Current Reading - Books best thread

[Anton Gramscescu]

Current Reading - Books best thread

On that topic, why oh why has John Wyndham's The Kraken Wakes never been turned into a movie? Apart from the icecaps-melting bit which is certainly topical, I think that book is one of the best sci-fi books ever in terms of portraying how governments would treat the end of the world - convenient fictions, cover-ups, and telling the population what they wanted to hear rather than the truth.

[ian.64]

Current Reading - Books best thread

Engrossed in Michael Palin's Halfway to Hollywood, edited diaries from 1980-'88. Easy, sometimes fascinating stuff with loads of name dropping and frequent insights into making film and telly programmes. Interesting to note Palin's obvious love and dedication in making films that were critically lauded yet weren't exactly money-making machines (The Missionary, American Friends, A Private Function), but finds himself not really all that encouraged (or enthused) when asked to associate in a piffling John Cleese project with the mooted name of 'A Goldfish Called Wanda'.

He meets Peter Cook who had just come back from America, with Cook mentioning his discovering a rock band called Bees Attack Victor Mature, the name of which had me chuckling for a good ten minutes for some reason.

Palin has a warm, understated style which I like a lot, and it's a smooth, leisurely, uncluttered read.

[Lucia Lanigan]

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'Bees Attack Victor Mature' is exactly the kind of band name Peter Cook would dream up, isn't it.

Google's spoilt the fun, though. It was hornets, and they weren't real (until REM became them, that is): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hornets_Attack_Victor_Mature

[ian.64]

Current Reading - Books best thread

My thanks for that - nice little back story and I'm glad it had some legs on it. Kind of tickled by it, really.

[Incandenza]

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I read Columbine by Dave Cullen a few weeks ago...really outstanding, but an incredibly depressing book. He's become the foremost authority on the Columbine shootings, and the book has an intriguing structure--it alternates between chapters that are matter-of-fact descriptions of the events and the aftermath, and chapters that give background on the people and the media coverage (the book is quite the work of media criticism as well, showing how much of what we think of the shootings--loners picked on by jocks getting revenge, the Trench Coat Mafia, etc.--are pure myths and fabrications that emerged in the hours right after the shootings and have persisted).

One strand of the book starts at the shootings and goes forward to talk about the events afterwards, offering criticism and context, and the second strand goes into the background of Harris and Klebold, and goes forward to the shootings. It's hard not to get nauseous knowing what's happening, and finding out that there were multiple warning signs, and the local sheriff's department was warned about Harris and saw a website he had where he threatened mass murder, but did nothing.

[Kid A]

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Lucia Lanigan wrote:

'Bees Attack Victor Mature' is exactly the kind of band name Peter Cook would dream up, isn't it.

Google's spoilt the fun, though. It was hornets, and they weren't real (until REM became them, that is): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hornets_Attack_Victor_Mature

Great story, that. REM must like these daft band names as I think they did a secret gig as Bingo Hand Job back in the 90s.

Managed to read a few books over the hols. First up was Toby Young's How to Lose Friends and Alienate People. I don't know what I was expecting really but this was disappointing. Not that funny and no real insight into the world of New York media beyond everyone bows down for big stars. You don't say.

Next was A Confederacy of Dunces. This is fantastic. It ties in nicely with the image I remember from a brief visit to New Orleans a few years ago. I cannot believe that John Kennedy Toole couldn't get this published, such a funny book. You wonder what else Toole could have gone on to do. The world definitely lost out through his suicide.

Finally Three Men and a Boat. Well it's ok. I think I had the same problem with this that I did with Diary of a Nobody, I don't think the Victorian sense of humour is v similar to mine. Although it is interesting to see what Jerome thought about places along the Thames that I know quite well.

[matt j]

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Iorich, which is to say, the latest book by my favorite sci-fi/fantasy author (Steven Brust). As it is the latest in a string of books (I think up to 13 or 14 now), I wouldn't recommend it as a starting point for him (probably better to start with the first in the series). I'm actually on my re-reading of it, as I tend to read through his stuff way to fast on the first time to 'find out what happens', and tend to miss a lot of details that make it richer experience.

I really like his stuff, you see, though I expect others mightn't.

And I'm still going through my re-read of the Aubrey-Maturin series. They're on a boat.

[imp]

Current Reading - Books best thread

I'm so immersed in Orhan Pamuk's The Museum Of Innocence that I can barely think of anything else, or do much either.

Before that I read Herta Mueller's wonderful but bleak The Land Of Green Plums, which boasts the memorable opening line:

"When we don't speak, said Edgar, we become unbearable, and when we do, we make fools of ourselves."

[Anton Gramscescu]

Current Reading - Books best thread

Matej: this Brust dude - what's the deal with him? With whom could he be compared, what;s the subject matter, etc?

[matt j]

Current Reading - Books best thread

AG: Hmmm... Swords and sorcery, wise-ass hero, smart-alecky 'talking' animal companions, long-lived elves, soul-sucking weapons... Lots of inside jokes, references to his other books, stories within stories...

BoingBoing's Cory Doctorow is a fan too:
http://m.boingboing.net/2010/01/12/steven-brusts-iorich.html

The style is a bit of a cross between Roger Zelazny and Robert B. Parker. Though he has written (arguably my favorite's) a whole series of Dumas style adventures set in this fantasy world.

[Anton Gramscescu]

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So, Elric meets the Family Guy?

My son is seriously grooving to Cory Doctorow right now, actually. He wrote a book for teens called "Little Brother" (no prizes for guessing what it's about) which my son loved, and which allowed for some interesting family discussions about online privacy. He's now devouring CD's new book, "Makers", which means I've been having to explain the dotcom boom to him.

He looks at me very funny when I tell him what people in the 90s thought the wave of the future might look like. When I told him how Mark Cuban made his billions, his head practically exploded.

[Lucia Lanigan]

Current Reading - Books best thread

Have you read any others by Orhan Pamuk, imp? Is there a best one, or a good one to start with?

While we're on the Nobel winners, I've just finished Jose Saramago's Blindness, and I'm still getting my breath back. What a phenomenal read.

[imp]

Current Reading - Books best thread

LL: this is my first, but a Turkish friend who reads his every word in both Turkish and English assures me that Snow is even better. My Name Is Red is reportedly a bit of a struggle for the uninitiated.

[Purves Grundy]

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You know those "Keep Calm and Carry On" t-shirts/posters/mugs/and that? I've jsut read the literary equivalent. On The Beach by Neville Shute. It's a male optimist's version of Lord of the Flies. Of course, when I say "optimist" I mean that with numerous caveats, as anyone who's familiar with the central premise would realise, but ultimately it's clearly written by someone who felt the need to assert man's essential decency at a time, just before the Cuban Missile Crisis, when it would appear nuclear war was held to be a matter of "when", not "if".

There are veiled acknowledgements of lips less stiff than one would hope, but generally it's a story of men being upright and manly. Duty above all and stuff like that.

It's a puzzling read in that respect. Did this self-portrait of nobility, honour, self-sacrifice and unswerving loyalty to Higher Powers actually reflect a genuine ethic that prevailed when put to the test? Or was it a hypocrisy to rank alongside Victorian anti-wanking machines? I think that's one of those questions that one will never know the answer to, but the cynic in me thinks it has the better chance of being right.

As a piece of literature On The Beach is crap. The quality of writing is of about the Enid Blyton "he said, she said" level of sophistication, the only interesting device being the occasionally trying concentration on the parochial and quotidian. Presumably it's meant to make the events more immediate and hard-hitting, but it just ends up being drab and irritating. And every individual one of these local events is as preposterous as a dream.

But most galling thing is the treatment of women in the book. They are all cretins except one who is rescued from a mixture of cretinism and loose morals by the presence of a Man. With a capital M. Quite apart from being an old man's expression of fear and spiritual optimism in the face of nuclear obliteration (and in fairness, as a weapons developer, old NS did have a good idea of what he was talking about there) it is a vital reminder of just how essential feminism was. Not that it isn't still necessary, but the attitudes that book presents are enough to make your teeth curl.

[Brandenburger Toro]

Current Reading - Books best thread

Reading through the Nobels, eh imp? I try and catch up with them every once in a while.

The only Pamuk I've read is My Name Is Red, which I adored. It does take a while to get the hang of reading, because of the structure, with constantly shifting (and unlikely - at least one is a pigment) narrators recouting a whodunnit. But it rapidly opens up and starts to fly.

It was among the books I gave to my mother for Christmas, she reported the same. So it's a little difficult to start, without being difficult. If you see what I mean.

Snow and the new one are definitely on my list once I get through Finnegans Wake.

[Anton Gramscescu]

Current Reading - Books best thread

PG - It's set in Australia. In the 50s. In comparison, Mad Men looks like a Betty Friedan tract.

I liked Snow, too. I seem to recall that I was in an OTF minority on that one the last time it came up, though.

[matt j]

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AG: Yeah, actually I forgot about Elric, but that's not a bad comparison, I think. (As far as Family Guy goes, eh... maybe. Less broad. More sarcasm.)

[San Bernardhinault]

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Pamuk, eh? All his books should be books I love. Intrigue in the Ottoman courts, or a coup in a snow-locked town in eastern Turkey, or the memoirs about Istanbul. I find them utterly dreary and tedious and horrible and awful; I find the protagonists to be the kind of people I never, ever care about and think are all terribly self-absorbed and annoying (including the autobiography/memoir). But, I suspect if you like one Pamuk, you'll probably enjoy them all.

[Moonlight Shadow]

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soul-sucking weapons

That reminded me of "Elric the Necromancer" by Moorcock. Very enjoyable series if you prefer you heroic-fantasy heroes to be tortured, freakish, ambivalent types.

[Crusoe]

Current Reading - Books best thread

Lucia Lanigan wrote:

Have you read any others by Orhan Pamuk, imp? Is there a best one, or a good one to start with?

While we're on the Nobel winners, I've just finished Jose Saramago's Blindness, and I'm still getting my breath back. What a phenomenal read.

Saramago's Death at Intervals is also superb. Finished that one recently; very odd disjoint in the middle, but both halves definitely worth reading.

[Crusoe]

Current Reading - Books best thread

China Mieville's your man for some decent semi-industrial fantasy with a political edge - Perdido Street Station, The Scar and Iron Council (focused on a city, a ship of sorts and a train of sorts respectively) are excellent.

[Incandenza]

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Read two quick books recently:

Bad Cop, by Paul Bacon. A memoir of the writer's time in the NYPD. He joined shortly after Sept. 11, feeling a need to do some sort of service. And yes, he was a police officer with the last name Bacon. And a liberal. He did a monologue about one of his experiences at the Moth that ran on This American Life. The book isn't as funny throughout as that story might lead you to believe, but it's a really entertaining read.

I then read A Geography of Time: The Temporal Misadventures of a Social Psychologist, or How Every Culture Keeps Time Just a Little Bit Differently, by Robert Levine. A book directed to a general audience on the differences of time around the world. I was kind of disappointed in the book--I think it's a fascinating topic, but to me it was a little too heavy on anecdotes and lacked attempts to explain or investigate the cultural bases of these differences. A bit more anthropology, perhaps.

Currently reading Farm City by Novella Carpenter, a memoir of her experiences as an urban farmer--raising a garden, bees, ducks, turkeys, rabbits, etc.--in her backyard and a next door empty lot inner-city Oakland.

[Moonlight Shadow]

Current Reading - Books best thread

Crusoe wrote:

China Mieville's your man for some decent semi-industrial fantasy with a political edge - Perdido Street Station, The Scar and Iron Council (focused on a city, a ship of sorts and a train of sorts respectively) are excellent.

Absolutely, in fact if you're left-wing and a London lover, I'd recommend it...

[Crusoe]

Current Reading - Books best thread

...and his children's book, Un Lun Dun, is also superb - a bit like Neverwhere with a hint more Pratchett.

[Banana Banana]

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Great Xmas

Have just read Pandaemonium by Christopher Brookmyre - a return to form after the weak Snowball in Hell


Now readiing Iain Banks' Transition. Looking good - has hints of The Business and the usual Iain Banks weirdness. Interestingly it looks like he is finally trying to cross the divide (indeed Transition) between his two genres.

Next in line William Boyd's [IMG]Ordinary Thunderstorms[/IMG]

So three books by my three of my most favourite authors at the same time. Bliss!

Have also read Ricky Tomlinson's and Chic Charnley's autobigraphies. Christ.