Now Reading

miles the autobiography by miles davis - miles is a cool cat with an interesting life who hates white people/10

that autobiography is a true motherfucker

High-Rise by JG Ballard, solely because Ben Wheatley is doing a film adaptation of it.

  On 9/25/2013 at 6:16 AM, zaphod said:

just finished every love story is a ghost story. it's a biography of david foster wallace. kind of changed my perspective on his writing. he sounds like a really shitty person, unfortunately. hired a guy to kill mary karr's husband because he wanted to be with her, lots of desperate womanizing, heavy, heavy drug use, borderline plagiarism and embellishments in his non fiction, using stories and names from aa meetings verbatim in infinite jest. reading the excerpts of his letters just makes him sound exhausting to be around. trying to wrap my head around it since i held him in somewhat high regard. but he just seems like a really desperate, attention starved egomaniac. very talented, incredibly smart, but i think he might have been kind of a fraud. which is odd, given his search for authenticity in his writing. i just can't separate his writing, which is so intensely personal, from this portrait of the writer. kind of a shame.

heh. I think I read Infinite Jest so many times that I got a decent portrait of him as a person, because that bio was not very surprising to me. In a way I find his honesty in his work refreshing. I mean, the guy was a mess, but he had incredible analytical power. Too bad he turned it on himself so brutally. I think his incredible brain didn't help his predisposition to self-hatred.

Great bio though, in any case!

just finished (for the eleventy-fifth time):

Now reading:

did king proclaim that book "his masterpiece"?

  On 10/2/2013 at 3:28 AM, Shit Attack said:

miles the autobiography by miles davis - miles is a cool cat with an interesting life who hates white people/10

The Autobiography of Malcolm X is also awesome and covers a lot of the same themes- racial prejudice, obviously, but also that 1940s bebop scene, selling reefers outside nightclubs, looking fly as fuck, etc. Recommended if you haven't read it already.

Been reading quite a bit this last month:

Started/Finished:

Erskine Caldwell's Tobacco Road - Loved it... could really see the Coen Brother's adapting this in a film.

Tom Robbin's Still life with Woodpecker - I once read that Robbin's could spend an entire day perfecting a single sentence and after reading this I believe it.

Started:

Thomas Pynchon's Bleeding Edge - About 70% done and am enjoying it; It reminds me a bit of Inherent Vice at times.

I believe it was mlk jr actually

@ zaphod

  On 10/3/2013 at 1:08 AM, Leon Sumbitches said:

 

  On 10/2/2013 at 3:28 AM, Shit Attack said:

miles the autobiography by miles davis - miles is a cool cat with an interesting life who hates white people/10

 

The Autobiography of Malcolm X is also awesome and covers a lot of the same themes- racial prejudice, obviously, but also that 1940s bebop scene, selling reefers outside nightclubs, looking fly as fuck, etc. Recommended if you haven't read it already.

 

cool never read it not really into black people politics or anything just like reading about the music stuff but on almost every page miles is slammin whitey for something or other but then again he seems to have something against almost anyone/everyone anyways . Id be into reading a malcom x book tho + Seem to remember reading a book by chuck d years ago that covered a lot of that black political stuff but from the 80s/90s

  On 10/2/2013 at 1:12 PM, tec said:

High-Rise by JG Ballard, solely because Ben Wheatley is doing a film adaptation of it.

Woah awesome

  On 10/2/2013 at 1:12 PM, tec said:

High-Rise by JG Ballard, solely because Ben Wheatley is doing a film adaptation of it.

Orilly? Need to check that out then.

I've read Concrete Island and Crash but never got around to High-Rise. Aren't they supposed to be a thematic trilogy of sorts?

  On 10/3/2013 at 12:31 AM, zaphod said:

did king proclaim that book "his masterpiece"?

No idea. That's the copy I have atm and that also puzzled me. There are no quotation marks or source underneath or anything, it's just there.

SK books usually have quite a lot promo marketing bollocks on them though.

I have an American paperback copy of Insomnia, which is one of my favorite SK books, and the blurb on the back appears to be describing a completely different book.

MLK just wasn't a motherfucker like Miles dude. Not enough a motherfucker.

  On 9/20/2013 at 1:38 AM, doublename said:

About 1/3 of the way through Infinite Jest and something like 150th on the library waiting list for Bleeding Edge.

Howzit?

Found a french copy of Ubik on a bench. Haven't read the original but I figured it'd be good language practice. The cover is post old newage wave as frick

The Monk

Tipping Point

lots of anti malcolm gladwell pieces in the press at the moment. whatever. so far it's interesting but not as good as outliers

I also started 1Q84. It's a big book, should I read it? (I didnt buy it yet (kindle samples ftw))

I thought 1Q84 was really good, but I'm sure many here would disagree. I was on a major Murakami kick at the time and must have read the whole thing in like 5 days. not as good as say Wind-up Bird Chronicle or Kafka on the Shore, but if you're familiar with his work in general, then you know the kind of stuff you're in for.

the first and the second part of 1Q84 are some of the finest writing and world-creating I've read. it should have ended there, because the third part, even if not really bad, just lacks the energy of the first two. I heard that Murakami first published the first two parts and then in a year decided to add the third act, which is a shame I think.

  On 9/25/2013 at 1:14 PM, Philip Glass said:

I can't believe I've never read Hyperion (just started)

 

 

 

My subway read is Lynch on Lynch :

 

Just started Hyperion myself, went to the library for the first time in years and got a stack of classic sci-fi, Asimov, PKD and the like

http://www.cetteadressecomportecinquantesignes.com/Luigi.Serafini.-.Codex.Seraphinianus.pdf

Just started Iain M. Banks (rip) last Culture novel, The Hydrogen Sonata. It's off to a good start.

  On 10/8/2013 at 11:15 AM, Ron Manager said:

I thought 1Q84 was really good, but I'm sure many here would disagree. I was on a major Murakami kick at the time and must have read the whole thing in like 5 days. not as good as say Wind-up Bird Chronicle or Kafka on the Shore, but if you're familiar with his work in general, then you know the kind of stuff you're in for.

i haven't read anything by him, or know aything about him. i just remember some good reviews of this and I came across it. so i have no idea what i am in for, infact i know nothing about it at all, which is how i like to read books and watch movies (no trailers). I am expecting some time travel because of the title but as i say i have no idea and am probably way off.

  On 10/8/2013 at 6:27 PM, Dpek said:

the first and the second part of 1Q84 are some of the finest writing and world-creating I've read. it should have ended there, because the third part, even if not really bad, just lacks the energy of the first two. I heard that Murakami first published the first two parts and then in a year decided to add the third act, which is a shame I think.

hhm a lesser third act. shame.

Just ordered this in, looks fucking wicked and if it doesn't arrive tomorrow I'm burning my book shop to the ground.

  On 10/10/2013 at 8:57 PM, Jimmy McMessageboard said:

 

  On 10/8/2013 at 11:15 AM, Ron Manager said:

I thought 1Q84 was really good, but I'm sure many here would disagree. I was on a major Murakami kick at the time and must have read the whole thing in like 5 days. not as good as say Wind-up Bird Chronicle or Kafka on the Shore, but if you're familiar with his work in general, then you know the kind of stuff you're in for.

 

i haven't read anything by him, or know aything about him. i just remember some good reviews of this and I came across it. so i have no idea what i am in for, infact i know nothing about it at all, which is how i like to read books and watch movies (no trailers). I am expecting some time travel because of the title but as i say i have no idea and am probably way off.

 

  On 10/8/2013 at 6:27 PM, Dpek said:

the first and the second part of 1Q84 are some of the finest writing and world-creating I've read. it should have ended there, because the third part, even if not really bad, just lacks the energy of the first two. I heard that Murakami first published the first two parts and then in a year decided to add the third act, which is a shame I think.

 

hhm a lesser third act. shame.

 

if you've never read him then I won't see anything apart from that I think book 3 is just as good, but it does feel a little different - I believe this is primarily due to the fact that Philip Gabriel was the lead translator of 3, whereas Jay Rubin was on 1 & 2. I read somewhere that they worked somewhat in tandem on the translations, but it just goes to show you how subjective translation in general is.