Books The BOOK thread

I just ordered a Kindle yesterday, and I hope it'll finally let me take up books in a serious way. Lord of the Rings being the exception that confirms the rule, I haven't been reading for leasure since my early teens, and I always gave priority to music, movies and TV-shows ahead of reading.

Hopefully I'll be able to change that now though! I'll ease my way into it though, as I was planning to start with Game of Thrones :)

I've always been fascinated by the beat culture and it's influence it's had on the culture since it emerged, especially music and movies. I was wondering if anyone had any recommendations in terms of "must reads" within this genre? Apart from Kerouac I don't really have any idea of what I should go for. Will probably start with On The Road.
 
Due to a recent glut of having to read some hefty tomes and critical academic material I decided to try something a little less trying on the mind and went for The Silence of the Lambs. I'd already seen the film, but it was still really, really enjoyable.

Hannibal is an engrossing creation, his interactions with Starling are enigmatic in nature in the novel, not only in terms of content, but in terms of occurrence.
 
Harris is a marvelous writer when he's on form, I think. At his best, he's as good and as thought-provoking as any author out there.
 
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Writing about Anne Boleyn’s last days, her trial and beheading, was, Mantel says, “frightening in its intensity”:

http://t.co/QJ0reBXW
 
Just started this

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I like it, seems to be better than "My shit life so far" imo.
 
The Subterraneans - Not the best Kerouac but still pretty good. I liked the beginning the most, some of his experiences and thoughts felt eerily familiar, after about halfway through my interest sort of waned a bit though.

Brave New World - Decent but not the most riveting read.
 
I didn't like Brave New World, Huxley's imagination was limited by his constricted abilities as a writer and story-teller. Orwell is more successful because he delivered both.
 
Definitely. If I hadn't known it beforehand I would never have guessed it was written in the early 30's. Quite amazing.

Just curious, but did either of you read "We" by Evgeny Zamyatin? It's another dystopian state sci-fi. Very odd, and very interesting. I found it a bit of a tricky read though. Could be the translation so hopefully there's a new one out. Anyway, it's along those same lines and very interesting. I think it was written actually before those others in the early 20's or so.
 
I didn't like Brave New World, Huxley's imagination was limited by his constricted abilities as a writer and story-teller. Orwell is more successful because he delivered both.
I don't think either are very good novels, both more interesting for the ideas.
 
By today's standards maybe, but when you consider it was written in 1931, it's fecking fantastic. Far ahead of its time.

I felt that the characters in the novel were a bit hollow and hard to relate to in many ways. Still a great idea and hasnt aged badly at all from the 30s but just didnt engage me as other reads have.
 
I gave in and bought Fifty Shades of Grey. Frankly, it's dire. The author (I use the term loosely) originally wrote it for fan fiction, based on characters from Twilight, and tbh, it shows. To be fair, she has made the hero pretty charismatic, and I'll download the whole trilogy because I do want to know what happens - just as I would if I was reading it from a fanfic site. The heroine comes across as the person the author wants to be - I think the terms is 'a Mary Sue'. It's just page after page of gratuitous sex. In this instance, less would definitely be more, because all the sex scenes are full of the same words/descriptions. The repetition in this 'novel' is unbelievable.
 
Anyone recommend good French fiction books?

Pete, Waltraute, whoever?
 
I've always been fascinated by the beat culture and it's influence it's had on the culture since it emerged, especially music and movies. I was wondering if anyone had any recommendations in terms of "must reads" within this genre? Apart from Kerouac I don't really have any idea of what I should go for. Will probably start with On The Road.
The Beats as a movement are quite hard to group I think, as the Corso quote goes 'three writers do not a generation make.' While I love a lot that come out of the 'movement', it spawned a lot of lazy writing and poor imitation, that as a catch-all term I don't think it's all that great - it's not so clear cut. I guess it's the same with any artistic movement, like it's history rewritten for convenience. Anyway, to try to recommend some things you might like:

On the Road probably is the best place to start, fantastic book. Something that's worthwhile while reading it I think is to listen to Kerouac read the few excerpts he recorded. It doesn't appear to be on youtube so if I ever find my CD I'll upload it for you - he reads the San Francisco Jazz clubs section which I think is the greatest bit of music writing there's ever been. 'Boom, kick, that drummer was kicking his drums down the cellar and rolling the beat upstairs with his murderous sticks, rattlety-boom!' Hearing it helps to bring the music out of the writing even more.

Funny it was mentioned above, I actually think Kerouac's The Subterraneans is the Beat book. I really struggled with it when I was younger and first read it, it can be exhausting with only a couple of paragaphs per page etc. Once you like the style though, for me it's the best example of how alive that writing can be. It's been ages since I've read some of the others but The Dharma Bums, Big Sur, Visions of Cody, Desolation Angels and the narrative poem Old Angel Midnight are all worth a read if you really get into Kerouac. Pic is another that still means a lot to me, though your mileage my vary as it's essentially children's lit.

I think the other recognised classics are Ginsberg's Howl and Other Poems, Corso's Bomb and Burroughs' Naked Lunch. There are a few great versions of Ginsberg reading the entire text of Howl on youtube. I think his early works were by far his best, the Other Poems include similarly great stuff like America and A Supermarket in California. I really like the collection Reality Sandwiches, too. My favourite Ginsberg poem, Wales Visitation:


White fog lifting & falling on mountain-brow
Trees moving in rivers of wind
The clouds arise
as on a wave, gigantic eddy lifting mist
above teeming ferns exquisitely swayed
along a green crag
glimpsed thru mullioned glass in valley raine-

Bardic, O Self, Visitacione, tell naught
but what seen by one man in a vale in Albion,
of the folk, whose physical sciences end in Ecology,
the wisdom of earthly relations,
of mouths & eyes interknit ten centuries visible
orchards of mind language manifest human,
of the satanic thistle that raises its horned symmetry
flowering above sister grass-daisies' pink tiny
bloomlets angelic as lightbulbs-

Remember 160 miles from London's symmetrical thorned tower
& network of TV pictures flashing bearded your Self
the lambs on the tree-nooked hillside this day bleating
heard in Blake's old ear, & the silent thought of Wordsworth in eld
Stillness
clouds passing through skeleton arches of Tintern Abbey-
Bard Nameless as the Vast, babble to Vastness!

All the valley quivered, one extended motion, wind
undulating on mossy hills
a giant wash that sank white fog delicately down red runnels
on the mountainside
whose leaf-branch tendrils moved a sway
in granitic undertow down-
and lifted the floating Nebulous upward, and lifted the arms of the trees
and lifted the grasses an instant in balance
and lifted the lambs to hold still
and lifted the green of the hill, in one solemn wave

A solid mass of Heaven, mist-infused, ebbs thru the vale,
a wavelet of Immensity, lapping gigantic through Llanthony Valley,
the length of all England, valley upon valley under Heaven's ocean
tonned with cloud-hang,
-Heaven balanced on a grassblade.
Roar of the mountain wind slow, sigh of the body,
One Being on the mountainside stirring gently
Exquisite scales trembling everywhere in balance,
one motion thru the cloudy sky-floor shifting on the million feet of
daisies
one Majesty the motion that stirred wet grass quivering
to the farthest tendril of white fog poured down
through shivering flowers on the mountain's head-

No imperfection in the budded mountain,
Valleys breathe, heaven and earth move together,
daisies push inches of yellow air, vegetables tremble,
grass shimmers green
sheep speckle the mountainside, revolving their jaws with empty eyes,
horses dance in the warm rain,
tree-lined canals network live farmland,
blueberries fringe stone walls on hawthorn'd hills,
pheasants croak on meadows haired with fern-

Out, out on the hillside, into the ocean sound, into delicate gusts of wet
air,
Fall on the ground, O great Wetness, O Mother, No harm on your body!
Stare close, no imperfection in the grass,
each flower Buddha-eye, repeating the story,
myriad-formed-
Kneel before the foxglove raising green buds, mauve bells drooped
doubled down the stem trembling antennae,
& look in the eyes of the branded lambs that stare
breathing stockstill under dripping hawthorn-
I lay down mixing my beardwith the wet hair of the mountainside,
smelling the brown vagina-moist ground, harmless,
tasting the violet thistle-hair, sweetness-
One being so balanced, so vast, that its softest breath
moves every floweret in the stillness of thevalley floor,
trembles lamb-hair hung gossamer rain-beaded in the grass,
lifts trees on their roots, birds in the great draught
hiding their strength in the rain, bearing same weight,

Groan thru breast and neck, a great Oh! to earth heart
Calling our Prescence together
The great secret is no secret
Senses fit the winds,
Visible is visible,
rain-mist curtains wave through the bearded vale,
gray atoms wet the wind's kabbala
Crosslegged on a rock in dusk rain,
rubber booted in soft grass, mind moveless,
breath trembles in white daisies by the roadside,
Heaven breath and my own symmetric
Airs wavering thru antlered green fern
drawn in my navel, same breath as breathes thru Capel-Y-Ffn,
Sounds of Aleph and Aum
through forests of gristle,
my skull and Lord Hereford's Knob equal,
All Albion one.

What did I notice? Particulars! The
vision of the great One is myriad-
smoke curls upward from ashtray,
house fire burned low,
The night, still wet & moody black heaven
starless
upward in motion with wet wind.

Naked Lunch (obligatory Simpsons quote: "I can think of at least two things wrong with that title") is batshit but if the really opaque parts don't bother you, I think it's a wortwhile read alone for some brilliant descriptions of addiction (even better than in Junkie I think). Again it's been a while since I've read any Burroughs, but I remember loving the feel of those passages where he successfully communicated the reaction of every sense to what he was experiencing.

Including Bomb, Corso wrote some great picture poetry which unfortunately I'm too lazy to properly format here. http://www.litkicks.com/Texts/Bomb.html
 
cont.
Lawrence Ferlinghetti:
The World Is a Beautiful Place


The world is a beautiful place
to be born into
if you don't mind happiness
not always being
so very much fun
if you don't mind a touch of hell
now and then
just when everything is fine
because even in heaven
they don't sing
all the time

The world is a beautiful place
to be born into
if you don't mind some people dying
all the time
or maybe only starving
some of the time
which isn't half bad
if it isn't you

Oh the world is a beautiful place
to be born into
if you don't much mind
a few dead minds
in the higher places
or a bomb or two
now and then
in your upturned faces
or such other improprieties
as our Name Brand society
is prey to
with its men of distinction
and its men of extinction
and its priests
and other patrolmen

and its various segregations
and congressional investigations
and other constipations
that our fool flesh
is heir to

Yes the world is the best place of all
for a lot of such things as
making the fun scene
and making the love scene
and making the sad scene
and singing low songs and having inspirations
and walking around
looking at everything
and smelling flowers
and goosing statues
and even thinking
and kissing people and
making babies and wearing pants
and waving hats and
dancing
and going swimming in rivers
on picnics
in the middle of the summer
and just generally
'living it up'
Yes
but then right in the middle of it
comes the smiling

mortician

In Golden Gate Park...
In Golden Gate Park that day
a man and his wife were coming along
thru the enormous meadow
which was the meadow of the world
He was wearing green suspenders
and carrying an old beat-up flute
in one hand
while his wife had a bunch of grapes
which she kept handing out
individually
to various squirrels
as if each
were a little joke

And then the two of them came on
thru the enormous meadow
which was the meadow of the world
and then
at a very still spot where the trees dreamed
and seemed to have been waiting thru all time
for them
they sat down together on the grass
without looking at each other
and ate oranges
without looking at each other
and put the peels
in a basket which they seemed
to have brought for that purpose
without looking at each other

And then
he took his shirt and undershirt off
but kept his hat on
sideways
and without saying anything
fell asleep under it
And his wife just sat there looking
at the birds which flew about
calling to each other
in the stilly air
as if they were questioning existence
or trying to recall something forgotten

But then finally
she too lay down flat
and just lay there looking up
at nothing
yet fingering the old flute
which nobody played
and finally looking over
at him
without any particular expression
except a certain awful look
of terrible depression
Michael McClure:
IN LIGHT ROOM IN DARK HELL IN UMBER IN CHROME,
I sit feeling the swell of the cloud made about by movement

of arm leg and tongue. In reflections of gold
light. Tints and flashes of gold and amber spearing
and glinting. Blur glass…blue Glass,

black telephone. Matchflame of violet and flesh
seen in the clear bright light. It is not night

and night too. In Hell, there are stars outside.
And long sounds of cars. Brown shadows on walls
in the light
of the room. I sit or stand

wanting the huge reality of touch and love.
In the turned room. Remember the long-ago dream

of stuffed animals (owl, fox) in a dark shop. Wanting
only the purity of clean colors and new shapes
and feelings.
I WOULD CRY FOR THEM USELESSLY

I have ten years left to worship my youth
Billy the Kid, Rimbaud, Jean Harlow
IN DARK HELL IN LIGHT ROOM IN UMBER AND CHROME I
feel the swell of
smoke the drain and flow of motion of exhaustion, the long sounds of cars
the brown shadows
on the wall. I sit or stand. Caught in the net of glints from corner table to
dull plane
from knob to floor, angles of flat light, daggers of beams. Staring at love’s face.
The telephone in cataleptic light. Marchflames of blue and red seen in the
clear grain.
I see myself—ourselves—in Hell without radiance. Reflections that we are.

The long cars make sounds and brown shadows over the wall.

I am real as you are real whom I speak to.
I raise my head, see over the edge of my nose. Look up

and see that nothing is changed. There is no flash
to my eyes. No change to the room.

Vita Nuova—No! The dead, dead world.
The strain of desire is only a heroic gesture.
An agony to be so in pain without release

when love is a word or kiss.
I think Diane di Prima's Rant sums up much of the rest of the output, some great ideas not always done well.
You cannot write a single line w/out a cosmology
a cosmogony
laid out, before all eyes

there is no part of yourself you can separate out
saying, this is memory, this is sensation
this is the work I care about, this is how I
make a living

it is whole, it is a whole, it always was whole
you do not "make" it so
there is nothing to integrate, you are a presence
you are an appendage of the work, the work stems from
hangs from the heaven you create

every man / every woman carries a firmament inside
& the stars in it are not the stars in the sky

w/out imagination there is no memory
w/out imagination there is no sensation
w/out imagination there is no will, desire

history is a living weapon in yr hand
& you have imagined it, it is thus that you
"find out for yourself"
history is the dream of what can be, it is
the relation between things in a continuum

of imagination
what you find out for yourself is what you select
out of an infinite sea of possibility
no one can inhabit yr world

yet it is not lonely,
the ground of imagination is fearlessness
discourse is video tape of a movie of a shadow play
but the puppets are in yr hand
your counters in a multidimensional chess
which is divination
& strategy

the war that matters is the war against the imagination
all other wars are subsumed in it.

the ultimate famine is the starvation
of the imagination

it is death to be sure, but the undead
seek to inhabit someone else's world

the ultimate claustrophobia is the syllogism
the ultimate claustrophobia is "it all adds up"
nothing adds up & nothing stands in for
anything else

THE ONLY WAR THAT MATTERS IS THE WAR AGAINST
THE IMAGINATION
THE ONLY WAR THAT MATTERS IS THE WAR AGAINST
THE IMAGINATION
THE ONLY WAR THAT MATTERS IS THE WAR AGAINST
THE IMAGINATION
ALL OTHER WARS ARE SUBSUMED IN IT

There is no way out of a spiritual battle
There is no way you can avoid taking sides
There is no way you can not have a poetics
no matter what you do: plumber, baker, teacher

you do it in the consciousness of making
or not making yr world
you have a poetics: you step into the world
like a suit of readymade clothes

or you etch in light
your firmament spills into the shape of your room
the shape of the poem, of yr body, of yr loves

A woman's life / a man's life is an allegory

Dig it

There is no way out of the spiritual battle
the war is the war against the imagination
you can't sign up as a conscientious objector

the war of the worlds hangs here, right now, in the balance
it is a war for this world, to keep it
a vale of soul-making

the taste in all our mouths is the taste of power
and it is bitter as death

bring yr self home to yrself, enter the garden
the guy at the gate w/ the flaming sword is yrself

the war is the war for the human imagination
and no one can fight it but you/ & no one can fight it for you

The imagination is not only holy, it is precise
it is not only fierce, it is practical
men die everyday for the lack of it,
it is vast & elegant

intellectus means "light of the mind"
it is not discourse it is not even language
the inner sun

the polis is constellated around the sun
the fire is central
If you wanted some light reading on the period that followed leading into psychedelia, Tom Wolfe's book on the Merry Pranksters 'The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test', is good fun.
 
Graham Hunter's book on Barcelona is in my top 5 sports book ever. If you haven't read it make sure you do

I just bought this. He signed it for me also. He wrote "Some day United will play like this again". Made me laugh. Top bloke.

I'll start reading it tomorrow.
 
Anyone recommend good French fiction books?

Pete, Waltraute, whoever?

Germinal was brilliant. Easy read. Real exploited underclass blood boiling stuff. Sartre's "Age of Reason" trilogy was fantastic as well. I can't get through the guy's philosophy, but his fiction and plays are marvelous.
 
Reading "The Black Jacobins" and am more than a little irritated. It's about the slave rebellion in Haiti, but for a non-fiction piece, the author doesn't hesitate to editorialize. Too many hyperboles as well. Just give me the facts please. Very annoying if I'm honest.
 
I just read "On Silent Wings," by Don Conroy. It's a brilliant children's book. I missed out on reading some of these when I was younger but catching up now. Describes the life of a young Barn Owl and his friends. A fantastic story and lovely tidbits about the animals. Great if you have a child between 8 and 12 who likes a read.
 
I've always been fascinated by the beat culture and it's influence it's had on the culture since it emerged, especially music and movies. I was wondering if anyone had any recommendations in terms of "must reads" within this genre? Apart from Kerouac I don't really have any idea of what I should go for. Will probably start with On The Road.

I'd start with Dharma Bums by Kerouac, light read and lets you understand the general lifestyle of the group.

Follow with On the Road (Kerouacs Mangnum Opus)

I'd suggests William S Burroughs Junky (a major collolaboartor and influence for the beats) after.

When you get hardcore try Ginsberg poetry (reality bites being a good anthology).

Then you'll understand all the references in this piece of brilliance:

 
I'd start with Dharma Bums by Kerouac, light read and lets you understand the general lifestyle of the group.

Follow with On the Road (Kerouacs Mangnum Opus)

I'd suggests William S Burroughs Junky (a major collolaboartor and influence for the beats) after.

When you get hardcore try Ginsberg poetry (reality bites being a good anthology).

Then you'll understand all the references in this piece of brilliance:



Thanks FB, I really appreciate that! Will try to go at it the way you've suggested, and I've bookmarked your post for reference.

My Kindle arrived yesterday, and I decided to start with Steve Jobs by Isaacson, so once I get through that I'll get started with the beats :)
 
Obvious choice but Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's The Little Prince is a classic.

Germinal was brilliant. Easy read. Real exploited underclass blood boiling stuff. Sartre's "Age of Reason" trilogy was fantastic as well. I can't get through the guy's philosophy, but his fiction and plays are marvelous.

Cheers guys.


Read the Count of Monte Cristo, but will check some of his other best novels.
 
Thanks FB, I really appreciate that! Will try to go at it the way you've suggested, and I've bookmarked your post for reference.

My Kindle arrived yesterday, and I decided to start with Steve Jobs by Isaacson, so once I get through that I'll get started with the beats :)

No problem mate, I guess the literature degree finally paid off!
 
'Extension du domaine de la lutte' by Michel Houellebecq is fantastic, much better than 'Atomised' (it's also brilliantly filmed unlike 'Atomised').
 
I read Platform by Houellebecq a while back. Pure filth, but kind of entertaining.

As for other French books: you could try The Plague by Camus.
 
Half way through Simon Scarrow's monster quartet of books on the lives of Napoleon and The Duke of Wellington. Starting with them as young boys and ending in book four with the Battle of Waterloo.

Great read! :drool:
 
As for other French books: you could try The Plague by Camus.

Good shout. The best Camus read I reckon. Much better than The Stranger which is what most folks around here have usually read. Didn't finish the Myth of Sisyphus" but it's not fiction anyway.

Oh, and Maupassant's (sp?) short stories were quite good as well.
 
I enjoyed reading 1984 and I have read that Brave New World is like 1984. I think that I'm going to read it this week.

Buck the trend and try "We". I don't know anyone else that's read it, and am curious to get some other opinions as mine's well addled.

Nothing against 1984, mind. Fantastic. Still ahead of its time.
 
Buck the trend and try "We". I don't know anyone else that's read it, and am curious to get some other opinions as mine's well addled.


The author Colin Wilson considers We to be better than any other 'Utopian' fiction. Wilson's book The Strength to Dream: Literature and the Imagination is especially good on Russian writers & their works.