2010 - What are you reading?

13:47 / 02.01.10

I'm just finishing up the Crimson Trilogy by Patricia McCarthy:
The Crimson Man
The Crimson Boy
The Crimson Woman

this is a vampire erotica trilogy from a local author. I'm to do some editing on her fourth novel, so figured reading her previous work would be helpful.

I'm not much of a fan of either vampires or erotica, but I found it more compelling than I had anticipated. The first book is mostly erotica, the second is more vampire-oriented, and the third is more of a thriller I guess.

14:30 / 04.01.10

in my ongoing Chuck Palahniuk reading marathon, I blasted through Invisible Monsters yesterday.

Lots of twists and surprises in this one, which is par for the course with Chuck's fiction. He really bides his time for the big revelations, and I find his means of stringing the reader along is very misleading.

He's definitely inherited a good deal of his style from Vonnegut. Particularly in the repetition of thematic phrases throughout the narrative.

In this piece, he takes us into the world of beauty queens (I guess), and the themes of beauty, acceptance, self-image, love, longing, belonging, etc... An interesting piece, but his stories become stronger as he progresses. This is his third book I think.

oryx

15:36 / 04.01.10

I'm still struggling through Haruki Murakami's Norwegian Wood - usually I love Murakami's work, but this one really isn't doing it for me, for some reason.

I also have the graphic novel/biographies "Maus" and "Persepolis" that I was given for Xmas, and they're next on my list.

17:30 / 05.01.10

I'm currently working my way through Murakami's Dance Dance Dance - I love his prose (with due credit to translators). I've only just discovered his work, so thank you for the feedback on it.

Maus and Persepolis are excellent indications that comics/graphic novels are delving into previously unexplored territory. Enjoy them when you get to them.

22:24 / 05.01.10

I love Murakami, but I still haven't made it through Dance Dance Dance. Hardboiled Wonderland is my favorite. Have you read A Wild Sheep Chase (which is great)? Dance Dance Dance is a loose sequel, and it might help to read that first.

23:16 / 05.01.10

haven't read wild sheep chase yet. I have "The wind up bird chronicle" sitting on my shelf, casually taunting me from my future.

Eek! A Freek!

12:15 / 06.01.10

I finished up 2009 by reading the "Absolute" version of Gaiman's Sandman... I had read most of it before, but I never read it from end-to-end. Still jaw-droppingly beautiful and fresh.
New Years Day I started reading the Abraxas anthology published by Fulgur Ltd., a Journal of Esoteric Studies. There is at least one ex-barbelith contributor as well as a couple of contributors who currently post on Liminal Nation. Very good, well-written varied essays. Fulgur appears to produce top-quality books... For a "magazine", Abraxas is a beautifully bounded publication.
As an additional treat, I also bought Alan Moore's "From Hell" and have been really enjoying it thus far. The art is beautiful and the writing is amazing. I saw the Hughes Bros. film version a while back, and while it had it's merits, it is to the book as Star Wars is to the Odyssey.

14:19 / 11.01.10

3/4 of the way done Chuck Palahniuk's Haunted which may just be his most disturbing piece of fiction. The cover image of a terrified face akshully glows in the dark. This did nothing to ease me into the contents.

The story is of a writer's retreat, in which a dozen or so people gather to isolate themselves from the world, and write their respective masterpieces.

at about page 2 things start to go horribly awry. And they continue to get worse.

I can't imagine how it ends...

GogMickGog

08:52 / 13.01.10

Speed read Bad Vibes.

I don't read a lot of music biogs, but this was a doozy (thanks Lith', for introducing me to Mr Haines in the first place). Nice to see Britpop served a swift kicking and brave of Mr Haines to paint himself in such a sour light - though we might, of course, quibble his apparently crackproof persona.

Then, lots of plays - The Weir, some Mcdonagh and Mark Ravenhill's The Cut. The first two I liked, the last less so - too on-the-nose. Its companion piece, 'product' is pretty strong, however. Liked that.

21:26 / 14.01.10

I'm a bit into Dhalgren and wondering what all the fuss is about?

The Idol Rich

18:43 / 19.01.10

I'm a bit into Dhalgren and wondering what all the fuss is about?

I think it's one that polarises opinions. I really enjoyed it but, to be honest, if you're not enjoying the first bit I predict that you're going to be throwing it against the wall in frustration somewhere around the halfway point.

11:18 / 22.01.10

I liked Dhalgren quite a bit. I was fascinated by Bellona in general, and the Kid in particular, and the complex, evolving relationships were all compelling. What don't you like about it, Shrug?

Mistoffelees

21:37 / 26.01.10

A Storm of Swords by George R. R. Martin

I am half through and it can get a bit tiring. Jaimie, Tyrion and Daenerys are my favourites. It's much more fantasy heavy than the first two novels. Some parts drag, characters moving around, never getting anywhere. I heard so much about so many beloved characters dying, but so far mostly second tiers did. The main characters don't have it easy though. It would be big surprise if just once one of them would have a nice couple of months.

18:18 / 30.01.10

Dhalgren? It just hasn't kept my attention. I can't really give much of a clear surmisal as to why because I abandoned it so early on.

I intend to pick it up again but my initial sentiment was that it was at times so poorly written that I winced and sometimes it all seemed a little juvenile. I think if I keep at it that sentiment will change, though, it does feel like the kind of book you have to immerse yourself in to really enjoy. Aside from that and despite a kind of up and down quality the writing style was also sometimes amazing.

Is this like the time no one believed I could truly hate the Beatles or that On the Road was the worst book I've ever read? (i hope not)

11:36 / 31.01.10

No, I agree with you about On the Road, and I think the Beatles are a bit overrated (though I like them). But what you say about Dhalgren also makes sense. The proseisn't always great, and some of the sex and violence does initially come off as juvenile (but then, the main character is the Kid). If you never like it, that's fine, but I was just curious about your reasons. It definitely is one of those books, along with, say, Moby Dick and Gravity's Rainbow, where you just have to give yourself up to it without any clear promise as to why you should.

20:41 / 31.01.10

Right now I'm reading Richard Dawkins' Greatest Show on Earth and New Selected Poems by Ted Hughes.

In 2009 I started keeping a list of what I've read, and I'm doing the same thing in 2010, otherwise I tend to forget what I've read and when.

I recently finished the Complete Works of Rimbaud, and I'd love recommendations for decent biographies now. It's amazing that he'd written most of his poetry by 18, then he appeared to completely shut down creatively, pursuing business, with miserable results.

01:28 / 01.02.10

Just finished Haruki Murakami's Norwegian Wood

surprisingly straightforward, without any of the supernatural twists I had come to expect from Murakami. Nevertheless, a captivating love story of sorts, that really weaves itself around convention.

I don't know how me manages to create such sentimental stories without any of the cliche. The more I read of his work, the more impressive I find it.

GogMickGog

13:49 / 02.02.10

Chronic City, which has the kind of fuzzy logic and characters-over-plot vibe only a novelist on their 8th book is allowed these days. Or Iain Sinclair. Really enjoying it and quite happy for all strands to not, necessarily, be resolved. This is the post-modern novel, after all. Great fun picking up the cultural shoutouts, whether buried or made expliccit.

People have complained about the book being too long, but it has nothing on Darkmans, Nicola Barker's Booker nominated slab (850 pages or so). She's a one. It grips , inspite of some shockingly 6th form prose, and has a truly Dickensian dedication to covering all bands of the social spectrum. It feels, actually, in a lot of ways like a 19th century novel of place. Or, perhaps, like a less hippy-dippy Cowper-Powys.

21:58 / 03.02.10

Chuck Palahniuk's Diary
this one signalled a change from his earlier fiction, followed by Haunted. Messed up, but somehow captivating.

His style is described as nihilistic, but I don't buy that. He may have a dark sense of humour, a morbid aesthetic, his characters self-aware in how twisted they are, but I don't see a nihilistic sensibility about him.

anyway, time to switch gears. I just received a shipment of BS Johnson novels... whee!

01:57 / 04.02.10

Finished Selected Poems, now reading Robert Anton Wilson's Quantum Psychology as a part of the online Esoteric Book Club we just started (click link for details - we've just started, so if you're interested there's still definitely time to join!)

Also started reading a book of essays by David Foster Wallace. That boy really loved his footnotes. Enjoying it so far. (Have not yet read Infinite Jest, or, indeed, anything else by him. Yet.)

14:11 / 04.02.10

Which one "A Supposedly Funny...."?

19:29 / 05.02.10

Psyche

I have read Infinite Jest, mind you it was some time ago. I suspect that the infinite jest was on anyone who read through all the footnotes...

Nabokov's Pale Fire is also an ode to footnoting.

10:49 / 06.02.10

Flann O'Brien's The Third Policeman makes good use of footnotes.

18:49 / 06.02.10

In one way reading DFW is a bit like getting lost in a series of wikipedia articles but that isn't the only pleasure to be had from his writing style.

12:11 / 07.02.10

DFW beats both Flann O'Brien and AC Weisbecker for monster footnoting. Hands down. My eyes are now bleeding. Halfway through.

Just finished Richard Dawkins' The Greatest Show on Earth. In my opinion, Selfish Gene said pretty much the same stuff, and with greater eloquence.

Need to select a new "at home" book to read now. Considering something small, like White Stains by Crowley to counteract the rabid footnoting and the slow pace of the book club pick, Quantum Psychology.

01:15 / 12.02.10

finished Murakami's A Wild Sheep Chase which made Dance Dance Dance suddenly make more sense, as the two are somewhat related.

I have enjoyed all of his novels so far. I'll avoid the first two, as he himself has said he isn't particularly proud of them, and felt that they were part of his development. Wild Sheep Chase was the first novel he felt good about.

oneward to the next...

11:27 / 12.02.10

The first four are all about the same characters, though. I mean, if you want to know about Boku and the Rat prior to Wild Sheep Chase, you should check out the first two anyway. Pinball 1973, at least, is pretty good.

matthew.

13:54 / 12.02.10

I just finished The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro and I absolutely adored it, and I also just finished A. S. Byatt's Possession, which I liked but didn't love. The Victorian poetry kind of slowed me down. I'm currently working on Wallace Stegner's The Spectator Bird and after that, E. M. Forster's Howards End.

19:12 / 12.02.10

Remains of the Day is great, but Ishiguro has kind of felt like a one-trick pony to me ever since. He's the literary M. Night Shyamalan.

19:15 / 12.02.10

I'm reading The Gone Away World, by Nick Harkaway. It's sort of frustrating. Parts of the first two-thirds are great, but the first 30 pages are just okay, and there are some long winded tangents throughout that slow the whole thing down. Still, the central story is compelling when he focuses in on it, and in the final third the whole thing has kicked into overdrive. If only it had been this good throughout. Or if only it had been 400 pages instead of 600 pages.

14:59 / 13.02.10

Dusto: we'll see about the first two Murakami books - never say never, to perpetuate a cliche.

Just finished Palahniuk's Fight Club - different enough from the film to make it worth the read, but the essence of the story is the same - in it, he established a number of themes that he uses throughout his earlier novels - things like self-help groups, and self-destructive paths to enlightenment.

Not bad. I still prefer his more recent stories, Haunted in particular. Although he had to write those early stories in order to get there.

not sure what's next...

15:31 / 13.02.10

Hey, I'm reading Forster now, too! (Finished the others.) Room of One's Own, for a book club. Not loving it so far.

Also reading Frances Yates' Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition, which I picked up a while ago but couldn't get into. Now I'm finding it a fascinating read. It's funny how tastes change so over time.

matthew.

21:50 / 14.02.10

Finished The Spectator Bird. It was weird. Now I'm on to Byatt's The Virgin in the Garden and about halfway through Howards End