Books The BOOK thread

Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad.

Terrific read. To think that a man, who didn’t speak a word of English until he was older than 20, is capable of such writing, is beyond believe. But maybe it takes a foreigner, to do the universal and simplistic character of the English language justice. Conrad writes as if he fell in love with that language and wanted to enjoy it in a way no one had done before him.
Great story, interesting elements of fascism and the cult surrounding charismatic leaders and the story in itself is as good as it gets. An old tale of discovery of faraway places and yourself. But that pales in comparison to the writing. Damn fine book. Short, too. So there’s no excuse for missing out on this masterpiece.
 
HTG said:
Damn fine book. Short, too. So there’s no excuse for missing out on this masterpiece.
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Couldn’t agree more. Conrad’s style is excellent and the length of the book makes it accessible to most anyone. It used to be required reading in high school at least as recently as 10 years ago.

I feel the same way about it as I do my favorite, Hemingway’s Old Man and the Sea.
 
Anybody else read Tuesday’s with Morrie by Mitch Albom?

I highly recommend it. It’s non-fiction about about Albom’s interactions with an elderly friend dying of Lou Gehrig’s Diaease. It really causes you to think and examine life.
 
HoD is an enigma. I never tire of reading critics' interpretations of its meaning.

There's a good film of Tuesdays with Morrie.
The story was beautifully parodied in Will & Grace, in which the teacher was mean-spirited, bitter, at war with his partner and fed-up of former students pestering him after reading TwM. :D
 
Carolina Red said:
Couldn’t agree more. Conrad’s style is excellent and the length of the book makes it accessible to most anyone. It used to be required reading in high school at least as recently as 10 years ago.

I feel the same way about it as I do my favorite, Hemingway’s Old Man and the Sea.
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Just read that one a few weeks ago and couldn’t agree more. Hemingway is so precise with language, it’s amazing to read. Not one word too much, not one too few.
 
Carolina Red said:
Anybody else read Tuesday’s with Morrie by Mitch Albom?

I highly recommend it. It’s non-fiction about about Albom’s interactions with an elderly friend dying of Lou Gehrig’s Diaease. It really causes you to think and examine life.
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Yes. Touching story. Definitely recommend it too.
 
GhastlyHun said:
Another one I simply have to reread from time to time is Catch-22.
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After reading Fahrenheit 451, I came back to this once more. There are few books which make me laugh out loud so much, while at the same time being so dark and horrifying. All the hilarious absurdity is actually down to the sane person trying to stay alive inside an insane, unquestioned, self-perpetuating machinery of war.
 
Nickosaur said:
The article states The Road is McCarthy's masterpiece - not even close IMO. Blood Meridian is his best work, but I'd also rate All The Pretty Horses, The Crossing and Suttree over The Road. Do give McCarthy another try. It can be tough but at it's best, his prose is astounding.
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About to finish All The Pretty Horses and wow, what a great book. Really fantastic. Reckon I'll pick up Blood Meridian after your recommendation!

Also finished A Brief History of Seven Killings by Marlon James last week. The middle was a bit of a slog, but the first and third act was just great reading.
 
The imagery in Blood Meridian is amazing. Comanches are "wardrobed out of a fevered dream with the skins of animals and silk finery, one in a stovepipe hat and one with an umbrella and one in white stockings and a blood-stained wedding veil."
 
SteveJ said:
The imagery in Blood Meridian is amazing. Comanches are "wardrobed out of a fevered dream with the skins of animals and silk finery, one in a stovepipe hat and one with an umbrella and one in white stockings and a blood-stained wedding veil."
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The whole passage during the thunderstorm is out of this world.

For Christmas I was given We Were Eight Years In Power by Te-Nehisi Coates which I've already read and accidentally destroyed. It takes eight essays from the Obama years and adds contemporary introductions. It's a fascinating but depressing look at race politics in the States. Coates recently quit Twitter after getting into a stoush with Cornel West and I'll be sure to read more of his work when I get the chance.

I was also given Why I'm No Longer Talking to White People About Race by Reni Eddo (not sure what my family is trying to tell me with these gifts) and Istanbul: Memories and the City by Orhan Pamuk, which I'm planning to start now and read alongside My Name is Red, by the same author.

I managed 35 books last year, which was well short of my intended 52. Going to have another crack though.
 
Just finishing 'one summer in America 1927' and have found it thoroughly enjoyable. I always like to have 2 books on the go: something cerebral and something easy going, and this has been both pleasurably frivolous and very interesting. Bryson is a joy to read.

Working my way through my gaps from Bowie's book list this year and have just bought Earthly Powers, The Insult, Night at the Circus and The Waste Land. All for the princely sum of £12.

Anyone else have specific reading habits or plans for the year ahead?
 
Julian Jaynes' book, on Bowie's list, is remarkable.
 
Anyone read The Dictator's Handbook? I'm quite interested in reading it but not a single copy at any library in Stockholm and I'm too cheap to buy books generally, but willing to make an exception for this one (if it's any good).
 
Anyone here read Koestler's Darkness at Noon? Phenomenal book.
 
Jesus' Son by Denis Johnson has some of the best short stories I've ever read.
 
SteveJ said:
Harold Bloom's The Western Canon. He's especially good on Shakespeare - Bloom makes one see exactly why Shakespeare should not only be regarded as the finest of writers but also the best of psychologists.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Western_Canon:_The_Books_and_School_of_the_Ages
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An Amazon reviewer calls this a "A VERY ADVANCED STUDY OF LITERATURE FOR EXPERIENCED READERS".

I'm not well read on the 'Western Canon'. I've only read some Ibsen and watched some Shakespeare. Will I get much out of this book?
 
Recently I finished the Story of Lucy Gault by William Trevor. Such a lovely but very sad book. I've also read Chrisitine Falls which is a Benjamin Black (John Banville) detectivesque book. I thought it was very good. Set in Dublin and Boston in the 50s/60s and a good read. I think the BBC have a series on it called Quirke. I'm currently reading Anthony Horowitz' The Word Is Murder which I think is great. I really like his style of writing in the Magpie Murders and will read more of his books after these.
 
freeurmind said:
Anything to do with history or politics really. I've been reading a lot about the Civil Rights Movement and the lead up to WW1 lately.
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I've read Robert Dallek's autobiographies of JFK and LBJ in the last year, both which were terrific. The JFK one is especially good. If you're interested in Civil Rights maybe The Autobiography of Malcolm X, or some of James Baldwin's work, like The Fire Next Time.

I've just purchased a biography of Ataturk, by Patrick Kinross, which I'm sure will be a great read.
 
Archie Leach said:
I've read Robert Dallek's autobiographies of JFK and LBJ in the last year, both which were terrific. The JFK one is especially good. If you're interested in Civil Rights maybe The Autobiography of Malcolm X, or some of James Baldwin's work, like The Fire Next Time.

I've just purchased a biography of Ataturk, by Patrick Kinross, which I'm sure will be a great read.
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Thanks, I've looked up a few of those will give them a read.
 
The Malcolm X autobiography is a captivating read. He's a fascinating figure who's thoroughly difficult to embrace, with his pro-segregationist outlook and his seemingly genuine conviction that the white man is an incarnation of the devil. He also believed strongly in female subservience and spent several passages of the book advancing the argument that women have a fundamental desire to brought to heel by their men. I read the book with little prior knowledge of the man when I was younger and it made for pretty stark reading.

I found out after finishing the book that it had been written after he'd left the Nation of Islam after a falling out with Elijah Muhammad and that he was using it to manoeuvre his way back into his favour. It put a lot of things in the book in context in hindsight, particularly its repeated tributes to him.
 
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Just finishing Fernando Pessoa's Book of Disquiet for the second time. There's been millions of writers, very few were geniuses but out of those only one was 100 geniuses at the same time. Stil very much prefer his poetry (Tabacaria being my favourite) but this is just brilliant. It's one of those books you don't even need to read in order, can just pick it up and start reading any part of the book. I'm not even sure if this was even a book, it's unfinished, it's written by two different heteronyms and the whole structure of it just feels different to anything I've seen which is not that surprising given the way the book came into existence.
 
redspoony said:
Came back from holiday yesterday, while we were away I read Slow Horses by Mick Herron (modern spy thriller, a bit like Le Carre but not as dry. first in a series, highly recommended) and IQ by Joe Ide (mystery set in LA, the main character, IQ is along the lines of Sherlock Holmes, really really great book).
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Just finished reading this over the weekend. Really good read despite some early doubts in the uncomfortable way a near 60 year old man might write about rap.
 
Anyone read anything by Jorge Luis Borges? I'm just starting Labyrinths, a translated collection of his short stories.

I'm blown away by some of them (and some I still don't fully understand :lol:). A lot of them are fantastical but also deeply theoretical.
 
Nickosaur said:
Anyone read anything by Jorge Luis Borges? I'm just starting Labyrinths, a translated collection of his short stories.

I'm blown away by some of them (and some I still don't fully understand :lol:). A lot of them are fantastical but also deeply theoretical.
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Haven't read him but I quite like Marquez and Bolano so imagine I'd enjoy some of his stuff.
 
Cheesy said:
Haven't read him but I quite like Marquez and Bolano so imagine I'd enjoy some of his stuff.
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He's closer to Marquez than Bolano (possibly my favourite writer), but saying that he really isn't that similar to Marquez either. He's far more philosophical. I'm actually seeing more similarities to Kafka's works.

Speaking of South American writers - over Christmas I also received The War of the End of the World by Mario Vargas Llosa, the Peruvian writer. Heard good things about him so looking forward to starting that.
 
Peyroteo said:
Just finishing Fernando Pessoa's Book of Disquiet for the second time. There's been millions of writers, very few were geniuses but out of those only one was 100 geniuses at the same time. Stil very much prefer his poetry (Tabacaria being my favourite) but this is just brilliant. It's one of those books you don't even need to read in order, can just pick it up and start reading any part of the book. I'm not even sure if this was even a book, it's unfinished, it's written by two different heteronyms and the whole structure of it just feels different to anything I've seen which is not that surprising given the way the book came into existence.
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Sounds interesting. I see it has 4.5/5 on Goodreads. :eek:
I think I will pick it up, but I am unsure of which version to get. Did you read The Complete Edition?
 
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