Now Reading

I've not read much Roth but I know I should. One of my lecturers recommended The Plot Against America to me last year and I ate it up, but I'm a sucker for alternate histories. Where next, literary WATMMers?

  Iain C said:

I've not read much Roth but I know I should. One of my lecturers recommended The Plot Against America to me last year and I ate it up, but I'm a sucker for alternate histories. Where next, literary WATMMers?

havent read that one yet. Goodbye, Columbus and Portnoys Complaint were the other two roths i read and both were fantastic.

i liked the dying animal. haven't read anything else by him. i imagine he can get pretty boring and self pitying though...bit like john updike.

  zaphod said:

i liked the dying animal. haven't read anything else by him. i imagine he can get pretty boring and self pitying though...bit like john updike.

Hes self pitying in a hilarious thoughtful way.

The Confidence Man - Melville

i got that bryson book for christmas a few years back but i haven't read it yet, wtf

THe Bryson book is good. That one and the one about the english language are his good ones. The walk in the woods one is bullshit, he never walked the whole trail, just parts of it.

He gets some things wrong in his science book as well as the language book, but stilla good writer for the most part.

Currently reading: STephen Jay Gould - Leonardo's MOuntain of Clams and the Diet of Worms.

Also: russian literature is the tits.

Italo Calvino is god, but slightly overrated as a magical realist.

just struggled my way through yiddish policemans union. what a load of crap. didnt get into it but kept going anyway and was rewarded with an awful ending.

basically:

"the killer is erm.....yeah this guy from earlier in the book, you remember him right? he was barely introduced.

the mastermind is erm... that other guy we met at the chessclub. yeah why not. "

avoid this book. and a big thanks to the wankers who recommended.

Just reread Surfacing by Margaret Atwood, this is a good novel but I did not enjoy it fully because I intend to write about it in a fucking exam tomorrow. Argh!

  Benedict Cumberbatch said:

just struggled my way through yiddish policemans union. what a load of crap. didnt get into it but kept going anyway and was rewarded with an awful ending.

 

basically:

 

"the killer is erm.....yeah this guy from earlier in the book, you remember him right? he was barely introduced.

the mastermind is erm... that other guy we met at the chessclub. yeah why not. "

 

 

avoid this book. and a big thanks to the wankers who recommended.

Glad someone spoke the truth about that shit. It kept getting all this praise. Sounded totally absurd.

  chenGOD said:

THe Bryson book is good. That one and the one about the english language are his good ones. The walk in the woods one is bullshit, he never walked the whole trail, just parts of it.

ah man that book is gold.

this is maybe my first "bestseller". I dont know if you can compare it with Illuminati, Sakrileg and the likes, but so far I have really enjoyed this one.

  takeshi said:

The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle - Haruki Murakami

same here

i'm really enjoying it

Rant - Palahniuk

Book of the Hopi - Frank Waters

the lover - marguerite duras

a walk in the woods was a great book. i'm not sure how you can say it was bullshit. it was funny, well written and had a good heart to it. it promoted walking and taking things slow. it's his best book.

also, michael chabon isn't a very good writer. he's not quite as bad as jonathan safran foer, but he's close. that whole wondrous brooklyn school of jewish pseudo magical realism is the most overhyped thing ever.

right now i'm reading this:

the master and margarita - mikhail bulgakov

"The power of now" by Eckhart Tolle.

sound on sound may 09 issue

  triachus said:

  takeshi said:

The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle - Haruki Murakami

 

same here

i'm really enjoying it

one of my favorite authors. I like almost everything of his that I have read. it's really hard to pick favorites but I'm going to go with Kafka on the Shore and then Hardboiled Wonderland and the End of the World... and almost everything else. just read some newer short story collection. good too.

Anyone heard about this?

Rinko Kikuchi To Star in Movie Adaptation of Murakami's 'Norwegian Wood'

I haven't read this book yet but I like Kikuchi and it's being directed by Tran Anh Hung, who did a beautiful movie called Cyclo.

The Wonder by J D Beresford

  takeshi said:

Anyone heard about this?

Rinko Kikuchi To Star in Movie Adaptation of Murakami's 'Norwegian Wood'

I haven't read this book yet but I like Kikuchi and it's being directed by Tran Anh Hung, who did a beautiful movie called Cyclo.

weird, murakami has always battled the idea of turning that book into a movie. anyway it's probably his most melodramatic and ridiculous novel, i'm not too sure how well it would work as a film. i guess if it's toned down it might work. i'd rather see hard boiled wonderland or windup bird turned into a movie, honestly.

  takeshi said:

Anyone heard about this?

Rinko Kikuchi To Star in Movie Adaptation of Murakami's 'Norwegian Wood'

I haven't read this book yet but I like Kikuchi and it's being directed by Tran Anh Hung, who did a beautiful movie called Cyclo.

It was always a deep deep thought for me to adapt Norwegian Wood

I love that book

:queues up Cyclo on netflix to prepare:

  zaphod said:

  takeshi said:

Anyone heard about this?

Rinko Kikuchi To Star in Movie Adaptation of Murakami's 'Norwegian Wood'

I haven't read this book yet but I like Kikuchi and it's being directed by Tran Anh Hung, who did a beautiful movie called Cyclo.

 

weird, murakami has always battled the idea of turning that book into a movie. anyway it's probably his most melodramatic and ridiculous novel, i'm not too sure how well it would work as a film. i guess if it's toned down it might work. i'd rather see hard boiled wonderland or windup bird turned into a movie, honestly.

I dont think those are actually quite as filmable. Wood's probably his most straightforward book.

Im tempted to read it again. Im sure im a pretty different person now than I was when I read it, but it might be a painful experience. Could be quite a rich experience too.