Now Reading

  On 1/18/2019 at 3:19 AM, Extralife said:

 

  On 1/16/2019 at 10:16 PM, T3551ER said:

 

  On 1/7/2019 at 8:34 PM, romanticdude said:

 

  On 1/4/2019 at 8:58 PM, T3551ER said:

I'm not reading this (yet) but I will probably have to at some point. Always been intrigued by this guy's art, and it sounds like this book is, basically, something pulled out of my dreamworld.

 

Damn. I should get this, always dug his work.

You're right, it's something coming straight from what I imagined as a kid when reading synopses of sci fi films I wasn't allowed to watch in TV guides.

I also saw that there's some video game to be released soon that basically steals his style. Sad.

Yeah, heard the same thing (about the video game). Which is shitty shit shit - dude's stuff is so very unique/particular. . . and incredibly well done. Already decided that I'm going to ask for this for my birthday, pretty stoked. . .

Thanks for this recommendation. This is phenomenal.

 

 

james bridle - new dark age

it's an interesting collection of anecdotes that illustrate how unsubstantiated our conception of technology, the internet and our place in the world is. it's about how 'big data' isn't resulting in 'big understanding' and actually swamping us with more information than we can effectively use. the internet as an out of control hyperobject of our own creation extending its tendrils into every facet of our reality. good tonic against techno-utopian jagoffs.

ordered David Keenan's (of England's Hidden Reverse) "For the Good Times" after a few decent reviews this week

 

Cyprus Avenue did a supreme job skewering the psychopathology of Orange loyalism & hoping this does a similar high quality take on my own tribe's Provo inclinations

nearing the end of John Varley's Gaea trilogy..

 

 

scifi. these got pretty good as they went on! some unexpected directions.. lots of centaur sex.. quite reminding me of Terry Pratchett's stuff in some ways, though these are much less explicitly humourous..

rereading Lord of the Flies for the first time in 10+ years. I forgot how beautifully it's written.

  On 1/12/2019 at 7:32 PM, cwmbrancity said:

The Tain

The Tain! The Penguin edition is the only one I've read. What's the other you mention, & would you recommend it?

 

I gave up on Book of the New Sun shortly into #3. Nothin doin. Read a bunch of Yeats prose after that. Tldr: ghosts & spirits are maybe real, but faeries are ABSOLUTELY among us, hide ya kids, hide ya wife.

 

Thought I knew what was up next, but now I wanna hunt down the Lem with the hallucinogenic bombs

the Kinsella version from the late 60's

 

 

good comparative & critical overview here:

 

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2007/oct/27/featuresreviews.guardianreview24

 

for some reason whenever i see your man Cú Chulainn's name, it's morphed over the years into Colin & as a son of Armagh i know that doesn't rub well with all the ghosts @ Emain Macha

Cheers, will definitely keep an eye out for the Kinsella; that review's got me curious

Rereading the Border Trilogy by Cormac Mccarthy, beautiful and disheartening. The transient characters wander aimlessly through the desert towards their doom - love his prose and description of the Texan/ Mexican landscape

^yussss The Crossing is my fave

blasted in a few days, what a stunning riot

 

 

too funny at times, mercilessly dark characterss & themes plus the style is a joy, possibly the most surreal journey into the snake infested heart of the Troubles you could hope to encounter in fiction

  On 2/5/2019 at 3:32 AM, auxien said:

^yussss The Crossing is my fave

Yeah just finished The Crossing holy shit its a kick to the heart.

 

I like Mccarthy's unbiased depiction of the Mexican ppl with the mixture of good and evil characters Boyd and Billy encounter. Theyre either hospitable and benevolent or driven to evil because of circumstance + the necessity for survival.

Just finished part four of Riad Sattouf's very excellent "Arab of the future" series of graphic novels.

 

If you've never read it, it's about a little boy with a Syrian father and a French mother who move around between Khadaffi's Libya, Syria and Brittany. Everything is seen through the eyes of the boy which makes everything seem even more bizarre than it actually is. Comics are great for this sort of story telling, what with the art being able to tell a completely different story than the text, and Sattouf's is quite a master of the technique.

 

Also, the art is really good.

anyone here read any paul auster? I know next to nothing about the guy but 4 3 2 1 seems interesting

Music of Chance is great, as is the movie which he also did the screenplay for (he also did Smoke - based on his short story I think, with Harvey Keitel, which was good too). 

  On 2/8/2019 at 10:39 PM, span said:

anyone here read any paul auster? I know next to nothing about the guy but 4 3 2 1 seems interesting

Yes. I read the New York trilogy. Thought it very boring. As in "tries to hard to make 'literature' out of nothing" boring.

  On 1/25/2019 at 10:31 PM, wobbegongs said:

nearing the end of John Varley's Gaea trilogy..

 

 

scifi. these got pretty good as they went on! some unexpected directions.. lots of centaur sex.. quite reminding me of Terry Pratchett's stuff in some ways, though these are much less explicitly humourous..

Is it a little weird with all the centaur sex? Or a lot weird? How was the trilogy altogether?

 

  On 2/6/2019 at 12:50 PM, Lewps said:

 

  On 2/5/2019 at 3:32 AM, auxien said:

^yussss The Crossing is my fave

Yeah just finished The Crossing holy shit its a kick to the heart.

 

I like Mccarthy's unbiased depiction of the Mexican ppl with the mixture of good and evil characters Boyd and Billy encounter. Theyre either hospitable and benevolent or driven to evil because of circumstance + the necessity for survival

Agreed, he definitely plays everything dramatically, but still without big villains or heroes, nothing is distinct, everything is blurred and yet over the top. Doubt it's a 'realistic' portrayal of the time/area, but it's obviously very much rooted in serious reality as far as everyone on their own treks, intersecting haphazardly and so forth...resembles reality in many ways because of that, but it still has that drama buried in everything and every character, and that makes it such a great novel imo. Kick to the heart is a very good way of putting it. :)

  On 2/9/2019 at 1:15 PM, rhmilo said:

 

  On 2/8/2019 at 10:39 PM, span said:

anyone here read any paul auster? I know next to nothing about the guy but 4 3 2 1 seems interesting

Yes. I read the New York trilogy. Thought it very boring. As in "tries to hard to make 'literature' out of nothing" boring.

I actually like 2/3 of the NYT, but Auster is definitely far from being a favorite of mine. Read one called Timbuktu a couple weeks ago as the jacket had me thinking it might make a good gift for a particular friend, but got nothing from it whatsoever.

 

Shout out to cwmbrancity for the Taín recommendation, its got me back on an Irish/Gaelic/etc. kick

  On 2/5/2019 at 10:02 PM, cwmbrancity said:

blasted in a few days, what a stunning riot

 

 

too funny at times, mercilessly dark characterss & themes plus the style is a joy, possibly the most surreal journey into the snake infested heart of the Troubles you could hope to encounter in fiction

I got myself This Is Memorial Device after reading this post and holy shit. It's brilliant. Not too far in and I can already tell I'll love it until the end.

Picked up a pristine copy of that translation of the Tain for £3.50 today, was in the window of a second-hand bookshop on my way home from work, has been on my radar since seeing it in here, lushness

  On 2/8/2019 at 10:39 PM, span said:

anyone here read any paul auster? I know next to nothing about the guy but 4 3 2 1 seems interesting

The New York Trilogy, Moon Palace and (slightly lesser extent) The Music of Chance are the best Austers I've read.

 

So far I've found his 21st century stuff more mixed, lots of cool stuff (like his film observations in The Book of Illusions and Man in the Dark) but slightly lacking.

 

Auster is always an easy pick-up with distinct consistency and a voice I find relatable, but I get the sense his earlier novels are his most successful.

 

I also agree that The Crossing is the best of McCarthy's Border Trilogy.

Edited February 14, 2019 by Roo

I need more recommendations for good contemporary fiction pls. I've always had little idea what's new or exciting in that sphere, I spent most of my earlier years with classics and it's biased me towards them and towards thinking that contemporary writing inherently has less value. Cormac McCarthy I know. Murakami, ehh, I should read him but it somehow doesn't grab me. can anyone recommend me something else?

 

I've really pushed to get back into reading this year as I felt myself sliding further and further away from it due to time demands/life. trying to read one a month at least. so far I've gone through:

 

- Call of the Wild (re-read)

- Lord of the Flies (re-read)

- A Farewell to Arms (re-read)

- As I Lay Dying

On Faulkner, last month I finally caught up with Light in August and The Reivers.

 

Absalom, Absalom! (which I've read a few times now) happens to be my favourite novel, but no other Faulkners have ever really delivered anything near as strong for me, although Light in August is the 2nd best I've come across and does feel like a warm-up for Absalom, Absalom in many respects. The only others I've read were during 2010-11 (The Sound and the Fury, As I Lay Dying & The Wild Palms), and I remember the least about As I Lay Dying. I generally dig his work, could spend forever reading about tales in that county.

 

In the last year or so I've been finally delving into local writers Patrick White and David Malouf (who like Auster has a voice I strongly relate to), as well as progressing further through the Aubrey-Maturin series (for which I have deep affection), and I've got Against the Day lined up (still haven't touched anything prior to Vineland, read everything else since). Pynchon & O'Brian are worth owning, as they are the sort of novels I'll read again and again.

Edited February 16, 2019 by Roo

^ this is the first Faulkner I've read so I'm still coming to grips with his whole vibe and how he sees things. (I remember getting this copy with alco's blessing when I was in Chicago, shout out alco.) I read that he wrote it in six weeks in concentrated bursts and revised it very little, which makes sense when you realise you can get through most of the book with not a lot of action actually unfolding. it seems to be more about what's happening in the characters' hearts and minds. he has a peculiar way of writing about complex sentiments using simple words so you really have to dwell on it and work out what he's trying to say.

 

re: contemporary writing, I might start with Pynchon then. haven't read a word of his.

I'm reading the Aegypt series of books by John Crowley, who i'd not heard of until a couple weeks ago.. love em so far! I was first drawn in by seeing them described - sounds like secret history / occult / religion type stuff, with bits starring fictionalised versions of historical personages set in the 1500-1600s, something i always enjoy - but they're not quite what I expected.. beautifully low key.. vivid rural scapes.. the second book so far has been almost entirely a super detailed bit of Kentucky mountains childhood memories.