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[steveeeeeeeee]

Current Reading - Books best thread

Finished The Fermata over Christmas, worth reading alone for chapter in which the protagonist admits to his doctor to having repetitive stress syndrome in his wrist from wanking whilst writing rot. He then agrees to be examined in a big magnetic scanning device and the story which followed was hilarious. Overall, not the easiest book to read in the same room as your mother and I really can't understand the amount of praise it received from feminists; freezing time to ejaculate on a woman's face without her knowing as she reaches her own self administered orgasm doesn't seem so right on, but it was funny to read.

Since then, I've read "Soldiers of Salamis" by Javier Cercas. Quite simply, it's one of the most amazing books I've ever read. I picked it up at midday yesterday and finished it a 10 o'clock this morning. At points I laughed out loud and towards the end I cried like a baby, I've never been so moved by a book. I also can't remember a book which taught me so much about a complicated historical event (The Spanish Civil War) so succinctly and expertly. A truly amazing novel which I will urge anyone willing to listen to read.

[imp]

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After reading Eugen Rube's 'In Zeiten des abnehmenden Lichts' - the best DDR fiction I've come across yet (I think the 20 years distance is about the right time for writers to get a good perspective when basing fiction around vaguely biographical events) - I've picked up Jonathan Lethem for the first time, 'The Fortress of Solitude'. I'm 90 pages in and absolutely laid flat by the brilliance of his style. It's rare to come across a modern novelist and know after such a short time that you are going to read everything he's ever done. Not sure I've seen him mentioned on here, and a search yielded no results. Any other fans? Are all his books this good?

[Renart]

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I read Motherless Brooklyn and wasn't overly impressed, but I'm told by friends whose opinion I trust that The Fortress of Solitude leaps over it in a single bound, so perhaps I should give it a try.

[Anton Gramscescu]

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Still on the "long history" jag. I read Ian Morris' Why the West Rules (for Now) - if you can stop rolling your eyes about his "development index" that occupies the first couple of chapters, its pretty rewarding (and the index isn't so stupid after all). Then I read Peter Heather's Empire and Barbarians, which is about the various migrations that took place around Europe in the first century. Not bad, but it delves into a lot more specialist controversies that a popular history should.

Next I read John Keay's China: a history which is awesome on several dozen levels. I've often found Asian history difficult to read - unfamiliar names and places, etc. But his use of maps and timelines, a simplification of the whole dynastic timeline thing, a unique take on China's multi-national history - altogether, it provides a really interesting perspective on present-day events there. I recommend this to everyone.

Currently making my way through Norman Davies' Vanished Kingdoms. The chapter on Alt Cluid is interesting - an 8th century welsh (by which he really means Briton) kingdom at the mouth of the Clyde. The chapter on Aragon was a crashing bore. Will give a final update in a few days.

[Gawpus]

Current Reading - Books best thread

On Letham, coincidentally, I've just finished Motherless Brooklyn as well. It's quite a fun noir-y little page-turner, but not anything special. Similarly, I read You Don't Love Me Yet around a year ago and found it enjoyable enough, but pretty slight.

I'd say I'm somewhere in the middle between Renart and imp. 'Not overly impressed' would be putting it a bit harshly for me, but I wouldn't rave about him either. Haven't read The Fortress of Solitude either though, so I couldn't tell you how they measure up in comparison.

[loose cannon]

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'Why be happy when you could be normal' - Jeanette Winterson's autobiography is excellent, when she's good, she's very very good,

One hell of a strange 'upbringing', it shed's a lot of light on her writing

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/nov/04/why-be-happy-jeanette-winterson-review

[Diable Rouge]

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Something old, something new: An Instance of the Fingerpost by Iain Pears starts off as a Restoration whodunnit investigating the guilt/innocence of an alledged murder, but rapidly becomes a political thriller as four intersecting characters investigate the plot from personal perspectives - excellent.

Probably more divisive among OTF will be Kevin Wilson's debut novel, The Family Fang. The story of two straitlaced children who are roped into artistic "happenings" by their kooky parents, before growing up and being forced to return home by circumstances, the film version seems inevitable, as the plot is a rather cinematic cross of Little Miss Sunshine and The Royal Tenenbaums.

[Gangster Octopus]

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loose cannon wrote:

'Why be happy when you could be normal' - Jeanette Winterson's autobiography

Isn't it just a rewrite of Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit as fact?

[Lucia Lanigan]

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There's a slightly mean but readable and probably fair review of Jeanette Winterson in the current LRB.

I've only tried, and stalled on, Sexing The Cherry and a couple of other bits and bobs. A writer I assumed I must like but discovered that there isn't much beyond the biography.

[Purves Grundy]

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I can't bear Jeanette Winterson every since she was comfortably the most egregious participant in numerous discussion programmes after 9/11, and as you can imagine she was up against some pretty stiff competition. She occasionally cropped up being teeth-grindingly smug on that awful late night "Dinner Party At Michael Portillo's House" thing a few years ago, too. I had to stop watching because I threw an axe through the telly.

[Lucia Lanigan]

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The worst part of it is, she was presented as a kind of co-pilot with Angela Carter on my English degree course. You could not find two more different writers; one got all the wit, intelligence, imagination and self-effacement, while the other one told the world homeopathy does work, because small things are confusing when you think about it aren't they. Unfortunately for both their reputations, it was the former who died 20 years ago.

[The Exploding Vole]

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Purves Grundy wrote:

I had to stop watching because I threw an axe through the telly.

I must remember to keep my axe near the settee.

[Anton Gramscescu]

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How does one sex a cherry, exactly?

[Lucia Lanigan]

Current Reading - Books best thread

I didn't get to the ending.

[Amor de Cosmos]

Current Reading - Books best thread

11/22/63 — Stephen King

This is the first Stephen King book I’ve read. I haven’t been avoiding him, it’s just that his favourite genre isn’t particularly one of mine. However over the years friends and acquaintances, including a couple of authors, have recommended him as a first class yarn spinner, if nothing else — and they’re not wrong. I picked this up, (actually I downloaded it in an idle moment, but there’s no euphemism for that yet) because of the subject. It’s a time-travel/alternate history novel which I’ve definitely got a thing for. Sadly it’s a category where output is thin and quality positively famine ridden, there probably aren’t more than a dozen or so titles I’d unreservedly recommend and 11/22/63 immediately leaps into the top five on writing alone. As you’ve probably figured out the point of divergence in King’s book is JFK’s assassination. The PoD is critical to alt hist buffs and, after killing Hitler at some point before WW1, or Germany winning WW2, the Kennedy killing is probably next in popularity. Most, as you’d imagine, strongly feature some kind of conspiracy angle, but thankfully, that’s not King’s approach.
Jake, a middle-aged high school teacher discovers a portal into 1958 in the store room of the local diner. That’s the first wrinkle King introduces, though the book’s plot revolves around stopping Oswald, our protagonist arrives in the past with five years to kill, so to speak. This means he’s got to get a job, and blend in with the past. King has great fun with this. To a great extent 11/22/63 is about revisiting his Maine youth, enjoying once again what a real root-beer float tastes like, and drive around in a Ford Sunliner with the top down. The second factor is that, each time Jake returns to 1958 it’s at exactly the same moment and everything has apparently been reset. So if he succeeds in his mission he’ll never be able to return to the past again unless he is prepared to stop Oswald again. Finally and most importantly, both to the plot and the alt-hist genre, King makes clear that the past is obdurate. It doesn’t want to be changed and will do its best to prevent it happening. This is interesting because while just about every alt hist title makes much of the "Butterfly Effect's" influence on the future, few — if any — portray the past as actively resistant.

Overall this is a great “read,” as my Dad would have said. It’s also very well researched, King has been wanting to write it since 1971 apparently, and the sense of Dallas in the early 60s (not pleasant) is especially well drawn. If I’ve a criticism it would be that it’s about a hundred pages too long (it’s almost 900 in total), you’re reeeeeally ready for that cavalcade past the book depository when it comes. Finally kudos to King for giving big props to Jack Finney and Time and Again as the definitive text in this area, 11/22/63 doesn’t overtake it but it runs it close.

[oldjack]

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I'm a fan of King's; he's a great storyteller, and creates a lot of characters that I can believe in. I think he's suffered from snobbery in the past, as a genre "horror writer", although of course he actually is a great horror writer (I read The Shining in 1978 at my father's urging, and was so scared I had to go to bed with the light on).*

Not yet read the object of Amor's excellent review, but King's earlier works seem to have the central themes of loneliness and decision-making.

Robert Heinlein: By His Bootstraps - another favourite time travel story, along the same lines.

*Yes, really

[Antepli Ejderha]

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Been reading a lot of self improvement books of late, can heartily recommend Stephen Briers books on CBT and I am currently on David Burns Feeling Good.

[Diable Rouge]

Current Reading - Books best thread

Garamczy Antal wrote:

How does one sex a cherry, exactly?

Presumably it's a pun on the Americanism "popping your cherry".

[WOM]

Current Reading - Books best thread

Stephen King's 'On Writing' is very good, whether you're a fan of his work or not.

[Renart]

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I think I came off as a bit too dismissive of Motherless Brooklyn. It had some good ideas and some great passages. I liked it enough to finish it. (I usually abandon books after fifty pages if I don't like them. Life's too short.) I just don't think it quite lived up to its promise, and the ending sort of petered out rather than resolved anything. The Fortress of Solitude is on my to-read list, though, because I fully believe he's capable of a better novel. A friend of mine is reading his collection of essays right now (The Ecstasy of Influence) and says it's very good.

Antepli: Feeling Good was a life-changer for me. That sounds corny, but it's true. I never knew how to deal with depression (or even recognize it) until I read that book.

As for Stephen King, he does sometimes overwrite—a lot of his books would be better if shorter—but he's a great storyteller. One of my favorite authors to read on the plane. The time flies by but you don't feel it's been a complete waste of time. The Dead Zone and Misery are two of my favorites.

[Amor de Cosmos]

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There's a, perhaps envious, belief that someone like King who's so prolific — like two or three books a year, and most are doorstops — can't be properly good I think. But Dickens managed it, so did Zola, Jack London and others. Mind you back then fiction writing in general was pretty down market in comparison to poetry, so standards were more modest.

@oldjack. Thanks for the Heinlein tip, I'll check it out

[Eggchaser]

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I'd reading Hitman by Bret Hart. My word, he doesn't hold back and I've not even got to the Montreal Screwjob yet.

[Anton Gramscescu]

Current Reading - Books best thread

So, Vanished Kingdoms was a bit of a bust. Some jewels here and there, but over 730 pages it starts to wear.

Have now started Neal Stephenson's latest, Reamde. In usual Stephenson fashion, it weighs in at a ludicrous 1040 pages, but I can report that at page 250, it's fantastic. Better than Cryptonomicon.

[Sits]

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Had a little history phase running since December, first this:

The Spartans: An Epic History

which I recommend if you like that sort of thing, which I do. He keeps it ticking along and manages the magic balance between over-egging the pudding, and over-simplification.

And now just finishing this:

The English Civil War at First Hand

as it's an area of history I am woefully light on - I'm an ancient man fnaar fnaar). It's basically a collection of contemporary quotations, writings and eye-witness stories which is gripping. An utterly horrific time; I had no idea how many were killed. My only issue, and to call it a criticism would be churlish, is that the 17th Century English can be hard work.

[Evariste Euler Gauss]

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As mentioned on another thread, I've nearly finished Guns, Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond. The issues in the book were discussed on here recently on some thread called "Why did only Eurasians colonise" or something like that.

It's a fascinating thesis, and an important one. It's very persuasive too. And it's full of interesting facts both about movements of peoples and cultural developments in the pre-historic period.

It does have one glaring deficiency, though, which is that it is mind-numbingly repetitive. A small number of main points are recapped, rehashed and respun so many times that it really tries one's patience. It could have been much better written in 100 fewer pages.