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 ... 10 11 12 13 14(15)16 17 18 19

Tryphena Absent

21:09 / 01.09.03

I too dislike Dead Air and Shadowmoon!

I've just finished Cerulean Sins by Laurell K. Hamilton (published slash with a little vampire/werewolf thrown in to the mix). I feel that this is the best book to be placed on British shelves for quite a long time but fear that I may be showing my trashy and appalling tastes. I say this with confidence now that I can see all my books and realise they could plausibly be read by someone with the IQ score of a severely brain damaged seven year old who's addicted to speed. I'm currently reading Marianne Curley's Old Magic, a kid's book about witches, which is just marvnificent and particularly when you commute everyday.

The Return Of Rothkoid

04:31 / 02.09.03

Like an alarming number of people, I'm reading The DaVinci Code by someone who I can't remember. It reads very easily, and is a bit Tom Clancy-esque in that respect. Not too challenging, but kinda interesting. But I suppose when one of the first people introduced is a self-mortifying Opus Dei albino assassin, I guess you get that.

Our Lady of The Two Towers

16:12 / 02.09.03

I'm currently reaching the end of 'The Straw Men' by Michael 'Hey, it worked for Iain M. Banks' Marshall, it's a reread. He always writes a good book, fast paced, thrilling, with a nice line of wit.

22:30 / 02.09.03

Jeffrey Eugenides Middlesex is wonderful, just wonderful, and providing a lovely companion on the Tube in the mornings.

21:16 / 03.09.03

The Search For Alexander by Robin Lane Fox, about Alexander the Great. I'm only a few pages in, but the penchant for sweeping statements does not bode well. Could just be that I'm used to stuff that's a wee bit more reflexive - I don't know how historical type things are *supposed* to read.

07:45 / 04.09.03

I'm not sure where to begin in describing my dislike of Zorba the Greek. This is awkward, as it's a favourite book of Loomis the Greek (and Rothkoid too?) but I just loathed it. It seemed like over-wrought nonsense, peddling a point of view that I can't take seriously: salt-of-the-earth man shows his book-larned friend how to live truly and in touch with his real nature. Puke. Not to mention the misogyny that's scattered merrily throughout. And the boredom. God, but I hated this book.

Ahem, anyway.

I'm now reading The pleasure of finding things out, essays and talks by Richard Feynman. I've not read much yet but I'm enjoying it so far. I like them book-larned folk.

Whisky Priestess

14:52 / 04.09.03

Problem, Lady - are you referring to Michael Marshall Smith? Has he got a new (by which I mean thinly disguised rewrite of the old) book out? I know it's all the same, but a) that's kind ofcomforting and b) I have a soft spot for his stuff.

While on holiday I read Arthur Miller's Broken Glass (kind of pointless, doesn't know what it's saying)
Ford Madox Ford's The Good Soldier (faux-naive, meandering narrator renders it oddly compelling, quite moving)
The Player of Games by Iain M. Banks (Culture novel, as good as ever) and half of
Tennessee Williams's autobiography (smug poof namedrops and tries to pretend he doesn't love himself more than anyone else ever could)

Player of Games and Good Soldier vie for first place, Good Soldier winning out due to highbrow kudos plus readability.

15:58 / 04.09.03

I'm currently whizzing through 'Yellow Dog',which is an airport novel written by a grumpy little hunchback,bits and pieces of 'Cosmos' by Carl Sagan for the sparkly informative bits,and have just finished 'Please Kill Me'-an oral biography about the New York punk scene of the 60's/70's,all that grubby CBGBs stuff which makes you want to have a bath and obey your mothers' wishes about hard drugs.

ONLY NICE THINGS

20:53 / 04.09.03

Yeah, I had lectures with Lane Fox. Utterly hatstand. Prone to getting obsessed...

I've finally just read The Dark Lord of Derkholm, by Diana Wynne Jones. Deva is right - this is a lovely, lovely book. Everyone is so *nice*.

wembley can change in 28 days

05:31 / 05.09.03

Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser.

Occasionally great, occasionally questionable. Not that I'm ever going to set foot in a fast-food restaurant ever again in my life, mind you.... Anyone read his new one?

12:41 / 05.09.03

The Dark Lord of Derkholm- great book, especially if you've read too much fantasy as a child. Gotta love DWJ!
I'm on Chasm City (Alastair Reynolds), not as good as Revelation Space to my mind but not bad. I *have* to read Shadow Moon now, I haven't read anything truly fucking terrible for a while.

The Return Of Rothkoid

13:43 / 06.09.03

Kyril Bonfiglioli's The Great Mortdecai Moustache Mystery. Completed by someone else (Craig Brown, IIRC) and just as much fun as the others. I'm reading it because I've thrown my fucking back out moving washing machines today, and I need something brainless and fun, because that's all that's makin' it through the codeine. (Actually, scratch that - there's a Battle of the TV Stations on at the moment: You Only Live Twice versus Stayin' Alive.)

The Return Of Rothkoid

04:19 / 07.09.03

Dostoyevsky's The Devils. Suitably Russian.

22:29 / 07.09.03

I am, literally in the next couple of minutes, about to start Houellebecq's "Lanzarote"...

I thought Tracy had a Cortina.

wembley can change in 28 days

05:42 / 08.09.03

Dostoyevsky's The Devils. Suitably Russian.

One of my favourites! Although I prefer a particular translation which is titled The Possessed instead...

Currently flip-flopping between On Directing Film by Mamet, On the Black Hill by Bruce Chatwin, and The Idiot by Dostoevskij. Also suitably Russian.

09:02 / 08.09.03

The Mamet (On Directing Film) is really good - he's variable at times but it makes for an interesting read, especially the discursive structure of it.

I've just finished Middlesex which I thought was fantastic; I'm now working through an sf short stories collection but am probably going to begin The Corrections on tonight's commute home.

The Return Of Rothkoid

12:08 / 08.09.03

One of my favourites! Although I prefer a particular translation which is titled The Possessed instead...

Which one? This one has (or The Possessed) in small type underneath...

Grand Panjandrum of the Pointless

17:48 / 11.09.03

Just read Tibor Fischer’s latest, Voyage to the End of the Room, all about an agoraphobic computer designer and ex-exotic dancer who refuses to leave her flat, but nevertheless attempts to hunt down a serial killer with the help of a friendly debt collector.
I hadn’t read any of his books since The Thought Gang and, frankly, not much seems to have changed- except that TTG had a plot, whereas the new novel just seems to be a series of anecdotes badly strung together. They’re very good anecdotes, mind- Fischer’s trademark Anglo-Hungarian wackiness- but overall I felt let down. He was much better in Under the Frog.
Probably not worth it unless you happen find it very cheap and are bored.

19:21 / 11.09.03

On a whim yesterday I picked up a copy of Oscar Wilde's The picture of Dorian Gray at a second hand bookshop (because I imagined it to be something I should have read) and I'm embarassed to say that it's much better than I thought it would be.

Previously I've read The importance of being Ernest and been exposed to various Wilde quotes but was still unprepared for just how well written and observant this book is. Usually I race through pages and it's a novel but frustrating experience to have to slow right down to appreciate the pace of the writing. I find that I want to re-read passages again and again. Even if it ends appallingly then it will have been worth reading just to have all of these wonderfuly insightful descriptions constantly going round in my head.

The current favourite - 'She is a peacock in everything but beauty'

The Return Of Rothkoid

03:53 / 15.09.03

Praise by Andrew McGahan. Taking a break from The Devils because it's not exactly holiday reading, and I won't be finished before I head off on my trip. This one's about smack and Queensland, so is dodgy as you'd expect.

09:04 / 15.09.03

Haven't posted in this thread for ages.

Which is strange since I've considerably speeded up my reading since I finished University.

So if anybody cares, I've recently got through;

Brian Aldiss - Frankenstein Unbound
House of Leaves (what a bloody waste of time that was!)
William Burroughs - The Wild Boys
Wuthering Heights
Terrence McKenna - Food of the Gods
Nikolas Shreck - The Satanic Screen
Paradise Lost
Hunter S. Thompson - Songs of the Doomed

I also had another shot at reading The Golden Bough. Got a further 60 pages into it before getting bored. I'll probably finish it about the same time I start to go senile and forget it all.

Started Peter Ackroyd's 'Hawksmoor' last night.

13:02 / 15.09.03

Ooooh long thread... will read most of it eventually I guess.

I've been lazy this year and hardly read anything.
I re-read the Dune saga, only this time I stormed through it. Had a few messed up drugged up/sexual situations where the book started escaping from me and I thought I was in the last two installments (this happened the first time I read it aswell) which is fun scary.
Still unsure whether I should take the bait and read his son's pre-quels and eventual end to the saga... anyone read them?

At the moment I'm trying to track down Scott Heim's two books, In Awe and Mysterious Skin. I read them both years ago and I've been waiting patiently for his next novel. But it still hasn't surfaced.
He's like Dennis Cooper without the scary peadophile asthetic.

Loved Gaiman's American Gods whilst on holiday earlier this year. Very impressive.

Grand Panjandrum of the Pointless

20:11 / 17.09.03

Just been lazing in the leather armchairs of my local Borders sneakily reading bits of Terry Eagleton's autobiography -absolutely hilarious, especially the bits about aged patrician dons and mad Scottish aristocrats. In paperback and quite cheap too, though I didn't buy it.

05:20 / 18.09.03

Finally finished "Infinite Jest" for the second time. It read like a completely different book. because I knew all the characters and what happens to them - to a degree - I could recognise patterns, connections and plot threads I missed the first time. The book made even more brilliant.

Currently reading "Jennifer Government" by Max Barry. Fun sci-fi novel set in a future where corporations have almost entirely taken over, people's surnames are who they work for - thus the title - and Australia and the UK are states of the US. 3/4 of the way through and so far I'd recommend it.

Hattie's Kitchen

08:28 / 18.09.03

Just finished "Brick Lane" by Monica Ali - quite impressed, but I don't think it deserved all the hype it received.

Just started "Politics" by Adam Thirlwell, not keen on it so far, I find his writing style smacks of "Oooh, look how clever I am, I've namechecked Hoxton 'cos I'm so hip, and I'm only 25 as well!" the new Martin Amis? I think nottttt.

05:23 / 23.09.03

"Box Office Poison" TPB by Alex Robinson. Excellent, excellent comics. I'm enjoying it a lot and a miffed that it's taken me so long to pick it up. I'll start a thread in comics when I'm done.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

11:10 / 23.09.03

OK, so APART from the "trashy horror novel" phase I've been going through for about as long as I can remember (Just finished Simon Clark's "Darker"- great. Don't go expecting any literary merit, but it does rock) I'm currently in the middle of Douglas Coupland's "Hey Nostradamus!", which seems interesting so far. About a bunch of teeneage Christians in the years following a Columbine-style high school massacre. Has some very nice, thought-provoking paragraphs, and doesn't seem quite as... well, smug as a lot of Coupland's other stuff. Maybe cos his characters aren't so hip, I care about them more. But I don't know. It may get shit later.

Just bought (on Rothkoid's suggestion from many moons ago) "The Bear Comes Home"... that's SO gonna rock, that is.

Also starting [yoda]multi-task, I do. Badly[/yoda] John Shirley's "Demons" which looks like it's gonna be LOTSA FUN.

12:05 / 23.09.03

Garth Nix, Lirael: Daughter of the Clayr, vol 2 of a trilogy (inevitably). This is a good trilogy and I am enjoying it very much, though it could have done with a wee bit of editing for irritating repetitions; and also, I have guessed the ending of the trilogy already which is a bit of a humbug. I don't know what to read next but I suppose it ought to be history (this means I will end up going to the bookshop tonight and buying sci-fi in frustration because I can't get hold of the new X-Statix trade).

Do you suppose there would be any mileage in a thread about series, dynamics of series, and why it is that every bloody children's fantasy writer is impelled to write trilogies these days? (Except JKR, yes yes, I know)

14:43 / 23.09.03

Good thread idea. Be interesting to hear of good (non-genre?) stuff that falls into this classification.

I'm on the Amazing Adventures of Cavilar and Clay and enjoying it immensely.

01:06 / 24.09.03

I just finished the last of the two Martin Millar books the university library had, leaving me with no choice but to stock up next time I'm in England...

I'm almost done 'The Years of Rice and Salt' which rocked more than I though it would. Fun 'Ever wondered what the history of the world would be if the Black Death killed 99% of Europe?'

Next is Brendan Behan's 'Confessions of an Irish Rebel' which I read 8 years ago, and will probably appreciate a lot more now...

09:41 / 24.09.03

They didn't have the third volume of the trilogy at Borders so I bought Angela Carter's Nights at the Circus instead. It is good. Very voluptuous prose. Will start thread when I'm a bit further in if there isn't one already...

13:27 / 24.09.03

Iris Murdoch's Under the Net, which is being surprisingly funny and I'm enjoying a lot, even if I am reading it slowly.

Maominstoat: you're going to love The Bear. It's awesome.

unheimlich manoeuvre

16:58 / 24.09.03

*sniff sniff*

i want to buy Felaheen by Jon Courtenay Grimwood. jesus the price of books these days!
i've just reread the Left Hand of Darkness (lovely jubbly anthropological sci-fi) by Ursula Le Guin. started dipping into the Arcades Project which had been gathering dust on me shelf. it is awesome but piecemeal and everything i'd ask for...

...

ohh and thanks everyone for providing food for thought with their reviews.

18:01 / 24.09.03

After a long period where i just couldn't get past a few dozen pages of every book i picked up and was starting to think i'd lost the ability to read it suddenly dawned on me that i was proberly just reading rubbish books. Since then i've been lucky and the last couple of months i've found some corkers.

Mother London - Micael Moorcock...Liked his Cornelius books, Behold the Man and some others but this was the first 'proper' book by him i'd read. I thought it was fabulous. The sort of book that makes you really sad when it ends and you feel like starting it over again. What did you think of it Rothkoid?

Foucaults Pendulum - Umberto Eco...I guess it's one of those books you either love or hate. I loved it. Not nearly as difficult as i was expecting and far funnier. Nearly pissed myself towards the end when Pierre kills Lorenza and starts ranting 'I'a Cthulhu!'. Jesus not Lovecraft as well!

The Infernal Desire Machines of Dr Hoffman - Angela Carter... Beautiful book. I'd only read a couple of her short stories before and this has got me on to a Carter reading frenzy. The Bloody Chamber and Heroes and Villans and next up.

The Golem - Gustav Meyrink & In a Glass Darkly - Sheridan Le Fanu...Great spooky tales from the mid 19th and early 20th centuries. I've got a bit of a soft spot for supernatural tales from that period and i really enjoyed these.

ShamanSpace - Steve Aylett...At last an Aylett book i actually enjoyed and finished. He misses out most of Pratchettlike puns and writes some stunning lines.

Diary - Chuck Palahniuk...His last book 'Lullaby' delved into the idea of fiction shaping reality. Unfortunatly it mostly put me to sleep so i guess it did what it said on the tin. Enjoyed his other books but i kind of thought he'd run out of steam. Diary, though, is brilliant. His best since Fight Club. His usual stylistic tricks (tics) are there but they don't get too annoying as in Lullaby. I thought it was great.

Mystery in Spiderville - John Hartley Williams...Halfway through this and enjoying it a lot. Hard-boiled thriller put through a Burroughs mangler is proberly a good description. Surreal film noir.

Our Lady of The Two Towers

12:17 / 25.09.03

'Join Me' by Danny 'I'm friends with Dave Gorman' Wallace. I'm approaching halfway through and Danny has just been approached by a suspicious character who thinks Danny's set up 'Join Me' because he wants his own version of The Illuminati or a similar type of group. His writing style seems much the same as the first two chapters of 'Are You Dave Gorman?' I found once in my sister's bedroom but after a slow (and not amazingly funny I must say) start it really takes off as he realises he's got a cult- sorry, collective and now he's got to give them stuff to do. Thank God Tom never had this problem, and it's making me feel guilty about that group of people I maimed outside Sainsburys last week...

Page: 1 ... 10 11 12 13 14(15)16 17 18 19