Now Reading

Reading Oblivion by David Wallace and I can't help but feel that anyone that refers to his fiction as 'inspiring' has probably not read any of his fiction.

These are depressing stories designed to punish any character that dares to have fun or enjoy themselves or have any kind of happiness. Life is miserable and full of pain and DFW makes sure of it.

Amazingly written but wouldn't it have killed the guy (it did) to write a happy thing for once? Sheesh! 'Incarnations of Burned Children' I tell you!

edit: tbf one story does have a sort of positive ending to it, but that's a rarity so far. Half the book to go...

His work inspired me to abandon my dreams and accept a life of despair and alienation, m8.

Job well done DFW

At least there's no false advertising re the title, though.

Just finished The Cartel by Don Winslow. This and its prequel, The Power of the Dog, are the only things I've read by him, but they read like Le Carre or Graham Greene taking on the drug war. 10/10

On to the The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi, The Whites by Richard Price and The Hummingbird's Daughter soon.

After a 8 year break from reading, I finally finished 'One hundred years of soltitude' by Gabriel Garcia Marquez last week. What a read. Sublime in so many aspects, detailed on so many levels. A truly spectacular read. The last chapter gave me so many emotional states: joy, despair, horror, peace and, finally, acceptance.

Now I'm reading Contact by Carl Sagan.I loved the movie a lot, and I like this book too. Ellie is such a powerful and loveable character. The dialogues are very interesting, and monsieur Sagan has such a nice way of writing.

I'm also reading an autobiographical book by Adriaan van Dis, a dutch author. The book is about him pretty much guiding his estranged mother to her death, while simultaneously writing down her life story. It's so brutally honest. I like that

At the same, I am reading a translation of the whole Kama Sutra (+introduction +comments). I probably am going to take my sweet time for that.

DWF-talk: I dug up Infinite Jest while i was moving houses. Although I bought it, read about a 100 pages a while back, it was a very hard book for me to get through; it felt detached, so unerringly detached in it's irony. I didn't like that. Having said that, I read that book a while ago, and wasn't in the bestest of state of minds back then. Also was dealing with some drug addiction problems back then (still am lol ), so it might've been too confrontational for me. idk, maybe i should give it another shot (year of trial size dove bar gave me a good fucking chuckle, i have to admit).

What attracted you guys to Infinite Jest?

I was attracted to it because I kept hearing how it was an impossible book and I wanted to see if that was true.

I'm attracted to those kind of works in general, to see if they're as tough / crap as said, eg Gravity's Rainbow, Golden Notebook etc.

Infinite Jest is tough in a way, but rewards you for persevering. Just gotta keep going and not skip anything. Reading on a kindle helps, especially with footnotes / arm cramp.

The first couple of hundred pages are designed to be tough, after which it begins to ease up a little and make sense, bit by bit. The Eschaton game is particularly fun to read, if slightly overlong.

Read carefully all the way through, even if difficult for you to do so. And then once you've gotten to the end, reread the first part of the book. Anything else I could say might ruin the fun...

Here I can really spoil how the book is structured, if you're still struggling to continue (not plot spoilers but structure ones so don't click unless you're sure...):

Out of the difficult books I've tried so far, Infinite Jest is the one that rewards the most imo. I will definitely reread it one day and I will enjoy doing so.

Resign yourself to the fact it will take a long time to finish and you'll enjoy it, I'm sure.

Took me four months to finish it, reading it bit by bit at work each day...

I'm now reading Neverwhere. I'm not one for fantasy books and "fairy tales", even if they're adult-oriented as this one (supposedly) is, but I loved American Gods so I figured I'd give this one a shot. Also it has Spiral's seal of approval so it can't be horrible*. I'm liking it so far (50ish pages in)

And to continue the Infinite Jest talk, I got it for xmas and am going to read it after I'm done with Neverwhere. Picked it up cause it's a classic and I'm a sucker for postmodern, detached, etc etc novels. It's worth noting I gave up on Gravity's Rainbow twice last year, god that book is a drag

*it can be horrible

How to Build a Universe by some bloke - I really want to get into space and astronomy but I'm a fucking idiot, if anyone has suggestions I am all ears. I've also watched Cosmos and read the Bill Bryson one.

Carlos Fuente's La región más transparente

A novel about Mexico City (one of my favorite cities)

Just finished The City & The City by China Mieville. Strongly recommend. It's a police procedural set in two european cities that exist on the same physical plain. Kind of Kafka-esque.

Moby Dick is even better when you imagine the main character, Ishamel, as Zach Galifianakis. The first 20 pages are him refusing to share a bed with another man. Later, they wake up spooning.

There are also amazing lines like this, "But even so, amid the tornadoed Atlantic of my being, do I myself still for ever centrally disport in mute calm"

  On 2/3/2016 at 12:54 AM, gnarlybog said:

Just finished The City & The City by China Mieville. Strongly recommend. It's a police procedural set in two european cities that exist on the same physical plain. Kind of Kafka-esque.

 

Great book, there's a BBC book club podcast where he is interviewed and he seems safe as fuck, worth a listen.

  On 2/4/2016 at 12:12 PM, tec said:

 

  On 2/3/2016 at 12:54 AM, gnarlybog said:

Just finished The City & The City by China Mieville. Strongly recommend. It's a police procedural set in two european cities that exist on the same physical plain. Kind of Kafka-esque.

 

 

Great book, there's a BBC book club podcast where he is interviewed and he seems safe as fuck, worth a listen.

 

It's also worth reading interviews with him if you're looking for a generally interesting read and a gateway into weird and esoteric fiction, children's fiction, surrealist art and other cool stuff; he always mentions loads of off-the-wall shit. Definitely a cool guy.

Now I'm dual wielding The Hummingbird's Daughter by Luis Alberto Urrea and The Savage Detectives by Roberto Bolaño.

currently reading jane eyre, have moby dick in the queue (woop woop gnarlybog), few other things in french & english waiting to start...have simulacra & simulation on my computer which i pick at from time to time, along with various pdfs scattered on my computer that all fall somewhere on a spectrum of "academically accepted science//philosophy" to "total moonman shit"

Q: if a person were to read one major work of english literature from each decade, would they be able to gradually transition into middle & olde english? Does the language make huge jumps at any point? Or maybe it's just that if you go far enough back it starts getting hard to find something for every decade...

Reading my way through Vonnegut's Letters and feeling a mixture of relief and depression that my personal writing hero, who I felt came closest to hitting the nail on the head about living (in my meagre opinion), himself considered everything he did trash, as unimportant art, as I consider everything else I do too.

Not to mention that for so much of his early writing life he seemed to only have one friend. Who he then fell out with, and barely spoke to afterwards. He made more afterwards, but not many.

And yet, he stays so polite, so friendly and warm to people, even new correspondents, despite his wife cheating on him and the shit in his life. What a guy.

The current feeling I have is: so this feeling doesn't change, even when I get to my 70's? Oh man.

  On 2/3/2016 at 12:54 AM, gnarlybog said:

Moby Dick

My next book Green Roomers will be coming out on the 8th of March after many months of self-loathing and revision*. Pre-order here for a measly buck / quid / hundred yen**! >>

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B01BKX5AXM << UK

www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01BKX5AXM << US

If you see a typo in the synopsis, feel free to tell me: I spot a new one every day and wish I was dead every time.

*still one last round of revision and self-loathing before I am completely finished with the book

**I will sporadically put the book up for free fairly soon after release so you can wait if you don't want to buy. You make very little anyway...

  On 2/10/2016 at 10:14 PM, Bechuga said:

 

My next book Green Roomers will be coming out on the 8th of March after many months of self-loathing and revision*. Pre-order here for a measly buck / quid / hundred yen**! >>

 

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B01BKX5AXM << UK

www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01BKX5AXM << US

 

If you see a typo in the synopsis, feel free to tell me: I spot a new one every day and wish I was dead every time.

 

*still one last round of revision and self-loathing before I am completely finished with the book

**I will sporadically put the book up for free fairly soon after release so you can wait if you don't want to buy. You make very little anyway...

This is awesome, nice one. I don't wish for this to sound rude; I work in a bookshop, and if anyone came in and asked for a book by your author name anger-steam would make my brain explode. You got a deece name brother.

I started the reading of "In the Dark Places of Wisdom" by Peter Kingsley about a couple of days ago. I'm enjoying the read, nice rythm and nice amounts of wisdom

  On 2/11/2016 at 12:16 AM, tec said:

 

  On 2/10/2016 at 10:14 PM, Bechuga said:

 

My next book Green Roomers will be coming out on the 8th of March after many months of self-loathing and revision*. Pre-order here for a measly buck / quid / hundred yen**! >>

 

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B01BKX5AXM << UK

www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01BKX5AXM << US

 

If you see a typo in the synopsis, feel free to tell me: I spot a new one every day and wish I was dead every time.

 

*still one last round of revision and self-loathing before I am completely finished with the book

**I will sporadically put the book up for free fairly soon after release so you can wait if you don't want to buy. You make very little anyway...

 

 

This is awesome, nice one. I don't wish for this to sound rude; I work in a bookshop, and if anyone came in and asked for a book by your author name anger-steam would make my brain explode. You got a deece name brother.

 

There are already forty authors with my name and I couldn't be bothered to think up a plausible other name so I've stuck with initials. Honestly, if I went with my real name you'd have far worse headaches.

Mostly finished with The Hummingbird's Daughter, but I've kind of fallen of The Savage Detectives. I generally am fond of Bolaño, but I don't think I'm in the mood at the moment. Probably move on to The Sound of Things Falling and A Perfect Spy next.

  Quote

10 pages into moby dick & there's a guy explaining why trying to sell preserved human heads to people on the street on the lord's day might not be well received

noice