Amazing Books (2 Viewers)

[Latex lizzie]

..see there you go billy you are a smarty after all..

 

[Wilbert]

"The Country Ahead Of Us, The Country Behind" by David Guterson - really great collection of short stories.
"The Emperor Of The Air" by Ethan Canin - Another collection of short stories.
"The Palace Thief" by Ethan Canin - 4 really good "Novellas".

 

[egg_]

Gogol

Full of buffoonery. I've only read his short stories and they read like they were written by someone's fusspot aunt.

Kafka

Get the short stories rather than the novels - the only book of his own that he thought was good was Metamorphoses. The Trial is a bleak, nightmarish and ultimately pointless read IMHO

Philip K. Dick

If you like well-constructed prose, keep away from this fucker.
Reminds me a bit of Kilgore Trout in Vonnegut's books - great ideas, if only the guy could write ...

Don't like Hemingway neither ...

But this is all old news. I've kind of fallen out of the reading habit since I started my new eating regime and have enough energy to spend the whole day doing other stuff

 

[snakybus]

garn, Hemingway was brilliant, though I prefer John Steinbeck cos whe was a marine biologist. You should stop eating and read them both.

actually, does your eating regime involve eating eggs?

hey Wilbert, I thought all you read was old Seinfeld scripts and X-Men comics.

 

[Pantone247]

Originally posted by egg_
The Trial is a bleak, nightmarish and ultimately pointless read IMHO

I liked the Trial, its a uphill struggle, but I did like it lots.

Paul Austers Moon Palace was the last thing to really grab me.
A very Strange book.

Cause I'm sad and mostly read 'rock biogs' I can also recomend 'FA FA FA FA FA FA FA FA FA' (The Talking heads biog) which is trashy but fun, and 'Trouble Man' the MArvin Gaye jobbie which is interesting and the big daddy of em all 'Shakey' the Neil Young book, which is amazing, even if you don't like Neil the sheer drug crazed lunacy of Crosby Stills and Nash is worth it alone.

 

[Ex-User (1146)]

Originally posted by snakybus
garn, Hemingway was brilliant, though I prefer John Steinbeck cos whe was a marine biologist. You should stop eating and read them both.

actually, does your eating regime involve eating eggs?

hey Wilbert, I thought all you read was old Seinfeld scripts and X-Men comics.

ah, cannery row followed 6 months later by sweet thursday. snakey, all the nice sensitive guys like steinbeck... there should be a warning on his books *SHOULD NOT BE READ BY BOYS UNTIL THE TRANSITION TO TOTAL WANKER HAS BEEN COMPLETE* he just left us open man, left us open and vulnerable, like a robin in a lightening storm.

ahem... mad books, right...

"siddhartha" by herman hesse
"the outsider" by camus
"the secret life of..." salvador dali

 

[gator]

asimov. robot stories yeh!



oh and francine pascal too. literary genius.

 

[george mcfly]

anyone know if 'kiss and make up' by gene simmons is worth picking up??

 

[krystal]

anything by Michael Frayn, Spies, Headlong and A Landing on the Sun are all fucking fantastic.
Anything by Antonia Fraser if you're into history. Just finished John McGahern's latest novel and it's a really nice read.


Also currently loving rock star / hollywood styleexposes, such as the Don Simpson buke High Concept or Motley Crues the Dirt

 

[Unclealo]

Kurdt Vonnegutt (is that how you spell it?) "Breakfast of Champions" Best book I've read in ages.

 

[Knacker]

Gogol is fantastic... that story about the nose is wonderful stuff.
I think he had a very Irish sensibility... certainly in line with the likes of Laurence Sterne and Flann O'Brien.


"True History of the Kelly Gang" by Peter Carey is well worth a read.

 

[krystal]

Originally posted by Anthony
The Dirt by Motley Crue


seriously, like. It's amazing.

oh ja
and it's got a really fab cover, an a-flame bottle of jack daniels. I started reading David Lee Roths Crazy from the Heat (thank god for chapters) but he's just so full of himself and his...ahahaha.. wait for it...intellect I couldn't finish it.

 

[snakybus]

I hear you hapi, I was always a sensitive one, as I still am.

As for Dali, people think he was just arses and bread, but he was really so much more. He was also eggs and long-legged elephants.

Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five is a fantastic book. I like smart-ass collegy American literature like Franny and Zooey by JD Salinger, or have you ever read White Noise by Don DeLillo? Raymond Carver's short stories are worth a gander too. But for heavy widescreen drama and violence, there's noone can beat Cormac McCarthy. The prose is so thick it takes about an hour to get through a paragraph. You got to like cowboy stories though. Blood Meridian is really good.

 

[madouva]

Originally posted by Wilbert
Guterson

I want that name.

 

[krystal]

Originally posted by Unclealo
Kurdt Vonnegutt (is that how you spell it?) "Breakfast of Champions" Best book I've read in ages.

never mind him, I read one of Jackie Collins early bukes recently and it was really bad, not up to Hollywood Wives / Husbands / Kids standard at all. Total lack of plot, shit dialogue, typos. Had I been home in bed with the lurgy I would have been very dissapointed indeed.

 

[Pantone247]

Originally posted by snakybus
As for Dali, people think he was just arses and bread, but he was really so much more.

you were hoping Dali was all arses and bread

 

[madouva]

Vonnegut

Anything by him: lethal. The man is just a fucking hero. I want to meet him, before he jets off to Tralfamadore for good (he is81.

"My Wicked, Wicked Ways" - Errol Flynn. A hoot, even if most of it is fictional claptrap.

 

[egg_]

Originally posted by snakybus
garn, Hemingway was brilliant, though I prefer John Steinbeck cos whe was a marine biologist. You should stop eating and read them both.

actually, does your eating regime involve eating eggs?

Of course, had 2 for breakfast. Started onb it yerself yet?

I've read as much Hemingway as I care to, and I'm saving up what I haven't read of Steinbeck for something to look forward to - now there's a fella who knows what a STORY is ...
(course Vonnegut has neither coherent plot nor characters, and I love him too)
... read Atonement lately, shiny, modern, well-written, but, y'know it just doesn't have It

 

[snakybus]

egg, you cannibal!

to answer your question: no

I will one of the days now

 

[Rimbaud]

I`ve seen herman hesse and Salinger mentioned - no one gonna recommend Jack Kerouac - On the Road?!
Gogols characters/stories having an Irish sensibility - they say the Russian people are similar - (probably `were` is the word to use here) - to Irish people in attitudes and character.
The love of alcohol maybe - or the sharing of common ground when it comes to the wierd and insane.I don`t know.