Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

Judge me by the books I read

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

    Judge me by the books I read

    Ok, the last five authors of books that you've read all the way through. And anyone brave or judgmental enough can issue summary justice on others...

    For me it's:
    Russell Hoban (Pilgermann and about 4 others too)
    Albert Camus (The Plague)
    Jose Saramago (Blindness and Seeing)
    Richard Yates (The Easter Parade, Revolutionary Road and Cold Spring Harbour)
    Andrew Crumey (Pfitz and d'Alembert's Principle)

    Worryingly all-male, it has to be said.

    Edited to add the books: I've been basically moving between four of these authors recently. The exception being Camus - that's the first of his I've read. Bloody good it was too.

    #2
    Judge me by the books I read

    Ezra Pound - Personae: Collected Shorter Poems
    William Gaddis - The Corrections
    David James Duncan - River Teeth
    Simon Blackburn - Ruling Passions
    Joss Whedon - Buffy The Vampire Slayer series 8: Volume One

    Ditto on the all-male thing.

    Comment


      #3
      Judge me by the books I read

      To my mind, the titles would be more important to know (and then judge on) than the authors. Unless you only read fiction, I guess.

      Comment


        #4
        Judge me by the books I read

        Patrick O'Brian (Master & Commander, Post-Captain, and HMS Suprise - All re-reads)
        Karel Capek (Tales from Two Pockets)
        Steven Brust (My own Kind of Freedom - Firefly fanfic)
        Susanna Clarke (JS & Mr. N)
        Ian McEwan (On Chesil Beach)

        The first three are three of my favorite authors though, so I don't know if that counts. The 4th wrote one of my favorite books of recent years. And the last is Ian McEwan.

        Comment


          #5
          Judge me by the books I read

          Nicola Barker, Darkmans
          Anne Bronte, Agnes Grey
          Kristen Britain, Green Rider
          Christian Jungersen, The Exception
          Antonia Quirke, Mrs Depardieu and the Beautiful Strangers

          Four women, one man... One tragic genre trash thing though.

          Comment


            #6
            Judge me by the books I read

            Oh, don't be so hard on bronte

            Comment


              #7
              Judge me by the books I read

              I couldn't tell you the book I read before the one I'm reading now... but the last five would probably have been

              Lee Child
              W.L. Ripley
              Lawrence Block
              Peter O'Donnell
              Robert B Parker

              Comment


                #8
                Judge me by the books I read

                Off the top of my head:

                The Attack of the Unsinkable Rubber Ducks - Christopher Brookmyre
                Calcio - John Foot
                A Tale Etched in Blood and Cold Hard Pencil - Christopher Brookmyre
                Behind the Curtain - Jonathan Wilson
                Ajax, the Dutch, and the War - Simon Kuper

                There's a kind of theme there, isn't there? And it continues with the fact that I've just started Dynamo: defending the honour of Kiev.

                I'd like to think that my reading is generally more eclectic than is reflected in this list (and it is, honest) and I've a John Le Carré and a Robert Ludlum on my waiting list, as well as Killing Civilians by Hugo Slim.

                Comment


                  #9
                  Judge me by the books I read

                  Most recently read last:

                  Death's Jest Book — Reginald Hill
                  On Kitsch — Odd Nerdrum
                  A Life of Picasso Vol 1: The Prodigy 1881–1906— John Richardson
                  A Life of Picasso Vol 2: The Cubist Rebel 1907–1916 — John Richardson
                  A Life of Picasso Vol 3: The Triumphant Years1917–1932 — John Richardson

                  I suppose it might be cheating having three volumes of the same bio, if so stick Beekeeper by J. Robert Janes and The Final Programme by Michael Moorcock up top.

                  Comment


                    #10
                    Judge me by the books I read

                    Reginal Hill - brilliant stuff.

                    Comment


                      #11
                      Judge me by the books I read

                      A Brady Bunch book that a friend found at a flea market and sent me because of my love of retro pop culture: My expectations were low, and this book fell short of them. It was pretty awful, but then again, I'm not a 10-year-old in 1969, but I stuck with it because I almost never quit a book in the middle. I hated myself afterward, though.

                      Gene Tierney and the Invisible Wedding Gift, by Kathryn Heisenfelt: I found this at a flea market and was surprised to learn that there was fanfic in the 1940s, and as a kid I loved series literature for girls, so I gave it a shot. It turns out that Gene Tierney was no Nancy Drew.

                      In the Fall, by Jeffrey Lent: A would-be Faulknerian tale of a multiracial family in New England from the Civil War to the 1920s. Not bad except for weird punctuation.

                      Grace Harlowe's Plebe Year in High School by Jessie Flower: Used to belong to a coworker who collected vintage literature for teenagers. I really enjoyed the insight into life around a hundred years ago.

                      Rococo, by Adriana Trigiani: A fairly contemporary story for once. I like the author's novels set in southwestern Virginia, but not so much this one about Italian-Americans in New Jersey, but I needed some fluff after...

                      Bitter Fruit: The Story of the American Coup in Guatemala, by Stephen Schlesinger and Stephen Kinzer: Especially interesting in light of current events.

                      Comment


                        #12
                        Judge me by the books I read

                        Most recently read:

                        Dan Rhodes, Gold
                        Nicola Barker, Darkmans
                        Haruki Murakami, After Dark
                        Dominic Sandbrook, White Heat
                        Cormac McCarthy, The Road

                        Comment


                          #13
                          Judge me by the books I read

                          Richard Dawkins (ed) (does that count?)
                          Ed Smith
                          Gary Imlach
                          HG Bissinger
                          Can't remember.

                          Not unusual that all the ones I can remember are non-fiction, but it's a bit atypical that fully three are about sport.

                          I've just started Pale Fire, which maybe rescues me slightly. Assuming I finish it.

                          Comment


                            #14
                            Judge me by the books I read

                            The Wind-up Bird Chronicles - Haruki Murakami
                            American Pastoral - Philip Roth
                            Kafka on the Shore - Haruki Murakami
                            True History of the Kelly Gang - Peter Carey
                            The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood

                            I enjoyed all 5 greatly. I am loving my reading these days.

                            Comment


                              #15
                              Judge me by the books I read

                              I see the listing...where's the judging?

                              The Two Faces of Islam - Stephen Schwartz
                              The Siege of Mecca - Yaroslav Trofimov
                              In Defense of Globalization Jagdish Bhagwati
                              Salmon Fishing in the Yemen - Paul Torday
                              No Country for Old Men - Cormac McCarthy

                              Comment


                                #16
                                Judge me by the books I read

                                Antonio Gramsci wrote:
                                where's the judging?
                                You're all a bunch of dour intellectuals who've got too much reading time on your hands or inasanely massive brains if you can concentrate on this kind of stuff on a crammed tube train.

                                No wonder I always feel intimidated by the level of intellectual discourse on here.

                                As for me:

                                Thomas Pynchon - just started Vineland
                                Khaled Hosseini - you know the one
                                Maria Brosius - history of Persians
                                Richard Powers - hippyish drivel
                                Simon Bradley - that book on St Pancras that Tubby was praising

                                Comment


                                  #17
                                  Judge me by the books I read

                                  You can't claim intellectual intimidation and then casually drop that you've just picked up Pynchon. It's unseemly.

                                  Comment


                                    #18
                                    Judge me by the books I read

                                    That Pynchon has been sitting on my bookshelf since 2001, and I only picked it up because of the praise it received on OTF.

                                    Comment


                                      #19
                                      Judge me by the books I read

                                      Haha. Two of the five books on my recent reading list were there solely because of OTF recommendations (Darkmans and The Road). I really enjoyed both.

                                      Comment


                                        #20
                                        Judge me by the books I read

                                        Wizard of the Nile- Matthew Green
                                        Darkmans- Nicola Barker
                                        Brasyl- Ian McDonald
                                        Absurdistan- Garry Shteyngart
                                        The Ministry of Pain- Dubravka Ugresic

                                        Comment


                                          #21
                                          Judge me by the books I read

                                          Crooked Little Vein - Warren Ellis.
                                          The Drummer - Neil Anthony Smith.
                                          Market Forces - Richard Morgan.
                                          Black Man - Richard Morgan.
                                          Drama City - George Pelecanos.

                                          Comment


                                            #22
                                            Judge me by the books I read

                                            Alice Sebold - The Lazy Bones
                                            Iain M Banks - Matter
                                            Thomas Pynchon - Mason & Dixon
                                            Simon Singh - Fermat's Last Theorum
                                            Khaled Hosseini - The Kite Runner

                                            And just started read
                                            Paulo Cuelho - The Alchemist which so far is a terrible pile of new-age hippy holistic alternative medicine bollocks. But it's only short so I'll persevere.

                                            Comment


                                              #23
                                              Judge me by the books I read

                                              Julie Burchill and Daniel Raven - Made In Brighton
                                              Richard Dawkins - The God Delusion
                                              Jon Ronson - The Men Who Stare At Goats
                                              Borat Sagdiyev - Borat: Touristic Guidings to Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan/Minor Nation of U.S. and A.
                                              Simon Reynolds - Rip It Up And Start Again

                                              Actually, I've only finished two of those. At any given moment I have approx ten books on the go, and I rarely actually finish one. It's a terrible habit.

                                              Comment


                                                #24
                                                Judge me by the books I read

                                                F. Scott Fitzgerald, Tender is the Night (half-way through)
                                                R. Saviano Gomorra: viaggio nel impero economico e nel sogno di dominio della camorra (half-way through)
                                                Colleen McCullough, The October Horselast in her amazing Masters of Rome series on the end of the Republic
                                                U. Eco Il Nome della Rosa
                                                J. Austen, Persuasion
                                                B. Porter,The Absent-Minded Imperialists
                                                B. Unsworth, The Rage of the Vulture

                                                I like, if possible, to have one fiction & one non-fiction on the go at any one time.

                                                Comment


                                                  #25
                                                  Judge me by the books I read

                                                  Colleen McCullough, The October Horselast in her amazing Masters of Rome series on the end of the Republic
                                                  Bloody hell. And I always thought WAGS were a bit thick.

                                                  Comment

                                                  Working...
                                                  X