Books The BOOK thread

I'm about 1/3 done with Kafka's The Trial. I'm still trying to understand it. It's philosophical in a way like Metamorphosis was but I've got trouble getting into it's settings. I'm not really sure which parts of people's lives are dystopian and which were considered normal in Austria-Hungary or where ever this is supposedly supposed to take place.
 
datura said:
I've started Requiem For A Dream, it's actually quite witty so far. Takes a while to get attuned to the writing style but a far easier read then I anticipated.
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Never knew that it was a novel. Tell me if it's as good/better than the movie.

Snow said:
I'm about 1/3 done with Kafka's The Trial. I'm still trying to understand it. It's philosophical in a way like Metamorphosis was but I've got trouble getting into it's settings. I'm not really sure which parts of people's lives are dystopian and which were considered normal in Austria-Hungary or where ever this is supposedly supposed to take place.
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I read that a few years back and liked it. The setting though I don't think it takes place in real Austro-Hungaria, more in a altered universe. Kafka was very depresive though, not strange to understand why the book is so dark. Who knows, maybe he saw the real world like that.
 
A few chapters into Fear And Loathing In La Liga by Sid Lowe, all about the rivalry between Real Madrid and Barcelona. Very enjoyable so far, Lowe is up their with the best football writers.
 
Revan said:
Never knew that it was a novel. Tell me if it's as good/better than the movie.


I read that a few years back and liked it. The setting though I don't think it takes place in real Austro-Hungaria, more in a altered universe. Kafka was very depresive though, not strange to understand why the book is so dark. Who knows, maybe he saw the real world like that.
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I much preferred Requiem for a Dream as the novel. I've been meaning to pick up last exit to Brooklyn for a while now, must get round to it. Metamorphosis and the trial are both great, they're the only Kafka I've read though, any advice on where to go next with him?

Are there any Charles Bukowski fans on the caf? Read all his prose, and really enjoyed Barfly when I watched it as well. I would love to read similar stuff, I loved Ask the Dust by Fante which is a big influence on Bukowski I believe. Any suggestions there?
 
nemanja nemagic said:
Are there any Charles Bukowski fans on the caf? Read all his prose, and really enjoyed Barfly when I watched it as well. I would love to read similar stuff, I loved Ask the Dust by Fante which is a big influence on Bukowski I believe. Any suggestions there?
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The only book written by him I have read is Pulp. Which is one of the best books I have ever read. I read it three times and everytime I read I loved and laughed reading it more than in previous time.
 
Revan said:
The only book written by him I have read is Pulp. Which is one of the best books I have ever read. I read it three times and everytime I read I loved and laughed reading it more than in previous time.
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Apparently it wasn't even finished! Died before he could complete it. Most of his stuff is really funny, Women is definitely his weakest though. Ham on Rye might just be my favourite book, funny and sad in equal measure, very raw emotion. Try post office as well its hilarious in places, I always chuckle when I think of Mr. Stone.
 
RIP TOM CLANCY
Even though long far fetched and a little bias, his style influenced a lot of writers in the poliical war genre.
The Hunt for Red October is still one of my alltime favs.
 
Morrissey's autobio out on the 17th of october. No doubt it will be convoluted bollocks but entertaining convoluted bollocks all the same. Him and Fergie in the same month, brilliant
 
Just finished Bernard Cornwell's 'The Pagan Lord' which is book 7 in his Saxon Chronicles series. Really enjoyed this series and would highly recommend it if you are in to historical fiction.
 
Recently finished John Dies At The End. What a weird fecking book. I've just started 11/12/66, hopefully I can finish it before I go away on November 4th as don't really want to lug a book that size with me.

I got a Kindle for my trip. Have downloaded a few books on there that were cheap but I've heard good things about. Got Hitchhikers Guide as I've never read it, The Count Of Monte Cristo, The Caves Of Steel and Slaughterhouse Five.
 
Can anyone recommend a good ghost story set in modern times? I've just finished one that is highly-rated but turned out to be dreadful. It seems to me that good contemporary ghost stories are rather thin on the ground...
 
I just finished Water for Elephants. I was expecting not to like it but really enjoyed it. Great little read.
 
SteveJ said:
Can anyone recommend a good ghost story set in modern times? I've just finished one that is highly-rated but turned out to be dreadful. It seems to me that good contemporary ghost stories are rather thin on the ground...
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Crickley Hall by James Herbert was ok but not great. I enjoyed The Littlle Stranger but it is set just after WW2 I think.
 
Thanks, mate. :) I've read both but they're still good suggestions (for anyone looking for a supernatural read) because they differ so much.
 
SteveJ said:
Thanks, mate. :) I've read both but they're still good suggestions (for anyone looking for a supernatural read) because they differ so much.
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No worries. I really like the Little Stranger because it's very subtle and makes you use your imagination much more than say a Salems Lot without you realising it.
 
Yup. I had to read it at least twice. :D
 
nemanja nemagic said:
Are there any Charles Bukowski fans on the caf? Read all his prose, and really enjoyed Barfly when I watched it as well. I would love to read similar stuff, I loved Ask the Dust by Fante which is a big influence on Bukowski I believe. Any suggestions there?
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I like Bukowski but he's one of a kind (Jayne Anne Phillips Black Tickets springs to mind though she has no connexion with Bukowski except being a good writer of short fiction). Haven't seen Barfly but did catch Factotum, which was disappointing. There's a new film out next year. Bukowski 'The story of writer Charles Bukowski's formative years from childhood to high school and his struggles with an abusive father, disfiguring acne, alcohol abuse, and his initial attempts at writing'.
 
manhattan%2Bghost%2Bstory%2Bwright%2B2006.jpg


When Abner Cray comes to Manhattan to make his name as a photographer, he has two strokes of luck. His friend Art, who is in Europe, gives Abner the use of his apartment, and then Art's beautiful friend Phyllis turns up at the apartment. But then Abner confesses to murder and worse is to follow.
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Absolutely bloody terrible. Surprising, since it's by one of only 270,000 authors who Stephen King describes as 'a rare and blazing talent'.
 
peterstorey said:
I like Bukowski but he's one of a kind (Jayne Anne Phillips Black Tickets springs to mind though she has no connexion with Bukowski except being a good writer of short fiction). Haven't seen Barfly but did catch Factotum, which was disappointing. There's a new film out next year. Bukowski 'The story of writer Charles Bukowski's formative years from childhood to high school and his struggles with an abusive father, disfiguring acne, alcohol abuse, and his initial attempts at writing'.
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I'll look forward to that, sounds like it will tackle much of Ham on Rye then. Yes Black Tickets does seem to have a few stylistic parallels with Bukowski - 'one page fictions, inner soliloquies, and family dramas', I'll check it out, thanks pete
 
I have finished the prisoner of heaven by Zafon. What a pointless, boring, souless book. I would have been happier to get a page of what is to be known from this book, so I can read the next book (if the next book is good). Absolutely hated the two plot cliches. At least it was quite short, even if if i can't say there was a conflict but it made a good job of me disliking Daniel and finding stupid Isabella. I wonder too if having read the two novels that were spoken about made me enjoy less the story since it was more like "see this novel, going to use one known scene of it next"... and I'm more like "oh, I am totally unimpressed if you're telling me what you will write next."
 
Solius said:
Recently finished John Dies At The End. What a weird fecking book. I've just started 11/12/66, hopefully I can finish it before I go away on November 4th as don't really want to lug a book that size with me.

I got a Kindle for my trip. Have downloaded a few books on there that were cheap but I've heard good things about. Got Hitchhikers Guide as I've never read it, The Count Of Monte Cristo, The Caves Of Steel and Slaughterhouse Five.
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I loved John Dies at the End. A fun read. Weird only barely begins to describe it.

The movie is bloody awful. Stay well clear of it.
 
Finished Franklin Foer's How Football Explains The World. Great read exploring football's influence on, and connection to, everything from violence and hooliganism to nationalism and increasing globalisation. Different countries are visited and their relationship with football is dissected through fascinating conversations and stories. Among the issues covered are the Old Firm in Scotland, the Oligarchs of Eastern Europe, revolution in Iran and corruption in Brazil.

Really easy read and genuinely interesting and well thought out.
 
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The world was told that the last Tsar of Russia and his family were butchered in the 'cellar massacre' at Ekaterinburg in 1918. Yet diplomats and reporters did not believe it. And the longest court case of the century failed to explode Anna Anderson's claim to be the Tsar's youngest daughter, Grand Duchess Anastasia. Anthony Summers and Tom Mangold spent five years tracking down witnesses and long-lost documents. The search led to Moscow, Tokyo and Washington and their persistence finally paid off when they found a suppressed official dossier - the File on the Tsar. It shows that the public was fed a lie. The Romanovs did not all die at Ekaterinburg, but became pawns in an international power game, involving Lenin, the Kaiser, the British Royal Family and British Intelligence. And in London, over 80 years later, the cover-up goes on.
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Very good book (now updated to include thoughts on the recent DNA-testing* etc), and one which asks serious questions about the official story of the event.


* Stanford University: Finger points to new evidence - Remains may not be Romanovs' ~

http://news.stanford.edu/news/2004/march3/romanov-33.html
 
Been thinking of a few good books that I read as a teenager and one came to mind recently; Down to a Sunless Sea by David Graham.
I read some recent reviews on it, while trying to see where I could get my hands on a copy, and some of them were saying how racist the understones were. Shit, I never picked up on those aspects growing up in small town Ireland in the 70s and 80s. There's be a photo of me back then if you looked up the word "naive" in a dictionary.

Anybody on here ever read it? It's a post-apocalyptic novel that deals with the outbreak of nuclear war while a plane load of passengers have just taken off from NY headed to London.
 
First review of Morrissey's Autobiography:

For its first 150 pages, Autobiography comes close to being a triumph. "Naturally my birth almost kills my mother, for my head is too big," he writes, and off we go – into the Irish diaspora in the inner-city Manchester of the 1960s, where packs of boys playfully stone rats to death, and "no one we know is on the electoral roll". In some of the writing, you can almost taste his environment
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http://www.theguardian.com/music/2013/oct/17/morrissey-autobiography-triumph-mired-moaning-review
 
celia said:
I have finished the prisoner of heaven by Zafon. What a pointless, boring, souless book. I would have been happier to get a page of what is to be known from this book, so I can read the next book (if the next book is good). Absolutely hated the two plot cliches. At least it was quite short, even if if i can't say there was a conflict but it made a good job of me disliking Daniel and finding stupid Isabella. I wonder too if having read the two novels that were spoken about made me enjoy less the story since it was more like "see this novel, going to use one known scene of it next"... and I'm more like "oh, I am totally unimpressed if you're telling me what you will write next."
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I am so in love with the Cemetery of Forgotten Books universe that I couldn't hate it. Even inspired me to go to Barcelona last week. But you're right it is a bit thin and I think he could've fit it in The shadow of the wind. I liked reading of Fermin's background and love him even more now.

- A big thanks by the way, to everyone who told me to stick with Catch-22. I'm only 80% in it but I don't remember any other book making me laugh that much. I think the amount of different characters put me off a little in the beginning and everything happened so fast. But once you get in the rythm it's hard to put it down.
 
Read Sir Alex's autobiography over the last two nights, expected it to be a lot more controversial considering the furore in the press last week, I also expected a lot of Liverpool hatred and found he was actually very respectful towards their fans, tradition and history, makes me think that the reactionary comments in the press last week came from people who hadn't actually read the book themselves. As for the book itself it was not the best sporting autobiography I have ever read, it was disjointed and all over the place at times, but as a United fan I found it a fascinating read getting an insight inside the great mans head.
 
Just read "I am Pilgrim" by Terry Hayes.

books


A cracking read.

Now reading...
"Letter of Note" by Shaun Usher, which is a collection of 125 letters from famous and not so famous people throughout the ages

It is based on the website of the same name.

Brilliantly put together.


BTW, does anyone use www.unbound.co.uk ?
 
Man Utd Mrs said:
Just read "I am Pilgrim" by Terry Hayes.

books


A cracking read.

Now reading...
"Letter of Note" by Shaun Usher, which is a collection of 125 letters from famous and not so famous people throughout the ages

It is based on the website of the same name.

Brilliantly put together.


BTW, does anyone use www.unbound.co.uk ?
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Aren't all the letters in book available on his website? If not I think I'll get the book sometime

Sendt fra min Nexus 7 med Tapatalk
 
Ciderman90210 said:
What's it about?
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Well, firstly, the book was written in 1948. It's an excellent portrayal of totalitarianism with a Friedrich Nietzsche philosophy. The book explains George Orwell dystopia, and how it is ruled by a despotic Big Brother... Big Brother (TV programme) took its name from the pages of '1984', I believe. The irony of us watching the contestants would not be lost on Orwell. '1984' explains how the higher up in society you progress, the more cruel you become compared to the rest of 'em (see Government, David Cameron, Obama, etc.) Orwell's book is no less relevant today... The talk of government controlling the masses through the media is an example of this.

There is so much more to this book, but I recommend you read it. It's one of the best books I have ever read.
 
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