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i read a couple of clive barker books in my teens too, again i thought were amazing, but can't remember what they were about, now. 'imajica' and 'the great and secret show', iirc
Weaveworld surely ....
i read a couple of clive barker books in my teens too, again i thought were amazing, but can't remember what they were about, now. 'imajica' and 'the great and secret show', iirc
Just thinking back and a lot of my teen reading revolved around The Alchemist’s Head. Got to meet Terry Pratchett and Douglas Adams there!
Also just remembered talking to Stephen Donaldson at a signing in easons - “How old are you? I don’t think you should be reading my books.”
Also I read Illusions by Richard Bach - about a lad who meets a kind of Jesus figure in the rural US.
I must have been the only teenager who read books in Ireland who wasn't reading Stephen King.
I was into Guns N'Roses and thought they looked cool, so when my uncle asked if I had any interest in his cowboy boots I jumped at the chance. Turns out he said "cowboy books" and I had to feign enthusiasm as I took a box of them off his hands. Anyway I read a load of Louis Lamour and Terry Harknett that summer.
I tried reading the stand at the start of lockdown. He can do really good ideas then pad out 800 pages with descriptions of road signs and motobikes and people's jeans. It was an audiobook and I could notice the narrator getting audibly weary as it went on and on.I don't think I've ever actually read a King book, the films and shit are often great though
It is! I read it to one of the kids a few years ago, she loved itWe did Shane in school at one point, it's good
I remember being astounded that absolutely nothing of interest happened for the first 80 or 90 pages of the first book. Fuckin prose, wha?He's probably right, Thomas Covenent is pretty hardcore haha. Another series where the last 'trilogy' wasn't great compared to the earlier ones
When was that?It was amazing when Terry Pratchett was an adjunct professor at Trinity and sometimes you'd walk past him around the arts block
Never watched a single horror film???The only King book I ever read was The Stand ... oh and running man, but I think that was just a short story. I've never watched a horror film either. Scary stuff, yuck!
When was that?
I remember being astounded that absolutely nothing of interest happened for the first 80 or 90 pages of the first book. Fuckin prose, wha?
That explains it, those were during my Maynooth years.Couple of years around 2011/12 ish
This is a very good post but I still don't know if there are any novels you like or what exactly it is that you want from fiction. Also, have you never read or listened or watched a thing that you didn't like but it was still worthwhile? Without getting too poncey about it all, at its most basic art is supposed to change you, liking or disliking it is almost besides the point. Obviously it's easier to get through it if if you like it.
It makes me tremendously sad that some people think "fiction is not for me" but I recognize that maybe I just have to accept that it might be the truth. Reality feels like its taking the piss as far as i'm concerned so i'm willing to go along with anything considered implausible. As Ursula LeGuin said many a time in many different ways, the biggest genre in town is so-called "realism."
As for the syllabus stuff, my gut instinct is that being forced to read one or two novels over 5/6 years is probably worse than reading none at all and we'd probably be better off if they were optional.
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