You had me at 'alluring, nineteen-year-old whore', Steve.
Although the picture doesn't exactly match the description...
Although the picture doesn't exactly match the description...
Books The BOOK thread
- Thread starter Livvie
- Start date
I've been reading quite a bit of sci-fi and fantasy recently, and 'Perdido Street Station' by China Mieville is the latest on the list.
80 pages in and it's been a very promising start.
80 pages in and it's been a very promising start.
Yeah Im 350 pages in to the first book. Its okay so far with not a lot happening or at least nothing major has happened in terms of war or the winter.
Might be a bit intellectual for a few of ya but I've just started Twisting My Melon, Shaun Ryders autobiography. It's everything you'd expect it to be if you know Shaun Ryder.
Just read One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. I found it quite difficult to get into. Took me a while to read and while the story telling was good I kinda got lost along the read and it got a bit tiresome.
Reading Camille Paglia's Sexual Personae: Art & Decadence from Nefertiti to Emily Dickinson. The most brilliant book on art and literature I've ever read:
I don't like magical realism, it's insubstantial fluff.
I agree with you there. I read a bit of the background material and it seems it may have been necessary for Marquez to get around the censors in Colombia at the time and some felt he did so beautifully but I just thought it all a bit odd.
Reading Camille Paglia's Sexual Personae: Art & Decadence from Nefertiti to Emily Dickinson. The most brilliant book on art and literature I've ever read:
I'd have been interested had Emily Dickinson not been in the title! I can't stand that miserable bugger,
What are the passages on Nefertiti like? That's interesting, I'm growing more and more interested in Ancient Egypt.Anyway, I've been reading lots lately, Kim by Kipling was a highlight. It has everything you could possibly want in a novel, the Irish, the Buddhists, casual racism, Espionage and Hurree Babu whose character just about sums up British stereotyping for atleast a century.
"Teach Us To Sit Still" by Tim Parks is a brilliant take on the view of medicine from a layman's perspective and how we tend to over-exaggerate the simplest of problems. Incredibly funny.
Paglia concentrates on the famous Nefertiti 'Berlin' bust, mate. She examines why this cast of the legendary beauty is mostly photographed in profile rather than a frontal aspect; and ponders on its disfigurement:
"As we have it the bust of Nefertiti is artistically and ritualistically complete, exalted, harsh and alien…This is the least consoling of the great art works. Its popularity is based on misunderstanding and suppression of its unique features. The proper response to the Nefertiti bust is fear."
There's a great deal more about Ancient Egypt too, a land Paglia claims to have heralded 'the aggressive "Western Eye," which has created our art and cinema.'
A very good overview of the book and its subjects can be read here:
Sexual Personae - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Reviews are mixed, to say the least:
A very good overview of the book and its subjects can be read here:
Sexual Personae - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Reviews are mixed, to say the least:
Inheritance, book Four of the Eragon series, released some days back!
Read this one last week, highly recommend it. Full of brilliant little anecdotes and facts, although it's also pretty depressing at times when you realise just how badly humans have decimated the whale population.
Paglia concentrates on the famous Nefertiti 'Berlin' bust, mate. She examines why this cast of the legendary beauty is mostly photographed in profile rather than a frontal aspect; and ponders on its disfigurement:
"As we have it the bust of Nefertiti is artistically and ritualistically complete, exalted, harsh and alien…This is the least consoling of the great art works. Its popularity is based on misunderstanding and suppression of its unique features. The proper response to the Nefertiti bust is fear."
Excellent thanks for the information, I'm incredibly interested in this. I feel like I may have to purchase this. I'm particularly interested in the idea that the bust is meant to incite fear, I don't really see that. I'm sure that's expanded on however.
Now only £1.47 (secondhand) on Amazon, mate. 
I preordered Umberto Eco's new book months ago. Should get it this week.
Also, I was in Princeton a couple of weeks back and stumbled across a crazy book sale. Picked up 11 books for $20. Stuff like Plutarch, Shelley, Milton, Tagore, Solzhenitsyn, Dostoevsky.
Also, I was in Princeton a couple of weeks back and stumbled across a crazy book sale. Picked up 11 books for $20. Stuff like Plutarch, Shelley, Milton, Tagore, Solzhenitsyn, Dostoevsky.
Ok, bit of a plug for someone I know:
How to Be... Irish: Uncovering the curiosities of Irish behaviour
It's genuinely very good.
How to Be... Irish: Uncovering the curiosities of Irish behaviour
It's genuinely very good.
guinness and paedophilia the first two chapters?
I have finished Haruki Murami's 1Q84... I needed 3 weeks to read it and it gave me the feeling I couldn't stay focused on a whole chapter. So I am not sure if I really like or dislike it. It was a pleasant reading though, it was of course weird, disturbing and sometimes horrible and mostly slow. It also reminded me of Millenium.
I am currently reading Sanderson's Mistborn instead of reading another YA book. You really wonder how they can think of turning some YA titles in movies, actually Hunger Games can make a fine movie but I am not sure about Shiver, Delirium and they probably need lot of rewriting for City of bones and its sequels since it's the title I find deeply flawed.
I am currently reading Sanderson's Mistborn instead of reading another YA book. You really wonder how they can think of turning some YA titles in movies, actually Hunger Games can make a fine movie but I am not sure about Shiver, Delirium and they probably need lot of rewriting for City of bones and its sequels since it's the title I find deeply flawed.
Murakami is like an modern oriental magical realism - all surface and no real depth.
Just read Bill Bryson's "A walk in the woods." Great read and had me laughing on the train into work so must've looked like a loon. I'd recommend it to anyone.
Holy crap ! Entered the thread to say how much I'm enjoying 'A walk in the woods' so far.
I think this is the second time this has happened to me in this thread. Finished 'Hunger Games' book 1 before that. Its very 'young adult' and has nothing new, exciting or edgy for anyone who has read/seen Battle Royale but it still is a quick and light read for anyone who is interested.
I think I agree. I've only read 'Kafka on the shore' and wasn't too sure what to make of it. I like this style but it's a tad to surreal for my tastes. Modern oriental magical realism pretty much sums it up. Is all his other work similar as well?
I read the manga adaptation of Battle Royale before but I still found interesting the first Hunger Games even if the heroin was quite cold so she didn't seem emotionnally involved with most of the deaths. I liked how the author mixed some real tv ideas with the "survival game" like how to manipulate the viewers.
But the other books aren't that good, the last one is especially disappointing.
Most of his books are. His books seem to happen in the real world with strange things that happen. Even Norwegian Woods seems surrealistic even if I am quite sure nothing "magical" happens in this one. But he also wrote other things than novels.
I like Kafka on the shore though, mostly because it was a funny book, or more exactly funny half book thanks to Nakata's part.
Holy crap ! Entered the thread to say how much I'm enjoying 'A walk in the woods' so far.
Finished 'Hunger Games' book 1 before that. Its very 'young adult' and has nothing new, exciting or edgy for anyone who has read/seen Battle Royale but it still is a quick and light read for anyone who is interested.
I love the stats he provides and the snippets of information thrown in with jokes. Really easy reading and hilarious!
Has anyone read the Assange auto bio?
I have finished Sanderson's Mistborn and its sequel The Well of Ascension. And I am starting the 3rd one Hero of Ages... fortunately, there are only 4 books out since I don't know how to stop.
EDIT : I have finished the 3rd one, great book even if I have a mixed opinion about the end. And I can take a break since the 4rth isn't a direct sequel.
EDIT : I have finished the 3rd one, great book even if I have a mixed opinion about the end. And I can take a break since the 4rth isn't a direct sequel.
I got started with The Prague Cemetery this week. I made the mistake of reading some of the reviews after I had already ordered the book. Note to self- never do that again.
The reviews weren't very flattering. Most of them said some very nice things about the book and then for some reason finished on a low note. What I do remember clearly though is a couple of them mentioning that in typical Eco fashion this book has a slow start and then picks up great speed and finishes with a flourish. What were they talking about? Admittedly I've only read 2 other Eco books but they are his most famous. Yes, Name of the Rose has a slow start and picks up speed gradually but it takes many detours. And Focault's Pendulum starts slowly, gathers speed, then slows down again then picks up speed then goes completely off track and then ends abruptly. Unlike either of those 2 books The Prague Cemetery had me hooked 25 pages in. I already love the character of Captain Simonini, his blind hatred for everyone, and his daydreaming of food.
Should I make the Eco vs. Dan Brown comparison? Nah. I'll let it be.
I don't think I've finished any of his books, I'm aware that the insouciant nature of it all makes that 'OK' but the whole schtick reeks of cool over content.
How is the book, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy? The movie is coming out next week and I am debating if I should read the book first and then watch the movie or just watch the movie.
Brilliant book. Much more insightful (obviously) and intelligent than the movie (which was also great). I found the only boring chapters were the ones where he describes Genesis, Whitney Houston and Huey Lewis.
Some parts had me laughing out loud on the tube at 9am in the morning. Some bits had me shaking my head in dismay. But it is a truly great novel. It is explicit and rude and all those things that people say it is, but read it!
I haven't read the book, mate, but I have read people's opinions on the sections you mention: they write that the chapters are deliberately banal, in order to show how undiscerning Bateman's cultural tastes are, and how lifeless (emotionally) he is. What do you think?
Reading Hitch-22 now, the memoirs of Christopher Hitchens. I didn't know that the bit about his mother.
I suppose so. I mean, what I meant with my initial comment is that I found those chapters particularly hard to read because they just are really boring. It's literally him describing the careers and musical progression of those three artists. Every other page of the book engaged me and I wanted to read more, but these three chapters really bored the life out of me.
However, having said that, I suppose they do 'tie up' the narrative. They are juxtaposed next to a really brutal chapter (if memory serves) and I think it's to show how disengaged and fecked up Patrick Bateman is. How he can easily go from a murderous sexual rampage to talking so mundanely about a music artist.
There's also this theme in the book where his colleagues will ask him really inane questions about how to accessorize their looks or what goes with what (in terms of attire). I can't stress enough of how inane these questions are.
Anyway, read the book. Trust me, you won't regret it.
It's far from great, the piss-take of brand names is mildly amusing but the rest of it doesn't cut the mustard. Less Than Zero is his one-off good book.
Looks like we have to agree to disagree. If you think about when it was published (1991) and he wrote about a lifestyle that became so prevalent and so accepted a few years later. And the fact he was a psychopath as well. I think it's brilliant storytelling.
I also read this recently. I found the first 50+ pages really difficult to get into. The early middle and middle sections of the book are ok. There's nothing special here. It does drag a tad, and the 'action' in the novel isn't that engaging. There is one chapter near the end which throws a spanner in the works and I wish it was expanded upon, or more was written about it because it is by far the best part of the book.
Palahniuk has set it up for a sequel, but I doubt I'd read it.
Edit: I feel I've been a bit harsh. It is satirical/black humour, and there are interesting parts here and there. It's like The Breakfast Club set in Hell. But It doesn't really compare to his earlier work.
I eased myself out of my taupe Ralph Lauren cavalry twill Confederate slacks and shrugged off my Landrover navy 75 cam brushoff weejuns, wrapping my hand-woven Puglia silk Gucci scarf around the handle of my Am-Tech 24oz claw hammer I bashed the silly tart's head in.
Do feck off.