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Underground > Books, Criticism & Writing >

What are you currently reading?

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14:11 / 01.08.02

Just read 'Walking on Glass' by Iain Banks - v. SF with specific echoes of one of his straight SF books, though I can't remember which one. I liked it for most of the way though, but the ending was quite dreadful. He sometimes seems to have a problem with endings - for instance, the ending of 'Against a Dark Background' was very disappointing too, and that was by far the better book otherwise. Now I am starting 'Cryptonomicon'.

14:18 / 01.08.02

Not to sound craven, but is Robb a *famous* academic? His writing truly rubs me the wrong way. My least favorite thing is how he interlaces contemporaneous accounts in italics with his own words. It's visually annoying; and as far as sense goes, it just emphasizes how shreddy the evidence is. But I admit, I do always have this problem with biographies that has been discussed in previous threads. Do you consider this to be a very good biography, Cavatina and others? Should we start an M thread? I think it would be interesting to discuss Wherefore Biography in relation to M, poss. in relation to the Cult Writers/Artists thread in the Head Shop... the idea of l'homme as metonym for l'ouevre, which is really going on in this bio... in every bio, perhaps? I don't know, I haven't read enough biographies...

16:09 / 01.08.02

Finished G G Marque's "La Hojarasca"
Starting Bakunin's "Anarchist Texts"

Tryphena Absent

22:45 / 02.08.02

Hmm... how embarassing I'm reading Laurell K. Hamilton's Anita Blake (vampire hunter) books. They're incredibly trashy and I'm on number 5 after about two weeks of not-very-solid reading. I've just finished the entire 64 books of the chalet school series by Elinor M. Brent Dyer. Yeah, I'm hip with the trash.

23:01 / 02.08.02

Currently, I'm reading Mad Ship , book two of Robin Hobb's Liveship Traders. I'm still not much liking this series, but now that I've read this much, I kind of feel obligated to finish the trilogy. Tomorrow, I am going to run down to the library and pick of Caress of Twilight by Laurell K. Hamilton. It's the second book in her Princess Meredith series. For some reason, I can't get enough of Hamilton's books. Trashy romance, monsters, violence, and sex with monsters. Woo hoo!

01:38 / 03.08.02

'The wasteland' by T.S eliot. god knows what it 'means', Just savouring the words and the lovely images. beginning to realise 'modernity' in part equals fragmentation which is always useful when you have to repeat a modernity exam in less than two weeks.

Old brown-eye is back

01:55 / 03.08.02

Foley is Good by Mick Foley (aka Mankind aka Dude Love aka Cactus Jack.) Follow-up to his autobiographical Have a Nice Day, proving that he's not only the best bump-taker in the history of pro wrestling, he's also the all-round nicest guy. Lots of new Al Snow jokes as well.

Tryphena Absent

10:19 / 03.08.02

yay I'm not alone!

11:35 / 03.08.02

Just read the first five of the Tales from the City series by Armisted Maupin (sp?). Very light, fluffy and easy to read but they made me smile, Significant Others with the two different summer camps was the funniest, wimminwood vs. the male establishment powwow, heh.
Name of the Rose, by Umberto Eco on the otherhand, think I'm going to throw in the towel with that, he's a bit too postmodern for his own that one.

Old brown-eye is back

13:56 / 03.08.02

You most certainly are not alone. And if you like that, I'll tell you another - I've just finished The Treatment by Mo Hayder and will soon embark on Pet Sematary. Violence and horror-obsessed? Moi?

16:15 / 03.08.02

Trijhaos: one good reason to carry on with the Liveship books is that the new trilogy is a cross-over - it acts as a sort of sequel to both the Farseer trilogy and the Liveship trilogy. And the new book is out in September!

19:25 / 03.08.02

My god, you have all 64? And I thought *I* had a problem with that series... I think I have about 58 at home. Can I borrow 'Jo to the Rescue' please?

Tryphena Absent

15:38 / 04.08.02

no, I don't own all 64 (you know what I thinks it's only 62), Hertfordshire library service just loves me. I only own Rivals, the Princess, The school, Trials, Mary Lou, Gay from China (or Gay Lambert), Jo of the Chalet School, Ruey Richardson, Two Sams, Althea and Prefects. God that was out of order.
Jo to the Rescue is the hardest to get hold of because they didn't reprint it for most of the '90s, I never found out why, I travelled all round the county looking for the bloody thing.
To be honest with you I'm a complete boarding- school- girl- junkie- Malory Towers, St Clare's, Trebizon, I'm dying to read some Angela Brazil... my parents saw one and my dad refused to buy it for me, disgusting behaviour!

18:20 / 04.08.02

Oh, I have some of that - but it's at my parents' house, so can't lend you at short notice. I like 'Head Girl at the Gables, it is ridiculously sapphic. But, have you tried Ebay? They usually have loads, and cheap too (Brent Dyer never cheap - some of the pbs fetch absolutely shocking prices, about 30 quid for Reunion IIRC...)

I reckon that there were 58 original hbs, plus Rosalie, add in the United Chalet School, Chalet School Fete and... isn't there another one they split? (Lintons?) Anyway, there's the Cookbook as well and the continuations, I reckon you could easily make it 64 by cheating a little...

You're lucky to have Althea, Sams and Prefects though - keep hold of them, very desirable those are. & isn't Mary Lou tedious?

Tryphena Absent

22:11 / 04.08.02

Mary Lou and Mary Poppins, practically perfect in every way! I found Elisaveta the most irritating character of the whole series! Particularly when they decide they can escape from the Nazi's by going through... aarrrggghhhh I've forgotten the name of her country... you get this brief mention of her name.

You know there's a Chalet fan club online!?

06:58 / 05.08.02

Belsornia, isn't it? Elisaveta iasn't as bad as Mary-Lou for my money... & dare3 I say it, bu *how* annoying is Joey for much of the time? I remember a Girls' Own discussion about what an absolute nightmare she would be as a mother-in-law...

I know about the fan club - is that FOCC, or the New Chalet Club? It's FOCC which is reprinting the series in the original unabridged format (but at a tenner a pop, which is a bit pricey for those of us with straitened means). But the best one is the GO mailing list, covers the whole spectrum & the people on it really know their onions.

16:50 / 05.08.02

Just started Crowley's Diary of a Drug Fiend, after seeing it mentioned in an essay on keeping a magical diary...

19:41 / 05.08.02

I'm finally starting 'Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance' after
forgetting to read it for the last 8 years or so.

Also, I finally found a copy of part 1 of Moorecock's "Colonel Pyat"
books. (Every damn bookstore I looked in for months only had parts
2 and 3!)

And since it's summer time, I'm flipping through the Illuminatus and
reading bits at random. Much fun.

Tryphena Absent

22:25 / 05.08.02

you know I didn't want to say Joey because so many people would just grind me down for it but yes, completely! Hell as a mother in law, hell as a mother, so intefering. I was thinking of the New Chalet!

11:03 / 08.08.02

Been cracking through my reading as the office is slow.
Susan Cooper's Over Sea, Under Stone was the last one I read and it was rather smashing, very of its time but still a fun romp. I'm having this urge to use the word 'Beastly' in conversation a lot more now

11:49 / 08.08.02

I've been reading David Kettle's "Elephant Gnosis". It's available for all to read online (in instalments, up to chapter 4 now) and is basically a series of well-articulated rants against everyone and everything. Comes a bit too close to sounding like his influences at times; maybe deliberate pastiche...

http://www.kerosenebomb.com

Tasty quotes:

"Academics don't actually need a discipline. They just extemporize in the crevices of obsession. They need only an aptitude for minutely missing the point, for failing to see the wider picture. ...An urge to write unreadable and unread books, a delusion that these works somehow push humanity's envelope just that little bit further. ...They might as well be Trekkies; they may as well admit their status as fanboy obsessives. The impulse to nurture obsessions at the expense of the bigger picture is a characteristic shared. What else do academics do but nurture morbid obsessions and fiddle with their barely pubescent charges? Secrete menopausal fluids from rheumy eye sockets, take what isn't theirs, seduce the needy and the immature. Academia is a hothouse, decadent plants usurping youthful blooms by stealth..."

"The urge to distance oneself from people is all but overwhelming under certain stressful circumstances. In cities, the urge to kill is of course almost un-answerable. The frowns on the faces of struggling urban dwellers bespeak a super human will, an almighty effort just to stay out of jail. How easy it would be to take a life. Murder is square one. Murder is always in our hearts. You know it's true. Cities ain't no good. Cities attract the scummy verminous leeches on holidays undertaken from human warmth and cities deny your essential pre-secular needs. The country's empty. "

13:26 / 09.08.02

Just ordered "Yoga : Immortality and Freedom" by Mircea Eliade

I hope it will be a good read. Has anyone read this and want to share their opinions? Is it worth my time?

~May Tricks

15:08 / 09.08.02

I'm halfway through The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russel, which is .. pretty fucking boring actually .. there are some interesting themes and forboding hints at forthcoming existential nastiness that are keeping me reading. But for the most part, despite being packaged as a "rare science fiction book that normal people can enjoy!", it has all the problems of a hammy, old-fashioned science fiction book - two-dimensional characters, horribly clunky prose, lengthy diversions into pop science hogwash about telescopes and rocket engines, excessive length etc.

15:11 / 09.08.02

That's interesting Rizla - it's one of the first sci fi books I actually enjoyed. It had much more ... humanity than others I had read. Emotion, maybe. I really enjoyed it, and zoomed through both that one and the sequel. Maybe it's cause I was new to the genre.

15:59 / 09.08.02

I'm half-way through Che Guevara's Motorcycle Diaries. Although I'm enjoying it, the blurb on tha back of the book promises more than the book itself delivers, at least up to now. There have been humourous and exciting bits, yes, but they're described just as you would write about something funny in your own diary. A mention to trigger memories at a later date. This somewhat reduces the impact of what are meant to be the more exciting episodes in the book.

Tracing the development of Che's political views however does make up for the lack of adventure and hi-jinks. There are some astute observations of the societies he travels through and you can indeed sense a slow drift towards Communist ideals.

pointless and uncalled for

16:56 / 11.08.02

Finally, and in anticiaption for leaving it 27 years, Farenheit 451. I remain ashamed until I have completed it and then I can discuss it like I've read it once a year since coming naked, screaming and covered in someone elses blood into this world.

Suedey! SHOT FOR MEAT!

17:40 / 11.08.02

I've recently been reading Kavalier and Clay. And enjoying it.
Unfortunately I left it in my bag as it got stolen, and thus can read no further.

And it's a library book.
Bollocks.

09:09 / 12.08.02

Well, I've just read The sky is falling in by our very own Pin, and it's brilliant. Really, I'm dead impressed and look forward to seeing more. It's funny, witty, clever and harsh... yeah, I really liked it. Pester him for your own copy now!

The Return Of Rothkoid

11:11 / 12.08.02

Well. I got jack of Lovecraft - decided that he's better in small doses, particularly if you get heartily sick of the words "eldritch" and "blasphemous" - so have moved on to Patrick White. Gee, there's some easy readin'. Riders In The Chariot is the one that I'm on now - I dug Voss the second time around - hated it he first - and am hoping that this one is worth the pushing through. It's starting off veeeeery slooooowly.

Although at this precise moment in time, I'm not reading anything except the laptop. Because there's beeen some kind of a blackout and I can't see shit.

Fuck.

10:21 / 13.08.02

Volume 5 of In search of lost time, The captive and the fugitive. I live, dream and sleep Proust. But two thirds of the way there! And it is good, just slow. So I tend to only read it on the tube or for a little while at home, hence it taking so long.

13:50 / 13.08.02

"The Carnal Prayer Mat" by Li Yu (trans. Richard Martin). A library book, no less, which they had shelved with the general fiction.

Before that, just finished reading "Martin and John" by Dale Peck, although I swore I'd never read another gay novel where the lover dies of AIDS. And before that, "Messiah" by Codrescu, who I just like. I just like Codrescu's writing and his familiar perversion.

At the gym on the stationary bike, I'm reading "Old Stones, New Temples" by Drew Campbell, but I'm getting pretty bogged down in his recipe-book approach to ritual. I might switch to Pepys' Diary instead.

Tryphena Absent

14:49 / 13.08.02

I'm reading Snow Country by Yasunari Kawabata, it has been beautifully translated by Edward Seidensticker, I'd recommend it if you enjoy Japanese literature. After I've finished I'll move on to Amrita by Banana Yoshimoto.

I really loved The Sky is Falling In, it made my train journey on Sunday very fun, I kept nodding along to it and the woman opposite me gave some freaky looks.

Foust is SO authentic

20:07 / 13.08.02

I just finished Carl Sagan's Broca's Brain. I am now reading The Armada (as in Spanish), and the author's name escapes me at the moment.

The next book I plan to read is Seigfred Sasson's Memoirs of an Infantry Officer.

21:11 / 13.08.02

Well, that's definitely the best one of the Sherston memoirs. I preferred Goodbye to All That though...

*lightbulb*

A thread! I smell a thread!

07:34 / 15.08.02

Just finished The Bear Comes Home by Rafi Zabor, on Rothkoid's recommendation, and loved it. Absolutely superb. Literate, intelligent and fresh. All the jazz talk could've been wanky if the whole thing wasn't so easy going and down to earth. Extremely fluid prose, and beautifully drawn characters, male and female, and, er, bear. This man can write.

Very, very impressed.

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