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What are you reading?

Started by Talulah, really!, October 04, 2017, 10:07:22 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

marquis_de_sad

Quote from: Twit 2 on August 24, 2018, 01:37:10 PM
Cheers. What about Thomas Bernhard? Also on my list. I love a bit of nihilistic misanthropy, me.

He's great. His misanthropy also includes making fun of himself (or the narrator). Really hypnotic prose.

selectivememory

There was a brief bit of discussion about him on the first page of this thread. He's very funny and very misanthropic, and yeah, his prose is extraordinary. One of my favourite stylists ever. Very repetitive, which suits the obsessiveness of his narrators perfectly.


Twit 2

Ah ok, forgot he was mentioned before: I became aware of him by chasing up some of Ligotti's favourite writers.

buttgammon

I've said it before (in this very thread; see the link above), but Woodcutters is a bloody brilliant. It's dark, angry and very funny.

chveik

I'm in the middle of a Christopher Priest binge at the moment. The Separation, The Islanders, The Affirmation, Future for a Darkening Island, The Adjacent, The Dream Archipelago. What a wonderful writer.

Small Man Big Horse

I'm about 80 pages in to Love, Sex and Other Foreign Policy Goals by Jesse Armstrong at the moment but struggling a bit as all of the characters are so unlikeable. It's something he dealt with in Succession really well, partially as they tended to be such monstrous cunts, but this lot are pompous, irritating and self-congratulatory twats. I wouldn't mind so much if the central character wasn't so bloody wet, and didn't come out with a whole bunch of idiotic stuff at times (at one point he can't decide if he believes in lesbians or not, for instance) and if it doesn't start to improve I might quit it. Has anyone else read it?

Twit 2

Samuel Beckett poems. My favourites are the Éluard translations, the mirlitonnades and the Chamfort maxims reimagined into verse.

Black Ship

Having a Hunter S. Thompson Binge whilst I'm on holiday. Finished Curse of Lono in a day. Now reading The Proud Highway. I really should be editing my Brighton Vlog, but fuck it.

amputeeporn

Quote from: Black Ship on September 16, 2018, 12:11:19 AM
Having a Hunter S. Thompson Binge whilst I'm on holiday. Finished Curse of Lono in a day. Now reading The Proud Highway. I really should be editing my Brighton Vlog, but fuck it.

Guessing you haven't carted the enormous physical edition on holiday? Am I right in thinking that it's only available physically in that enormous coffee table edition? That's the one I have at my mum and dad's. Would love to re-read one day soon, as I recall the brevity and madcap nature allowed it to compare favourably to FALILV.

Black Ship

Quote from: amputeeporn on September 16, 2018, 12:42:37 AM
Guessing you haven't carted the enormous physical edition on holiday? Am I right in thinking that it's only available physically in that enormous coffee table edition? That's the one I have at my mum and dad's. Would love to re-read one day soon, as I recall the brevity and madcap nature allowed it to compare favourably to FALILV.

I'm on holiday at home, the first few days were at Brighton. But yes, PH is a bit of a beast.

holyzombiejesus

Now I've got the Booker list out of the way, I can finally read something I've chosen, namely All Among The Barley by Melissa Harrison. It's a bit bittersweet this one as I used to talk with Serge about the author quite a lot. We were both really pleased when we saw that her new one was out this August but then he found out that he didn't have long left and told me that he was going to re-read her 2nd book instead. I managed to get hold of her via Twitter and explained what was happening and she kindly agreed to send Serge a proof copy. She sent a lovely message saying how proud she felt that he was choosing one of her books to read before he passed away and Serge excitedly messaged me one Saturday saying that it had arrived and he couldn't wait to read it. Unfortunately 2 or 3 days later, he passed away. So now I'm going to read it for both of us.

Small Man Big Horse

Quote from: Small Man Big Horse on September 06, 2018, 12:10:59 AM
I'm about 80 pages in to Love, Sex and Other Foreign Policy Goals by Jesse Armstrong at the moment but struggling a bit as all of the characters are so unlikeable. It's something he dealt with in Succession really well, partially as they tended to be such monstrous cunts, but this lot are pompous, irritating and self-congratulatory twats. I wouldn't mind so much if the central character wasn't so bloody wet, and didn't come out with a whole bunch of idiotic stuff at times (at one point he can't decide if he believes in lesbians or not, for instance) and if it doesn't start to improve I might quit it. Has anyone else read it?

This didn't get much better unfortunately. There's some vaguely interesting stuff going on when they finally get to the conflict zones but the characters are just too shitty to care about, and I was disappointed that they didn't all die or at least get hurt badly. The ending was shit too, and I wouldn't recommend it to anyone. Well, maybe Tom. I don't like Tom at all.

Glebe

Stephen King's It. It's taking a while to get going, but I'm enjoying it nonetheless.

Cuellar

Quote from: Glebe on October 04, 2018, 03:16:17 AM
Stephen King's It. It's taking a while to get going, but I'm enjoying It nonetheless.

chveik

Moorcock's Elric. Really good.

Twit 2

Friedrich Holderlin's Life, Poetry and Madness by Wilhelm Waiblinger, in a new translation by Will Stone.

Sin Agog

Mary Shelley's The Last Man.  Her characters are muddy mouthpieces, and her vision of the future basically amounts to slightly faster hot air balloons, but as an exercise in novel-writing as therapy I'm really enjoying this.  Shortly before starting it, her pal Byron had croaked fighting in Greece, her hubby had drowned in a boating accident, and several of her tykes had died in quick succession.  Her way of dealing with this was writing a giant novel in which everyone dies of the plague.  Maybe I've read too many aloof, emotionally distant bloke authors over the years; it's just refreshing to read something from someone clearly processing their grief on the page- there are avatars for all the aforementioned deceased in the book.  Her writing sometimes vacillated between wonderfully rich and a bit sloppy, but it's got heart.  It's almost like one long meditation on melancholy: she'll often hurtle through otherwise exciting moments of action in favour of dwelling on her narrator's innerworld, which is also something that works in her favour for me.  Not quite up there with a few other similarly gloomy books from the era, especially Maturin's matchless Melmoth the Wanderer, but not her equivalent of a Waterworld/Ishtar/Battlefield Earth-style flop that I was lead to believe.

Artie Fufkin

Shirley Jackson's The Haunting Of Hill House.

Just started this last night. I've been meaning to read this for years. Ever since Stephen King spouted on about it in his 'horror review book' Danse Macabre back in the day.
I noted yesterday that Netflix have made it into a series(?). So I thought I'd read it before watching that.
And it's coming up to Halloween, after all.

I've read the first 3 chapters so far. It's pretty good, actually. Written just before the 60's, sometimes these books have clunky dialogue I find. But it's running quite smoothly.

AliasTheCat

Just finished misanthropic classic Journey to the End of Night by Louis-Ferdinand Celine.
Enjoyably grubby and feverish as the book is, I'm having difficulty squaring it with what I know about the author and his support for the axis powers during the war, so scathing is he of authority and patriotism (and everything and everyone else really)
Next up is Cosmos by Witold Gombrowicz

VaginaSimpson

The Kybalion by "Three Initiates". Magick innit?

saltysnacks

Robert Christgau's new book. He manages to hit a sweet spot for me: he's political, cultured and funny. He has an essay comparing song lyrics to poetry, and this is something I've considered myself. I think to hope that song lyrics are poetic gives poetry too much respect, too many times you hear someone's lyrics being described as 'poetic'. It's being used in a positive way seems to indicate that poetry is a good in itself, when it isn't. I'd rather stab my eyes out than read 90% of Tennyson. Also, Poetry has to force the reader into its rythmns, the poet should be a master of language, wheras the songwriter has to know how singing can transform a simple phrase into something more.

at last

Not very impressive is it? When Etta James sings those words though, the effect is difficult to describe.

Artie Fufkin

Quote from: Artie Fufkin on October 05, 2018, 12:40:24 PM
Shirley Jackson's The Haunting Of Hill House.

Just started this last night. I've been meaning to read this for years. Ever since Stephen King spouted on about it in his 'horror review book' Danse Macabre back in the day.
I noted yesterday that Netflix have made it into a series(?). So I thought I'd read it before watching that.
And it's coming up to Halloween, after all.

I've read the first 3 chapters so far. It's pretty good, actually. Written just before the 60's, sometimes these books have clunky dialogue I find. But it's running quite smoothly.

Aw, man. This is excellent so far. Genuinely giving me the willys.
I'm reminded that it was this book, specifically the opening paragraph, that inspired Stephen King to write Salem's Lot (my fave Steve King book). I wonder if Mark Z. Danielewski was inspired to write House Of Leaves after reading it.

Small Man Big Horse

#472
I'm half way through Sara Pascoe's Animal: The Autobiography of a Female Body and enjoying it a lot, there's some fascinating facts and Sara's tales from her own life are really interesting, plus it's very funny throughout.

holyzombiejesus


Ghost Wall by Sarah Moss. Really good. Quite a short novel (150 pages or so) telling the story of a group of students on an iron age 're-enactment' trip in Northumberland. One of the girls' parents are also on the trip and it becomes apparent that the dad's a bit of a twat.


Mink

Rosewater by Tade Thompson, haven't had that much success reading novels in years but i'm looking forwards to bedtime and already a little sad it will end. 

Ferris

Pyongyang: a Journey in North Korea by Guy DeLisle.

Nice graphic novel. Very interesting, enjoying it so far!

gilbertharding

I have just given up - about 2/3rds of the way into - the first volume of JG Ballard's short stories. I liked the description of Mary Shelley's Future World (slightly faster hot air balloons) up thread... old JGs vision not much more advanced.

I did like the one about the people who thought they were on a space station bound for a distant star. That would make an amazing film.

I am now reading Sense and Sensibility for the first ever time. I've seen a film. My second Jane Austen.

zomgmouse

Recently finished Orlando. What a ride. The coupling of "biography" and complete fantastical dreamlike narrative was really well-executed. Sweeping and personal and quite sensational.

Pranet

Quote from: gilbertharding on October 12, 2018, 11:30:29 AM
I have just given up - about 2/3rds of the way into - the first volume of JG Ballard's short stories. I liked the description of Mary Shelley's Future World (slightly faster hot air balloons) up thread... old JGs vision not much more advanced.

I did like the one about the people who thought they were on a space station bound for a distant star. That would make an amazing film.


If the story was Thirteen to Centaurus then there is an existing television adaptation of from the 1960s- the anthology series Out of the Unknown did it and it is one of the surviving episodes.

Small Man Big Horse

Quote from: zomgmouse on October 12, 2018, 10:54:48 PM
Recently finished Orlando. What a ride. The coupling of "biography" and complete fantastical dreamlike narrative was really well-executed. Sweeping and personal and quite sensational.

I read that whilst at university and absolutely loved it, and really should check out more Virgina Woolf, the only other book by her I've read is To the Lighthouse. Edit: Oh yeah, and Mrs Dalloway.