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 >

Recently Read

Page: (1)2 3 4

deletia

10:17 / 13.07.01

So, as a break from the "best books in the world" topic while it gets sorted out, how about this: what have you read lately, and what did you think of it?

My last week or so:

Nancy Drew Mystery #119 - derring-do at a friend's wedding. Who cut the girth on her saddle? Who assaulted the beautiful stalker of the husband-to-be?

Bit disappointing, really. George is still King Lesbian, but is largely marginalised by boyfriend Ben. Not much happens. Denouement is too sudden. I think after the first 110 or so, they probably stopped caring. Still, hail the library system and its fine stores of young adult fiction.

The War of Desire and Technology at the End of the Mechanical Age - Allucquere Rosanne Stone - Saw it in the B&C exchange, looked interesting. Solid, theory-lite accounts of various moments in the eroticisation or gendering of technology - good stuff on Julia Graham and Brenda Laurel. Lost me a bit as soon as she started wibbling on about the vampire friggin' Lestat, mind.

The Master and Margarita - Bulgakov

Just finishing now, because everyone said I ought to read it. Interesting, and enjoyable, although I question whether it can be described as "surreal" per se. I feel there's a context I should know better to enjoy it fully, but it's holding up.

Ganesh

10:26 / 13.07.01

Nice idea, Haus.

I've recently read Neil Gaiman's 'Neverwhere' and 'American Gods' in quick succession. The latter is by far 'meatier', managing (with the odd lapse) to avoid Gaiman's signature tweeness. I'm something of a sucker for his 'updating' of gods, mythologies and other archetypes: thought my own namesake came across quite well ("It's all in the trunk" was one plot twist I sussed well before it happened), but Kali seemed uncharacteristically mumsy...

Currently around three-quarters of the way through the Madonna biography. It's strangely flat: a few nice little nuggets I hadn't heard but irritatingly full of amateur psychology on the subject of Madonna's mother's death and her subsequently odd relationship with her father. Also rather badly written - at least two instances of confusing 'your' with 'you're', which always grates with me. Still, it manages not to be too worshipful of its subject, and actually pins down her Diana-like tendency to use the media then claim innocence.

10:54 / 13.07.01

I'm spending the summer doing "summer reading"; re-rereading things I read in high school or college.

The most recent book I finished was Richard Farina's "Been Down So Long, It looks like Up." Farina was a schoolmate of Thomas Pynchon's, a rival of Bob Dylan's in the Greenwich village folk scene (and, according to a new book on both of them, arguably the inventer of the synthesis of folk and rock Dylan was later able to bring to the masses). The book itself was better than your average first novel, but it was hamstrung by Farina's proto-Beat mythmaking in his textual doppelganger, Gnossos Papadopilous. A fairly enjoyable read if you like campus novels, 60s culture, and/or drugs.

Also reread heart of darkness and 1984 recently. I'm working on Howard Zinn's a People's History of the United States, and re-reading "Techgnosis" and "Great Mambo Chicken"

11:01 / 13.07.01

As for the Master and Margarita, I guess it has to be understood in the context of Stalin's purges and the fact that anyone could "dissappear" overnight. I recently read a small piece about Shostakovitch that said during his waning years carried with him an overnight bag and toothbrush in case he was spirited away to the Gulags. Bulgakov was under similar strain, i guess, and even burned the manuscript of a novel he had completed to avoid having the censors get at it (the refrain of "Manuscripts dont' burn" throughout the book). I particularly enjoyed the Jesus/Pilate chapters in the book.

The Return Of Rothkoid

11:04 / 13.07.01

In the last week or so, and following on from a quick burst of Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain - bitchiness, cooking and a fuckload of drugs - I finished reading Wilkie Collins' The Woman In White, which was pretty good, up until about the last third. Then, it started to just go downhill, becoming "I've read x-hundred pages already, so I'll finish, goddamnit"-style reading. But still quite enjoyable in places, though the ending's amazingly well-flagged about halfway-through.

Following that, I read Tibor Fischer's The Collector Collector, which was rather well-written, but seemed to be lacking a reasonable framework. It started out really well, but then seemed to lack an idea of where to go, and devolved, largely, to a series of rather cool vignettes sticky-taped together. For some reason, the way the pot spoke kinda reminded me of you, Haus.

I'll soon be able to add MIchael Chabon's The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay to this list, but it's really one of those books that you don't want to end...

11:40 / 13.07.01

What have I read lately?

Well, I've just finished 'Player of Games' by Ian M. Banks. I did enjoy it, the obsession and immersion, and mingling of cultures so utterly opposed was very interesting. The game "Azad" struck me as a complicated Wargame crossed with Magic: The Gathering(tm) or is that just me?

Also just finished re-reading 'Greenwitch' by Susan Cooper. A switch of pace from the heavier and darker "Dark is Rising", almost back to the romp that was Over Sea, Under Stone... but maintaining the dark overtones of the Second book. It's also interesting to see Will (An Old One) and how he relates to other children with his powers and knowledge.

To pass short spaces of time I'm dipping into Peter Carey's collected Short Stories. Marvelous.

Oh and I've just started American Gods....

deletia

11:50 / 13.07.01

quote:Originally posted by todd:
As for the Master and Margarita....

Yes, I know. I was thinking more about not speaking Russian - I'm reasonably used to reading things in the original, and I tend to feel I'm missing out on something when I don't.

Plus, I suspect there are references to the minutiae of the purges going on all the time, which I'm missing. Anyone know if there is an annotated version out there?

12:58 / 13.07.01

I'm currently reading Artemisia: The story of a Battle for Greatness by Alexandra Lapierre, translated by Liz Heron - and am very enthusiastic about it. I was intrigued by the allusions to Artemisia Gentileschi in Drusilla Modjeska's wonderful The Orchard when I read that a few years back, and it was good to come across a really well researched biography. This edition (Vintage, 2001) has notes, a bibliography and colour plates of paintings by Artemisia and her father, to whom she was apprenticed. Artemisia was cruelly raped by an artist friend of her father; the subsequent trial was the first ever to be fully documented.

13:05 / 13.07.01

As discussed in other thread, I recently finished Flash & Filigree by Terry Southern. Extremely good.

I'm about to launch into 'Burning Chrome' by William Gibson and 'The King in Yellow' by Robert W. Chambers.

I'm also approaching the end of 'Apocalypse Culture II' and hereby beg forgiveness for rubbishing it when it was discussed here a while ago. Some of the more blatant attempts at shock value are a bit tedious, but there's tons and tons of genuinely fascinating and terrifying stuff and the overall effect on a healthy brain after consuming the whole lot should not be underestimated... <hides under kitchen table with gun, and shivers>.

13:16 / 13.07.01

just finished reading "hardboiled wonderland and the end of the world" by murakami which i greatly enjoyed even though i was left with a vague sense of unease and dissatisfaction at the end.

re-reading "the passion" by winterson, which i have read probably once a year since 89/90.

about halfway finished with "marabou stork nightmares" by welsh, which is holding my interest quite well at the moment.

The Return Of Rothkoid

13:32 / 13.07.01

quote:Originally posted by The Haus of Thorns:
Anyone know if there is an annotated version out there?
There's a web-based annotation here. It seems to be the only one I can find. Northwestern University Press publish a critical companion, edited by Laura D Weeks, which may help also, if you can find a copy.

Regrettable Juvenilia

13:35 / 13.07.01

Last book I actually finished was William Gibson's Neuromancer a few weeks back - which was a bit of a revelation, maybe because it was the first science fiction novel I've read in a long, loooong time. I don't know if I liked it more because it reminded me what I used to like about sf, or because it contained lots of stuff I didn't expect from sf: desperate sex, affecting emotional bleakness, unsettling suspense, spy movie thrills, leather pants and pop-out claws. Crikey.

Then it was onto Paul Auster's The Red Notebook, but sadly after the first chunk, the bit that's actually 'The Red Notebook', it started to bore me. What worries me about Auster is that I suspect that he believes being a writer is the hardest game in the world, as well as the worthiest... Anyway, it was due back to the library, so back it went.

I'm now currently stalled somewhere near the beginning of both Great Expectations by Kathy Acker (on the fiction front), and Judith Butler's Gender Trouble (non-fiction). The latter is proving to be very slow going, albeit rewarding. I'm sure this is because my brain has completely lost any ability to take in what we might call 'academic' prose since I left Uni, and I'm wondering if I should start making notes...

13:43 / 13.07.01

Just finished Ali Smith's Hotel Story. It was fabulous, but then I like everything she writes. She's great at those tiny moments that make you think 'of course!', and also at portraying pain and grief - I don't know whether that's based on her own experience but I'd suspect so.
I'm currently reading James Kelman's latest, Translated Accounts and Malcolm Bradbury's To The Hermitage. The Kelman one is very, very strange but engaging enough that I'll keep on going. Bradbury was a very clever man and I'm thoroughly enjoying this one. He's taken Diderot's life and built up two stories of then and now - Diderot in the Russian court, and then a modern 'Diderot Project' - scholars travelling to Russia and talking about the philosopher. He does a great piss take on overly serious academics.

13:53 / 13.07.01

Umm -- The Road to Oz by L. Frank Baum was the third to last book I finished.
(The other two were also kids' books: The Magic Finger and Fantastic Mr. Fox, two brilliantly anti-hunting stories by Roald Dahl -- basically short stories published under their own covers, took about an hour to finish both while conversing with a sleepy seven-year-old.)
Those Oz books, though, are brilliant and strange. I've reached the point in my girlfriend's collection were there are gaps, but they stand up on their own fine -- it's not really important knowing characters' backstories beyond what Baum reiterates.
Amazing how much stuff in Sandman, say, got lifted from Baum (including Mervin Pumpkinhead - his spiritual daddy, Jack, is more fun).
And, as I've mentioned before, the second book ends with a magical sex change, which is brought up in every subsequent book in passing. It's also not hard to see how they could be read as allegory.

I'm in the opening chapters of The Osha, written by a Miami Santero named Julio Garcia Cortez. The grammar and sentence structure are pretty bad, and he's given to editorializing about the evils of the slave trade and the shadiness of Palo Mayombe and other "dark" faiths loosely related to Santeria. But, he pretty obviously knows his shit when it comes to sycretic religions and feels very strongly about representing the truth to the people. Fascinating stuff.
Apparently it's available from Amazon.

Oh, and I just finished a collected volume of The Kin-Der-Kids, another comic strip from the Little Nemo era.
The characters are drawn like tiny German Expressionist nightmares. Brilliantly odd stuff.

Regrettable Juvenilia

14:02 / 13.07.01

I forgot to mention I've also been reading some short stories a contact in the conspiracy was kind enough to send me... including the first couple of chapters of Carol A Queen's The Leather-daddy & the Femme, which were just delightful, and a very good story called 'What She Gives Up' - can't remember the name of the author but it's from an anthology called The New Fuck You.

Oh and on a vaguely related note I've also been dipping into The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things by JT Leroy... It's weird, a collection of interconnected short stories (so connected that it's more like a novel, which always fascinates me) that are semi-autobiographical in a particularly uncomfortable way. And not just because the subject matter (which may or may not be heavily based on Leroy's own childhood) includes child abuse, prostitution, incest, cross-dressing, sadomasochism and the church... Anyway, I gather it's very much in the same vein as his first novel, Sarah (a worrying trend with recent young authors, see: Palahniuk), but I'm interested all the same.

[ 13-07-2001: Message edited by: The Flyboy ]

Goodness Gracious Meme

14:17 / 13.07.01

Nice thread idea...

Just finished a thing called Switch Hitters: lesbians write male erotica... and gay men write lesbian erotica

Most of which is as well written as that title, sadly. Maybe one good story, several okay for laughably-bad comic value... Bit of a disappointment, and the switching gimmick not put to any useful use. Was hoping there might be play with the norms/forms of gay/lesbian porn writing but no such luck.

Much better was Lesbians, Levis and Lipstick : The Meaning of Beauty in Our Lives eds.Cogan, J & Erickson, J

Exploring questions around codification of attractiveness/beauty/peer and societal pressures as relating to lesbian/trangender/bisexual communities. Especially interesting consideration of how the bisexual woman is positioned.

And continuing a phase of rereading Dorothy L.Sayers novels not touched since my teens: Murder must advertise - fun and fascinating for all sorts of play witih roleplaying and re-production, references beyond the story to other contexts etc..

and Clouds of Witness, didn't enjoy quite so much interesting for shading in background info...

16:25 / 13.07.01

I'm halfway through From Alchemy to Chemistry, a surprisingly clear, concise and well-written historical treatise for the layperson. The author was a chemistry professor, and I was rather worried that it would be a dry read... It's short, sweet and fun, however. And the pictures are delightful.

17:17 / 13.07.01

It's been a good couple of months:

Haruki Murakami's 'Hardboiled Wonderland and the End of the World' - which I liked the most of all of his books I think. Same sort of stuff that he always writes about, but it seemed more coherent for some reason. Maybe it's because I'm getting used to his (and his translator's) writing style. Probably my favorite author right now.

Amy Fusselman's 'The Pharmacist's Mate' - good, small, quick, sad read about life and death and whatnot.

Phillip K. Dick's 'Ubik' and 'The Man in the High Castle' - how they're so different from each other. 'High castle' read like some of Delillo's 70's stuff; 'Ubik' was just weird and cool.

Chris Ware's 'Jimmy Corrigan' - which I've been wanting to read for quite a while, which I fucking loved; still have that image of Jimmy's grandfather coming after him w/ that walker as he's leaving town near the end of the book, phenomenal.

George Saunder's 'Pastoralia' - big fan of his stuff ('Civilwarland in Bad Decline', 'The Very Persistent gappers of Frip'), so funny and so outrageously sad, what it's like to work in historical theme parks, male strippers, selfhelp gurus, toeless barbers.

Just started Samuel Delany's 'Dhalgren'. Anybody read this?

17:33 / 13.07.01

quote:Originally posted by tracypanzer:
It's been a good couple of months:

George Saunder's 'Pastoralia' - big fan of his stuff ('Civilwarland in Bad Decline', 'The Very Persistent gappers of Frip'), so funny and so outrageously sad, what it's like to work in historical theme parks, male strippers, selfhelp gurus, toeless barbers.

Love "Civilwarland". I've got Pastoralia but I've yet to get around to reading it. Maybe that'll be my subway book next week. I think I may in fact prefer Saunders to Eggers, Wallace, etc. because he seems to have, in addition to the kind of "post-irony" vibe the other two try to portray, a kind of sweet and sincere metaphysic that's refreshing without being reactionary.

17:41 / 13.07.01

Saunder's is a blast to see and hear read, too. His character voices are spot-on. Yeah, I'd put him right up there w/ David Foster Wallace. Eggers I'm not so sure of, unless it's true that he writes everything on the website and in the journals, in which case he's a scary fucking genius.

20:04 / 13.07.01

OK, in the last week-and-a-half (in which time I have not been working, btw):

With Nails by Richard E. Grant - fairly funny, but the best thing about it is Grant's self-portrait as a young fop, which is most appealing: a good light read.

Identity by Milan Kundera - I thought this was much more focussed than The Unbearable Lightness of Being, and (perhaps unsurprisingly) more mature - it's really subtly done, yet the clarity is stonishing. If you haven't read any Kundera it's probably a good place to start.

The Goshawk and The Book of Beasts, both by T. H. White. White was a marvellous man, as far as I can tell - learned, witty, kindly, clever - these two are minor works and not easy to find, but well worth it if you can. The Goshawk deals with White's attempt to train a hawk from scratch, using seventeenth-century manuals; the feeling for the bird is quite beautiful. The Book of Beasts is White's translation of a mediaeval bestiary and is thoroughly charming, especially the notes and the history of bestiaries which is appended.

The Outsider by Camus - took me long enough to get round to this one...

The Weather in Japan by Michael Longley - some of the lyrics are lovely, and it rings true as a collection - but I found it a little distant at times and slightly too oblique. Not a word out of place, and perhaps that was the problem...

The Fig Eater by Jody Shields - really enjoyed this; it's not a hard read but it is written so well that it pays to take it at a leisurely pace - it's really luscious, like cold plums.

Frances Farmer

22:04 / 13.07.01

"Coercion" - Douglas Rushkoff

Interesting, but theory-light exploration of the methods of advertisement and marketing. Examples and discussions detailing the purposes and methods of companies like Muzak and other marketing-related giants. A brief discussion on the topography of internet marketing.

"The Transparent Society" - David Brin

Takes a look at society from the standpoint of inevitable constant surveillence. The idea that no matter what, cameras will be trained on us at all times, and it's our responsibility to make certain the cameras point both ways. Fascinating stuff.

"A Scanner Darkly" - Phil K. Dick

Just started. If I tried to tell you it was about, I'd be resorting to quotes from the jacket. Apparently, it involves drugs and undercover cops.

08:44 / 14.07.01

Just finished Auster's The New York Trilogy, which was very, very good... but somehow feels not-quite brilliant. It's hard to pin down. City of Glass is easily the best of the three, and I found The Locked Room probably the weakest. It's strange... though Auster's trying to do something with the ending of each story, it doesn't work to my mind - I mean, it does exactly what he wants it to do... but it almost feels too-rubbed-in by the end.

Though I know most of you hate Amis, it's take on the detective novel (and writing style) reminded me a lot of Night Train. It's better than that, of course, but had strong similarities.

Conclusion so far? Three brilliant thrillers... but in a broader picture, it's only very good. Hmn.

The Return Of Rothkoid

12:38 / 14.07.01

quote:Originally posted by Paleface:
... but somehow feels not-quite brilliant. It's hard to pin down.
Yeah. I found Auster to be particularly frustrating when I read that book - it's vaguely Twilight Zone, but doesn't seem to come together - the idea's there, but it doesn't seem to be stated properly. Gah. For something that gets raved up so completely, I can't believe how flawed it appears.

And everyone who's reading Murakami; mmmm. He's the man.

14:10 / 14.07.01

Diana Wynne Jones's Witch Week - skimmed for fanfiction research, but I love this book and am giving it to everyone I know who likes Harry Potter so they can see what happens in a slightly more dystopian twist on the "boy becomes wizard" theme.

Ursula le Guin The Dispossessed and The Left Hand of Darkness on a friend's recommendation, since I've never read any le Guin before. I liked them, but I thought LHoD was heterocentric and was slightly annoyed by the way no-one disliked the main character in "The Dispossessed". I think it's hard to write good theoretical fiction, though, and some of the problems were showing in these two books.

Jenny Pausacker's Getting Somewhere - a lovely book about twins, maths, and sorting your life out, with the best ever description of one of those days where you're really depressed and then work out you were premenstrual and cheer up a bit.

Drucilla Cornell At the Heart of Freedom: Feminism, Sex and Equality. I find her prose style a bit much, but I'm very interested in her attempt to create a rights-based legal framework which is non-discriminatory but recognizes the importance of sex, race, & sexuality in people's lives.

Next I have to read Oscar Wilde's The Soul of Man Under Socialism in return for my "wild for Wilde" housemate/SO watching "La Heine".

Flyboy: don't give up on Gender Trouble. I read it after a hardcore year of reading "academic prose" (doing an MA) and found it pretty hard going. Every now and again it just goes "Ping!" and you think "Of course!" but in the meantime it's two-pages-an-hour stuff at times... and the Carol A Queen stuff sounds very intriguing.

For some reason I can't scroll down far enough to see who posted about "lesbians write gay male erotica and vv", but could you tell me whether the book mentions fanfiction at all? There are a lot of lesbians/queer girls writing very, very good m/m slash. There's fewer men slash writers generally, so I don't know about the gay men writing f/f in that context.

ynh

15:02 / 14.07.01

Televison: What's on, Who's Watching, and What it Means - Geroge Comstock and Erica Scharrer... a literature review of the entire history of television research. I think it's the largest meta-analysis ever undertaken. The authors give accounts of bodies of work, pointing out where certain methods went wrong and how other studies addressed missed variables; and then make conclusions based on overall research. Solid work: TV violence is affective, content colonizes the imagination...

Understanding Audiences: Theory and Method - Andy Ruddock. Another history from a theoretical perspective: from effects research thru reception analysis. The latter being absorbed by fandom (and fanfic.) Is this anything like what you're doing, Deva? The pros and cons of different methods and their proponents.

I checked out and read Fight Club yeasterday. Thanks to all who mentioned it. And why didn't anybody mention how well it illuminates the misrepresentations in the film. Everyone ends up looking like Angel-face. The book reads as fast as Stephen King; it's amazing. Hum, since even saying that will get me punished: grant, have you read King's Darktower stuff? He draws heavily on, and even metafictionally talks about, Baum's Oz books.

I reread "Dogfight," a short Gibson/Swanick story (it's in Burning Chrome, Rizla) the other night. Deke is the most repugnant character in all his work.

tracypanzer, Ubik was on of the first Dick books I read, and is in a tie for favorite: the Book of the dead stuuf, the wordplay. Delicious.

Zen, er Flyboy, you must tel;l me whether I need to slog thru Dickens to enjoy Great Expectations.

(A disgusting pile of comics trades)

18:10 / 14.07.01

Recent reads...

Launced into lots of Will Self after i read How the Dead Live and remembered how much i loved the guy...Went through the short stories of The Quantity Theory of Insanity and Grey Area

Both highly recomended...reminded me how hilarious Self can be...The Ur-Bororo tribe made me piss myself...Also read The sweet Smell of Psychosis which had the added bonus of Martin Rowsen illustrations...

Also read I was Dora Suarez by Dereck Raymond...Very dark and proberly his most well written book...

And then i came across Angelhead by Greg Bottoms...My God!!!I read this straight through in 2 hours..THEN WENT BACK AND READ IT AGAIN!!...I've never done that with a book before...I think this book affected me more than any other i've ever read...My mouth was hanging open and i was close to tears all the way through...It's the writers memories of his teenage years and the effects his older severely schizophrenic brother has on him and his family...It mirrored a lot of my own expereiences to a very scary degree which is why it touched me so much....I recommend everyone to read this book...Particualy any of you whove had experiences with mental illness...

Also read quater of The Secrets of Aleister Crowley by his alledged son Amado Crowley...This seemned to be written by a retarded chimp...Absolut drivel...I tried to take it back to the shop to change but i'd bent it so they refused... Bastards...Avoid like Ebola

Also read What i did on my Holidays by Ramsey Dukes ...A collection of essays on the occult and lots more...Lots of it fun and thought provoking...recomended

Halfway through Iain M Banks' Look to Windward...Going well as ever...One of the few writers i'll buy, religiously as each book comes out...For the last 12 years of so...He's like clockwork and always enjoyable...

Got a couple of Kenneth Grant books I'm going to struggle with next... proberly alternated with something fun...

Regrettable Juvenilia

18:38 / 14.07.01

quote:Originally posted by [Your Name Here]:
Zen, er Flyboy, you must tel;l me whether I need to slog thru Dickens to enjoy Great Expectations.

So far, I wouldn't say you need tp. But I'd recommend Dickens' Great Expectations anyway: it's his least caricaturish, most emotionally and psychologically engaged work, and his interesting things to say about material and social aspiration, I think. But you could probably read the two in any order.

08:52 / 15.07.01

quote:Originally posted by Deva:
Ursula le Guin The Dispossessed and The Left Hand of Darkness on a friend's recommendation, since I've never read any le Guin before. I liked them, but I thought LHoD was heterocentric and was slightly annoyed by the way no-one disliked the main character in "The Dispossessed". I think it's hard to write good theoretical fiction, though, and some of the problems were showing in these two books.

I rather liked LHoD. I don't know much LeGuin, and it's a style of SF I don't know too well. But I enjoyed its commentary and political aspects. Heterocentric? Hmn. I tend not to worry about things like that.

21:33 / 15.07.01

quote:Originally posted by Paleface:
Heterocentric? Hmn. I tend not to worry about things like that.

It was sent me by a gay friend as part of our ongoing discussion about queering genre fiction. Also, I worry about heterocentrism for a living. And for a hobby. And unintentionally and continually.

Clive - I'll check out "Angelhead", it sounds really interesting - thanks.

The Return Of Rothkoid

10:37 / 16.07.01

Finished The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon yesterday. And it was lovely, just lovely. Very satisfying. I've moved on to The Surgeon of Crowthorne, and, as part of a drive to read more brainfood, managed to pick up a copy of Foucault's Madness and Civilization and Yates' The Art of Memory to check out over the next week or so. Hopefully...

And yes. I second the exhortation to read Dickens' Great Expectations. I've not read the other, but I was reading Dickens' one while I was writing an essay for it at university - one of those night-before jobs, natch. Anyway, while I was attempting to band out however-many thousand words' worth of tripe, I was totally engrossed by the book - I wanted to know what was going to happen. Seems to me that something that appeals under those circumstances must be a fine thing indeed, though I've not reread it since...

13:05 / 16.07.01

quote:Originally posted by [Your Name Here]:
Hum, since even saying that will get me punished: grant, have you read King's Darktower stuff? He draws heavily on, and even metafictionally talks about, Baum's Oz books.

I'll have to check it out. I'm not a big King fan, but I'm also not a big hater-of-King. Some of his short stories are really great.

17:09 / 16.07.01

I just finished "The Cornelius Quartet" by Moorcock and I'm in the middle of "Rig Warrior" by William Johnstone. Complete men's adventure trash but it's fun

Rex City-zen

19:20 / 16.07.01

I finished The Sun Also Rises by Hemmingway.By the end of the book I was an alcoholic.
And impotent...

Ellis

19:27 / 16.07.01

Recently Read...

American Gods by Gaiman

Choke by Palahniuk

The Outsider by Camus

Fight Club by Palahniuk

and I am about to reread Choke, to see if its any better the second time.

Page: (1)2 3 4