Now Reading

Yeah that about sums it up.

i confirm

now reading: adorno - minima moralia

Reservoir 13 by Jon McGregor. Follows 13 years of life in a small village after a young girl goes missing, and the subsequent time after her disappearance. Written in a detached third person narration in short sentences but turns surprisingly emotional at times.

The Spy who came in from the Cold by John le Carré. Very good. Have a lovely leather bound omnibus copy of his early spy work (5 novels in total), and reading them will be a treat.

  On 5/20/2017 at 11:42 PM, Bechuga said:

The Spy who came in from the Cold by John le Carré. Very good. Have a lovely leather bound omnibus copy of his early spy work (5 novels in total), and reading them will be a treat.

Was a very good read, definitely holds up some fifty years later.

Just finished Savage Detectives by Bolano. Life changing stuff and will make the reader question their own way of life. His books make you want to live in a way true to yourself nothing tainted or noone to pander to.

Then read Adult World I and II by Foster Wallace which tells you more than you ever needed to know about the examined relationship between a married couple. So american and reminiscient of the husband jacking off with the porn stars panties over his face in Little Creatures. His books are like macroscopic views of society.

Also in the savage detectives

Bolano praises DeLillo.

I am currently reading Atticus Lish's "Preparation for the Next Life", about half-way finished, so take my words provisionally, but I am thoroughly enjoying the novel, both it's prose style and thematic development.

The book has been described as the 21st century "anti-Manhattan" novel. I assume this is due to it's refusal to romanticize New York in the stereotypical ways - intelligentsia culture etc. PfNL is the story of a relationship that develops between an Iraqi war veteran suffering from PTSD and an undocumented Chinese immigrant, and their attempt to restructure their lives together. The counterbalance between their congruities as individuals in desperation to establish their lives as marginalized figures in contemporary America, and the disparities of their situation / histories is quite striking and remarkable. From the little I have read, there is an incredible drive to "make things work", to keep pushing on, "In theory, it might have been possible to figure out where he was from the map and how he could get back. Instead, he said to himself, No, let me go all the way to the end" (Lish; my italics). PfNL is in this way life affirming in it's unrelenting pursuit of possibility, but also underneath the text exists a doomed fatalism. The response to this underlying fatalism is not resignation, rather, let me go all the way to the end.

interesting image/assessment of contemporary America

Also, some interesting biographical info on Atticus Lish - he is the son of Gordon Lish, the legendary editor responsible for Raymond Carver's development as a writer. I learned today that he also was ex-military and worked as a translator of technical chinese texts, providing some context to the subject matter of thenovel.

What Will Self's new book Phone looks like:

Once you get into it, the style works surprisingly well (his two previous books were written in the same style, and I'm somewhat used to it, bizarre as it looks). Forgot it was out so soon. Looking forward to it!

ooh noice, I'm well up for that. Used to be a yuge Self fan but the last one of his I read was Liver so I have some catching up to do.

Finished Mason & Dixon and intend to do a straight through reread of it sometime this year. Read it in a very stupid way of putting it down for a few months every 200 pages so, despite enjoying it a lot, it's a bit fragmented in my head.

I got Ted Chiang's Story of Your Life and Others free with the DVD of Arrival. Read the whole thing during a 13hr shift at work. Really good, will look for more by him.

The following day I decided to start Against the Day. 150 pages in and I LOVE it. To me this is his most GR book since GR

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Virtually all of his other stories are free to read online (his choice to do so apparently), so hunt around. Most are linked from his wikipedia page. Exhalation and The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate are particularly good.

I have Great Apes by Self but read only 50 pages and probably won't finish. Not much a fan of satire. Which means I probably won't like most of his other work either.

Try his short story collections and My Idea of Fun. How the Dead Live and Dorian are very good too.

Dorian is q lush

rest in peace denis johnson

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poems/detail/48124

Going to start this tonight:

Canceled cable (though keeping Netflix and amazon prime). Now much more time for reading. Kicked this week off with Jo Nesbo's The Bat. Halfway through and it's easy crime writing. If I like it by the end will continue with the Harry Hole series and any other Nesbo recommendations.

Reading 40 Stories by Donald Barthelme. Meh. Absolutely not my type of book.

Norm Macdonald's book is really funny... like actually laughing funny, which I hardly do with books. Guess it helps that im reading it while sleep deprived

Life: A User's Manual by Perec. I heard about it from a recent David Nolen talk where he mentioned that Donald Knuth thought it was the greatest 20th century novel.

I can already tell this book is way over my head like Pynchon with all the historical and mathematical references, but it's so weirdly interesting I'm just going to power through.

  On 6/2/2017 at 3:55 AM, sweepstakes said:

Life: A User's Manual by Perec. I heard about it from a recent David Nolen talk where he mentioned that Donald Knuth thought it was the greatest 20th century novel.

 

I can already tell this book is way over my head like Pynchon with all the historical and mathematical references, but it's so weirdly interesting I'm just going to power through.

I read about that on dennis cooper's blog, a week or two ago, sounded v interesting.  I ended up putting it in my amazon cart, but did get the feeling it was gonna be one of those books that i would have to "work" on.  I'd like to hear your thoughts when you finish tho.

  On 6/2/2017 at 8:31 AM, differance said:

 

  On 6/2/2017 at 3:55 AM, sweepstakes said:

Life: A User's Manual by Perec. I heard about it from a recent David Nolen talk where he mentioned that Donald Knuth thought it was the greatest 20th century novel.

 

I can already tell this book is way over my head like Pynchon with all the historical and mathematical references, but it's so weirdly interesting I'm just going to power through.

I read about that on dennis cooper's blog, a week or two ago, sounded v interesting. I ended up putting it in my amazon cart, but did get the feeling it was gonna be one of those books that i would have to "work" on. I'd like to hear your thoughts when you finish tho.

everyday, i gotta read this shit

I've only had time to get a few chapters in to The Box Man but so far it's devastatingly good. Best fiction I've read in years, new or old.

Kobo Abe is that dude for real

Home book: Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell. Good so far, writing of a very high quality. Going to enjoy the next 500+ pages.

Work book: Even the Dogs by Jon Mcgregor is quite grim but also very good. I noticed with irony that I am using a £60 off wine voucher as a bookmark in a book where the main character dies of alcoholism (not a spoiler, you find this out immediately).