Current Reading - Books best thread

[Incandenza]

Current Reading - Books best thread

I finished reading The Phantom Tollbooth by Norman Juster to our oldest daughter last night before bed. I never read it when I was a kid, and I never got around to it when I was older. We had gone through all of our bedtime reading books we had to get through, so I decided to start on that. What a wonderful book, as good as everyone says. I think I enjoyed it more than she did, I think some of the wordplay works better on the page than hearing it read aloud. I think I'll be reading it again at some point.

For my own reading, I just finished The Monuments by Peter Cossins, about the five "monument" one day cycling races (Milan-Sanremo, Paris-Roubaix, the Tour of Flanders, the Tour of Lombardy, and Liege-Bastogne-Liege). Each race gets three chapters and goes into the formation of the race, the history of it, and some of the more notable performances. It's pretty straightforward, I started mostly speed reading some parts, and I could have done without some of the more detailed descriptions of route changes over the years. The human stories were more interesting. Worth reading if you're a cycling fan.

[Amor de Cosmos]

Current Reading - Books best thread

imp wrote:
@AmordeC: 1Q84 was one Murakami too far for me - it took me months to get through it, all the while abandoning it for other books before coming back to it a few pages at a time.

I do understand. It was originally published in three parts, kind of like an eighteenth century triple-decker, which might have made it easier to digest. I read it on a Kindle which has the effect of making you less conscious of the length, so less intimidating. If I'd stopped reading for any length of time — and there are moments when it would have been easy to do — like yourself, I might never have finished. That would have been a pity because the final chapters are just too beautiful.

[Felicity, I guess so]

Current Reading - Books best thread

Just read prize-winning crime novel 'Someone Else's Skin' by Sarah Hilary.

Was a slow starter but compelling once it got going. Well-plotted, won't say more as it might spoil.

Also William Boyd's 'Sweet Caress....Amory Clay' (can't remember the full title, and it's late). Loved the photos, which apparently he found in skips/junk shops/at bus stops etc, as a regular hobby. 1st time I'd read something with more than token illustrations on kindle- must admit I looked for (and found) the best photos online to appreciate them in bigger-than-thumbnail size.

[Crusoe]

Current Reading - Books best thread

I've nearly finished Reservoir 13 by Jon McGregor. It's compelling and beautiful.

Ostensibly about the hunt for a missing girl in a small moorland village, but actually about the flow of time in the subsequent years. There's no real plot to develop or conclusion to reach. Each chapter covers one year since the disappearance, and is written as a block of staccato sentences, sparsely descriptive. One sentence might be about the trials of the new mother of twins, then one about the badgers in their setts, then the weather, then planning for the harvest festival, then the butcher's failing business. Natural events are accorded the same weight as human characters - when you find moments of real note it feels like a small victory. It's poignant without being soppy.

Oddly, the nearest I could compare it to would be David Peace's Red or Dead - it has the same rhythmic, repeated formulation in each chapter. In the same way as that book it won't be to everyone's taste - the writing takes some getting used to as it seems almost dispassionate, unengaged, but after a while - for me - it just emphasised how everything is cyclical; individual lives change but time moves inexorably.

[WOM]

Current Reading - Books best thread

Started Jane Eyre about three months ago...got stuck half way...read four or five other books in the meantime...and then just picked it up and finished it. Just lovely.

[Anton Gramscescu]

Current Reading - Books best thread

Some novels I've read recently:

A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich. I get why this was an important novel. I don't really get why people think it was a great novel.

The Nix It's a campus novel (sort of) so obv I had to read it. Some bits work, some bits don't. It's amusing enough and somewhat thoughtful. Kind of doubt I will remember much about it ten years from now.

The Explosion Chronicles and Lenin's Kisses by Yan Lianke. Chinese magical realism. So, imagine Murakami, but with a lot more politics and a lot fewer goats. It's excellent stuff. The Explosion Chronicles is about a family that basically runs a small town called Explosion, which goes from being a tiny village to a huge metropolis in just a few years. Lenin's kisses is about a small-town official who gets the idea to develop his village by buying Lenin's body from the Russians, and pays for it by organizing a small-town full of disabled people and turning them into a touring performing troupe. It's really good stuff, and I look forward to reading more.

Lucky Jim. by Kingsley Amis I know this is supposed to be the Ur-campus novel, but it;s really not that interesting. Actually, maybe that does make it the ur-campus novel.

Fifteen Dogs by Andre Alexis. Hermes and Apollo go for a drink at the Wheat Sheaf in Toronto and make a bet as to what would happen if dogs were given the power of human thought. They proceed to the local animal hospital, free fifteen dogs and so endow them. The results are not edifying, but the book is a great short read.

Satantango by László Krasznahorkai. Holy Jesus fuck this book almost made me want to stop reading fiction forever. I guess this is meant to be some kind of modernist classic with a bit of Beckett homage built in, and possibly it suffers in translation but my God it was awful.

Now currently fifty pages in to Elena Morante's History which apparently was a huge thing in Italy n the early 1970s, a story about WWII as seen from "below". Hasn't really taken off yet, we;re still in a fairly tedious character development phase.

[via vicaria]

Current Reading - Books best thread

Just recently finished Satantango, AG. Very much on the same page as you. I'd picked it up a lot with the intention to read it, having heard good things, and finally got round to it. Wished I hadn't.

Other latest reading:

Stasiland by Anna Funder. Good, although she goes off on personal tangents quite a bit too much, getting almost Kerouac-like when she's talking about her and Klaus Renft.

Twilight of the Eastern Gods by Ismail Kadare. Doesn't get anywhere near the heights of Chronicle in Stone, Broken April, or even The Concert. An awful trudge of a novel. Gave up about 2/3 of the way through as it just wasn't engaging me and I was ready to throw in the towel.

18% Gray by Zachary Karabashliev, about an expat Bulgarian crossing the United States after the end of his marriage. A nice caper in parts, a little indulgent, but a decent read all the same. The ending was very predictable though.

I've just started The Accusation by Bandi, fictionalised stories of dissidence in North Korea. Good so far, but it's a series of short stories, so I'm dipping in and out while re-reading some of David Sedaris' collections. Mostly I just haven't found anything to grab my fancy in longer form lately, so until then, it's short stories & essays.

[imp]

Current Reading - Books best thread

Anton Gramscescu wrote: Lucky Jim. by Kingsley Amis I know this is supposed to be the Ur-campus novel, but it's really not that interesting. Actually, maybe that does make it the ur-campus novel.

Christ, I tried this years ago and gave up. I read another one of his as well, a later effort that the publisher presumably printed out of habit, and it was unbelievably dull.

Yan Lianke sounds great, though. @via vicaria - I saw that North Korean volume by Bandi in Foyles last week and toyed with it, but my basket was already over-flowing.

[Gangster Octopus]

Current Reading - Books best thread

Anton Gramscescu wrote: A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich. I get why this was an important novel. I don't really get why people think it was a great novel.

Lucky Jim. by Kingsley Amis I know this is supposed to be the Ur-campus novel, but it;s really not that interesting.

I'd go with both of these descriptions.

[delicatemoth]

Current Reading - Books best thread

Swallow by Sefi Atta. Novel about two Lagos women trying to make a living. It's rather good.

[Incandenza]

Current Reading - Books best thread

Twenty Days of Turin by Giorgio De Maria. A book from the late 1970s that is just now being translated into English. A very unsettling book about a society slowly turning in on itself and the spread of paranoia and violence. It's really good.

[Sam]

Current Reading - Books best thread

Finished The Moonstone last night. Very good stuff, every bit as good as I was hoping when I started it. Not sure it quite matches up to The Woman in White for sheer grippingness, but it's a close thing.

I am now reading The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes, in preparation for a book club a couple of friends are running at their recently set-up language institute - a chat about a good book would be nice, so I told them I'd go along and the others there get a chance to talk to another native speaker, everyone's a winner. The meeting is on Friday evening, but fortunately it's a short book and having spent about two hours on it so far I'm already nearly a third of the way into it. I haven't read any Julian Barnes before but so far it's very much the kind of thing I was expecting when I noticed the paperback cover is a still from a film adaptation starring Colin Firth.

[imp]

Current Reading - Books best thread

Reading Frank Diköttir's 'Mao's Great Famine'. The Great Leap Forward is one of the historical events that you vaguely knew was responsible for the deaths of millions of people a while back in a foreign country. When you finally get around to reading up on it in detail, all you can do is let your jaw drop at the horror, stupidity, inhumanity and wilful mass murder by starvation, deprivation, collective slavery, destruction of housing, callous oppression and environmental decimation. Glad that I never went through a phase claiming to be a Maoist.

Going to need a light-hearted rom-com romp after this one.

@Sam re. The Moonstone. We had an interesting discussion with our A level English teacher at the time about Miss Clack. He was an evangelist and confessed that he also spent his weekends delivering religious leaflets and trying to convert people. Was he a busybody too? We cynical 17-year-olds told him that he certainly was, and we weren't at all diplomatic in our assessment. At the end of the year he announced he was leaving the school to work at a place with no sixth form because "I tend to get on better with younger pupils".

[Sam]

Current Reading - Books best thread

Hahaha. I don't think Collins is that diplomatic about it either, to be honest - certainly for the age in which he was writing. If one wasn't aware that he was something of a non-conformist, reading the first couple of chapters of her 'Narrative' would probably be enough to work it out for oneself!

[Crusoe]

I'm trying Jeff VanderMeer's new book, Borne. I didn't get on with his Southern Reach trilogy, but this has good reviews and piqued my interest. That said, books about post-apocalyptic scavengers developing maternal feelings towards sapient blobs whilst being hunted by a three-storey flying bear must be ten a penny these days.

[JtS]

Gave up on The Hat of Victor Noir, you've got to give me a plot otherwise I'm out of there, same went for The Casual Vacancy a couple of years ago.

[Amor de Cosmos]

Hahaha. I don't think Collins is that diplomatic about it either, to be honest - certainly for the age in which he was writing. If one wasn't aware that he was something of a non-conformist, reading the first couple of chapters of her 'Narrative' would probably be enough to work it out for oneself!

On a related note, I've just about finished Dan Simmons's Drood. Superficially it's a Victorian gothick/mystery based around the relationship of Wilkie-Collins — the narrator — and Charles Dickens. I'm not generally a fan of famous character revivals, or novels where authors become characters themselves. This is an exception however, largely because Simmons's research is immaculate. I'm pretty familiar with Dickens's character and personality — less so with Collins — but in both cases their friendship/rivalry reads as spot on. The mystery element takes place mainly in Dickens's grimy "great oven" of London. His own restlessness, and controlling instincts are set against Collins's passive-aggressiveness and heavy drug use. Neither are portrayed as admirable individuals, however they serve the the story which, for me, is basically about story-telling and how it can destroy the story-tellers. Be aware, it's a long read — 1000 pages — but never drags.

[Incandenza]

I swear that I had posted about Paula Hawkins' Into The Water last week. I don't want to go over it again in depth...it's not as good as Girl on the Train and pretty much everyone it is unlikable, but the second half is more interesting than the first.

[Sam]

Crusoe, I read the first of the Southern Reach books and while I didn't mind it, I wasn't drawn to bother with the subsequent ones. How are you finding Borne?

AdeC, that does sound interesting. It also sounds very long, so I'll have to have a think about it ...

[Levin]

Does anyone else like Christopher Priest's Dream Archipelago books? If so has anyone read The Gradual yet?

"In the latest novel from one of the UK's greatest writers we return to the Dream Archipelago, a string of islands that no one can map or explain.

Alesandro Sussken is a composer, and we see his life as he grows up in a fascist state constantly at war with another equally faceless opponent. His brother is sent off to fight; his family is destroyed by grief. Occasionally Alesandro catches glimpses of islands in the far distance from the shore, and they feed into his music - music for which he is feted.

But all knowledge of the other islands is forbidden by the junta, until he is unexpectedly sent on a cultural tour. And what he discovers on his journey will change his perceptions of his country, his music and the ways of the islands themselves.

Playing with the lot of the creative mind, the rigours of living under war and the nature of time itself, this is Christopher Priest at his absolute best."

[Crusoe]

Crusoe, I read the first of the Southern Reach books and while I didn't mind it, I wasn't drawn to bother with the subsequent ones. How are you finding Borne?

So far, not bad. I'm only a couple of chapters in though. It's a bit more accessible - characters have names, and know what's happening around them - despite being set in a weird, geographically unspecified city rendered a wasteland by biotechnology run rampant. So far there's been no attempt at explanation or history - it just is what it is.

Actually it's a bit like Embassytown by China Mieville in style - lots of organic tech taken for granted.

[Crusoe]

Does anyone else like Christopher Priest's Dream Archipelago books? If so has anyone read The Gradual yet?

I read and quite enjoyed The Adjacent and The Islanders, but I've not tried The Gradual yet. I find them compelling but oddly dispassionate and emotionally unengaging - a dream world from a textbook, sort of. The characters never really come alive. If it ever gets marked down in price I'll probably pick it up, though.

[Sam]

Finished The Sense of an Ending last night. It's good. I was expecting it to be rather better, especially for a Booker winner, but I didn't dislike it. It was some way from being one of those books you just don't want to end, though. I am now trying to make up my mind what to go for next - it's between a few new titles I've bought in recent weeks on my Kindle, a few slightly older ones I've got in paper on my shelves, or getting on Project Gutenberg reading the next Sherlock Holmes title (as I've mentioned way upthread once or twice, I'm slowly making my way through them in the order in which they were published). I've just had a look and the next Holmes book on the list is The Hound of the Baskervilles, so I think it'll be that, especially as I've read it before so it ought to be fairly quick.

[Sam]

As you probably guessed if you read that previous post, in the act of writing it I basically talked myself into going for The Hound of the Baskervilles. First Sherlock Holmes of the year.

[Patrick Thistle]

I've recently finished Norse Mythology by Neil Gaiman and Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier and have got a few chapters into The Jungle Book.

I found Rebecca a bit of a drag until the shipwreck then raced through the last 150 pages.