What Book Did You Read Last Night??? (4 Viewers)

[pete]

looks a bit long

 

[Jim Daniels]

looks a bit long

Bit of a stretch there

 

[pete]

not any more. joke ruined.

 

[Jim Daniels]

@scutter - ah ye had to be there....

But I stand over the original post. This is my favourite book of the year so far

 

[тхеодоре кацзынски]

I've yet to get to the sex part, that's in the final chapter which I'll hopefully start later. Good reading thus far, a series of essays on why we should save the earth, embrace the beauty in everyday life and love our enemies, all decent sentiments, I believe.

Started this last week, will finish after the above.
It criticises the idea that employment is the only goal worthy of pursuit and that without meaningful employment the individual is worthless. From reading the back piece I expected a solution (any solution!) to the entrenchment of unemployment but I've yet to reach that part. Still, I think the idea is noble, especially as we look forward to 'the rise of the machines' and the expected associated job losses. Will we get a massively unequal society where a huge underclass fights for scraps or a utopia where humans need do the minimum of work and are free to engage in leisure/education/whatever they want otherwise? From this vantage point I suspect the former but I retain some optimism it'll be otherwise.

 

[rettucs]

The Mark and the Void (Paul Murray) - it's a bit of a mess, but he has enough of a gift at writing comic farce to keep it moving along.. There's clearly a wealth of material for social satire and scrutiny in the banking crisis / bailout era but I feel like it needs more of a light touch and a tighter focus, there were whole chunks of narrative in this that felt like they were a primer for people who couldn't remember the news circa 2008 (and the main character sometimes feels like he's mostly there to be a cipher for this). Wouldn't go nearly as far as that Irish Times review (I wonder if putting a female literary critic character who fawns over the latest Booker prize winner in the book might have triggered a bit of prickliness there) as I did find sections of it quite funny and incisive but a bit disappointed overall.

this is a shite book

Paul Murray can fuck off with bollox like this

 

[Lili Marlene]

wow!

 

[chris d]

Not as good as the TV show. Hardly any Boyd in it, bah. Only a day or twos reading.

Before that got this out of the library looking for something scary over halloween.

I thought it sucked. Then I don't like Stephen King. Did I know Joe Hill was Stephen King Jnr? No I didn't.

Reading Rum Punch (Elmore Leonard) now. Again from the Ilac library. The pages are all wonky on it, like someone read it in the bath. People are animals.

 

[David Kronenbourg]

Fascinating, exhaustive song by song guide to The Smiths. I'm enjoying reading this a lot.

 

[rettucs]

reading this

not far into it. Its terribly American.

 

[Lili Marlene]

Any good though? As the biggest S-K fan I have remarkably little interest in it.

 

[rettucs]

Any good though? As the biggest S-K fan I have remarkably little interest in it.

so far, not great, but shes still only about 14, and just about to discover heavy metal.

I'm looking forward to when she meets Corin. I expect it to shift up a few notches when that happens.

 

[тхеодоре кацзынски]

'Read' is overstating the case, there's an intro, a foreword and a load of pictures of bus-stops across the former Soviet Union, although not Russia for some reason. Cool little book if you're into that sort of thing.

 

[Cornu Ammonis]

Currently reading the two of these:

 

[David Kronenbourg]

Currently reading the two of these:
View attachment 11027 View attachment 11028

I'm reading SOADD and Grimscribe too. Ligotti's amazing. Shame his books are so hard to find.

 

[Cornu Ammonis]

I'm reading SOADD and Grimscribe too. Ligotti's amazing. Shame his books are so hard to find.

I've got most of his stuff but these two were always well out of my price range (especially post-True Detective) so I'm delighted to finally get this volume. I think it's patchy so far but when he's great, he's really out on his own.

 

[Jim Daniels]

Hottish on the heels of The Bone Clocks - this was a neater, snappier read, with a creepy yet oddly peaceful mood.

 

[Lili Marlene]

I read the Weirdstone of Brisingamen, it's had some great artwork over the years:

I wish I'd read it when I was a child. As an adult it's a bit of a total mess character and plot-wise; a bizarre, cluttered mix of goodie-gumdrops Enid Blyton, Tolkien fantasy adventuring and Celtic mythology. I can see hints of Garner's later brilliant writing in there but it's very much a first book.

I'm currently reading the sequel which is a fair bit better.

Apparently he disliked the characters so much himself that he didn't write the third in the trilogy for 50 years! I'm looking forward to seeing what it reads like.

 

[Denny Oubidoux]

Force and Fanaticism: Wahhabism in Saudi Arabia and Beyond by Simon Ross Valentine

This was a very interesting read, basically a hatchet job on Saudi Arabia and Saudi Arabians. The place seems to be fairly mental. Very readable but there's something slightly fishy about it, I can't quite put my finger on what it is.

Wahhabism is an Islamic reform movement found mainly in Saudi Arabia. Closely linked to the Saudi monarchy, it enforces a strict code of morality and conduct monitored by mutawa (religious police), and governs every facet of Saudi life according to its own strict interpretation of Shariah, including gender segregation. Wahhabism also prohibits the practice of any other faith (even other forms of Islam) in Saudi Arabia, which is also the only country that forbids women from driving.

But what exactly is Wahhabism? This question had long occupied Valentine, so he lived in the Kingdom for three years, familiarizing himself with its distinct interpretation of Islam. His book defines Wahhabism and Wahhabi beliefs and considers the life and teaching of Muham-mad ibn Abd'al Wahhab and the later expansion of his sect. Also discussed are the rejection of later developments in Islam such as bid'ah; harmful innovations, among them celebrating the prophet's birthday and visiting the tombs of saints; the destruction of holy sites due to the fear of idolatry; Wahhabi law, which imposes the death sentence for crimes as archaic as witch- craft and sorcery, and the connection of Wahhabism with militant Islam globally.

Drawing on interviews with Saudis from all walks of life, including members of the feared mutawa, this book appraises of one of the most significant movements in contemporary Islam.

Next...

A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century by Barbara W. Tuchman

It's off to a great start.

Barbara W. Tuchman--the acclaimed author of the Pulitzer Prize–winning classic The Guns of August--once again marshals her gift for character, history, and sparkling prose to compose an astonishing portrait of medieval Europe.

The fourteenth century reflects two contradictory images: on the one hand, a glittering age of crusades, cathedrals, and chivalry; on the other, a world plunged into chaos and spiritual agony. In this revelatory work, Tuchman examines not only the great rhythms of history but the grain and texture of domestic life: what childhood was like; what marriage meant; how money, taxes, and war dominated the lives of serf, noble, and clergy alike. Granting her subjects their loyalties, treacheries, and guilty passions, Tuchman re-creates the lives of proud cardinals, university scholars, grocers and clerks, saints and mystics, lawyers and mercenaries, and, dominating all, the knight--in all his valor and “furious follies,” a “terrible worm in an iron cocoon.”

 

[тхеодоре кацзынски]

...a hatchet job on Saudi Arabia....

Not too difficult a job to do.
Book looks good though, it's new?