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The All-New Books Thread

Started by Serge, April 14, 2016, 08:17:59 PM

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MoonDust

Quote from: Serge on April 04, 2017, 07:26:05 PM
I seem to remember 'Jurassic Park' being a cracking read, I read it before the film came out and thought, "This'll make a good film"....though I suppose I may already have been aware of an impending film when I first read it, to be fair. Apart from
Spoiler alert
the deaths of Hammond and Malcolm
[close]
, I don't think they tampered with the plot too much for the film, although
Spoiler alert
Malcolm is miraculously resurrected
[close]
in the totally duff 'The Lost World' anyway (the book is more duff than the film in the case of the latter.)


Quote from: Artie Fufkin on April 05, 2017, 08:47:33 AM
I remember loving Jurassic Park. I read it after watching the film. I went on a total Chrichton jag after that. Rising Sun possibly my fave.

Jurassic Park has always been one of my favourite films, so much so for a long time as a teenager I wanted to be a paeleontologist.[nb]It still makes me a little glum when I remember that dream never happened.[/nb] My dad first recommended me the book, and he used to have a copy himself. But I never got round to it, and then he[nb]Rather, my mum without asking my dad.[/nb] got rid of it in a mass clear-out.

MoonDust

Yeah, what other good Crichton books are there? I heard one of his books, State of Fear, was heavily criticised for denying climate change. Or at least denying humans are responsible for it.

Quincey

Re-read David Peace's 1974. Cracking if a bit confusing at times, very bleak. Trying to get into A.A. Milne's The Red House Mystery but it's not happening for me.

Artie Fufkin

Quote from: MoonDust on April 05, 2017, 12:07:42 PM
Yeah, what other good Crichton books are there?

The one about time travel (Timeline) was good. In a stupid kinda way. But, as I said, Rising Sun is probably my fave.

Twit 2

Reading Carl Ravioli's 7 Newspaper Articles on Physics and Cod-Humanism. Pretty good.

Also reading Calvino's complete Cosmicomics, which is thoroughly ace.

Neville Chamberlain

Just finished reading JG Ballard's The Day of Creation. Now, I'm a big fan of the old Ballards, but this was a bit of an odd one. Maybe I wasn't in the right frame of mind when I started it, but I found the story hard to grasp from the outset. The only thing that kept me going was Ballard's typically beautiful writing and hallucinatory imagery, but the story itself - such as it was - was a bit sort of non-existent. And while I never thought dialogue was Ballard's strong point, in this it was atrocious.

Anyway, onto Michel Houellebecq's Submission now.

gloria

Quote from: Serge on March 01, 2017, 07:31:16 PM
Seriously, if he hadn't had any success with music, he could easily have turned his hand to novel writing.

So when he sang, "I'm sick of sittin' round here tryna write this book," he should have stuck at it?

MoonDust

Quote from: Serge on April 04, 2017, 07:26:05 PM
I seem to remember 'Jurassic Park' being a cracking read, I read it before the film came out and thought, "This'll make a good film"....though I suppose I may already have been aware of an impending film when I first read it, to be fair. Apart from
Spoiler alert
the deaths of Hammond and Malcolm
[close]
, I don't think they tampered with the plot too much for the film, although
Spoiler alert
Malcolm is miraculously resurrected
[close]
in the totally duff 'The Lost World' anyway (the book is more duff than the film in the case of the latter.)

Just finished reading Jurassic Park. Fantastic book! Probably the fastest I've read a novel in a long time. Only took me three days.

Your first spoiler was what I expected to read, having just finished it. However, I didn't notice you referred to "The Lost World" after your second spoiler, and went ahead and revealed that, expecting it to be a spoiler from Jurassic Park. Oops.

Ah well. I'll probably give The Lost World a read anyway, just to see how it differs from the film (which I don't remember much of, incidentally).

GeeWhiz

Quote from: Neville Chamberlain on April 06, 2017, 12:58:49 PM
Just finished reading JG Ballard's The Day of Creation. Now, I'm a big fan of the old Ballards, but this was a bit of an odd one. Maybe I wasn't in the right frame of mind when I started it, but I found the story hard to grasp from the outset. The only thing that kept me going was Ballard's typically beautiful writing and hallucinatory imagery, but the story itself - such as it was - was a bit sort of non-existent. And while I never thought dialogue was Ballard's strong point, in this it was atrocious.

Anyway, onto Michel Houellebecq's Submission now.

That's actually one of my favourite Ballards. I love him sub-Conradian mode.

I'm reading Rex Warner's The Aerodrome. It's the sort of story that sounds very straight and ordinary in summary, but is delivered with a consistent off-ness to it. Strange things keep happening, and characters never react as you'd expect.

Really enjoying it!

Serge

Quote from: MoonDust on April 07, 2017, 11:52:37 PMYour first Spoiler was what I expected to read, having just finished it. However, I didn't notice you referred to "The Lost World" after your second Spoiler, and went ahead and revealed that, expecting it to be a Spoiler from Jurassic Park. Oops.

To be fair,
Spoiler alert
Malcolm's resurrection
[close]
is literally line one, page one of 'The Lost World', so it's not a spoiler for long!

MoonDust

I am slightly miffed I read it so fast as I intended it to be my holiday read, and I don't fly out until Monday.

I have Minority Report but then I realised it's a short story, and the book I got is a collection of short stories where Minority Report is just one of them.

Can't be arsed reading different short stories I've never heard of. I'm not massively excited for Philip K. Dick fiction.

Artie Fufkin

Just started this last night :

Really enjoying it, so far.
Apparently it's being made into a film by Ron Howard ?

Doesn't seem the kind of story he'd go for, but you never know.

I remember reading a short story by him :

which was in the form of an actual letter.
This is kind of along the same lines. It takes the form of an actual book written by the titular character.

Artie Fufkin

Quote from: Artie Fufkin on April 11, 2017, 02:19:51 PM
Just started this last night :

Yep. REALLY enjoyed this.
Spoiler alert
The titular character starts out as a 'cool' guy, then is slowly revealed to be an ego-maniacal cunt.
It's kind of The Exorcist in a Blair Witch stylee for the social media age with a dash of Doctor Who timey-wimey stuff.
[close]
Well written, well paced. Clever stuff.

I'm now reading this now :

which is supposed to be great. It's ok, currently.

Serge

I'm going to meet that there M.R. Carey at an event tomorrow. Never read one of his books, I'm just there to try and sell some.

My April reading:

Is There Life Outside The Box? by Peter Davison, which I went into in the Old Doctor Who thread.

Rude Kids by Chris Donald, which I mentioned in the Viz Highlights thread.

Scarred For Life, Volume One: The 1970s, which I started a thread about!

The Thirst by Jo Nesbø, my disappointment with which I recounted in the Harry Hole thread.

And then:

Owen Hatherley's The Ministry Of Nostalgia, which I largely enjoyed, and while I can see why he's angry that people are appropriating what he sees as Austerity Nostalgia without looking too deeply into the meaning of it, I also don't see why people shouldn't just enjoy owning something because they like the visual aesthetic. I mean, I don't own a single thing with 'Keep Calm And Carry On' on it, but as someone who owns the 'Frank Pick's London' book and several records on Ghost Box, he's not really going to make me feel guilty about that. Not to mention that as soon as I saw a picture of a mug with Trellick Tower on it in Hatherley's book, my first thought was, 'ooh, where can I get one of those?'

The Girls by Emma Cline, which is absolutely bloody fantastic. I was worried it might be one of those books whose hype would build it up too much, but it's one of the best-written books I've read in a long time. Admittedly, the way it's sometimes being sold as 'the Manson Family book' doesn't help, and it both is and isn't that (presumably for legal reasons, the Manson character is called Russell Hadrick, and the Dennis Wilson character is Mitch Davies, and the murders are different) - although Russell looms large in the book, it's not really about him, it's about young Evie Boyd and the way she is bewitched by the otherness of the girls who follow Russell around, partly because they act as a stand in for her absent recently-divorced parents, but mainly because they live outside of the world as she knows it. I can't rave about it highly enough, it's fantastic, and I can't wait to see what Cline does next.

And finally, Abir Mukherjee's A Rising Man, an excellent crime novel set in the Calcutta of 1919. Sometimes the main character, Captain Sam Wyndham, does seem like a mouthpiece for Mukherjee's more modern view of the world (which isn't to say that there weren't people like Wyndham in India in 1919, but I don't think the language and phrasing is entirely right) and there are occasional info dumps for historical reference, but on the whole, I enjoyed spending time with these characters, I didn't figure out whodunnit (nothing new there, then) and again, I'll look forward to the next book in the series.

Large Noise

The Man in the High Castle- Philip K. Dick
Didn't really enjoy this. Found it all a bit flat and uninteresting, which surprised me. I suppose my problem was that, while the premise is interesting, the characters aren't, so once you've got to grips with Japan controlling San Francisco, it doesn't seem like there's a whole lot there.

I appreciate I'm probably just objectively wrong about that.

Soren Kierkegaard- A Sickness Unto Death

Read this because, and the start of The Divided Self- RD Laing he says that anycunt who wants to be down with him has to be down with Kierkegaard. What he doesn't tell you is that Kierkegaard actually is bad and sucks.

Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity- Richard Rorty
This guy's name has been doing the rounds because he predicted something like Trump happening back in 1998 (not in this book, this is just the first one I found). It's pretty bloody interesting. I won't try to sum it up here, but to sum it up, it's basically about reconciling the views of "historicists" like Marx and Rawls with "liberal ironists" like Nietzsche and Nabokov. It's interesting and intelligible.

The Cultural Turn (Selected Writings on the Postmodern)- Fredric Jameson
Right, here's the thing. There are interesting points made in here, but there are also sentences that seem like they might have been written by Charlie Kelly in that Flowers for Algernon episode of It's Always Sunny. I'm aware of people whose opinions I respect who swear by Jameson, but I've always got this nagging feeling while reading that he's doing a kind of shell game with his indecipherable language. Because it's so fucking hard to comprehend, you can't really bring yourself to scrutinise it. It could be that I've bitten off more than I can chew and the problem is that I, as a reader, am ill-equipped for something like this. But I could understand Rorty without having read absolutely every text and author he made reference to. I want to get more into 'theory' and philosophy (next up are Kant and Hegel, who I came across at uni without reading a great deal) but this experience with Jameson is putting me off.

Twit 2

RF Langley - Complete Poems

Some reet stonkers in there; will have to post one in one of those poetry threads that no fuckers reply to.

Been reading Hannah Arendt's Eichmann in Jerusalem recently, and I've gotta say I'm not a fan of the guy. He seemed like a total plum.

holyzombiejesus

Nearly finished my second book of the year! Shameful but the chance to get an extra hour's sleep by sleeping on the train to and from work is just too tempting. Anyway, I've liked Jon McGregor's work since his Booker longlisted debut If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things and his new novel came out last week. It's ace. So good. The Guardian review is better than anything I can write. I'm amazed that Caught By The River aren't all over this like a rash.

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/apr/15/reservoir-13-by-jon-mcgregor-review

marquis_de_sad

Quote from: Large Noise on May 03, 2017, 07:46:21 PM
"liberal ironists" like Nietzsche

Nietzsche's a liberal?

Quote from: Large Noise on May 03, 2017, 07:46:21 PMThe Cultural Turn (Selected Writings on the Postmodern)- Fredric Jameson

I had the same experience as you. Ultimately I decided that a lot of "theory" people disguise the lightness of their arguments by weighing them down with heavy prose. Whereas nowadays you might see writers appealing to scientific or historical research, theorists essentially back up their arguments with the poetic quality of their writing. Blame Nietzsche, I guess (whose academic career was a disaster because of his inability or unwillingness to stick to academic standards of research).

Quote from: Large Noise on May 03, 2017, 07:46:21 PMnext up are Kant and Hegel, who I came across at uni without reading a great deal) but this experience with Jameson is putting me off.

Hegel is worse than Jameson. But at least Hegel has the excuse of being born in the 18th century.

Large Noise

Yeah sorry, he considers Nietzsche an ironist, not a liberal ironist.

I was testing you and you passed.

Large Noise

Also; you seem like someone who might have some good recommendations, Marquis. Do ya?

marquis_de_sad

Quote from: Large Noise on May 03, 2017, 11:13:45 PMI was testing you and you passed.

Success!

Quote from: Large Noise on May 03, 2017, 11:30:43 PM
Also; you seem like someone who might have some good recommendations, Marquis. Do ya?

Not really, unfortunately. I gave up on philosophy because it all seemed meaningless and/or because I'm too dense. I've been reading a fair bit about philology these days, as it's more my thing, more grounded in history. It's fascinating how important it used to be. I can recommend James Turner's Philology: The Forgotten Origins of the Modern Humanities if you want an overview. It's very much an academic book, but not unreadable.

Quincey

Does anyone else enjoy the bleak but sometimes amusing Scottish crime novels of Stuart MacBride? I read his latest novel, A Dark so Deadly, which was rather good.

I also read the latest Harry Hole novel which I enjoyed.

Serge

Quote from: holyzombiejesus on May 03, 2017, 08:57:24 PMNearly finished my second book of the year! Shameful but the chance to get an extra hour's sleep by sleeping on the train to and from work is just too tempting. Anyway, I've liked Jon McGregor's work since his Booker longlisted debut If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things and his new novel came out last week. It's ace. So good. The Guardian review is better than anything I can write. I'm amazed that Caught By The River aren't all over this like a rash.

I'm probably going to wait for the paperback, but I am intrigued by this one. I haven't read '...Remarkable Things' either, though.

Artie Fufkin

Quote from: Serge on May 02, 2017, 08:55:30 PM
I'm going to meet that there M.R. Carey at an event tomorrow. Never read one of his books, I'm just there to try and sell some.

How was he ?

Artie Fufkin

Quote from: Serge on May 02, 2017, 08:55:30 PM


Is There Life Outside The Box? by Peter Davison, which I went into in the Old Doctor Who thread.



The Girls by Emma Cline, which is absolutely bloody fantastic. I was worried it might be one of those books whose hype would build it up too much, but it's one of the best-written books I've read in a long time. Admittedly, the way it's sometimes being sold as 'the Manson Family book' doesn't help, and it both is and isn't that (presumably for legal reasons, the Manson character is called Russell Hadrick, and the Dennis Wilson character is Mitch Davies, and the murders are different) - although Russell looms large in the book, it's not really about him, it's about young Evie Boyd and the way she is bewitched by the otherness of the girls who follow Russell around, partly because they act as a stand in for her absent recently-divorced parents, but mainly because they live outside of the world as she knows it. I can't rave about it highly enough, it's fantastic, and I can't wait to see what Cline does next.


Both added to my wish list, fanx

Sebastian Cobb

I seem to be alternating mostly between the works of Kurt Vonnegut and George Orwell at the moment.

Although having read Homage to Catalonia I'm now on Hemmingway's For Whom the Bell Tolls.

Serge

Quote from: Artie Fufkin on May 05, 2017, 08:51:00 AM
How was he ?

I literally shook his hand and said hello to him. Seemed perfectly nice when he was signing books, though, showing remarkable forbearance when the man at the head of the queue engaged him in conversation for about ten minutes on some abstruse topic while 20 people stood behind him wondering when he was going to piss off and let them get to the author.

Porter Dimi

Finished Édouard Louis' unrelentingly bleak The End of Eddy today. A harrowing autobiographical novel about growing up in the working-class French suburbs, an environment of violence and homophobia. It explores some very heavy topics indeed, from the aforementioned homophobia to alcoholism, bullying and even
Spoiler alert
incest
[close]
. A slim novel at just over 200 pages, but it will stick with you.


Sebastian Cobb

Quote from: Quincey on May 04, 2017, 08:27:22 AM
Does anyone else enjoy the bleak but sometimes amusing Scottish crime novels of Stuart MacBride? I read his latest novel, A Dark so Deadly, which was rather good.

I also read the latest Harry Hole novel which I enjoyed.

He was up doing some talks recently as part of a crossover Scottish/Scandinavian crime festival. They had a load of moody Scandinavian films on that I managed to miss for some reason.