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Underground > Books, Criticism & Writing >

2005: What are you currently reading?

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lord nuneaton savage

14:48 / 02.08.05

Just finished an enormous binge on all the Jerry Cornelius short stories I could find, which was a hell of a lot. Left me confused (about my own identity. Happening a lot at the mo') but very happy to have wondered in his strange and beautiful world for a while.

Just started "Grits" by Niall Griffiths. One of my favourite writers and deserving of a lot more than the constant Irvine Welsh comparisons that dog him. "My God, there are intoxicants used in this book, just like that Trainspotters thing everyone enjoyed all that time ago!"
I've always thought of him as closer to a Welsh version of Iain Sinclair. Knowing his past form I imagine it's going to get very depressing and send me sobbing back to Jerry.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

17:26 / 02.08.05

I've always thought of him as closer to a Welsh version of Iain Sinclair

Other than the obvious "but isn't Iain Sinclair originally from Wales?" comment, I have to say I agree, and I'm amazed more people don't get the Sinclair/Griffiths connection. I guess it's drugs+dialect=Irvine Welsh, which is just lazy.

Grits is ace. It introduces characters who appear in his later novels, but that's just trainspottery (rather than Trainspottingy, obviously). For my money, it's second only to Sheepshagger, which, despite its tabloid-baiting title, is by far his best book- Ianto is almost Blakean in his connection to the land and the "magic" therein, while the rest of the cast's "oh-so-very-hip" decadence is made to seem pale in comparison. Really, Sheepshagger's great. I really hope that wasn't his peak, though- none of his others, though they came close, have quite matched it.

07:39 / 03.08.05

I have just finished reading Cold Comfort Farm and would agree with those further up the thread - it's an excellent book.
I also read "Swag" by Elmore Leonard, which is classic Leonard really, nothing new but well written and entertaining as ever.
Over the weekend I picked up some of the earlier 87th Precinct novels by Ed McBain, tautly written suspenseful police procedurals.

lord nuneaton savage

11:40 / 03.08.05

Stoatie; I'd agree with you about "Sheep shagger" which was a stunning book. However, I think that "Stump" had some of his best writing in it, in terms of the characters and their interior dialogues. There's a bit in it when one of the scousers is thinking about digging his own grave that is awesomely powerful and moving.

And, of course, big "duh" for forgetting that Sinclair is Welsh. Mea culpa, etc. He's one of my favourite writers, as well.

Our Lady Has Left the Building

06:52 / 16.08.05

Just finished What the Media Are Doing to Our Politics by John Lloyd, was rather partisan in taking up a lot of time with slamming the BBC over the Hutton inquiry but not giving much attention to Fox News and/or News International.

On to The Return of the Shadow by Christopher Tolkien, the first part of his study of how his father developed The Fellowship of the Ring. It consists of the different drafts Tolkien did, showing the story turning from another Hobbit to the form we all know and love.

14:10 / 16.08.05

'LITERARY THEORY- a very short introduction' by J Culler.

I decided to finally sort out the difference between structuralism and post-structuralism in my head, and read an idiots guide on 'theory'. Turns out to be complex and indefinable by nature, phew, not just my headcheese then.
It's excellently written, here's an exemplary excerpt;

It's an unbounded corpus of writings...Theory is thus a source of intimidation, a resource for constant upstagings: "What? you haven't read Lacan! How can you talk about the Lyric without addressing the specular constitution of the speaking subject?"

17:05 / 18.08.05

Gloriana: the unfulfilled queen by Michael Moorcock. Murder, magic, mayhem and sexual frustration in a weird alternative/fantasy take on the Elizabethan era. The action’s quite visually-engaging, to me, as most of it takes place in an enormous castle, big enough to encompass towns and things (if I’ve got it right). There are shadowy spaces between the walls where the flotsam and underbelly of society lurk. Anyway, it’s pretty good, and it features John Deeas a principal character. Mind you, this is my Nth attempt to read it.

Also reading Will Self's Junk Mail, a collection of his articles from newspapers and magazines, which I'd really recommend...

10:13 / 19.08.05

I'm reading David Mitchell's Ghostwritten, which I am loathing fairly extensively; Cloud Atlas was one of the best things I've read this year, and his first novel just seems so hamfisted by comparison. Some of the stories have been enjoyable, but then the fact that they've ended, and been replaced by something extremely irritating has kind of crimped the joy.

OJ

11:06 / 19.08.05

Heart Songs by Annie Proulx. Sparse short stories about New England hunters, with a pretty bleak outlook.

Have nearly finished it and am about to go in the opposite direction entirely and read The Line of Beauty, which I don't expect will be characterized by tautness or sparseness. Or indeed characters of few words and a brace of dead geese.

Hallo, Paper Spaceboy

14:39 / 19.08.05

Watch Your Mouth, by Daniel "Lemony" Handler. Not bad so far, trying to reproduce an operatic feel, although at times a bit too self-conscious (the meta aspect isn't done carefully enough, or subtly enough). That's made up for by the golem element, though. It hasn't strayed too much into the Catcher in the Rye territory mined by other "college fiction" (I'm thinking of Chip Kidd's Cheese Monkeys, ick), so I think it's going in a good direction.

I think I like Handler's short story "Delmonico" better though.

Tryphena Absent

17:35 / 21.08.05

I'm in the middle of Rendezvous in Venice by Phillipe Beaussant. Really enjoying it.

20:31 / 21.08.05

About 300 pages into Confusion, the sequel to Quicksilver. It's a bit more action focussed than the earlier book, and all the adventures at sea stuff is fantastic. My pile of books to read next is increasing every day though, with a collected works of Jonathon Swift, The Master and Margarita, Pride and Predjudice, We Need to Talk About Kevin and Thundersqueak all joining a fairly big list already. Still, I'm off to LA tomorrow, so should be able to get through a fair bit of Confusion on the plane.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

20:57 / 21.08.05

Just started The Wild Highway by Bill Drummond and Mark Manning (aka Zodiac Mindwarp). It's the sequel to Bad Wisdom (in which Bill and Z- and Gimpo, obviously- travelled- or attempted to travel- to the North Pole to plant an effigy of Elvis) and this time they've gone to Zaire because "Z and I realised that we had sold our souls to the devil and if we wanted to retrieve them we should head for darkest Africa, confront Satan and demand our souls back, and if that didn't work, nick them back off him while he wasn't looking. As for why Gimpo is here, I've no idea. He's obviously never been stupid enough to lend his soul to anyone, let alone sell it to the devil".

So far, as expected, it's offensive on every level, including some I hadn't thought of before.

11:46 / 22.08.05

I'm about a third of the way through Infinite Jest. It's slow going, since I'm taking notes on the chronology, and I admittedly have to look up an awful lot of words. It's kind of cute though, since whenever I'm reading it in a public place, people ask me what I'm studying.

14:11 / 22.08.05

About 300 pages into Confusion, the sequel to Quicksilver.

Glad to hear the sequel is good reading. I´m currently wading trough Quicksilver. I´ve been reading for weeks, and in the last week I finally got over the slump and now have less than 200 pages to go. The book really got interesting for me when Jack and Eliza came along and I do hope to see more of L'Emmerdeur in the second book!

09:23 / 23.08.05

Papers (what do I call you, btw?), can you say more about the Handler book - especially about the way it thinks about vocality/aurality/technologies of voice reproduction? I'm intrigued.

10:07 / 23.08.05

The book really got interesting for me when Jack and Eliza came along and I do hope to see more of L'Emmerdeur in the second book!

You're in for a treat. I'm still not sure which is my favourite book of the three but I think my favourite 200 pages of the entire trilogy (sorry, Cycle) are in The Confusion. L'Emmerdeur features heavily...

20:21 / 24.08.05

That´s good news! I finished Quicksilver an hour ago, and now I´m pondering, if I should buy the next book straightaway or start on one of my many unread books first.

So for all, who quit Quicksilver: I know how you feel. It took me about two months two finish, stopping and starting again, but with Jack and Eliza it picks up and only gets better and better. I even looked up something in a very big book on English history!

The Return Of Rothkoid

00:17 / 25.08.05

Anne Radcliffe's The Romance Of The Forest. The lead character shits me to tears.

10:13 / 25.08.05

I'd tend to go for The Confusion straight after, Mistoffelees -this might just be because I want more people to read the Baroque Cycle, but each book does start directly after the other so I think it might be quite easy to lose the flow between them if you leave it too long.

I'm currently re-reading Tender Is The Night, and once again finding lots of things I missed the first time round. Also, nominally, a biography of St Augustine (nominally because I've been too tired to read at home this last week) which is interesting because I didn't really know that much about his life before I started. The author does do this odd frame-breaking thing every now and then, though -not quite "and only then did go back to Italy. What's that about eh?!!", but not far off either.

12:52 / 25.08.05

Super-Adaptoid Alan Dean Foster's "Splinter of the Mind's Eye". The first original Star Wars novel, right after the first movie, back when we didn't know Luke, Leia and Annie were one big dysfunctional family, we didn't know if Han was sticking around, hell, we didn't even know if there was going to be a sequel.
Highlights- Luke defeats Vader in a lightsabre duel, Vader throws a Hadouken, adjustable lightsabre blades, and Luke and Leia nearly make out. A couple of times.
Leia actually shows some characterisation reflecting losing a planet and being tortured by the Empire.
Loosely based on early drafts of the Star Wars script that eventually became The Dark Crystal.

11:36 / 26.08.05

just read two of feist's new series. And they're not very good, I don't think he's written anything decent since darkness at seth. But I have a forlorn hope the next one will be slightly better.

Also getting round to reading nadja.

16:28 / 26.08.05

I just finished The Deluge by Henryk Sienkiewicz. It has to be the longest thing I've ever read (about 1700 pages), but man was that great! It reminds me a lot of the Three Musketeers, except that it takes place in Poland in the 1640s-60s and involves a lot of battles with Cossacks, Swedes, and Prussians.

The first book of the series (With Fire and Sword) is great too. I highly reccomend it... I can see why he won the Nobel Prize...

20:01 / 28.08.05

Just tied up Breaking Open The Head by Daniel Pinchbeck. Really decent exploration of psychadelics, not so much of his journey towards shamanism (which I was under the impression was the other 1/2 of the book). Also kind of light on exploring drawbacks of over-using various substances, or that magic mushrooms/what-have-you does not necessarily equal enlightenment.

Now, my reading is split between Jennifer Roberson's Chronicles of the Cheysuli and a rerun of Eric Garcia's Casual Rex.

21:26 / 28.08.05

I'm in the middle of the first book of A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth - which I'm enjoying, but not nearly as much as I liked The Golden Gate (written entirely in sonnets). It doesn't have the same lyricism (probably not surprisingly, given that it's not poetry as such), but it's still really gripping. And the insights into the closeted world of India in the 1950s manages to make something hard to imagine, like living completely isolated from the opposite sex from childhood until death, frighteningly real.

But, also, I just finished Michael Chabon's The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, which is perfect.

Whisky Priestess

00:44 / 29.08.05

Digital Fortress by Dan Brown.

For research purposes only.

09:22 / 31.08.05

At the moment I am currently reading two books; one for Uni and leasure enititled "The artists reality" by Mark Rothko, and a history book entitled "Jews and the American Soul", by Andrew Heinz.

09:31 / 31.08.05

"Collapse" by Jared Diamond - big important ecological tome. Pretty awesome, getting more important every day. Fascinating for the scientific detailing of our enviromental degradation.

"What is Situationism: A Reader" ed. Stewart Home - lots of people accounts and opinions re. the guys who brought us teh Spectacle. Some really excellent pieces and some great historical background.

"Ruby in the Smoke" by Philip Pullman. 16 year old heroine has adventures in Victorian London. I wonder which one I'm going to finish first.

18:02 / 31.08.05

I am trying to read "The Society of The Mind" by Eric L Harry. It's about a huge AI mainframe that has problems and a multiple pesonality psychologist expert comes in to heal its selves so it can fuction as a better AI. It's based on a scientist's ideas called Marvin Minsky based at MIT labs.

FOR EXAMPLE:

Minds are what brains do. The Society of Mind theory views the human mind and all other naturally evolved cognitive systems as a vast society of individually simple processes known as agents. These processes are the fundamental thinking entities from which minds are built, and together produce the many abilities we attribute to minds. The great power in viewing a mind as a society of agents, as opposed to as the consequence of some basic principle or some simple formal system, is that different agents can be based on different types of processes with different purposes, ways of representing knowledge, and methods for producing results.

This idea is perhaps best summarized by the following quote from Minsky:

"What magical trick makes us intelligent? The trick is that there is no trick. The power of intelligence stems from our vast diversity, not from any single, perfect principle. - Marvin Minsky, The Society of Mind, page 308

11:04 / 01.09.05

I just finished Clandestine by James Ellroy- the usual Ellroy plot ; stand out rookie cop with ideas above his station gets involved with the seedy underbelly of 50's LA leading his downfall/ redemption- it was ok, but not a patch on LA confidential/ American Tabloid. Also with Ellroy you have the winsome machismo which can grow tedious and only just balances itself out with page turning plot twists.

Before that i read Everything is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer which was very good. For those that haven't read it- its a black comedy that follows a young american guy to Ukraine, to find the village his jewish grand parents had fled in the war. We get there via an inept tour guide who speaks English learnt from a thesaurus and a multitude of misunderstandings. Very funny and sad- and just about to come out as a movie- read it now before it get s the captain corelli treatment.

I'm 15 pages into Cloud Atlas right now so thoughts on that in a couple of weeks... Just reading this thread has made me realise how little i've read this year.

Stoatie any more thoughts on The Wild Highway? I saw it the other week and was tempted- i may go and get it in my lunch break as i just got paid...

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

18:50 / 01.09.05

Wild Highway's great (though, as I said, offensive on every conceivable level)- I'm taking a break from it right now, though, as I just picked up a copy of Jeffrey Bernard's "Reach For The Ground: The downhill struggle of Jeffrey Bernard". It's mostly his columns, plus three very touching autobiographical essays, and a dangerously funny foreword by Peter O'Toole. Spotted it just while leaving a second-hand bookshop this afternoon with one of my best mates, who, in response to my "but I'm trying not to spend any money" wavering, just said "that book was MADE for you. You'd be fucking stupid not to buy it".
Also reading David Mitchell's "Ghostwritten" (I have "Cloud Atlas" up next).

03:04 / 05.09.05

about a hundred and fifty or so pages into joyce's 'ulysses'. fan-fucking-tastic! why have i not got to this before?? excuse me, gotta go... [anon]

P. Horus Rhacoid

14:55 / 05.09.05

I just picked up "The Innocence of Father Brown" by Chesterton, and have discovered that it's perfect for reading on the tube. The stories are short enough that I can get through one of them in one or two trips. Chesterton's language and imagery, as usual, amaze. Lovely.

Also, for reasons not entirely clear to me I'm re-reading Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time. At least up to the point where stuff stops happening.

Our Lady Has Left the Building

20:33 / 05.09.05

Whisky Priestess- You just keep telling yourself that.

Finished Iain M. Banks' The Algebraist which bored me somewhat, probably by being a good hundred pages longer than it needed to be. With a panto bad guy and characters that disappeared for chapters at a time, this was a very good story by a very skilled author who ruined it by not restraining himself.

Now onto Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen. The first of her books I've ever tried. I'm about two-and-a-half chapters in and not particularly interested yet.

23:05 / 05.09.05

hey, copey's bottle, i just finished Clandestine, too! I thought it had one of the worst reveals in all of Ellroy's career. It had to be that guy. Who else could it be? Anyway, I thought it was decent.

TO EVERYBODY WHO HASN'T FINISHED THE BAROQUE CYCLE
the ending is extremely satisfying, especially if you love L'Emmerdeur

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