Novels suck (1 Viewer)

[Super Dexta]

yeah
after the first two weeks though i was like 'at least i have to find out what happened in the end'
somebody should've just told me she dies (i was 14! i didn't know!)

 

[krystal]

yeah
after the first two weeks though i was like 'at least i have to find out what happened in the end'
somebody should've just told me she dies (i was 14! i didn't know!)

She dies and it's cold.

 

[jane]

yeah
after the first two weeks though i was like 'at least i have to find out what happened in the end'
somebody should've just told me she dies (i was 14! i didn't know!)

Ha ha, the Anna Karenina spoiler...

For me, if someone giving away the ending spoils the book, then it's not a book I necessarily want to read. A good one is one where, whether or not you know the whole story, the experience is bigger than that. The book shouldn't be about the end.

I'm the same, Kirstie, if I don't like a book, I don't see a point in finishing it. If it sucks, I don't care how it ends.

I'm weird about books I like, too. I sometimes wait forever to finish them, like I don't want to have to accept the fact that the book will end.

Snaky: I am green at your brevity.

 

[spiritualtramp]

I have started giving up when I hate a book, I used to force myself to finish things I was loathing and now I just don't bother.

ditto . I have a pile of books I cannot be bothered to bring myself to finish .

I find if a book is really good you will so want to read it you do really really quickly . the books I have most enjoyed I have read in one sitting . the books I wish I hadn't bothered with take me at least a week .

 

[krystal]

ditto . I have a pile of books I cannot be bothered to bring myself to finish .

I find if a book is really good you will so want to read it you do really really quickly . the books I have most enjoyed I have read in one sitting . the books I wish I hadn't bothered with take me at least a week .

yeah, I have a pile of dog eared books resulting from being carried in and out of work in my bag for weeks on end, and I didn't even read them when the crazy man on the bus was looking my way etc. I've read a so many really 'nice' books recently but nothing really great.

 

[snakybus]

Ha ha, the Anna Karenina spoiler...

....

three chapters of Anna Canyonero
....

Snaky: I am green at your brevity.

ah I's just joshing

 

[nlgbbbblth]

annoying when you spend dosh on a novel for it to be dog scutter

I tend to force myself to finish to justify purchase

I find I read a lot more non-fiction over the last few years

most fiction I read now is re-readings of stuff I like.

as for short stories - the best collection I ever read was Exploring English 1 [the short stories book for the Inter Cert]

The Fly, The Green Door, An Occurence At Owl Creek Bridge, Up the Bare Arse

if anyone has a copy I'd love to borrow/buy it off them

 

[Rimbaud]

If you want to check out some totally reliable writers and excellant books - just browse though WWW.LITKICKS.COM - The La Boheme & Russian Lit. section are what i`d be interested in myself - theres a comprehensive Beat section too.
And instead of buying from the likes of Easons, check out WWW.BOOKFINDER.COM. - its sellers worldwide, where you can find almost any particular book for good prices.
I recently got 5 books(Including some of The Omen series!) for 20euro from Ebay stores - so no need to spend 16 to 20quid in Easons on the one book.Bookfinder and Ebay are particularly good for seeking out Hard to find, Hardbacks or First/special editions of certain books for cheap-ish prices.

OR if your more comfy with browsing through books in shops, the best way to do it really - here in Limerick O`Briens book shop(near the Milk Market) has a brilliant selection of Hardback books for about 10Euro - these would be really well designed hardbacks - he has most of the Russian classics as well as Bukowski et al.He`s a small store bookseller - HIGH on quality, low on crap.
Don`t know about Dublin though...

 

[Super Dexta]

there's some bookshop in galway that's a complete hooray-fest, i found 3 books there that i'd wanted for ages for about 1/3 the price they were in dublin. hodges figgis' bargain basement also yields some ..... bargains, strangely enough.

 

[sarah]

As for Kundera, I read about half of The Unbearable Lightness of Being and just didn't really like it. I see what is likable about it, but it's not what I look for. It's not so much his misogyny, but his bleak view of humankind itself, and the way that he deals with it. Bleakness can be artful, but that book just didn't do it for me.

I wasn't too gone on that book either, I definitely recommend
Immortality though, one of those books you'll read in one sitting but
such an incredibly clever insight into how people in relationships get themselves
into ridiculous situations that are easiely solved, but that something
human gets in the way.

Another book 'One hundred years of solitude' which that Gabriel Garcia Marquez
is famous for, didn't appeal to me at all whereas 'Love in the time of Cholera'
was great.
So I wouldn't always instantly dismiss a writer on the grounds of not liking
the book he's known for.

 

[MDR]

Yer man Chekov is great for the aul short stories.

The Temple Bar book market is a great source of books in my experience; usually about 6 or 7 euro a pop.

 

[P. Littbarski]

if you are looking for a good novel to read you should read "Ghostwritten" by David Mitchell. One of the best modern novels I've read.

 

[LMD64]

if you are looking for a good novel to read you should read "Ghostwritten" by David Mitchell. One of the best modern novels I've read.

just finished it tuesday. very good, second and third last chapter gets a little out of hand, nice little summary in the last, briefest chapter.

should read "number 9 dream" by him, is very good, yes.

...and I do declare it a self evident truth that Phillip K Dick doth rule the Land of the SciFi short stories, the goodly Azimov acts as his Lord Chamberlain, and the wretched Arthur C Clarke* is not fit to wipe their boots with his tongue and spittle.





* By this i mean, his short stories are shite. And some** of his novels.

** Most.

 

[One of us]

Loved number9dream. Got half-way through Cloud Atlas there- it's ambitious and really well written, with all these interlocking narratives, but the further you get into it, the less you like it. It starts off doing your head in in a good way, and ends up just doing your head in. I'll go back to it though.

Must pick up ghostwritten. Is that the one with an Oirishy section in it?

 

[One of us]

Actually I'd say the reason they have become 'the gold standard' is partly to do with money. Who's gonna spend 15 quid on a book you can read in a hour?

This is definitely a factor. As is the physical aspect- if you're in the bookshop, not really sure what it is you're looking for, there's something very reassuring about the feel of a 250 page paperback in your hand.
You're a fan of Breakfast of Champions? It's a very unusual beast. I read somewhere he was going through a tough time when he was writing it, after the success of Slaughterhouse 5, and this is how it reads: like a regular novel having a breakdown. It's genuinely one of a kind, but it takes a hell of a lot out of the reader; I'm not sure I'd go back to it.
Actually, I was in a 2nd hand book shop last week and I saw a 70s spoof sci-fi apparently written by his character Kilgore Trout. Would have bought it, but I read a chapter, and it was really dreadful shite. Does anyone know was this Vonnegut on the skite, or was a nutjob fanboy responsible?

 

[spiritualtramp]

Actually I'd say the reason they have become 'the gold standard' is partly to do with money. Who's gonna spend 15 quid on a book you can read in a hour?

yeah , but If I enjoy a book I will read it loads of times .

which works out way cheaper than going to the pub .

 

[Cormcolash]

Theres a good few second hand bookshops here in Belfast. Too bad one of them burnt down with North Street Arcade, oh well.

 

[LMD64]

Loved number9dream. Got half-way through Cloud Atlas there- it's ambitious and really well written, with all these interlocking narratives, but the further you get into it, the less you like it. It starts off doing your head in in a good way, and ends up just doing your head in. I'll go back to it though.

Must pick up ghostwritten. Is that the one with an Oirishy section in it?

yep tis indeed. the oirish section is all a bit shilleleaghs-at-50-paces, in a kind of Peig Sayers does Applied Physics sorta thing, but...

 

[spectraljanitor]

so what peoples fave novels then from say the last 10 or 15 years?

i do be liking douglas couplands "life after god".... its got that entire brevity of communication thing that jane was talking about....

 

[nlgbbbblth]

so what peoples fave novels then from say the last 10 or 15 years?

i do be liking douglas couplands "life after god".... its got that entire brevity of communication thing that jane was talking about....

American Psycho