What Book Did You Read Last Night??? (13 Viewers)

[THRILLHO]

An interesting guy. Fantastically clever but deeply deeply indifferent/unaware of how others see him.

I went to see him give a talk in Trinity a few years ago and was shocked by how sexist and rude he was. Completely soured my opinion of him.

Not DFW's best, but still pretty good, and one I've been trying to tick off my list for a while now. Love the pull-quote on the cover from the Independent's Geoff Nicholson: "Contains longish stretches of genius". Solid stuff, Geoff.

 

[jonah]

I remember reading this book and thinking, "You're kidding, right?" I had read a non fiction piece written by the same author and being blown away by it. His fiction reminds me of making love to a man who refuses to take his pajamas off.

That's a really good way to put it actually. I think he's a good writer... for other people, you know.

 

[Mormon Nailer]

I went to see him give a talk in Trinity a few years ago and was shocked by how sexist and rude he was. Completely soured my opinion of him.

Sexist how? I wouldn't have thought that. Rude certainly.

 

[THRILLHO]

Sexist how? I wouldn't have thought that. Rude certainly.

Well, during the Q&A, a girl got up to ask a question, and he spazzed out slightly - "A GIRL!?!" and then completely dismissed her actual question. Oh, and he gave his usual "Emacs virgin" thing, which is a load of old cock. I don't think his sexism was malicious or anything, but as someone who is primarily now an 'evangelist', you'd think he could handle it better.

 

[St. Fechin]

Recently:

I read a short story collection by this guy last year and I wasn't particularly impressed, but all these are great.
Clearly influenced by the likes of Jane Austen, Laurence Sterne, Voltaire, Jonathan Swift blah blah and he's consistently laugh out loud funny.

Hey IFF etc,
I spotted a few copies of this in Hodges Figgis's basement today, 3.99 paperback. Hurry, hurry! (Ignore my mild negativity about it above, I reread a few of the stories recently and enjoyed them a lot.)

 

[Lili Marlene]

Currently reading:

the pretentious

easy to read. goes on and on.

the unpretentious

in the style of treasure island but not as good.

and the britpop

"I was unattractive for about 20 minutes and spent the rest of my life being gorgeous." Pretty good actually.

 

[Anthem]

I'm reading "The Proud Highway" by Hunter S. Thompson, which is a collection of letters that he wrote to people between 1955 and 1967. It's not a bad read.

Chutney - Hunter S Thompson Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas is a masterpiece and one of the funniest books out there.

 

[Nate Champion]

Recently read Paul Auster's Moon Palace which had some of the charm of Mr. Vertigo (which I haven't read in years anyway), though on the whole left a mediocre taste in the mouth.
Then The Forever War by Joe Haldeman, which I found to be mostly cumbersome.

Just dug into The Savage Detectives which is bouncing along nicely.

 

[evil bandit]

I'm a big fan of Chuck Palahnuik and his wacky characters / writing style but this book is an absolute can of piss.

The book is written as a series of reports by a spy from an undisclosed Communist country and each report written is his own pigeon English stlye so even reading the fucking book is a hassle then the plot goes nowhere, the characters aren't engaging and it's like a Palanuik piss take or something....

 

[тхеодоре кацзынски]

that 'pygmy' book really is terrible,i gave up on it a few chapters in.
finished 'a confederacy of dunces' on monday and now im getting back into 'gulag' by anne applebaum,doesn't make for easy reading but enthralling nonetheless.

 

[hugh]

Just dug into The Savage Detectives which is bouncing along nicely.

Loved that book.

Read a few things on my holidays.

This was diverting enough but the whole foreign correspondents in a war zone thing has been pretty much done to death at this stage I think ....

About half way through this. It's pretty hard going. Finding out what an arch-conservative he is in many respects is altering my view of his other books .. all of which I really enjoyed.

Started reading Vonnegut's Breakfast Of Champions but stopped about half way through. It didn't grab me anything like Slaughterhouse 5 did. Picked up Patrick McCabe's Winterwood instead. It's good.

 

[Denny Oubidoux]

Is patrick macabe still writing about monaghan nutjobs? I read a few of his years ago - the butcher boy, the dead school and mondo desperado. I really liked whichever i read first, then the next two less and less. Just seemed like the same old shit over and over.

 

[jonah]

This was my favourite book when I was a kid, I'm rereading it for the first time since I was 11 or 12 and its still fucking brilliant. Woo, Raymond E. Feist!

 

[Denny Oubidoux]

this week on my hols i read these books

The Secret Scripture by Sebastian Barry.
I enjoyed this even though it was a bit silly. The ending was extremely far fetched, but once i saw it coming it didnt bother me. Over all it was a bit over-emotional and tragic and tugged at the heart strings a bit too much but he manages to get away with it all the same. not as good as A Long Long Way or The Whereabouts of Eneas McNulty.

Brothers of the Head by Brian Aldiss
Another excellent Aldiss novel. This one is about two brothers who are siamese twins and one of them has another (third) dormant shrivelled, creepy, grey-haired head on his shoulder. they're basically boggers from norfolk and their dad sends them off to london to be rock stars but that doesnt really work out because they fight all the time. eventually they return to norfolk where they revert to their almost feral pre rockstar existance and the dormant head starts waking up and causing trouble.

Habermas: A Very Short Introduction by James Gordon Finlayson.
I knew nothing about this lad, seems interesting but i doubt i will read any more about him.

 

[Lili Marlene]

"I was unattractive for about 20 minutes and spent the rest of my life being gorgeous." Pretty good actually.

actually this is brilliant. You know it's good when you find yourself really rooting for Sleeper. Louise Wener is great, really hates Mick Hucknall and Elastica it seems...

 

[Jim Daniels]

I really liked her first one "What Was Lost" and now this one has the same lovely mood about it.

 

[Nate Champion]

finished 'The Savage Detectives' - woah, yeah.

Just started 'One Hundred Years of Solitude' - it's a hoot so far, but I can see it getting tedious.

 

[St. Fechin]

Read this over the weekend:

Annotated transcripts of three of his shows, padded out with some (quite revealing) autobiographical material.
The annotations are in the form of footnotes which inevitably leads to Flann O'Brien-esque fun.
Some nice running jokes within the text and lots of informative detail (on influences etc).
It's great.

 

[Denny Oubidoux]

I enjoyed One Hundred Years of Solitude, although it did go on a bit maybe. I think being a student at the time might have helped. I keep intending to start Love in the time of Cholera but always go for something else instead. I read a couple of others of his that I liked too - News Of A Kidnapping was a good one about a few people kidnapped by Pablo Escobar. I couldnt manage The Autumn of the Patriarch at all. i resent books that dont bother with punctuation for pages on end.

the last one i read was The Outermost Dream by William Maxwell, one of my favorite writers. This one is all short pieces about writers as they are revealed in their biographies or collections of letters. Most of them Maxwell had worked with during his time at the New Yorker magazine. I didn't expect a huge amount from this book but i got well into it and ordered Laurie Lee's autobiography thanks to the chapter on it.

 

[St. Fechin]

Also:
Finished these off last night, I'd been reading them on and off for over a week:

Baker goes to insane lengths to prove (and undo the damage done by) the insanity of others.
Interesting, but I'm not quite sold on it.

This was a rereading. It's good (better the second time round) - his novels are superior.