Books The BOOK thread

Of all of his ([edit]talking about Palahniuk until Peter butted in), I liked Survivor the best. If you've not gotten to that one, I do recommend it. Also had a soft spot for "Fugitives and Refugees" as it's about some of my favorite haunts and goings on here in Portland.

Just read "Midnight Rising", the new book about John Brown. Nothing really new in it, though I've read probably everything there is on the man. If you're interested in the man, I'd strongly recommend "John Brown, Abolitionist". My favorite by far, though some of that may well be because it's an admiring account, with me a great admirer all my life. Regardless of that, it's the most comprehensive and it goes into good detail on his fascinating life before the raid. Amazing account of an amazing man, traitor, martyr, murderer, zealot, fanatic, hard-ass, failure, hero. Take your pick.
 
peterstorey said:
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.
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What's wrong with you? You sound like a bitter old man.
 
I'm not bitter in the least - I do know good books from shite though. Didn't you enjoy my precis? More taut than John Crace...

'The movie was based on a book written by someone we knew. It was labelled fiction but most of it – the snuff movie, the gang rape – was true. The only bits that hurt were those that chronicled my relationship with Blair as the writer was in love with her himself, though too immersed in the passivity of writing and too pleased with his own style to bother with many commas to admit it so he wrote me into the story as the man who was too frightened to love. Make of that what you will though the real message I want you to take is that I'm a smartass seller of banal meta-fictions.

I went to the premiere in 1987 with Blair, Rip, Julian and all the other empty narcissists who had somehow dazzled the literary establishment. The movie had been a pile of shit. Bret had hated the movie too and what follows is I guess his revenge. Shame he involved you in it because the real Julian didn't die in the movie he died on the page more than 20 years later.

The jeep had been following us back from LAX to my apartment in Doheny Plaza. It's meant to be haunted by a boy who killed himself but you can probably do without that kind of banal symbolism. We're in LA everyone is shallow and on the make. Wow what insight. I nearly do some coke drink a lot of vodka take Ambien put on the Eurythmics and answer my iPhone. Julian wants to meet.

I'm back in LA to help cast The Listeners for which I've written the screenplay. I still think I'm being followed as I drive out to Blair's Beverly Hills mansion but I'm too detached to care so I just drink five bottles of vodka and think about Amanda whom I flirted with in New York.

"You're looking very thin Clay. I guess it didn't work out with Meghan," Blair says. I've no intention of ever explaining anything so I shrug in a cool sort of way and hope the critics will love the empty unreliability of my narration.

"Are you trying to feck me?" I ask.

I meet Julian. We don't really talk so I go back to my apartment on Doheney Plaza. I'm still being followed and I drink 20 bottles of tequila do some coke and go off to the casting where a third-rate actress is auditioning. Later that evening I meet Rip at a restaurant. He looks like he's had too much surgery then as he points out this book hasn't had nearly enough. The third rate actress is behind the bar. Her name is Rain. "If you come back to my place you might get the part," I say.

We start drinking gallons of vodka and I bully her into having constant sex and she wants to know when she's going to get the part. I look moody and hit her. Messages appear on my iPhone. I'm watching you. Certainly no one's reading me. I get another call on my iPhone. Kelly Montrose has been tortured and killed. I yawn. I'd seen it on the YouTube app of my iPhone.

Someone is still following me as I have more meaningless sex. Rain says she's got to go to San Diego to see her mom. I don't believe her so I rape her but she goes anyway. Rip calls. Or is it Blair I've lost track. Rain is still going out with Julian and Julian runs a vice-network and Rain is one of his girls and she also used to go out with Kelly and Rip. Rip tells me to stay away from her but I've fallen in love in four days even though I've shown no sign of it.

So what else can I tell you? I could say that I drove Julian to be killed by Rip who had killed Kelly that Amanda lived with Rain that Rain didn't get the part that I sodomised a boy and a girl and that it was Blair who had been following me and gave me an alibi. But I guess you don't really care any more and frankly I don't blame you. If I don't give a shit about anything why should you?

"Don't worry about anything," Blair says. "I won't," says Bret. "I've come to realise I don't like anyone. Especially my readers."
 
peterstorey said:
It's an intervention mate.
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:lol:

Was just skipping around this thread and I've got to admit I've read a fair few books based on recommendations from you creeps.

Thanks fellas.

Currently reading a collection of slave narratives assembled by the US government during the great depression. Apparently was a sort of make-work project to employ out of work writers, and praise be that they did it while the narrators were still alive. None are more than 6 pages or so but are absolutely fascinating. The sort of stuff that wouldn't turn up in the history books. Not just about the full range of treatment as slaves, but their lives in the tricky times afterwards. Any narrative out of that time and place is always going to be stranger than fiction.
 
I just read "The Sicilian," by Mario Puzo and felt it was ok but never really got going. Certainly not a patch on the Godfather and I wouldn't recommend it.
 
Currently about half way through 'The Brothers Sisters' by Patrick De Witt.

The-Sisters-Brothers.jpg


Considering the last old West novel I read was McCarthys 'Blood Meridian' this is a piece of piss to get through. It's actually very funny and the shortness of the chapters makes it read almost like a screenplay so it was no surprise to learn that it's already been snapped up by John C Reillys production company.

Apparently he liked the lead character (and narrator) Eli so much that he wanted the role for himself. Naturally 99% of the humour now comes from the fact that I see his chubby face in every goofball thing that the character does.

Highly recommended.
 
Over Christmas I read The Book Thief and this Saturday my missus introduced me to The BFG and The Twits. Thoroughly enjoyed both Roald Dahl's books as I never read them as a nipper. The Book Thief was an excellent read too and I cant recommend it enough.
 
Just finished Dostoievski - The Brothers Karamazov. Magnificient ! Dostoievski's style is marvellous and the way he depicts the characters is just sublime. The discussions about religion/god, socialism and ethics are great. My only reserve is that the book drags on a little bit at the end with some very long monologues but overall it is a must.
I will surely go on and read Crime and Punishement sometimes next month.

I will now start reading Noam Chomsky - Understanding Power.
 
SteveJ said:
The Twits is just great. :D
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It was gas. The copy I read had loads of interesting facts about Dahl too so I may just have a read of more of his stuff. He seems like an interesting bloke. Fighter pilot in the RAF and supposed spy too.
 
Finished The Girl Who Played With Fire yesterday. Now on to Hornets Nest.
 
I've jsut discovered Greg Iles and if you like crime thrillers you have to check him out. Really enjoying them.
 
I'm on a bit of a Steinbeck buzz now. I just read Of Mice and Men and it was fantastic. I know it's a classic but an excellent read. I think I should've read The Twits and the BFG after these books though!!
 
Just finished The Help by Kathryn Stockett. Enjoyed it, though it made me angry. It may have been melo-dramatised, but we've surely seen enough over the years to know that life wasn't easy for black Americans especially in the deep south. The scariest thing is that it was only fifty or so years ago.
 
Just realized a few days ago that now that I have a Kindle I have access to all of the Project Gutenberg books. So far I've just been on a downloading spree, but I have read 'What Men Live by' by Leo Tolstoy (granted it's just a short story) and plan to start 'Walden' by Henry David Thoreau soon.
 
Stick said:
I'm on a bit of a Steinbeck buzz now. I just read Of Mice and Men and it was fantastic. I know it's a classic but an excellent read. I think I should've read The Twits and the BFG after these books though!!
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Great stuff. I have everything he's written and have read almost all of it. Great lit that's easily translatable. "Grapes of Wrath" is the first US book I recommend when I travel. That and "In Dubious Battle" are his best angry, power to the people books. "Cannery Row" is about as fun a read as you'll come across as well. Really made me want to be a bum again. His shorts are good as well, "The Long Valley" and "Pastures of Heaven".

Great stuff.
 
CassiusClaymore said:
Currently about half way through 'The Brothers Sisters' by Patrick De Witt.

The-Sisters-Brothers.jpg


Considering the last old West novel I read was McCarthys 'Blood Meridian' this is a piece of piss to get through. It's actually very funny and the shortness of the chapters makes it read almost like a screenplay so it was no surprise to learn that it's already been snapped up by John C Reillys production company.

Apparently he liked the lead character (and narrator) Eli so much that he wanted the role for himself. Naturally 99% of the humour now comes from the fact that I see his chubby face in every goofball thing that the character does.

Highly recommended.
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Sounded and looked exactly like what I'd been looking for since I finished Blood Meridian so I bought it last night... although I wouldn't suggest searching the title in the Kindle store. There are some very "interesting" self published books with similar titles that cover a very different topic.
 
Could some recommend me a book? I'd like it to be either one of those psychological thrillers (like Fight Club, which I've just finished) or a crime thriller. I want to be thrilled! Please and thank you.
 
P.G. Wodehouse novels are great crime thrillers. There's busting of busts, stealing of copper helmets, cottages being burned down, mastery of disguise, cow creamers and silver porringers. I can assure you, you will be thrilled.
 
Just read a pretty weird book - probably best described as paranormal chick-lit. Untied Kingdom by Kate Johnson is about a girl who paraglides through a portal into a parallel universe where England is a third-world country, never had an Empire, fought alongside Germany in WW2 (and lost alongside Germany), and there's a civil war between the Parliamentarians and the Coalitionists who want to be annexed to France, the most powerful country on earth.

It was all good entertaining stuff, but probably won't win any prizes, because those kind of books don't.
 
Currently reading Manufacturing Consent again. Amazing book.

And Will Self's Great Apes has been sitting on my bookshelf for ages, so I think it's time I gave it a go. I've heard mixed reviews.
 
101 said:
Could some recommend me a book? I'd like it to be either one of those psychological thrillers (like Fight Club, which I've just finished) or a crime thriller. I want to be thrilled! Please and thank you.
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Dead Sleep or Mortal Fear by Greg Iles. I can guarantee you'll love them.
 
Apparently Rowling is writing a crime novel. Pretty much everyone involved with literature will read it, even if just on the quiet. Not to mention her fans.
 
Currently in a marathon of Michael Connelly books, reading the Harry Bosch series and I'm on book 12 of 17. Love this character. I'm very fond of book series, really enjoyed Stephen King's Dark Tower series and Stephen R Donaldson's Thomas Covenant novels.
 
I just finished The Hitchhikers series. Loved it. What a brilliant writer Douglas Adams is. They way he phrases some things. Made me appreciate the movie more as well since they made it so differently to the book yet it still felt it was the same thing.

"The knack of flying is learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss."


Read all the ASOIAF books before Christmas and this series after them. Gonna change it up a bit next and read Freakonomics. I've then got all the Chuck Palahniuk books left. Only read Invisible Monsters and that's a special kind of book. I dare Hollywood to try and make a movie out of it.
 
Just finished The Metamorphosis. Two day earlier, The Stranger. Both books left a strange taste in my mouth.
 
Heh yeah, Metamorphosis is definitely interesting. Brilliant little book. Perfect length as well. It has a place among my favorite stories.
 
thepolice123 said:
Just finished The Metamorphosis. Two day earlier, The Stranger. Both books left a strange taste in my mouth.
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I reckon you'll be on to "Notes from the Underground Man" and "Fear and Trembling" if not already? Sartre's trilogy and his plays are fantastic as well.
 
I'm currently reading Theodore Rex a biography about Teddy Roosevelt and Monster Hunters International about monster hunters.

The first is so dense that I have to read the other to keep from getting too much information.
 
brad-dyrak said:
I reckon you'll be on to "Notes from the Underground Man" and "Fear and Trembling" if not already? Sartre's trilogy and his plays are fantastic as well.
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Read Notes months ago. Brilliant book. The Underground Man's story about the officer had me in stitches.

Never read "Fear and Trembling" or Satre's. Might do it someday.
 
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