I like McArthy and read all 3 of those. Blood Meridian is brutal. I'd assumed it was gratuitous until I read a history of the Commanche wars.
Books The BOOK thread
- Thread starter Livvie
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It's not so much Blood Meridian's atrocities that stick in my memory, but the 'otherness' of Judge Holden - even his speeches seem like something out of time, from centuries long past, rather than an expression of the here & now. The book gets under one's skin.
Yeah, well put. He was a strange bird to be sure. He's got a way of writing that gets under the skin. For as sparse as his prose was, "The Road" managed to pack in a lot of dread. "No Country for Old Men" had that unsettling dreamlike pursuit where you can't seem to really run or get away. In fairness I thought he movie did pretty well, all things considered. Reminded me of "Night of the Hunter" in a way (which was a great movie).
Marching Powder: Biographical account of a drug trafficker that gets caught and thrown into a Bolivian jail. The book is riveting for the first hundred pages or so. It fades in the middle and then gets good again towards the end. It occasionally jumps about a bit introducing people, telling a bit of their story and then going back to them a few chapters later which made it feel a bit haphazard in places but it's a minor quibble.
The stories of corruption and the day-to-day life in the prison are very eye opening and I'd recommend this book to anybody. Biographies aren't normally my thing, but most of this book was very enjoyable.
The stories of corruption and the day-to-day life in the prison are very eye opening and I'd recommend this book to anybody. Biographies aren't normally my thing, but most of this book was very enjoyable.
Hey all, i'm wondering if any of you can recommend some good novels which are based on soldiers within world war 1 or 2? I'd appreciate it.
I remember liking "Enemy at the Gates" (WWII) when I was a kid. Also would recommend "Under Fire: The story of a squad" (WWI) by Henri Barbusse. Not sure about the translations and all. Interesting fella he was too.
If you wanted to hop over to 2 closely related conflicts, I'd recommend Hemingway's "The Fifth Column" short story collection about the Spanish Civil War (right before WWII). Mikhail Sholokov's "The Quiet Don" books ("And Quiet Flows the Don", and "The Don Flows Home to the Sea") were great reads about the Cossacks in the Russian Civil War (right after WWI).
If you wanted to hop over to 2 closely related conflicts, I'd recommend Hemingway's "The Fifth Column" short story collection about the Spanish Civil War (right before WWII). Mikhail Sholokov's "The Quiet Don" books ("And Quiet Flows the Don", and "The Don Flows Home to the Sea") were great reads about the Cossacks in the Russian Civil War (right after WWI).
Just started reading True Grit by Charles Portis. Really enjoying it so far. It's like Blood Meridian for people who aren't consumed by despair.
Bill, thats exactly my kind of book! If you like that I can recommend some others.
I read one recently, I think it was called Lost Voices of WW1. Absolutely brilliant.
Another I have read recently is Azincourt by Bernard Cornwell. Although it is fiction, about the life of a longbow man, it is a fantastic read based on truth. How the English won that war is beyond belief really.
He really is a chilling character. It's not often you come a villain in print that will literally send shivers down your spine.
Finished the second book of A Song of Ice and Fire yesterday.
Good stuff! Glad to finally have caught up with the TV series, and looking forward to reading on without knowing anything about what happens.
Good stuff! Glad to finally have caught up with the TV series, and looking forward to reading on without knowing anything about what happens.
Born to Run
Easy enough read, but good narrative. It might change the way I run.
Bear Grylls - Mud, Sweat and Tears
Humble to a fault, and seems like a genuine enough bloke. Good storytelling.
Easy enough read, but good narrative. It might change the way I run.
Bear Grylls - Mud, Sweat and Tears
Humble to a fault, and seems like a genuine enough bloke. Good storytelling.
I have this one standing in my bookshelf for years now but still haven't read it. I'll take it with me on holiday next week.
It takes me ages to read a book these days,I used to be able to finish one in a few days.Lately I've read books that we read in school but I couldn't be arsed then to appreciate them.Just finished John Buchan's The 39 Steps.Good yarn.
Finished two books last week that couldn't be more different from each other -
Blood Meridian - Cormac McCarthy
and
Fever Pitch - Nick Hornby (surprised this hasn't been mentioned more often in this thread. Quintessential football fanatic book even if its from an Arsenal perspective).
Now reading Old Man's War - John Scalzi
Blood Meridian - Cormac McCarthy
and
Fever Pitch - Nick Hornby (surprised this hasn't been mentioned more often in this thread. Quintessential football fanatic book even if its from an Arsenal perspective).
Now reading Old Man's War - John Scalzi
Do you run "barefoot" then? While it's rare that I actually run completely barefooted, I've run in my Five Fingers for a couple years now. Can't imagine any other way. It got to where I couldn't go for a run without having to load up on ibuprofen beforehand, but I haven't had a single day of pain in my knees from running since.
As a side note, Micah True (Caballo Blanco) died a few months ago in New Mexico.
Finished reading the Hobbit now. Very good book and I'm looking forward to seeing the film at the end of the year. Have high hopes for it.
Now what to read next?
Now what to read next?
The Fellowship obvs.
Well yeah, but it was a mate who lended me the Hobbit and said he'd give me the LOTR series after I'd read the Hobbit. Thing is he's away and will be for a couple of weeks.
Figured I'd maybe try to get something else read inbetween.
Figured I'd maybe try to get something else read inbetween.
It's good man, better than the Hobbit.
Can anyone recommend any collections of short stories? I'm not really fussed if it's old or modern, or what genre. The more variety the better, I suppose. I've ordered a book of Russian short stories that I'm really looking forward to reading.
What Men Live By by Tolstoy is quite good.
It's very good. What others would you recommend?
Anyone read The Malazan Book of the Fallen by Steven Erikson? Or anything that is a ridiculously long series, feel like I've not read anything other than his books for ages!
Big novels of 2012 list:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/jul/13/big-novels-2012
I still haven't read Mantel's Wolf Hall (I do want to, I just haven't gotten around to it), and her new one's supposed to be just as good. That'll be added to the reading list. I also like the sounds of Will Self's and John Banville's new novels.
Anyone read any of them?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/jul/13/big-novels-2012
I still haven't read Mantel's Wolf Hall (I do want to, I just haven't gotten around to it), and her new one's supposed to be just as good. That'll be added to the reading list. I also like the sounds of Will Self's and John Banville's new novels.
Anyone read any of them?
I'll make sure to get round to it then.
Wolf Hall is utterly brilliant (see my mini-review below). Bring Up The Bodies is more of the same.
Personally, I wouldn't read Amis' new one - this is a man who's so out of touch that he thinks we play the lottery by post. Nowadays, he should stick to literary criticism, at which he's superb.
-----------------------
Mantel's Thomas Cromwell, the hero of this novel, is a man out of time, a modern citizen who finds himself on the borderline between the superstitious Middle Ages and our more enlightened - but still angst-ridden - world. The very notion of Cromwell as an heroic figure goes against the grain, the received wisdom of standard histories in which he is customarily presented as a ruthless schemer, an opportunist without morals or positive emotions; yet here he is, a sentimental family man, and not merely a first-class brain but someone with feelings and flaws, fully human:
'He can draft a contract, train a falcon, draw a map, stop a street fight, furnish a house and fix a jury. He will quote you a nice point in the old authors, from Plato to Plautus and back again. He knows new poetry, and can say it in Italian. He works all hours, first up and last to bed. He makes money and he spends it. He will take a bet on anything.'
Wolf Hall's story - that grand, bloodstained and unforgettable period of Queen Katherine's fall and Anne Boleyn's rise - is of course well known but very well told; in fact, I doubt there's ever been a better English historical novel. In truth, there's almost too much to praise: every character, no matter how minor, is memorable; there are subtle forerunners of future Royal tragedies, unthought of in the Tudor period (Katherine's tightly-bound bodice is 'bejewelled as if to ward off blows', reminding one of the tragic Romanovs' fates); there are sublime moments when we step outside of the story's main thrust - Shakespearean or, more accurately, Wellesian interludes when the reader can almost see the mist rising from the Thames, hear the cries of the boatmen, watch dandelion clocks at play, borne on the summer breeze - while Mantel has Cromwell's thoughts tell us home truths that the sheer distraction of this world's 'show business' obscures:
'The fate of peoples is made like this, two men in small rooms. Forget the coronations, the conclaves of cardinals, the pomp and processions. This is how the world changes: a counter pushed across a table, a pen stroke that alters the force of a phrase, a woman's sigh as she passes and leaves on the air a trail of orange flower or rose water; her hand pulling close the bed curtain, the discreet sigh of flesh against flesh.'
The old cliché is nevertheless true of Wolf Hall: all human life can be found here, its good and its bad. The prose perfectly portrays the beauty and brutality of those times, and is peerless. Forget the trashy Tudors and a thousand other bodice-rippers - Wolf Hall is everything that is brilliant and rewarding about the best stories, and this one in particular tells the most enticing truths and nontruths.
An astounding book, easily the most magnificent history lesson I've ever received.
Personally, I wouldn't read Amis' new one - this is a man who's so out of touch that he thinks we play the lottery by post. Nowadays, he should stick to literary criticism, at which he's superb.
-----------------------
Mantel's Thomas Cromwell, the hero of this novel, is a man out of time, a modern citizen who finds himself on the borderline between the superstitious Middle Ages and our more enlightened - but still angst-ridden - world. The very notion of Cromwell as an heroic figure goes against the grain, the received wisdom of standard histories in which he is customarily presented as a ruthless schemer, an opportunist without morals or positive emotions; yet here he is, a sentimental family man, and not merely a first-class brain but someone with feelings and flaws, fully human:
'He can draft a contract, train a falcon, draw a map, stop a street fight, furnish a house and fix a jury. He will quote you a nice point in the old authors, from Plato to Plautus and back again. He knows new poetry, and can say it in Italian. He works all hours, first up and last to bed. He makes money and he spends it. He will take a bet on anything.'
Wolf Hall's story - that grand, bloodstained and unforgettable period of Queen Katherine's fall and Anne Boleyn's rise - is of course well known but very well told; in fact, I doubt there's ever been a better English historical novel. In truth, there's almost too much to praise: every character, no matter how minor, is memorable; there are subtle forerunners of future Royal tragedies, unthought of in the Tudor period (Katherine's tightly-bound bodice is 'bejewelled as if to ward off blows', reminding one of the tragic Romanovs' fates); there are sublime moments when we step outside of the story's main thrust - Shakespearean or, more accurately, Wellesian interludes when the reader can almost see the mist rising from the Thames, hear the cries of the boatmen, watch dandelion clocks at play, borne on the summer breeze - while Mantel has Cromwell's thoughts tell us home truths that the sheer distraction of this world's 'show business' obscures:
'The fate of peoples is made like this, two men in small rooms. Forget the coronations, the conclaves of cardinals, the pomp and processions. This is how the world changes: a counter pushed across a table, a pen stroke that alters the force of a phrase, a woman's sigh as she passes and leaves on the air a trail of orange flower or rose water; her hand pulling close the bed curtain, the discreet sigh of flesh against flesh.'
The old cliché is nevertheless true of Wolf Hall: all human life can be found here, its good and its bad. The prose perfectly portrays the beauty and brutality of those times, and is peerless. Forget the trashy Tudors and a thousand other bodice-rippers - Wolf Hall is everything that is brilliant and rewarding about the best stories, and this one in particular tells the most enticing truths and nontruths.
An astounding book, easily the most magnificent history lesson I've ever received.
Trawled through this thread looking for recommendations last night and started on American Tabloid. Very good so far, thanks Steve.
No problem, mate. Great to read that you're enjoying it. 
Guy de Maupaisant's shorts are great. For a particular author's work, I don't usually favor their short stories, but for Maupassant, that seeemed to be his thing. "The Dubliners" by Joyce. Hemingway's short stories, in particular about the Spanish Civil War, "The Fifth Column". They're not so much short stories, but I really liked Sartre's collection of plays ("No Exit", "Dirty Hands", "The Flies", "The Respectable Prostitute" or something like that).
Great stuff all around.
Just finished Herzog by Saul Bellow.
Moses E. Herzog is the tragic intellectual who is undergoing a mid-life crisis after his second marriage ended in great disgrace. His wife left him for his best friend, a cripple, and together they plotted his downfall, seizing his property, using him to get a job for her lover and gaining custody of his daughter. Herzog sees himself as a survivor to his personal disasters and a great sufferer, he spends most of his writing or constructing mental letters to friends, enemies, colleagues, dead philosophers and even the President of the United States.
The book is utterly compelling and comical when Herzog talks about the disasters surrounding his personal life and the people he meets. I particularly like the part where he recounted stories of his younger days with his family. Once he lapses into his lengthy philosophical ramblings and musings, I just feel like slamming the book shut. Overall still a very good book. Might read it again.
Moses E. Herzog is the tragic intellectual who is undergoing a mid-life crisis after his second marriage ended in great disgrace. His wife left him for his best friend, a cripple, and together they plotted his downfall, seizing his property, using him to get a job for her lover and gaining custody of his daughter. Herzog sees himself as a survivor to his personal disasters and a great sufferer, he spends most of his writing or constructing mental letters to friends, enemies, colleagues, dead philosophers and even the President of the United States.
The book is utterly compelling and comical when Herzog talks about the disasters surrounding his personal life and the people he meets. I particularly like the part where he recounted stories of his younger days with his family. Once he lapses into his lengthy philosophical ramblings and musings, I just feel like slamming the book shut. Overall still a very good book. Might read it again.
I ordered Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?. I've already convinced myself that I'll like it.
Cheers, I'll check them out. I actually have a couple of Sartre's plays lying about that I haven't read yet. Mostly because it's in French and feels too much like hard work.
Cheers, I'll check them out. I actually have a couple of Sartre's plays lying about that I haven't read yet. Mostly because it's in French and feels too much like hard work.
What the hell is going on with this 50 shades of grey book. Every bloody girl at my workplace is hooked on this.
The Granta Book of the American Short Story is a great collection with a fantastic introduction and a nice cross-section from gothic to postmodernist (to use a uni approved term I have no idea of). The first volume's on Amazon for a penny + postage if you don't mind buying used. The full list of stories included:
A Day in the Open – Jane Bowles
A Distant Episode – Paul Bowles
Blackberry Winter – Robert Penn Warren
O City of Broken Dreams – John Cheever
The Lottery – Shirley Jackson
The View from the Balcony – Wallace Stegner
No Place for You, My Love – Eudora Welty
The Statue of Grace – Harold Brodkey
The Magic Barrel – Bernard Malamud
Good Country People – Flannery O’Connor
In Time Which Made a Monkey of Us All – Grace Paley
Sonny’s Blues – James Baldwin
Venus, Cupid, Folly and Time – Peter Taylor
Welcome to the Monkey House – Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
In the Zoo – Jean Stafford
A Poetics for Bullies – Stanley Elkin
Upon the Sweeping Flood – Joyce Carol Oates
The Indian Uprising – Donald Barthelme
In the Heart of the Heart of the Country – William Gass
A Solo Song: For Doc – James Alan McPherson
The Babysitter – Robert Coover
City Boy – Leonard Michaels
White Rat – Gayl Jones
Are These Actual Miles? – Raymond Carver
Train – Joy Williams
Fuge in A Minor – William Kotzwinkle
Here Come the Maples – John Updike
Pretty Ice – Mary Robinson
Testimony of Pilot – Barry Hannah
Greenwich Time – Ann Beattie
Lechery – Jayne Anne Phillips
Liars in Love – Richard Yeats
The Circling Hand – Jamaica Kincaid
Territory – David Leavitt
Bridging – Max Apple
Greasy Lake – T. Coraghessan Boyle
The Rich Brother – Tobias Wolff
American Express – James Salter
The Joy Luck Club – Amy Tan
The Fireman’s Wife – Richard Bausch
Hot Ice – Stuart Dybek
You’re Ugly, Too – Lorrie Moore
The Things They Carried – Tim O’Brien
A Distant Episode – Paul Bowles
Blackberry Winter – Robert Penn Warren
O City of Broken Dreams – John Cheever
The Lottery – Shirley Jackson
The View from the Balcony – Wallace Stegner
No Place for You, My Love – Eudora Welty
The Statue of Grace – Harold Brodkey
The Magic Barrel – Bernard Malamud
Good Country People – Flannery O’Connor
In Time Which Made a Monkey of Us All – Grace Paley
Sonny’s Blues – James Baldwin
Venus, Cupid, Folly and Time – Peter Taylor
Welcome to the Monkey House – Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
In the Zoo – Jean Stafford
A Poetics for Bullies – Stanley Elkin
Upon the Sweeping Flood – Joyce Carol Oates
The Indian Uprising – Donald Barthelme
In the Heart of the Heart of the Country – William Gass
A Solo Song: For Doc – James Alan McPherson
The Babysitter – Robert Coover
City Boy – Leonard Michaels
White Rat – Gayl Jones
Are These Actual Miles? – Raymond Carver
Train – Joy Williams
Fuge in A Minor – William Kotzwinkle
Here Come the Maples – John Updike
Pretty Ice – Mary Robinson
Testimony of Pilot – Barry Hannah
Greenwich Time – Ann Beattie
Lechery – Jayne Anne Phillips
Liars in Love – Richard Yeats
The Circling Hand – Jamaica Kincaid
Territory – David Leavitt
Bridging – Max Apple
Greasy Lake – T. Coraghessan Boyle
The Rich Brother – Tobias Wolff
American Express – James Salter
The Joy Luck Club – Amy Tan
The Fireman’s Wife – Richard Bausch
Hot Ice – Stuart Dybek
You’re Ugly, Too – Lorrie Moore
The Things They Carried – Tim O’Brien
Thanks for the recommendation. This is the Russian one I got:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Russian-Short-Stories-Pushkin-Buida/dp/0140448462/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1342224192&sr=8-1
It has a little bit of everyone by the looks of it so it seemed a good way to start.
Many thanks, looks great. The translator Robert Chandler is apparently a bit of a don (or is so according to this blog I read). Think he has a collection of Russian folk tales coming out soon too. Would love to be able to work on translations myself one day, in the meanwhile my Russian pretty much sucks.
I've heard it described as 'mommy porn' but I don't think I want to know much more.
Just read Lionel Asbo by Martin Amis and have to say I enjoyed it, not his best work by a longshot but definitely worth reading, it's a vitrolic snapshot of thuggish, aggressive, fame obsessed British society. It's full of ott stereotypes but quite humerous and at times touching and sad.
Not sure if this thread is accepting of books only available on Kindle / electronic format but here it goes. I've just read two novels written by a friend - www.philmartinbooks.co.uk. He is a journalist by trade but is trying to get some books published. He has four novels priced at about £1 each through Amazon and I've read these two:
- Child Number 3 - excellent story line and very good characters. Really got in to the book and couldn't put it down towards the end. Essentially it is about am adopted girl whose family die and she digs in to her heritage to find out where she came from, only to discover that she was not adopted from where she had thought she was. This leads to a trail of murders, violence and attempts to cover up the story.
- Killing Doves - again, a very enjoyable book helped with the excellent characters. Set in Manchester in the early to mid-90s. The main character witnesses a murder and sees his brother commit suicide before deciding to be a vigilante and take out the people responsible for the murder and the people he believes are responsible for his brother's death. An excellent twist at the end and an all round superb book.
I would recommend any of the two books that I have read and dare say that the other two will be as good. He's already writing the sequel to Child Number 3. He is fairly new to the book writing 'game' and is looking for as much coverage as possible so if anyone is interested, you can follow him on Twitter (@PhilMartinBooks) and read his books. He is a United fan as well so a lot of books have United through them, some more obviously than others.
- Child Number 3 - excellent story line and very good characters. Really got in to the book and couldn't put it down towards the end. Essentially it is about am adopted girl whose family die and she digs in to her heritage to find out where she came from, only to discover that she was not adopted from where she had thought she was. This leads to a trail of murders, violence and attempts to cover up the story.
- Killing Doves - again, a very enjoyable book helped with the excellent characters. Set in Manchester in the early to mid-90s. The main character witnesses a murder and sees his brother commit suicide before deciding to be a vigilante and take out the people responsible for the murder and the people he believes are responsible for his brother's death. An excellent twist at the end and an all round superb book.
I would recommend any of the two books that I have read and dare say that the other two will be as good. He's already writing the sequel to Child Number 3. He is fairly new to the book writing 'game' and is looking for as much coverage as possible so if anyone is interested, you can follow him on Twitter (@PhilMartinBooks) and read his books. He is a United fan as well so a lot of books have United through them, some more obviously than others.