Subcultural engagement for the 21st Century...
Barbelith is a new kind of community (find out more)...
You can login or register.

Underground > Books, Criticism & Writing >

2003: What are you currently reading?

Page: 1 ... 3 4 5 6 7(8)9 10 11 12 13... 19

18:07 / 14.04.03

The Medusa Frequency by Russell Hoban. I love Russell Hoban - this one is a bit more ludic than his later stuff though. Features the rotting head of Orpheus and (Rothkoid, take note) what I think may well be a subconscious Kraken...

Whisky Priestess

21:58 / 14.04.03

KCC - have you read Fremder? You've got to read Fremder. It's the scifi novel I wish I could write. I can lend if you like.

05:09 / 15.04.03

Reading "Reader's Block" by David Markson. It's quite strange. Facts about artists - mostly negative, quotes from books and plays, and in between, notes towards a novel.

It's pretty hard to describe, but Amazon has some sample pages here.

09:51 / 15.04.03

Everything is illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer. Has anyone else read this? I can't make up my mind what to think of it - I found the voice of the main narrator really annoying to start with, but it's almost starting to work. Almost.

The Return Of Rothkoid

13:02 / 15.04.03

Subconscious kraken!

That rocks.

I'm currently still labouring through Giles Goat-Boy with about 300 pages to go. It's starting to drag in that packed '70s-novel kind of way, where everything that's satirical has go to "no, fuck it, let's have a bacchanal!" Fuck's sake. I just want it to end. But having come 550-odd pages through, I ain't giving up. No sir.

I finished the last Invisibles trade the other day - I liked it a lot. Ending was a bit.. hmmph... but it seemed a bit more involvign than some of the rest of the run had been. Dunno.

23:43 / 16.04.03

I'm reading 'Sons and Lovers' by D.H. Lawrence atm. I'm starting an MA Eng. Lit. course with the OU in Feb. and I've just started working through the set books, 'Sons and Lovers' being first on the list because I already had it hanging around. It's full off 'thee's, 'thou's and apostrophes. Sometimes you can see the shiny poet hiding under all the depressing badly written bollocks. But not that often. It annoys me, for many reasons, but mostly because of the assumptions Lawrence makes about the mother character, Mrs. Morel (his mother, really), how she's feeling, blah de blah - it comes across as very...like sticking plasters trying to spell out the reality of a complex emotional state.

00:18 / 17.04.03

I finally finished 1984 the other day and I can't believe that I haven't read it before, I feel so deprived. The only logical thing for me to do now is read my way through all of the 'classics' I can think of to make sure I don't miss out on anything else as good. There is still so much that I haven't read and coming here has made me realise it. Guess I'll start with Ulysses then and work my way back through the 'Books' threads.

00:37 / 17.04.03

Just come off a big Haruki Murakami trip having only just discovered him a few weeks ago. Ploughed through 'Hard Boiled Wonderland', 'Wind up Bird' and 'Dance-Dance-Dance' in quick succession. WHY,WHY WHY has nobody told me of this guy before (yes i know theres a thread...now!...bah)...Got a bit bored halfway through 'Wild Sheep Chase' i'm afraid but i'm proberly all Murakamied out....

Went on to Arturo Perez-Reveres' 'The Dumas Club' which i quite enjoyed. Dumas, Scary Satanic books and a likeableish antihero (Christ thats a shit review...sorry) . Pretty good although i suspect the translation was a bit dodgy. There was some parts which i'm sure would have read ok in the origial spanish but were bloody terrible in english.

Rodrigo Rey Rosas' The Beggers Knife
This was a great find...Short book by a Gueatemala writer...Assasins and Sorcerers etc...A bit Borges like...

Today i picked up S*C*O*R*P*I*O*N by Chris Poole....A book published by Razorblade Press. I always seem to buy books by this publisher because...

a) They tend to have very good Dave Mckean type covers by Chris Nurse who's quite good.

b)They are very cheap at £4 a book.

c)They're Welsh.

Which doesn't always make a good book of course and up to now i've attempted to read 3 of them and always failed to get past page 20...

This ones very 'Chaos Magicky' and involves a Scorpion servitor being let loose on the world.I havn't read it yet but it's got a foreward by a real magician who acted as consultor to the authors warning that the rituals included in the book are authentic and he holds no responsibilty for any damage so i think it's proberly best to just read the book and not do any of the rituals contained...I think thats probelry just for the best...

00:53 / 17.04.03

It's great 1984...I must re-read it soon...You'll have to read Animal Farm next and Down and out in Paris...both exellent books...Apart from those i havn't read that much Orwell but a friend keeps hassling me to read 'The Road To Wigan Pier' and i've never got round to it...

paketto_keiretsu

02:15 / 17.04.03

fast food nation, eye of the world, and emma goldman's living my life.

all pretty good reads and the first is truly informative about fast food consumerist culture, and the last is a good prescription against the first.

lord nuneaton savage

11:27 / 17.04.03

Going back through Moorcocks Cornelius quartet at the moment cos it's sunny and it makes his lordship feel SWINGIN'...

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

12:03 / 18.04.03

Still reading Houellebecq's "Whatever" (yeah, I know it's a short book, but the weather's been so nice). Has a more sympathetic protagonist than either "Atomised" or "Platform". He's still very detached and unemotional, but there's, so far at least, less out and out misanthropy than in the later ones. As a result, I'm enjoying it more, but I'm also not sure if it's as good a book, if that makes any sense.

Then it'll be onto "Shit Magnet- One Man's Miraculous Ability to Absorb the World's Guilt" by Jim Goad, the guy who used to do Answer Me! magazine, which WILL be misanthropic and unpleasant.

After those I think I may have to psychically cleans myself by reading something nice, possibly about puppies.

00:27 / 19.04.03

i am having an on-and-off affair with 'Hatred of Capitalism' the Semiotext(e) anthology and eagerly awaiting a copy of the recently translated 'Battle Royale' that i ordered from the little bookstore nextdoor.

04:18 / 22.04.03

Andrew Vachss' "Safehouse" because it's been ages since I read some good crime fiction and I haven't been able to find a copy of it until now.

04:47 / 22.04.03

I just burned through Charles de Lint's Forests of the Heart. Pretty much swallowed it whole in one sitting... it reminded me a lot of the Peter Beagle novel Folk of the Air. Both are luscious, masturbatory fantasies about magical happenings and mythical beings.

Anybody else familiar with either the works or the authors?

11:39 / 22.04.03

Mononoke- has Battle Royale been transalated into English then? I can't find it on Amazon, bah.

21:52 / 22.04.03

Just finished a mighty dreadful piece of shite entitled Erskine's Box which I have to review; it's not good. McGrath did unstable narrators and childhood psychosis a long while ago. A man with no penis making wooden phalluses, 211 of them, in fact, and placing them in boxes of matching wood, closing away his repression... and you're not quite sure what's going on... but people around him die... and it's so sub-Ian-Banks it's not true.

It is published next Monday. Do not buy it. It gets better towards the end, but it mainly sucks.

In the pipeline/on the go: Joseph Andrews, Tristram Shandy (for the second time), The New Media Reader (which is wonderful).

Foust is SO authentic

01:21 / 23.04.03

Homebody by Orson Scott Card. Horror, Card style - common events shrouded in a cape of the supernatural. Very interesting.

The Return Of Rothkoid

03:52 / 23.04.03

Finally, Giles Goat-Boy has been laid to rest. Never to be read again, goddamnit.

SO I'm into Pattern Recognition, and am finding it light and refreshing. Not far into it, but it reminds me a bit of Bret Easton Ellis at this point - the naming of stuff, the breeziness in some ways... I dunno. I like it. I'm not a huge Gibson fan given that I think he survives on the sockwanking fanboy dollar a bit, but y'know - it's good so far.

Our Lady of The Two Towers

05:59 / 23.04.03

Rereading TechGnosis- Myth, Magic and Mysticism in the Age of Information by Erik Davis. Very interesting and hopefully this time I'll remember some of it when I've finished the book.

The Return Of Rothkoid

05:00 / 27.04.03

Oh, and rereading the Preacher TPBs I've got. The shame! On the first one at the moment.

16:24 / 27.04.03

After a long period of reading seemingly no fiction a all, I'm gulping down novels like candies.

Finally read Neil Gaiman's American Gods, which was all right, but suffered in having five or six endings in a row as each plot thread got its own neat resolution, each more anticlimactic than the last: massively disappointing that, having kept multiple balls in the air throughout the book, Gaiman should end his juggling act by letting each one fall with a discreet and resounding thud, one after the other.

Am still plowing through the Harry Potter books with my daughter: Rowling ups the ante with each book, and though some aspects of her worls remain painfully underimagined, with Goblet of Fire it becomes plain that's she's working on a far larger scale than was made plain by previous installments. She's still no prose stylist, and the huge structural deficiencies, plot holes, and ethical queasiness remain—but there's a real emotional punch in some of this stuff.

Chuck Palahniuk's Choke killed a single afternoon—my first real exposure to his prose, and one I'll deal with at greater length in the appropriate thread: suffice it to say that ol' Chuck seems to have some... funny ideas about girls.

But I'm following that up with Flannery O'Connor's short-story collection Everything That Rises Must Converge, reacquainting myself with the astonishing "Parker's Back" and many many others, so all will be well.

The Return Of Rothkoid

00:50 / 28.04.03

Finished the Gibson, which I like, though it seemed to come to an end way too fast, given the way it was built up. A little too house-of-cardsy, but I liked his prose a lot more than I seem to remember having done, so will make an effort with his other stuff, I think.

I'm now reading Dalton Trumbo's Johnny Got His Gun which I first read at university, and am ashamed to say I'd forgotten how good it is. Trumbo is a stone-cold motherfucker, and his introduction to the reprint I've got (which came out during the Vietnam War, though it was written in 1939) features alarming figures about brains and blood that you just know are only a fraction of reality. Yeah, it's the book that Metallica's "One" comes from. But it's compulsive, and honest, and homely - in places - and is utterly, fucking stay-awake terrifying because of the fall that's involved. I'm gobsmacked by it... it's brilliant and awful at the same time.

It's twee to say "it makes you think", but it really will. Go find it. It won't take long to read.

Our Lady of The Two Towers

13:52 / 28.04.03

Oy, I come back to work and I've got Mrs Dalloway and The Hours to read in about a fortnight.

Started on MD first, as seems logical. I'm enjoying it more or less so far, although I suspect if I hadn't had Elaine Showaddywaddy's introduction to set it in context I'd probably be chucking it aside by now. As it is, although at some points my eyes start to glaze a little it's fun. Certainly enough to make me consider trying more of her stuff, and maybe even Orlando again.

20:53 / 28.04.03

Two yummies to wade through:

Anarchy for the Masses:
The Disinformation Guide to the Invisibles
By Patrick Neighly, Kereth Cowe-Spigai
"An extremely forward-leaning series about conspiracy, magic, anarchy, world travel, the history of dissent, consciousness, fringe science, aliens, the quest for the Holy Grail, the future, pop culture, and the fifth dimension, 'The Invisibles' is a landmark in the literature not only of comics but also of social activism, consciousness theory, and the mechanics of changing the world for the better. Just as 'The Invisibles' is a comprehensive guide to life in the 21st century, ANARCHY FOR THE MASSES is a comprehensive guide to 'The Invisibles': it includes not only full annotations to every issue, and critical analyses, but also exclusive interviews with creator and writer Grant Morrison and all of the artists who molded Morrison's scripts into the breathtaking reality of The Invisibles."

Abuse Your Illusions:
The Disinformation Guide to Media Mirages and Establishment Lies
By Russ Kick
"From the editor of You Are Being Lied To and Everything You Know is Wrong, Abuse Your Ilusions is another enormous collection of writings about misinformation, deception, and outright lies from the media, the government, and the establishment generally. Investigative reporters, media critics, ex-government agents, and other experts reveal disturbing facts about the diamond trade, government-sponsored anti-drug ads, civilian deaths on the attacks on Afghanistan, the US's illegal bioweapons program, and more."

21:16 / 28.04.03

Anathema old thing, I think that, if you're reading those or have just read them, we'd rather hear what you actually thought of them than read what sounds suspiciously like a publisher's blurb...

01:14 / 29.04.03

Or a bookseller trying to drum up business... those titles are available through the Anathema Books website, I presume?

07:22 / 29.04.03

Well, the links on their front page go to Amazon (as do these) and, while the ones from Anathema have their ID tagged on the URL, these have a different one. So, yeah, I noticed, but...

The Return Of Rothkoid

13:56 / 29.04.03

Chowed through the Dalton, and now am onto Kobo Abe's The Woman In The Dunes, which I am ashamed to say I've always wanted to read solely because of its cool blurb. I haven't started yet.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

17:37 / 29.04.03

Just finished Jim Goad's "Shit Magnet"... about which I will start a thread when I'm less pissed and have had time to figure out my opinion thereof... suffice it to be said, it's not a book to be read lightly... think of the experience of watching "Salo" or "Ghosts of the Civil Dead"... they're great, but not particularly enjoyable... the jury's still out on whether Goad is a misogynist, or just a hard-done-by misanthrope...

Just started (for the second time- read the very beginning once before, then got pissed and left it on the bus) Alistair Reynolds' "Revelation Space". ACE so far.

The Return Of Rothkoid

11:34 / 30.04.03

The second Preacher TPB. Apparently, face-shots and "huh, huh - gay!" jokes aren't exactly the kind of literary speedhumps that slow me down any.

17:04 / 30.04.03

In retrospect, I think the first 4 issues were fun, but they went downhill after that. I bought the other 71 just to find out the ending.

I'm reading Jack Kerouac Lonesome Traveller which some fun little essays about travelling and working in the rail yards and whatnot. I'm having trouble finishing it though. I'm also re-reading Thomas Pynchon's Mason & Dixon which rocks to no end. Mechanical ducks, Jesuit conspiracies, and all the rest of the fun of the 1770s.

22:56 / 30.04.03

I'm having a bit of a steampunk moment, after I went through the League of Extraordianry Gentlemen at Easter: I'm reading The Diamond Age (marvellous) turn and turn about with The Haunting of Alaizabel Cray by a chap called Chris Wooding, which is really very good so far, and certainly much better than the cover would suggest. Reminds me a bit of Sabriel crossed with Philip Pullman's Sally Lockhart books - which can't be a bad thing...

19:09 / 01.05.03

Kit-Cat Club:
Anathema old thing, I think that, if you're reading those or have just read them, we'd rather hear what you actually thought of them than read what sounds suspiciously like a publisher's blurb...

As implied, I haven't finished reading them yet as they were only just released and I barely just received my copies when I made that post. I thought the publishers blurb would be helpful for those who were not aware of these books yet seeing as this site has a large Invisibles following and I hadn't noticed the book(s) mentioned here anywhere. Have seen others do the same on this thread before (as well as include their own seller codes) so I didn't realize it would be an issue. My intent was to be helpful and to share information, not to be sneaky. Once I finish reading the books perhaps I will come back and leave my opinion on them.

Jack Fear:
Or a bookseller trying to drum up business... those titles are available through the Anathema Books website, I presume?

Would you like an award for your great detective work? Please, get over the non-existant conspiracy! Yeah, so I sell books and those links had my code in them, it doesn't take a genius to figure that out. It wasn't meant to be a secret or an evil plot by the booksellers cabal. For the 50 cents or so that I would get if anyone actually used those links to buy a book is it really worth you getting all snotty about here? Geez, lighten up and worry about something that actually matters.

ONLY NICE THINGS

00:43 / 02.05.03

And by post two he's defensive. This bodes ill...

I'm on The Basic Eight by Daniel Handler, which is actually reminding me a lot of my time at college, but with fewer cars and no gym class. It's amusing, reads pretty quickly and has some nice stylistic touches, but it's not as good a grown-up book as A Series of Unfortunate Events are children's books, if you see what I mean. Good fun, though, and more than worth the 10p I paid for it at the Book and Comic Exchange.

Page: 1 ... 3 4 5 6 7(8)9 10 11 12 13... 19