.
Yeah
although it could be said that know people are searching for the 'next harry potter', resulting in rubbishy books getting undue exposure. But i think the strories are great and the other important thing is that young kids are getting excited about an actual book.
You're right in that people are searching for the "next Harry Potter"
but they won't find it - if anything ever has such an impact again it will almost certainly be something completely different again. Massive success tend to come almost entirely out of left field, much as the execs try and pretend otherwise.
It's inevitable people will jump on the bandwagon but they'd have jumped on the bandwagon of anything anyway so it wasn't rubbish fantasy novels it would have been rubbish romance novels or whatever.
And definitely anything that gets kid excited about books is quite an incredible achievement!
yay for harry potter!
and yeah i spose you have a good point with the bandwagon thing.
Life and Times of Michael K
Got bought it for my birthday. Not read much of it but it seems good so far.
I intend to read some
Philip K Dick
i suggest
not starting with Valis..
^
do androids dream of electric sheep is a good start, pretty different to blade runner
Yeah
I can't be doing with any challenging reading at the moment.
well
most of his stuff is 'challenging' to some degree. but most of what i've read of valis so far has been philosophical musings. with a bit of plot.
finished last week - harry potter
at the moment - Brave New World - Aldous Huxley (sp)
about to - one hundred years of solitude :s
i just read freakonomics
it was a bit guff
You're wrong Alcxxk...
so wrong...
I'm currently
reading Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace. It’s good so far though I am ploughing through it slowly. I didn't know Dave Eggers had a new book out so will check it out afterwards.
i'm also still reading
Ubik - phillip k dick
it's good. but weird. very.... weird.
I'm currently reading
Birdsong by Sebastian Falkes. It's good but the first 100 pages were a bit Mills & Boon-esque in places.
On my 'to read' pile are:
- The World According To Garp by John Irving
- Choke by Chuck Palahniuk
- Stardust by Neil Gaiman
- Walking Dead #6 :D
I recommend The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera or The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen.
I gave up on Birdsong when I was about 15
after about 100 pages or so.
Let me know when you've finished whether or not it's worth trying again!
i think i've read it
and remembered it being really good.
right now
i'm reading 'Tales from a Thousand and One Nights' (by numerous people I guess), which I would definitely recommend for a nice old version of embdedded narratives, plus it has Aladdin, Sinbad etc, which is sort of cool.
Before that I read 'From Hell', which was obvioulsy awesome, Jack the Ripper + mythology + healthy does of Dionysus/Bachhic goings on + freemasons = essential read.
Before that was 'Manuscript found in Saragossa' (by Jan Potocki), which blew me away, more epic tales within tales, cabbilists, enchanted princesses, other fantastic doings...heartily recommended.
Before that was 'Melmoth the Wanderer' (Charles Maturin) - one of the greatest books i've ever read. Fantastic, uncanny, epic, Irish Gothic.
Next up is 'The Decameron' (Boccacio), followed by 'The Mysteries of Udolpho' (Radcliffe), followed by 'The Possessed' (Witold Gombrowicz). Great times ahead!
You just read all the sexy bits, didn't you? :D
I'm just over 2/3 of the way through and it's pretty good. But I'm not sure if/how it'll all tie together at the end.
I was about 15
of course I just read all the sexy bits!
walking dead #6 is gruesome
#7 is out in about six weeks! :D
someone should make it into a big budget american TV show. 'someone' being me, obviously. i've been plotting it out in my head whilst lying in bed at night. you could have the season 1 cliffhanger when they get to woodbury..
I was thinking it'd make a good film series or something
I think the characters are pretty good if a little polarised.
If/when I get a job, I'll celebrate by putting #7 on pre-order :D
i don't know
i think too much happens in it (and there's room to expand it as well) for it to be a series of films.
of course, if i made it, it would probably end up being the darkest piece of TV in a long time. and incredibly violent. with an absence of hope. YEAH!
agreed that it'd make an ace TV show
I don't think I've read #6 yet though so don't spoil it for me!
i was purposely avoiding spoilers ;)
but yeah, books 5 & 6 set up plotlines that are going to run up book 9, possibly further. image are starting to hype up issue 50 as being a 'turning point' in the saga, and that should be collected in volume 9. should be interesting!
.
I am reading the Foundation saga by Asimov (kind of again)
I just read Ilium by Dan Simmons, which was good, and Olympos should be fun, and I'm looking forward to reading some Peter F Hamilton again
oh
and I got Akira volume 1 in the post yesterday
sweeeeeeeeet
Middlesex is great
I'm reading When We Were Orphans by Kazuo Ishiguro, which I've been meaning to read for ages as he wrote my favourite novel ever.
Next I'm probably going to read Moon Dust, which is about the astronauts from the Apollo missions.
when we were orphans is good,
but a little tedious in places. never let me go is much better, and remains of the day quite a bit better.
just finished
northern lights which was pleasant but not exactly the life-shattering experience that i had been led to believe it would be.
hmm, should i carry on with the next two books? i was told the first is the best...
carry on!!!
only after reading all three do the real implications of what happens in the first one come to light.
really?
hmmmm, i guess it did become a lot more gripping (and revealing) towards the end but only then.
i probably will do, the second at least.
if no one has told you what the overall story is actually about
you'll have no idea after reading just the first one.
they really are as good as people say. read them all!!!!
ok!!
i guess i just expected to be hooked from the very beginning.
ha :)
the first one is quite childrens booky i think.
they get more complicated and intriguing. when they first came out i used to hound my local bookshop for information about when the last one was going to be published!
Yes, yes you should
I thought the first was the worst
book, by some distance. The second is excellent.
.
just read: 'Transmetropolitan' by Warren Ellis
currently: 'The Historian' by Elizabeth Kostova
next: 'Dead Air' by Iain Banks
future: that Erlend Oye book if I can find it and hopefully 'Geek Love' and 'Metamorphosis'.
I just read
the last Harry Potter
I'm now reading Catcher in the rye, well In 4 pages in.
I also just bought love is a mixtape after seeing people on DiS rave about it, the heart is a lobely hunter and touching from a distance to take on holiday. I'm going to buy more before I go it always happens.
Dead Air
is pretty terrible... Iain Banks really struggling to write younger than his age.
-
I just finished reading Brave New World and now I'm reading Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf. I took that, Lolita and The Great Gatsby out of the library yesterday. I'm trying to make my way through this: http://www.time.com/time/2005/100books/the_complete_list.html
Lolita!
thats another one I say I'm going to read and forget to.
I love that novel
I think its very beautifully written.
The Plot Against America
by Philip Roth. It's actually very good
^
I got this out from the library and failed to read it.
Must try harder.
It is excellent
I keep meaning to read more of Philip Roth's stuff, but I've got a whole heap of war fiction to catch up on first.
I got it from the library too!
I didn't
i read this in the tail end of 2006, having stolen it from my girlfriend.
i really did enjoy it, although i feel i missed out on some of it, what with not being a jewish american and all... i dunno, i wasnt always sure where reality ended and fiction began, though i guess that was good in a way.
i like roth, but he's very jewish.
qwe
I was reading 'Birds Without Wings' by Louis de Bernieres but I've just about given up at about page 300. Not impressed atall.
Instead started reading 'The Line of Beauty' which i'm loving.
isn't Erlend Oye
the guy from Kings of Convenience?? Are you talking about the same person?? I didn't know he'd written stuff too.
i thought this too
i've just googled and can't find anything about this book
Naive, Super
is by Erlend Loe......prob just a spelling mistake
oh yeah
I don't know one Erlend from another, sorry!
Well I just re-read
If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things and it is just astonishing, I liked it even better than first time round.
Just bought Jon McGregor's second book, and Heat by Bill Buford, about him training to be a cook.
Also The Damned United, which I bought for a mate but will get off him when he's done, is meant to be great.
A. J. Ayer's 'The Problem of Knowledge'
It's tough going... well for me anyway.
Im reading 'the road' by someone
conor mcormay?
something like that. its the big literaryish blockbuster. bleh.
Will Self - How the dead live
coming up
James Ellroy - the something or other trilogy (the one with LA Confidential)
the new Harry Potter (maybe)
I Lucifer by someone or other
Age of Consent by George Monbiot
the amber spyglass
final part of His Dark Materials trilogy. it's really rather ace. all 2.75 (I'm not quite finished yet obviously) so far have been utterly amazing... and I usually hate epic adventure/fantasy whatever you might choose to label LOTR/Harry Potface type books.
right now I'm reading Murakami's
Wind-Up Bird Chronicle.
I'm pretty sure it's the best thing I'll read for a very long time...
I have literally hundreds of books planned to read...
hammer of the gods
about led zeppelin. it's not bad, but it follows the basic led zep travel the states and sell out stadiums/led zep trash hotels and perform vile sex acts with groupies/jimmy page loves aleister crowley/repeat formula. next i'm thinking about reading a book about the velvet underground called 'up-tight'. or maybe some more iain banks.
Currently reading...
Greenpeace by Rex Weyler. It is brilliant but a little preachy...I've been reading bits here and there for a couple of months now. It's a bit chunky but has taught me lots of (probably quite biased) stuff about the start of nuclear testing and the ethics behind the Greenpeace foundation that I didn't know.
It's non-fiction and niche; you have to care a little before you start reading.
I'm reading Slaughterhouse-Five
which is pretty good, I think it's the first book I've read this year though...