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Underground > Books, Criticism & Writing >

2003: What are you currently reading?

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No star here laces

09:24 / 19.03.03

Howard Rheingold - "Smart Mobs"

Pop-techno-sociology. Ideal crap for regurgitating in meetings to make people think you're "on the pulse". I recommend all office drones read it.

"The jukebox queen of malta"

Like Catch 22 only not very good.

Carl Hiaassen - "Stormy Weather"

Was really getting into this and lost it somewhere. Fucking irritating. Seemed like it was going to be almost as good as "Sick Puppy" though - plenty of potential for grotesquerie.

13:07 / 19.03.03

It's getting close to summer so I'm re-reading American Psycho by Brett Easton Ellis. I don't know why but it always gives me warm, joyjoy feelings to know that I am nowhere near as screwed up as Patrick Bateman.

Our Lady of The Two Towers

13:36 / 19.03.03

There's a Smart Mobs website out there which is ideal if you're looking for stuff to drop into the Lab to look intelligent and part of the wired sews-eye-a-tee.

20:24 / 19.03.03

Kit-Cat: Very good, thank you. Red Herrings it is.

11:54 / 21.03.03

Am angered that I am not yet reading the new Gibson. You bastards!

So to fil the gap, I'm reading "Real Education: Varieties of Freedom" by David Gribble. Amazing - he's a teacher whose worked in "free" schools for most of his career ie. non-authoritarian, non-hierachical schools where the pupils have a say in how and what they're taught. He's used his retirement to travel to a variety of different schools round the world - including India, Japan, Ecuador, - seeing how they all express these principles. 14 Chapters, each on a different school, each of which I wish I'd went to as opposed to staring at the wall in my shit comprehensive.

Also, just started "Love, an Inner Connection" by Carol K. Anthony, which wins approval from me by taking ideas from the I Ching and applying them to relationships. The language is really hippy dippy but this is not always a bad thing. Having to read between the lines a little to see exactly what she's saying, but it's still very good, in a radox bath, little-duvet-for-my -candles sort of way.

17:45 / 22.03.03

The stars my destination - Alfred Bester

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p
o
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"Got a million in you and spend pennies, got a genius in you and think crazies, got a heart in you and feel empties, All a you, every you..."

Good golly gosh thats a good book.

Plus "AT LAST" the eitimology of the early eighties Joe Dolce hit I think!

The Return Of Rothkoid

20:54 / 23.03.03

Kissing Mister Quimper - about halfway through, though I find it not as pleasing as some others - and John Barth's Giles Goat Boy. Just starting the latter, though I think in terms of shaggy dog stories, it's probably a doozy.

We're The Great Old Ones Now

11:17 / 24.03.03

I'm reading Jarhead. It's fascinating and well-written and literate. It's also weird and intensely disturbing to be reading it right now. The other night I was reading and I heard from the TV downstairs the monstrous detonations of the first heavy bombs falling on Baghdad.

The stuff in it is recurring right now.

I'm also reading 'A Whore's Profession', by David Mamet, although it's rather weird because his life is so far removed from Swofford's Marine Corps as to be incomprehensible.

Mamet's writing is always and only Mamet. Style and self-presentation predominates, and he knows himself in the earlier versions he describes in this biographical account.

Swofford, on the other hand, seems bewildered. He ranges from lyrical to blunt, and appears adrift from the earlier Swofford he's writing about in the earlier stages of the book. There's no sense of a writer picking a style, just of someone putting words to events experienced by someone who was not encouraged to think or put words around what he saw. Swofford's book feels immanent in a way which Mamet's does not.

12:15 / 24.03.03

Right now I'm reading Harry Potter A L'Ecole Des Sorciers in an attempt to improve my French. (When I say "improve", I mean "move past only being able to ask where the train station is or buy a sandwich". If I learn a language, I want to be able to actually *use* it!) I've never read a novel in another language before, it's very interesting... dialouge can be quite confusing as the French don't use quotation marks. They lay it out like:

-Blah blah blah.
-Blah, bl-blah blah, declara-t-elle. Blah blah.

Anyways... I'm also reading "The End of Time" by Julian Barbour. He's a theoretical physicst who claims that time, as we know it, doesn't exist - that it isn't something that flows ever-forward, but is just a seriese of moments... unfortunatley I haven't read enough of it to explain properly. It looks promising though.

And I've just finished "Clans of the Alphane Moon" by Philip K Dick, which was fantastic... like most books I read, I had a hard time getting into it, but ended up loving it. A whole planet (well, moon) filled with certified lunatics, a telepathic slime mould and a 21st century CIA robot programmer... amazing...

-Fid

14:44 / 24.03.03

I'm reading a book called 'Love Warps The Mind a Little'. I have to say that I only bought it because I thought the title was brilliant but the books not actually that great but it's easy to read and taking my mind off the two dissertations I'm trying to write at the moment. Simple story, married man in mid life crisis, having affair, does not know whether he loves wife, should keep having affair etc. etc. If there is one thing I can't stand it's emotionally ignorance, and I'd get really angry at this book except it is funny as well which almost makes it okay.

15:54 / 24.03.03

Nick: If you haven't seen it already, last week Slate did a "Breakfast Table" with Swofford and Blackhawk Down author Mark Bowden.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

16:49 / 24.03.03

fidrich- "Clans..." rocks a slime mold's ass, yes it does.

Currently reading a whole bunch of stuff- most recently "The Scheme For Full Employment" by Magnus Mills, which was shaping up to be his funniest yet, and "Spartans" by Valerio Massimo Manfredi, which I was reading on the bus into town, and looked like it was gonna be pretty cool, when I got into town and found the new Gibson ("Pattern Recognition") at which point everything went out of the window.

02:53 / 25.03.03

Finished a Harvey Pekar collection and started Elmore Leonard's "The Tonto Woman and Other Stories". I have this strange feeling like I've read it before, but regardless, it's great. I actually think I prefer Leonard's western stories to his crime ones.

05:59 / 25.03.03

Finished The Corrections, finally, which was like dragging myself through the desert. Pretty uninspiringly average, I thought.

Then read After the Quake, which was mildly diverting.

Then Spies by Michael Frayn, which was ditto.

Then the recent modern translation of Gilgamesh, which took about half an hour, and which has the delectable phrase on page one: "Cock like a trip-hammer".

Now I'm bored.

13:02 / 25.03.03

Bulgakov's Master and the Margarita. Just finished Kafka's The Trial and I'm starting The Castle this week.

15:53 / 26.03.03

The Ghost in the Machine, Arthur Koestler

which is hopefully going to explain the 'predicament of man' and the 'pathology of the human mind'
so far still working through part one which has lots of interesting stuff about hierarchies, 'holons' and their characteristics. People keep telling me his book 'Act of Creation' is even better.

11:43 / 28.03.03

just reached 'the Helmsman' chapter in Ghost in the Machine and have received proof I know absolutely nothing: "hence the term 'cybernetics' - from the Greek cybernitos = helmsman."

Koestler talks about the role of homeostasis in the hierarchy of a living organism, and how so many of the essential decisions required to keep it/us alive are taken subconsciously, and quotes Walter B Cannon -
"With homeostatic devices, however, that keep essential bodily processes steady, we as individuals are free from such slavery - free to..explore and understand the wonders of the world about us...untrammelled by anxieties concerning our bodily affairs"
(pity there's no homeostatic device to prevent girls worrying about the size of their ass)

The sensory-motor system is discussed and there's a very neat analogy about driving to explain at what point the conscious ego gets involved in the nitty-gritty decision-making process. To paraphrase, driving is a skill that's performed mechanically until some disturbance occurs which pulls in our attention - like driving on an icy road. If some futher disturbance occurs - like a dog running out, we have to weigh up the risks of braking on an icy road and losing control of the car or killing the dog, (if it was a child that ran out we probably brake whatever the risk)
"it is at this level, when the pros and cons are equally balanced, that the subjective experience of freedom and moral responsibility arises."

I am really enjoying the build-up from biological processes to consciousness,
has anyone else read this?
I did a search on Koestler but didn't find any old threads.

12:15 / 29.03.03

Holy Slaughtermatic!

14:42 / 29.03.03

I started reading _Black Seas of Infinity_, a collection of Lovecraft stories published by the Science Fiction Book Club. They're dated, but, nonetheless, fascinating. Lovecraft certainly was xenophobic.

I'm also still inching my way through _The Tale of Genji_.

Recently, I bought a new collection of short stories called _French Quarter Fiction: The Newest Stories from America's Oldest Bohemia_. I've read the 1st 2 stories & thought them vy good.

As an aside, some local writer I never heard of recently started a petition to rename the French Quarter, the "Freedom Quarter." I thought it was a publicity stunt at the time, although the local rag reported it straight-faced. The guy is now claiming the whole thing was a protest & a joke. He says he got a lot of negative feedback, but was frightened by the few who thought changing the name was a good idea. Scary biscuits!!

16:12 / 29.03.03

Shadow of the Lion by Mercedes Lackey, Dave Freer, and Eric Flint. It's about some alternate-reality France where magic is real and gods walk the earth blah blah blah. It's completely and utterly boring. Nothing at all has happened in the first 230 pages. Hopefully it picks up soon, or I'm just going to stop reading it. I have other things I need to read.

Better Than Sex: Confessions of a Political Junkie by Hunter S Thompson. This is actually a pretty interesting book considering I have no interest in politics in no way, shape or form. I guess I just like Thompson's writing style.

Just For Fun by Linus Torvalds and David Diamond. It's all about Torvalds and the birth of Linux. It's just some nice light reading, even non-technical folk could pick it up and understand probably 99.9% of it.

The Complete Book of Heraldry by Stephen Slater. I picked this up out of a bargain bin. I really have very little interest in Heraldry, but I really like the pictures.

Against A Dark Background by Ian M. Banks. This is the book I carry around in my backpack while at school. I really haven't gotten very far into it, maybe 130 pages, and it just doesn't seem to be going anywhere. Fine you're on a search for some book so that you can get some gun thingy, how aobut actually doing something, rather than just talking about it?

I really thought I was past the point of reading 4 or 5 books at a time. This always seems to happen.

01:16 / 30.03.03

Re-reading Radio Free Ablemuth by Philip K. Dick. It just seems appropriate for the times.

00:27 / 01.04.03

I just finished reading Order out of chaos by Gino Gianoli, definitely a mind twisting one. It throws everything, from poetry to religion to history to messed up-love, all into the chaotic blender for you choke on.
And just when you think you can't keep going, the story magically unties itself to leave you wanting more.

Our Lady of The Two Towers

19:07 / 01.04.03

Finished Iain M. Banks Against a Dark Background this morning which was fun but perhaps a little bit longer than it needed to be. Now I'm reading Negrophilia- Avant-Garde Paris and Black Culture in the 1920s by the name-tastic Petrine Archer-Straw.

19:15 / 01.04.03

Just finished William Goldman's Adventures In The Screen Trade, which was good but he sure hypes himself - and nice to see George Roy Hill telling him where to stuff the hype in his screenplays. Still, a good book, and some great anecdotes.

I'm now reading Francis Spufford's The Child That Books Built, about the effect of reading on himself and children and general, which is short and dense and beautiful and damnit he has the same tastes as I have and had. It's brilliant, and I might well thread it when it's done because it's got some interesting ideas in it.

Tryphena Absent

20:34 / 01.04.03

Malory Towers- all of it.

20:42 / 01.04.03

I'm halfway through doing 1984 by George Orwell but it's making me too cynical about the rationalisation of war and politics so I might stop reading it for a bit so I can watch CNN without exclaiming "Pah!" every two seconds.

I do have a standby copy of Lullaby by Chuck Palahniuk to lighten the mood a bit, seems mostly fiction based and safe enough at the moment.

23:38 / 01.04.03

Due to really liking the line Chairman Maominstoat quoted out of "The Straw Men" I went out and bought it. I haven't read a crime or horror book for a long time and it's great to read a well written one. Full of excellent sentences and some truly strange concepts. I'm only 89 pages in and I am completely baffled.

I also bought "Only Forward", Michael Marshall Smith's first book, because it too sounded really good.

The Return Of Rothkoid

04:41 / 05.04.03

I'm onto the final Invisibles trade, and so far it's good. A bit more spark than some of its predecessors, at least in the opening bits. Me like.

Giles Goat Boy labours on.

08:25 / 05.04.03

I started to read Brett Easton Ellis 'Rules of Attraction' but found it boring as hell- although I might give it another reread sometime soon as I really enjoyed the movie.

Just finished 'Confessions of a Dangerous Mind' by Chuck Barris who was not only the host of 'The Gong Show' (and I must get some tapes of that from somewhere!) but also may have been an assassin for the CIA- very weird, very funny. Is this book a joke? Is Barris insane or deluded? Is it true? I don't know but I quite enjoyed it.

Right now I am about a third of the way through '25th Hour' by David Benioff, it's good, the style is pretty simple but the whole thing reeks of a desperation which is quite gripping. Monty Brogan has 24 hours left of freedom after being busted for drug possession and has some choices to make.

Over Easter I also intend to read all three of Kant's critiques, and the autrobiogrpahy of Bertran Russell, and maybe finish off 'Schopenhauer- The Wild Years of Philosophy' (sadly the book isn't as cool as the title).

The Return Of Rothkoid

16:27 / 06.04.03

I'm also reading a variety of comics I picked up from this weekend's comic con in Sydney - including a fabulous thing called Tales From Under Your Bed which features monsters and Elvis. Nuff said.

Our Lady of The Two Towers

20:11 / 06.04.03

Currently having a threeway between John Berger's Ways of Seeing, Shortfatdyke, late of this parish,'s excellent Darkwor(l)ds and Meditation- A Beginners Guide by Naomi Ozaniec. Took a while to warm to the Berger but it's got some wonderful ideas and essays in there, though the picture-only ones I skipped past. The other two it's early to say, only if the first couple of stories are anything to go by, SFD has got a really warped mind!

07:48 / 08.04.03

I'm reading Michael Marshall Smith's "Only Forward". It's completely blowing me away and I cannot believe I didn't discovered him sooner.

09:16 / 09.04.03

Got my order from Amazon yesterday, happy bear - so last night I was reading Fear and Trembling in Sunnydale - Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Philosophy and to be honest I'm really enjoying it - wasn't quite sure what to expect but so far it's been really interesting, favourite essays so far are Faith and Plato : "Your Nothing! Disgusting, Murderous Bitch" and Buffy the Vampire Slayer as Feminist Noir - nerdy bliss at the moment - still having trouble reading at all though, stopping my mind wondering off mid sentence!

Also got Visual Magick by Jan Fries and Quantum Psychology by the man of the moment Mr. Wilson but it seems to be as mentioned on another thread to be very group work specific.

09:28 / 09.04.03

Oh! A New '...and philosophy' book. The Simpsons edition was fantastic, the Matrix one however seemed really shallow, like the writers couldn't really think of anything to say about it.

09:48 / 09.04.03

Yup it mentions at the start the other volumes, Simpons, Matrix and Seinfield. Also mentions that two new volumes are on the way Woody Allen and The Lord of the Rings.

Simpsons is worth getting then? They actually mention one of the Simpsons essays in the Buffy book "Thus Spake Bart : On Nietzsche and the Virtue of being Bad.

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