currently reading? (1 Viewer)

[IFF]

so what are you currently reading

at the minute. i'm in the middle of:

Naomi Klein - No Logo

Jon Krakauer - Into Thin Air

Kate Long - The bad mother's handbook

 

[broken arm]

The Contested Metropolis :

Its a large collection of essays on planning focussing on cities and it challenges current model that commodifies social/urban space, perpetuates social/racial segregation and make cities engines for profit etc. It's interesting because its not swathes of depressing drivel on one persons dytopian view but it's quite inspiring


put together by these guys

[font=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][size=+1]The International Network for Urban Research and Action[/size][/font] [font=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]INURA is a network of people involved in action and research in localities and cities. The Network consists of activists and researchers from community and environmental groups, universities, and local administrations, who wish to share experineces and to participate in common research. Examples of the issues that Network members are involved in include: major urban renewal projects, the urban periphery, community-led environmental schemes, urban traffic and transport, inner city labour markets, do-it-yourself culture, and social housing provision. In each case, the research is closely tied to, and is a product of, local action and initiative.[/font]

[font=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]INURA is a non-governmental and non-profit organization with a self-organizing, non-hierarchical, decentralized structure. Regional Offices take turns annually in organizing the conference and publishing the INURA Bulletin.[/font]

 

[Latex lizzie]

The murder of Tutankhamen By Bob Brier.

Deadly new look at the life and death of king Tut.Bob Brier is the guy you might have seen on the discovery channel who looks like Art Garfunkel.Really gets excited by all things egyptian.The book starts of a bit fancifull to grab the man on the street and winds up at the more technical as it settles down.Well worth a gawk if you have a passing interest in ancient cultures

 

[snap-apple]

Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson - really enjoying it, dry/black sense of humour, fairly techie, based around two stories - one in WW2 covering all the enigma type stuff and one in modern day covering a data warehouse setup in the phillippines with some parallels 'tween the two.

 

[egg_]

Cancer Ward by Alexander Solzhenitsyn
For the second time, lost it and found it again (10 years later) in my in-laws house.
Amazing.
Quite possibly the best book I have ever read, top 5 anyway

 

[dudley]

Norwegian Wood by some japanese lad

 

[the bongo]

ulysses - heavy going, but worth it. the kind of book that lets anybody who wants to write know that they should just give up and watch telly. i'm also of the opinion that it's the founding moment of the postmodern consciousness, pre-empting a good deal of the post-structural linguistic thought of people like derrida. shows up the lazyness of all those multi-story movies.

lots of essays on feminist views of motherhood - largely solipsistic.

 

[Latex lizzie]

I am the only one who thought that this book was contrite rubbish? and yes I did read the whole thing.

 

[egg_]

I am the only one who thought that this book was contrite rubbish?

con·trite adj.
Feeling regret and sorrow for one's sins or offenses; penitent.



Perhaps you mean trite (lacking power to evoke interest through overuse or repetition; hackneyed)?

I thought it was good in parts - I liked the start, and Molly Bloom's soliloquy, but I thought the bit in the hospital was interminable. A bit of a guitar solo though, y'know? Kind of virtuoso writing for the sake of it, rather than having anything particularly interesting to say (or, god forbid, a good story). Probably 8 or 9 years since I read it, might give it another go one of these days

 

[egg_]

the kind of book that lets anybody who wants to write know that they should just give up and watch telly.

Same way as Steve Vai lets everyone know they shouldn't bother liearning guitar

 

[needtokill]

Just recently finished:
Dennis Cooper "Frisk"
Dave Eggers "You shall know our Velocity"
Bryon Gysin "The Last Museum"

about to start/in the middle of:
Dennis Cooper "Period"
Pierre Guyotat: "Eden Eden Eden"

best thing I've read this year was the two TJ Leroy books, "Sarah" and "The Heart is Decietful Above all things",grotesque but kind of moving at the same time.Dennis Cooper though is fast becoming a favourite.

 

[#10-7]

liearning ?

perhaps you mean learning?

ho ho.

 

[Latex lizzie]

con·trite adj.
Feeling regret and sorrow for one's sins or offenses; penitent.



Perhaps you mean trite (lacking power to evoke interest through overuse or repetition; hackneyed)?

I thought it was good in parts - I liked the start, and Molly Bloom's soliloquy, but I thought the bit in the hospital was interminable. A bit of a guitar solo though, y'know? Kind of virtuoso writing for the sake of it, rather than having anything particularly interesting to say (or, god forbid, a good story). Probably 8 or 9 years since I read it, might give it another go one of these days

thats the one egg.English never my strong point Maybe thats why I hated that book so muchly.

 

[snakybus]

shit you can't compare steve vai to james joyce, what the fuck!

joyce could do a good story - like Dubliners, probably better at it than most everyone else, he just often chose not to. A bit like the way Picasso was technically a brilliant traditional portrait painter but chose not to

whereas Steve Vai is just a fast guitar player

having said that, I haven't read Ulysses, just bits, haha

me I'm reading Goodbye Columbus by Philip Roth and it's good so far

 

[the bongo]

it's certainly not trite - i would posit that it established in a semi-accesible form the ideas that have come to found the contemporary mindset. by that i mean the postmodern ideology (i don't want to bang on about it, but it's pretty important stuff).

multiple narratives, voices, forms, ideas in competition with one another were unheard of when it was written.

and it seems to me that it was the first book to adequately construct the inside of someone's head.

it greatly changed literary form, and seems to have freed other authors to approach writing in a less restrictive fashion - they had before felt that language was an absolute form, no tinkering with grammar allowed. although you could say that the hiberno-english tradition generally changed this, but i would reply that joyce was the first to approach this consciously. although he used language to subvert the ideology of empire britain he also used it to attack the ideology of the irish nationalist (the idea of the ancient race, noble, gaelic-leaguery etc.) showing up the politicisation of language that marked much of irish literature before then. and more generally showing that language was a flexible medium. this may have been the case before, and people like chaucer and shakespeare are noted for making great changes in english language, but joyce preempted the academic understanding of this fact.

i'm getting tired now, but there are loads of reasons why it's good. and, as for story, well, it's not really about that. it's about human experience - solitary and social. like his earlier work in The Dead with anti-narrative it works along the principles of adhering more to consciousness than the artificial structuring principles of story. often falsely labelled "stream of consciousness" but it seems like it.

a bit of a laboured reply. sorry.

also, it's better than "mona lisa overdrive" by william gibson. now that's shit.

 

[snakybus]

hey bongo, is that an excerpt of finnegan's wake you just posted?

 

[Jimmy Magee]

Foucault's Pendelum by Umberto Eco. It's okay, but The Name of the Rose's better. It has largely the same strengths and faults, but more so, and the story wanders a bit much for me liking.

 

[the bongo]

yes i did yes

got up at 5 this morning

 

[Latex lizzie]

it's certainly not trite - i would posit that it established in a semi-accesible form the ideas that have come to found the contemporary mindset. by that i mean the postmodern ideology (i don't want to bang on about it, but it's pretty important stuff).

multiple narratives, voices, forms, ideas in competition with one another were unheard of when it was written and it seems to me that it was the first book to adequately construct the inside of someone's head.

it greatly changed literary form, and seems to have freed other authors to approach writing in a less restrictive fashion - the had before felt that language was an absolute form, no tinkering with grammar allowed. although you could say that the hiberno-english tradition generally changed this, but i would reply that joyce was the first to approach this consciously. although he used language to subvert the ideology of empire britain he also used it to attack the ideology of the irish nationalist (the idea of the ancient race, noble, gaelic-leaguery etc.) showing up the politicisation of language that marked much of irish literature before then. and more generally showing that language was a flexible medium. this may have been the case before, and people like chaucer and shakespeare are noted for making great changes in english language, but joyce preempted the academic understanding of this fact.

i'm getting tired now, but there are loads of reasons why it's good. and, as for story, well, it's not really about that. it's about human experience - solitary and social. like his earlier work in The Dead with anti-narrative it works along the principles of adhering more to consciousness than the artificial structuring principles of story. often falsely labelled "stream of consciousness" but it seems like it.

a bit of a laboured reply. sorry.

also, it's better than "mona lisa overdrive" by william gibson. now that's shit.

says you!.*


I love it in here.

 

[Jimmy Magee]

Cancer Ward by Alexander Solzhenitsyn
For the second time, lost it and found it again (10 years later) in my in-laws house.
Amazing.
Quite possibly the best book I have ever read, top 5 anyway

Is this fiction? What's it about? I read A Day in the Life...and 'twas great (although If This is a Man is, I think, better, if you can compare the two).