Books The BOOK thread

Done my challenge of 26 books in a year, so have started 2666 again to see the year out.

Just finished The Part about the Critics. The way Bolańo injects so much suspense, foreboding and dread into every page is wonderful.
 
Trying to get through the latest James Ellroy but the clipped writing style full of jargon and hepcat jazz is a tough slog. He's almost becoming unreadable now.
 
Luffy said:
Rubbish theory. I'm doing very well. Read 119 books this year. One more and I'll have completed my yearly Goodreads challenge.
Click to expand...
That's some going. I can read loads then need a month break.

Just read No Country for Old Men. It's pretty old now, but mild spoiler alerts below in case you haven't read it.

The book is quite gripping and the local dialect and McCarthy's descriptions are evocative, but the odd thing jarred. Fine, it has an unconventional ending in that the story isn't all tidily wrapped up like a holiday movie, but the pacing is odd here and there- particularly when Moss picks up the hitchhiker and their inane convo, and when Bell sees his uncle late on.

Solid read though and lingers with you a while.
 
Was thinking about reading some Charles Bukowski, any recommendations?
 
Haddock said:
One theme that goes on over and over. Read the chapters about the South African AIDS lady and Jonah Lehrer to see contrasting types affected by the same thing. Else, nothing in it that you can't get from a podcast.
Le Guin is very good.
Click to expand...
Might just give the audiobook a listen since it's only a little over 7 hours or just find a small video somewhere the author surely summarizes the book.

Sapolsky interests me. I'm gonna give him a read myself.
 
Redcafe members are really well read. Me, I usually read immature books, though nothing YA, Romance or horror.
 
Jippy said:
That's some going. I can read loads then need a month break.

Just read No Country for Old Men. It's pretty old now, but mild spoiler alerts below in case you haven't read it.

The book is quite gripping and the local dialect and McCarthy's descriptions are evocative, but the odd thing jarred. Fine, it has an unconventional ending in that the story isn't all tidily wrapped up like a holiday movie, but the pacing is odd here and there- particularly when Moss picks up the hitchhiker and their inane convo, and when Bell sees his uncle late on.

Solid read though and lingers with you a while.
Click to expand...

Side note: No Country for Old Men is one of the best film adaptations I’ve ever seen from a book that I really enjoyed.
 
  • Like
Reactions: oneniltothearsenal
Grinner said:
Trying to get through the latest James Ellroy but the clipped writing style full of jargon and hepcat jazz is a tough slog. He's almost becoming unreadable now.
Click to expand...

This is really unfortunate. I’ve not got around to it yet, but Perfidia was already a bit disappointing for me - even with the novelty of it being set in the neighborhood I live in. Wondering now if it’s even worth the time or I’d be better served revisiting some of his older work that I really enjoyed...
 
forevrared said:
This is really unfortunate. I’ve not got around to it yet, but Perfidia was already a bit disappointing for me - even with the novelty of it being set in the neighborhood I live in. Wondering now if it’s even worth the time or I’d be better served revisiting some of his older work that I really enjoyed...
Click to expand...


Yeah it's a shame. He was at his best with the American Trilogy. This latest book has way too many characters and too much going on. It's impossible to follow.
 
Finished Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury the other day, on a holiday reading splurge. It's OK, 1950s/60s dystopian future novels are interesting, but for how much the book is celebrated, the plotline is pretty thin when you get beyond the themes of censorship, dumbed down society and the greyness of authoritarianism.
The wall to wall livescreening interactive media, reality TV and drones are obviously concepts well ahead of their time, but Montag is a somewhat frustrating protagonist and there is little depth to any of the characters (fine that's arguably part of society's problem) and the plot beyond the need to unquestioningly preserve the wisdom held within books.
Reading the afterword, Bradbury said it was originally a much short story that he had to basically double on its word count to make it a novel and it shows tbh.
 
About to finish Three Men in a Boat. It's great
 
Jippy said:
Finished Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury the other day, on a holiday reading splurge. It's OK, 1950s/60s dystopian future novels are interesting, but for how much the book is celebrated, the plotline is pretty thin when you get beyond the themes of censorship, dumbed down society and the greyness of authoritarianism.
The wall to wall livescreening interactive media, reality TV and drones are obviously concepts well ahead of their time, but Montag is a somewhat frustrating protagonist and there is little depth to any of the characters (fine that's arguably part of society's problem) and the plot beyond the need to unquestioningly preserve the wisdom held within books.
Reading the afterword, Bradbury said it was originally a much short story that he had to basically double on its word count to make it a novel and it shows tbh.
Click to expand...

I read this last year and it felt very dated. It felt like came from an era when being ‘woke’ was a lot more simple. Like you, I found it ‘OK’.
 
Classical Mechanic said:
I read this last year and it felt very dated. It felt like came from an era when being ‘woke’ was a lot more simple. Like you, I found it ‘OK’.
Click to expand...
I think dated is a good word for it. Although the story does have reasonably impressive foresight into the future world, I constantly pictured it like a '50s sci-fi film. It just lacked a bit of substance.

Just finished A Handful of Dust by Evelyn Waugh. His books do have a somewhat same-y feel, outrageous turns of events and somewhat bawdy humour for the day, against the backdrop of a vapid deeply classist social scene populated by few people you can warm to. it is amusing at points, albeit gets a bit silly at the end for me. I've only read two Waugh novels, but both now have been really readable, then petered out as they descend into farce.
 
American prometheus the story of Robert j oppenheimer by kai bird and Martin sherwin is a fantastic read on the father of the atom bomb, exploring his life in great detail all the tragedy and triumphs of a pioneer in science.
 
I've had a good run recently. Last three books I've read - Beloved by Toni Morrison, The Year of Magical Thinking and The Plains by Gerald Murnane - have all been terrific. The Plains has kind of blown my mind. Aiming to read 52 books year, already three down so off to a good start. Currently on Blonde by Joyce Carol Oates which is right up my alley, pulpy/Old Hollywood/historical fiction etc. Andrew Dominik is doing a Netflix adaptation with Ana de Armas as Marilyn Monroe which should be interesting.
 
I won't get near my goal of 52 for 2019 so I am setting a humble goal of 26 for 2020. Only have one so far This Sweet Sickness by Patricia Highsmith.
 
I've set a target of 30 books. Don't think I could do 52 unless I specifically chose shorter reads. I'm rereading 2666 and have a few of Pynchon's novels to get through so even 30 could be a challenge.
 
oneniltothearsenal said:
I won't get near my goal of 52 for 2019 so I am setting a humble goal of 26 for 2020. Only have one so far This Sweet Sickness by Patricia Highsmith.
Click to expand...
I'm going for 26 too and have read three short ones so far for a quick start- Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut, Burmese Days by George Orwell and Cosmic Puppets by Philip K. Dick. The latter was shite.
Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy is next up.
 
I usually don't really have a goal, but 52 a year seems nice enough to read the books I want to read for a long time. Or it is 100 with pretty much anything that meets my fancy during the moment even if I then wonder if I should DNF it. I admit I also wanted to DNF books that are quite popular.

I finished two books Fool's Errand and Golden Fool by Robin Hobb.
 
Just finished reading Hitler: Hubris (1888-1936) and Hitler: Nemesis (1936-1945), both volumes written by Ian Kershaw who is the gold standard concerning biographical material on his life.

Just starting to read Sackett's Land, by Louis L'amour, which is book one of about eighteen in a series depicting one family line from 1599, immigrating to the New World, all the way through to the end of the industrial age. Lots of frontier stuff, apparently.
 
Jippy said:
I'm going for 26 too and have read three short ones so far for a quick start- Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut, Burmese Days by George Orwell and Cosmic Puppets by Philip K. Dick. The latter was shite.
Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy is next up.
Click to expand...
Great book.

I need to read 52 this year just to clear my shelf. I buy faster than I read. If I could match @dumbo prodigious 2019 effort I could square the ledger by about October. Have also instituted a ban on buying for a while.
 
Jippy said:
I'm going for 26 too and have read three short ones so far for a quick start- Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut, Burmese Days by George Orwell and Cosmic Puppets by Philip K. Dick. The latter was shite.
Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy is next up.
Click to expand...
I just finished Bluebeard by Vonnegut. What did you make of Breakfast Of Champions. I found Bluebeard or Slaughterhouse V good and will probably keep reading his books.
 
A goal of 26 books for me this year too.

Started with a 'pop-maths' book I got for Christmas, now onto The Stand which will slow down progress a lot I guess. Will continue with books on the side, and listen to audiobook version of The Stand whenever I get the chance. About 200 pages in and finding it very good. Hard to keep track of who's who, especially when they seldomly appear and I think I may have missed some important details while listening to it, but I'm sure it'll all become clear in time.
 
I'm reading through Robert Fabbri's Vespasian series. Surprisingly good really. Especially if yer into that part of history.
 
Stick said:
I just finished Bluebeard by Vonnegut. What did you make of Breakfast Of Champions. I found Bluebeard or Slaughterhouse V good and will probably keep reading his books.
Click to expand...
Breakfast of Champions was the first Vonnegut book I've read. I liked it overall. It's a strange book, really rambling, going off on crazy tangents with thousands of incidental tangents. The way it's written as a kind of explainer on US society is a little odd, but regularly funny. I didn't like the ending of the book particularly, but the plotline is basically an aside to his shredding of the foibles of American life tbh. I think I have encountered the 'n' word more times in that book than I have in the last 20 years of my life combined!
Would recommend it though. He's a smart writer and it is kinda funny in a wacky way. Oh yeah, it's punctuated by his drawings too, oddly.
 
Finished Dying Truth the other day by an author called Angela Marsons. Was a good read but became a bit far-fetched towards the end. Liked the detective though so I'll get round to reading some more at some point.

Finally got around to starting The Red Dragon by Thomas Harris. Enjoying it so far, though admittedly I'm not yet that far in (around 50 pages). Reading that alongside Empire by Niall Ferguson. Target this year is 36 books (3 a month) which should be achievable.
 
Jippy said:
Breakfast of Champions was the first Vonnegut book I've read. I liked it overall. It's a strange book, really rambling, going off on crazy tangents with thousands of incidental tangents. The way it's written as a kind of explainer on US society is a little odd, but regularly funny. I didn't like the ending of the book particularly, but the plotline is basically an aside to his shredding of the foibles of American life tbh. I think I have encountered the 'n' word more times in that book than I have in the last 20 years of my life combined!
Would recommend it though. He's a smart writer and it is kinda funny in a wacky way. Oh yeah, it's punctuated by his drawings too, oddly.
Click to expand...
I think Bluebeard and Slaughterhouse V are similar so. He has a way of introducing the ridiculous and at the same time making you reflect on very serious subjects.
 
I finished the original millenium trilogy by Larsson. I thought it was great. I'll read the next three now which are written by a different author but should follow the same style. Also reading Enfant Terrible by Robert Emmet Long about the works of Truman Capote.
 
Finished reading Bulgakov's The Master and the Margarita, what a trip, brilliant stuff.
Currently reading Anna Karenina and Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel.
Dont understand the hype surrounding Wolf Hall, I'm 200 pages in and its bang average so far. Might give up on it, does it get any better?
 
Never thought Wolf Hall was average, I could tell it was exceptional from the start but it took me half the book to become comfortable with the books architecture.
 
Is anyone here part of a Book Club? I always find when I finish a good book I want to discuss it with someone but never can :lol: Had a look but there aren't many in Preston sadly.
 
esmufc07 said:
Is anyone here part of a Book Club? I always find when I finish a good book I want to discuss it with someone but never can :lol: Had a look but there aren't many in Preston sadly.
Click to expand...

There are tons of them online, Reddit has a few of them too.
 
Stick said:
I think Bluebeard and Slaughterhouse V are similar so. He has a way of introducing the ridiculous and at the same time making you reflect on very serious subjects.
Click to expand...
I'll defo give get another of his to read soon- which would you favour out of the two? Reading Blood Meridian has been a bit of a style jump from Vonnegut to say the least.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.