What are you reading?

[Elderly Sumo Prophecy]

Always puzzled by that line by the famous punk singer Neil Young. Even more perplexing, "...is this the story of *a* Johnny Rotten?"

Is this a common problem with rock autobiographies? The Kieth Richards one decidedly ran out of steam about halfway through.

The thoughtless bastards who don't have the decency to die young, like proper rock stars do, tend to become old, bald and boring the same as the rest of us. It's like Sickboy's universal theory of life: you've got it, and then you lose it, and the lost it years are likely to be far less interesting. Imagine what a boring man Jimi Hendrix would have turned into.

[marquis_de_sad]

Always puzzled by that line by the famous punk singer Neil Young. Even more perplexing, "...is this the story of *a* Johnny Rotten?"

He might just be doing a Mark E Smith type thing ("of-ah"), but if he's not, then he could mean a story of a Johnny Rotten type person. Most likely the first one though.

[kalowski]

He might just be doing a Mark E Smith type thing ("of-ah"), but if he's not, then he could mean a story of a Johnny Rotten type person. Most likely the first one though.

Most likely the second one, I think.

[non capisco]

Just started 'The Haunting Of Hill House' by Shirley Jackson for the first time and loving it so far. Some swashbuckling prose on display here!

[Black Ship]

Writings from Ancient Egypt.

Enjoying it more than I thought I would.

[Artie Fufkin]

Just started 'The Haunting Of Hill House' by Shirley Jackson for the first time and loving it so far. Some swashbuckling prose on display here!

Good stuff, isn't it? I'd be interested in your thoughts once you've finished, if you have the care.....

[timebug]

Way back on September 7th 2019  I posted that I had started a re-read,some five days earlier, of all 55 Ed McBain '87th Precinct'
books. Finished this marathon yesterday! The full list for anyone who may think of tackling it sometime is:
Cop Hater (1956)
The Mugger (1956)
The Pusher (1956)
The Con Man (1957)
Killer's Choice (1957)
Killer's Payoff (1958)
Lady Killer (1958)
Killer's Wedge (1
'til Death (1959)
King's Ransom (1959)
Give the Boys a Great Big Hand (1960)
The Heckler (1960)
See Them Die (1960)
Lady, Lady I Did It (1961)
The Empty Hours (1962) - collection of three short novellas
Like Love (1962)
Ten Plus One (1963)
Axe (1964)
He Who Hesitates (1964)
Doll (1965)
80 Million Eyes (1966)
Fuzz (1968)
Shotgun (1969)
Jigsaw (1970)
Hail, Hail the Gang's All Here (1971)
Sadie When She Died (1972)
Let's Hear It for the Deaf Man (1973)
Hail to the Chief (1973)
Bread (1974)
Blood Relatives (1975)
So Long as You Both Shall Live (1976)
Long Time No See (1977)
Calypso (1979)
Ghosts (1980)
Heat (1981)
Ice (1983)
Lightning (1984)
Eight Black Horses (1985)
Poison (1987)
Tricks (1987)
Lullaby (1989)
Vespers (1990)
Widows (1991)
Kiss (1992)
Mischief (1993)
And All Through the House (Novella - 1994)
Romance (1995)
Nocturne (1997)
The Big Bad City (1999)
The Last Dance (2000)
Money, Money, Money (2001)
Fat Ollie's Book (2002)
The Frumious Bandersnatch (2003)
Hark! (2004)
Fiddlers (2005)
I love these stories,and as I mentioned in my original post, I sort of grew up with them.The first was published when i was just seven years old,and the last when I was fifty five! If you like decent procedurals, with plenty of dark humour and even darker 'cop humour' then give them a try.
A simple way to get a taste is to read the six 'Deaf man' stories and decide if they are for you. The Deaf Man is a returning villain who is into stealing huge sums of money, by increasingly devious methods.He writes notes to the Detectives of the 87th to taunt them, by almost giving away his plans, but not quite! The 'Deaf man stories are:
The Heckler (1960)
Fuzz (1968)
Let's Hear it for the Deaf Man! (1973)
Eight Black Horses (1985)
Mischief (1993)
Hark! (2004)
If you want a break from whatever you are currently into, I urge you to give these a go. You never know, you might even like them!

[Small Man Big Horse]

Way back on September 7th 2019  I posted that I had started a re-read,some five days earlier, of all 55 Ed McBain '87th Precinct'
books. Finished this marathon yesterday! The full list for anyone who may think of tackling it sometime is:
Cop Hater (1956)
The Mugger (1956)
The Pusher (1956)
The Con Man (1957)
Killer's Choice (1957)
Killer's Payoff (1958)
Lady Killer (1958)
Killer's Wedge (1
'til Death (1959)
King's Ransom (1959)
Give the Boys a Great Big Hand (1960)
The Heckler (1960)
See Them Die (1960)
Lady, Lady I Did It (1961)
The Empty Hours (1962) - collection of three short novellas
Like Love (1962)
Ten Plus One (1963)
Axe (1964)
He Who Hesitates (1964)
Doll (1965)
80 Million Eyes (1966)
Fuzz (1968)
Shotgun (1969)
Jigsaw (1970)
Hail, Hail the Gang's All Here (1971)
Sadie When She Died (1972)
Let's Hear It for the Deaf Man (1973)
Hail to the Chief (1973)
Bread (1974)
Blood Relatives (1975)
So Long as You Both Shall Live (1976)
Long Time No See (1977)
Calypso (1979)
Ghosts (1980)
Heat (1981)
Ice (1983)
Lightning (1984)
Eight Black Horses (1985)
Poison (1987)
Tricks (1987)
Lullaby (1989)
Vespers (1990)
Widows (1991)
Kiss (1992)
Mischief (1993)
And All Through the House (Novella - 1994)
Romance (1995)
Nocturne (1997)
The Big Bad City (1999)
The Last Dance (2000)
Money, Money, Money (2001)
Fat Ollie's Book (2002)
The Frumious Bandersnatch (2003)
Hark! (2004)
Fiddlers (2005)
I love these stories,and as I mentioned in my original post, I sort of grew up with them.The first was published when i was just seven years old,and the last when I was fifty five! If you like decent procedurals, with plenty of dark humour and even darker 'cop humour' then give them a try.
A simple way to get a taste is to read the six 'Deaf man' stories and decide if they are for you. The Deaf Man is a returning villain who is into stealing huge sums of money, by increasingly devious methods.He writes notes to the Detectives of the 87th to taunt them, by almost giving away his plans, but not quite! The 'Deaf man stories are:
The Heckler (1960)
Fuzz (1968)
Let's Hear it for the Deaf Man! (1973)
Eight Black Horses (1985)
Mischief (1993)
Hark! (2004)
If you want a break from whatever you are currently into, I urge you to give these a go. You never know, you might even like them!

Wow, that's impressive work to get through them so quickly. And I am intrigued, I've not read many thrillers but am slowly getting in to the genre after enjoying The Axman's Jazz and a couple of others, so shall have to head to the library during the week to see what they've got in stock.

I'm currently half way though Expo 58 by Jonathan Coe, it took me a little while to become gripped by it but once I was about 100 pages in I started enjoying it a lot. Not that it was ever bad, just not quite as good as he usually is.

[timebug]

Not so impressive,when you consider that the first dozen or maybe twenty books, are only around a hundred to a hundred and twenty pages long. They do get longer as the years go by,and I think (from recent memory) that the longest is about two hundred and eighty pages. Always been a keen and omnivorous reader, so this was a thing of pleasure for me!
I should add, that I took a break after about the forty fourth book, to catch up on the latest Jack Reacher book, the latest Harry Hole Book, a fairly recent Stephen King novel and the latest Roy Grace book. I needed a change,and came back to the 87th series refreshed and raring to go!
Still love them all, but you can see how they have become more up to date as you read them.In the early ones, everything is written in notebooks and on paper; later, all the desks have computers. And as Bart Simpson has been ten years old forever, so Steve Carella, one of the featured detectives in the series is thirty three for the first ten books or so (until 1960 ) and then slowly ages, so that in the last book (2005) he has 'just turned 40'. This sort of thing is a joy to me,as I am endlessly fascinated by minutiae of that sort!
And in a later book, a suspect is interviewed, who is an actor; he lists his screen credits as half a dozen films that were actually made from the 87th series! I love in-jokes too!

[Pingers]

I gave up on Notes From the Underground by Dostoevsky. Life's too short, and I have realised that the 19th century doesn't hold much interest for me.

Last Exit to Brooklyn up next then

[eifion]

Way back on September 7th 2019  I posted that I had started a re-read,some five days earlier, of all 55 Ed McBain '87th Precinct'
books. Finished this marathon yesterday! The full list for anyone who may think of tackling it sometime is:

(big list of books)

If you want a break from whatever you are currently into, I urge you to give these a go. You never know, you might even like them!

I read Cop Killer after you mentioned these last year and have now read the first four.I've been enjoying them and will carry on working my way through the rest of the series.

Last month I finished the last of the Maigret novels. Penguin started reissuing them one-a-month in 2013 and the last one came out in January. There are 75 of them and while there are one or two duff ones they're mostly very good. Simenon wrote about 200 novels in total so I've got plenty of others of his to read.

[Elderly Sumo Prophecy]

Update on John Lydon autobiography:

It's a bit shit really. 200 pages in and I'm not sure I can make the full 500. Like the man himself, there's a lot of interesting stuff in there, but it's hidden amongst so much tedious waffle. He's like some tedious drunk in a pub sometimes, just droning on about shit that nobody cares about. With a decent editor on the case, and maybe reducing the size to about 300-400 pages, it could have been quite a compelling read.

[Funcrusher]

I read Cop Killer after you mentioned these last year and have now read the first four.I've been enjoying them and will carry on working my way through the rest of the series.

Last month I finished the last of the Maigret novels. Penguin started reissuing them one-a-month in 2013 and the last one came out in January. There are 75 of them and while there are one or two duff ones they're mostly very good. Simenon wrote about 200 novels in total so I've got plenty of others of his to read.

I started getting the Maigret reissues for the first few and then life got in the way and I stopped but I would love to read the whole lot one day as they are excellent, and surprisingly gritty for the era they were written in. I'd also like to polish off the books I haven't read in the Lew Archer and Travis McGee series someday.

I've read a couple of Ed McBains and remember them being really good.

[jobotic]

Have read all the Lew Archers more than once, probably my favourite series of books. I might do so again soon.

Travis McGee sounds good though, will look for them.

[Panbaams]

Something that's been waiting in the You Really Should Have Read This By Now Dept. for a while: To Kill a Mockingbird.

[Small Man Big Horse]

Something that's been waiting in the You Really Should Have Read This By Now Dept. for a while: To Kill a Mockingbird.

Eh, you could, or you could just watch the astoundingly racist school play version that I was in - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9S3rBJcwYaI

[Elderly Sumo Prophecy]

Eh, you could, or you could just watch the astoundingly racist school play version that I was in - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9S3rBJcwYaI

Which one are you?

[touchingcloth]

Something that's been waiting in the You Really Should Have Read This By Now Dept. for a while: To Kill a Mockingbird.

This is definitely a book where I envy people getting to enjoy it for the very first time.

[Small Man Big Horse]

Which one are you?

I was the lawyer who wasn't Atticus Finch.

I finished Expo 58 last night and felt satisfied by the ending, I saw

Spoiler alert

the minor twist coming concerning the daughter

[close]

but otherwise it was quite poignant, and worked well.

[gilbertharding]

Just started a biography of the cyclist Marco Pantani, by Matt Rendell.

Unfortunately I think Matt Rendell thinks he's a much better writer than he actually is. I'll have gone blind by the time I finish it.

[Mister Six]

Way back on September 7th 2019  I posted that I had started a re-read,some five days earlier, of all 55 Ed McBain '87th Precinct'
books. Finished this marathon yesterday!

I've been meaning to look into these for a while. I like the idea that it has a "floating timeline" something like The Simpsons.

Picked up Londonstani at the local library because I was mildly curious to get an insight into the lives and homes of Indo-Pak Brits. Was saddened to discover it was fiction rather than a memoir or study (it was on one of those "just returned" trolleys) and sadder still to discover it's basically young adult fiction with a first-person teenage narrator, which always grates. Probably would have liked it if I were a teenager myself. Gave up after looking at some reviews and noting that (1) it degenerates into silly action/crime gubbins towards the end, and (2) there's a ridiculous twist in the last few pages that sounds contrived as hell (

Spoiler alert

the narrator is revealed to be a white kid pretending to be "desi", which doesn't really jibe with his friendship with a racist hardman Asian kid, although maybe that is better contextualised further in than I got

[close]

).

[Twit 2]

Coupla Michael Moorcocks:

Behold the Man
Cure for Cancer

Also, Summer of the Red Wolf by Morris West.

The Listener: A Psychoanalyst Examines His Life by Allen Wheelis.

[buttgammon]

Just finished The Melancholy of Resistance by Laszlo Krasznahorkai. I enjoyed it more than Satantango but bloody hell, what a strange book! It's basically a black comedy about a Hungarian town descending into anarchy when a circus comes to town to exhibit a giant whale specimen.

Also recently finished The Penguin Book of Oulipo, which I'd been dipping in and out of for ages. That was a lot of fun.

[Hymenoptera]

I just recently finished Hex by Thomas Olde Heuvelt, based on lots of glowing reviews. Overall I enjoyed it but that was massively distempered by any instance of the teenage son's POV. He didn't feel like a real kid and his teen friends felt two-dimensional to me as well. Did get a laugh out of this supposed 17-year-old really loving the band Train though. I've had to cut this back because while typing I suddenly ended up with a paragraph of gripes I had with the book, all of them small and twatty. Wondering if I did enjoy it now actually.

I've started reading The Cormorant by Stephen Gregory. Really loving it so far, properly moody and genuinely creeping towards unsettling. Very strong feel for place in it, and some great imagery in places.

Part way through Cows by Matthew Stokoe but I had to give that a rest for a bit. Started to put me off my food and float to the top of my thoughts at inopportune moments. Usually I've got a strong stomach for that kinda stuff but hats off to Stokoe for finding exactly the things that make my brain revolt. Will prolly read this in spurts from now on.

[marquis_de_sad]

Part way through Cows by Matthew Stokoe but I had to give that a rest for a bit. Started to put me off my food and float to the top of my thoughts at inopportune moments. Usually I've got a strong stomach for that kinda stuff but hats off to Stokoe for finding exactly the things that make my brain revolt. Will prolly read this in spurts from now on.

I read High Life by him. It's good, but depressing.

[kalowski]

I'm reading As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner. He's a challenging Reade, but I love the voices he creates.

[spaghetamine]

Just finished the audiobook of A Scanner Darkly which I found pretty incredible. Haven't been immersed in the world of a novel like that for a very long time. I have been evangelizing about it to pretty much anyone in my immediate vicinity.

[Pingers]

Just finished The Melancholy of Resistance by Laszlo Krasznahorkai. I enjoyed it more than Satantango but bloody hell, what a strange book! It's basically a black comedy about a Hungarian town descending into anarchy when a circus comes to town to exhibit a giant whale specimen.

I read this a few years ago and thought (think) it was very special. For a start, anyone who can write sentences longer than a page and still keep you enthralled has something uncanny about them. And the vivid, nightmarish quality has stuck with me when many books leave little trace in my psyche. A dark, dark book, the sensation of which I can still recall like a particularly disturbing dream.

[buttgammon]

I read this a few years ago and thought (think) it was very special. For a start, anyone who can write sentences longer than a page and still keep you enthralled has something uncanny about them. And the vivid, nightmarish quality has stuck with me when many books leave little trace in my psyche. A dark, dark book, the sensation of which I can still recall like a particularly disturbing dream.

Totally get the dreamlike qualities. I'm not entirely sure I 'got' the whole book, and it's something I can imagine coming back to in the future. It's a terrific book, albeit one that often confounded me.

When I mentioned Satantango earlier in the thread, the film adaptation got mentioned. This was apparently turned into a film by Béla Tarr called Werckmeister Harmonies. Despite the vividness of parts of the book, it seems totally unfilmable, which is only making me more curious. Has anyone actually seen this? It sounds really interesting.

[chveik]

yeah it's great, quite faithful to the book's atmosphere and the whole 'nightmarish quality''. you should definitely check it out.