New now reading

in reality, all of this has been a total load of old bollocks
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copehead
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Re: New now reading

Postby copehead » 14 Nov 2018, 11:40

Jimbo wrote:Image

Doing the audio of this, Cornwell's newest in the Utred series. All the macho posturing, the wanton slaughter, the disregard for treaties, the plundering, the game of thrones thing, it all feels contemporary in this, the age of Trump.


One of the 4 books I have read this trip and a real rip snorter as usual; the point where the Eagle flag is raised on the ramparts of the fort is a stand and cheer moment as you have no idea how our hero is getting out of that one alive until that point. Although I do feel Uhtred is getting a bit long in the tooth for winning one on one fights with younger men now, however wiley he may be. The next one will deal with the death of Edward the Elder and the power struggle that brings Athelstan to the throne, then there will have to be one about the final union of the 4 "Saxon" kingdoms into Englaland then I guess we are done, but what a trip from Athelney to Englaland.

Also done the latest Rebus which was good as usual but I can't see how much longer he can inveigle himself into murder inquiries in retirement; the latest Jay Rayner book of stinking restaurant reviews, he really is one of the best writers around at the moment. Just about to start the new Jonathon Coe.

But the last 2 weeks have been spent ploughing through the latest Sansom - Shardlake - novel, I remember being a few days in and being saddened that it would soon be done but that was 10 days ago as we slog through a day by day account of the Norfolk/Kett uprising of Edward VI's reign, and by god he is drawing it out to its sad and bloody conclusion. I just wish they would all hurry up and die now; the paperback must be the size of a fucking breeze block. I usually look forward to Shardlake novels and the early ones were fantastic but this one has become a real downer and a drag man.
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Snarfyguy
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Re: New now reading

Postby Snarfyguy » 20 Nov 2018, 19:59

Image

I'll have you know I paid considerably less than 10 cents.
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Darkness_Fish
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Re: New now reading

Postby Darkness_Fish » 21 Nov 2018, 08:50

Image

One from the Booker shortlist in 1978, set in South Africa from the point of view of a wealthy white farmer.
Like fast-moving clouds casting shadows against a hillside, the melody-loop shuddered with a sense of the sublime, the awful unknowable majesty of the world.

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Diamond Dog
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Re: New now reading

Postby Diamond Dog » 27 Nov 2018, 05:42

"Korolev: How One Man Masterminded the Soviet Drive to Beat America to the Moon".
Does what it says... a detailed biography of the man who beat the Americans hands down in space for a decade or so....

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Re: New now reading

Postby Brickyard Jack » 27 Nov 2018, 07:01

Un Noel de Maigret, a French policier from the 50s.

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Re: New now reading

Postby mission » 27 Nov 2018, 08:16

Snarfyguy wrote:Image

I'll have you know I paid considerably less than 10 cents.


That is one of my favourite books. As a result of my affection for it, I waded through a fucking butt-tonnage of Barth’s metafictional folderol and almost lost the will to live.

Two things stick with me, over thirty years after reading it: that the character wears a suit even while doing yard work, on th principle that how you do one thing is indicative of how you do all things (an observation that resonated and stayed with me, in spite of me never being able to determine its truth or validity) and the sex scene, where he spies himself in the mirror.
Goodness gracious me.

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Re: New now reading

Postby ` » 27 Nov 2018, 09:35

mission wrote:
Snarfyguy wrote:Image

I'll have you know I paid considerably less than 10 cents.


That is one of my favourite books. As a result of my affection for it, I waded through a fucking butt-tonnage of Barth’s metafictional folderol and almost lost the will to live.

Two things stick with me, over thirty years after reading it: that the character wears a suit even while doing yard work, on th principle that how you do one thing is indicative of how you do all things (an observation that resonated and stayed with me, in spite of me never being able to determine its truth or validity) and the sex scene, where he spies himself in the mirror.


Read the Sot Weed Factor at college and made a stab at Giles Goat Boy. Never bothered with anything JB wrote again after that. He seemed to be very much a writer of his time (as were many of the authors lauded in Tony Tanner's excellent overview of post-war US fiction, City of Words).

Looking JB up am amazed to learn he's still alive as I've not heard of anything he's done since my college days

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Re: New now reading

Postby KeithPratt » 27 Nov 2018, 10:55

Image

Formidable. Arguably one of the finest historians about and blessed with an ability to write flowing prose too.

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Re: New now reading

Postby mission » 27 Nov 2018, 12:20

caramba wrote:
mission wrote:
Snarfyguy wrote:Image

I'll have you know I paid considerably less than 10 cents.


That is one of my favourite books. As a result of my affection for it, I waded through a fucking butt-tonnage of Barth’s metafictional folderol and almost lost the will to live.

Two things stick with me, over thirty years after reading it: that the character wears a suit even while doing yard work, on th principle that how you do one thing is indicative of how you do all things (an observation that resonated and stayed with me, in spite of me never being able to determine its truth or validity) and the sex scene, where he spies himself in the mirror.


Read the Sot Weed Factor at college and made a stab at Giles Goat Boy. Never bothered with anything JB wrote again after that. He seemed to be very much a writer of his time (as were many of the authors lauded in Tony Tanner's excellent overview of post-war US fiction, City of Words).

Looking JB up am amazed to learn he's still alive as I've not heard of anything he's done since my college days


Yair, I read Giles Goatboy, Sotweed Factor, Once Upon A Time, Sabbatical and Chimera. I bought and tried to read Letters. (I really did like Floating Opera and went through a massive metafictional phase.

I am younger than that now.
Goodness gracious me.

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Snarfyguy
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Re: New now reading

Postby Snarfyguy » 28 Nov 2018, 19:25

mission wrote:
Snarfyguy wrote:Image

I'll have you know I paid considerably less than 10 cents.


That is one of my favourite books. As a result of my affection for it, I waded through a fucking butt-tonnage of Barth’s metafictional folderol and almost lost the will to live.

Two things stick with me, over thirty years after reading it: that the character wears a suit even while doing yard work, on th principle that how you do one thing is indicative of how you do all things (an observation that resonated and stayed with me, in spite of me never being able to determine its truth or validity) and the sex scene, where he spies himself in the mirror.

Reaching the end of this and I've really been enjoying it. I picked it up kind of at random because I'd seen other Barthes books on my father's bookshelves. I'll definitely throw The Sot-Weed Factor on my list.

Next up, Stanley Elkin's The Franchiser. I read him a bit a few decades ago but he never did much for me. Maybe now's the time.
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Re: New now reading

Postby Jimbo » 29 Nov 2018, 01:46

Snarfyguy wrote:The Sot-Weed Factor on my list.


A satire picaresque following the adventures of the poet laureate of Maryland. Funniest yet cleverest book ever!
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Snarfyguy
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Re: New now reading

Postby Snarfyguy » 29 Nov 2018, 03:16

Jimbo wrote:
Snarfyguy wrote:The Sot-Weed Factor on my list.


A satire picaresque following the adventures of the poet laureate of Maryland. Funniest yet cleverest book ever!

Well I'll be sure to pick it up.
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Re: New now reading

Postby echolalia » 03 Dec 2018, 01:59

Image

The God of War

It’s a coming-of-age novel set on the edge of the Salton Sea. The story is set in the nineteen-seventies and told through the eyes of Ares, who is twelve years old and riding the bumpy rapids of puberty. His brother Malcolm is what the local kids call a retard, and Ares feels responsible for this, as when he was seven and his brother one he dropped Malcolm on the concrete kerb of a gas station. Malcolm can’t speak properly but has the gift of mimicry, and can carry off the beep of a metal detector or the call of a pelican to perfection.

If Malcolm’s condition is what we now call “autism”, his mother Laurel’s is what we call “denial”. She insists there’s nothing wrong with Malcolm and it’s the rest of the world that isn’t normal. But there’s something really formidable and touching about the way she loves Malcolm: it’s pure and unmediated by diagnosis or voguish theories. He simply is the way he is.

Everyone is a misfit in this book – even the librarian, Mrs Poole, who is from Vermont and a great believer in improving things and people. She tenaciously grows vegetables in her back garden and has Ares weed out the indigenous plants that Laurel loves so much, keeps a foster child and brings Malcolm round to try to teach him to speak. She’s in denial as much as Laurel is, just in a different way.

Ares is torn everywhere he turns – between his responsibility for Malcolm and his need for solitude, his mother and Mrs Poole, good and evil… I really loved this book. It’s the best novel I’ve read for a while.

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Re: New now reading

Postby Snarfyguy » 03 Dec 2018, 15:04

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satire + wordsmithery
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Re: New now reading

Postby Darkness_Fish » 04 Dec 2018, 09:11

Image
Like fast-moving clouds casting shadows against a hillside, the melody-loop shuddered with a sense of the sublime, the awful unknowable majesty of the world.

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Re: New now reading

Postby mission » 06 Dec 2018, 03:11

I bought and read Skippy Dies when it was published and my first son was 8. The other day, as a 16-year-old, he read it (and loved it). I still consider it a new book.

These are all things that confirm my status as Officially Old.

Murray is good and Skippy Dies in particular is great, but there is bloat. The words sometimes get in the way of the laughs. It becomes theoretically funny.
Goodness gracious me.

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Re: New now reading

Postby Minnie the Minx » 06 Dec 2018, 04:20

Darkness by Bharati Mukherjee. My second book by her. She was quite a fucking writer.
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Re: New now reading

Postby Six String » 07 Dec 2018, 18:58

Robert MacFarlane's The Wild Places
The best nature writing I've ever experienced.
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Re: New now reading

Postby $P.Muff$ » 16 Dec 2018, 12:58

Image

Very informative and lots of purdy pictures, only a bit depressing that furniture can be so ridiculously expensive - one of the many reasons I am disenchanted with antiques. This was published for some MOMA exhibition long before I would have ever suspected a future interest in this stuff.

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Re: New now reading

Postby KeithPratt » 16 Dec 2018, 19:18

DJ Taylor’s The Prose Factory. An informative overview of literary life in Britain between 1918 and 1995.


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