What Book Did You Read Last Night??? (6 Viewers)

The last book that totally engrossed me was My Year of Rest and Relaxation, it's also unbelievably mean-spirited which might make it funny or not, depending on the person. Fairly sure @jonah thinks i'm a bad person for liking it so much though.
Update: Finally started this today, on chapter 3 and I have laughed A LOT. Her descriptions of certain people are so spot on (being of the same age) and living in a near by city. However it annoys me that she said she was born in 1973 but turned 25 in 2000, that doesn't add up. How did no one catch this?
 
Finished Hyperion by Dan SImmons - it was deadly. Now reading his novel Summer of Night which is quite good and has a similar story to Stephen King's IT.

Just read all the Hyperion sequels in one go, they just get better and better, it's easily one of the greatest space opera series there is. Fuck I have to read these again
 
A sci-fi version of The Canterbury Tales??


Jesus, you fucking nerds. Even i'm not that bad


Update: Finally started this today, on chapter 3 and I have laughed A LOT. Her descriptions of certain people are so spot on (being of the same age) and living in a near by city. However it annoys me that she said she was born in 1973 but turned 25 in 2000, that doesn't add up. How did no one catch this?

Right, this bugged me so I went and checked and it's not in my edition, "On August 20, 2000, I turned twenty-seven"
 
Two hours of this? Na you're alright

arrivalcover.0.jpg
 
Some recent reading, starting from the most recent...

Iran: A Modern History by Abbas Amanat
A recent and fascinating history of Iran covering approx the last 500 years, from adopting the shia faith up to the present, more or less. More recent history is the most interesting - Mossadegh and the oil nationalization stuff in the 1950s through to the Islamic Revolution, the Iran-Iraq war and the ongoing shitshow of the Islamic Republic. I already knew most of it from other books but the details are always different. That Khomeini lad was a proper asshole.

Benkoelen: A Christmas Tale by Brian W. Aldiss
Only 9 pages but still a book! A guy on ebay was recently selling off stuff from Aldiss's personal collection which was sold after his death. I got a few hard-to-find things like this unremarkable climate crisis tale set on an island off Sumatra. I forget what happened already but there was nothing remotely christmassy about it.

ماهی سياه کوچولو by Samad Behrangi
The Little Black Fish, a children's story about a curious little black fish who, against the advice of his/her mother and acquaintances, goes on an adventure to find out where their stream goes (and doesn't come back :rolleyes: , if I understood it correctly). It took me about a year to get through this.

Pile: Petals From St. Klaed's Computer by Brian W. Aldiss
Very nicely illustrated short thing about a city that just kept piling up on top of itself. Written in kinda tiresome rhyming verse.

The Kites by Romain Gary
This is an enjoyable enough book mostly about the French resistance during German occupation in WW2. Even though the author was apparently involved in all this in real life the book just didn't seem plausible, I dunno, but it was ok.

Henry Cow: The World Is a Problem by Benjamin Piekut
I've been a fan of Henry Cow for a fair while but I really never knew much about them, biographically. So it was cool to read a biography about a cool band that I already liked without already knowing everything that happens. They were big into having band meetings (conscientiously minuted) to discuss their objectives and make decisions in line with their maoist ideals etc. I liked the bit where Dagmar Krause told them she was not going to be able to tour anymore because her son was starting school and the rest of the band tried to send him to boarding school.

The Balkans, 1804-2012 by Misha Glenny
A really good history about the part of the world I knew virtually nothing about.

Velasquez Mixes Burnt Umber and other offensive limericks by Brian W. Aldiss
There's a virgin who lived in Mauritius
Whose turds were extremely nutritious.
The public admitted
Whenever she shitted
The smell and the taste were delicious.
And so on.

Oedipus On Mars by Brian W. Aldiss
The script for a musical adaption of the Oedipus story set on Mars. Includes song lyrics.

Nobber by Oisin Fagan
An ambitious noble and his three serving men travel through the Irish countryside in the stifling summer of 1348, using the advantage of the plague which has collapsed society to buy up large swathes of property and land.
I was a bit skeptical starting out on this one but it was very good.

Suspended Sentences: Three Novellas by Patrick Modiano
Although originally published separately, Patrick Modiano’s three novellas form a single, compelling whole, haunted by the same gauzy sense of place and characters. Modiano draws on his own experiences, blended with the real or invented stories of others, to present a dreamlike autobiography that is also the biography of a place. Orphaned children, mysterious parents, forgotten friends, enigmatic strangers—each appears in this three-part love song to a Paris that no longer exists.
I really enjoyed this. Kinda melancholy and serious and dreamy. I should read more of this guy.

Ice by Anna Kavan
Not bad, by Anna's standards. Unrelentingly depressing as usual.

New York City in 1979 by Kathy Acker
A Garland of First Lines by Brian W. Aldiss
The Legend of the Sleepers by Danilo Kis
Three Types of Solitude by Brian W. Aldiss
These were very short things to get my modest Goodreads challenge on track. A Garland Of First Lines is just 20 pages or so of the first lines of various books. The others are those tiny little books - novellas, short stories etc that you see in the shops. I think I enjoyed the Kathy Acker one but I forget now. The Kis one wasn't great and the Aldiss one was really good, classic Aldiss in it's own short, low key way.

A King Alone by Jean Giono
This was excellent and enjoyable, about an enigmatic policeman who goes to a snowy village in the alps to investigate murders/disappearances.
 

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