What Book Did You Read Last Night??? (3 Viewers)

[Denny Oubidoux]

reading is great isnt it. i often look down at people who claim to never read books.

 

[magicbastarder]

I worked in a library once with someone who insisted on referring to that as "The Trouble With Psychics", and not for comedy effect, either, she just wasn't so great on the old reading.

http://www.blather.net/shitegeist/2004/12/school_of_comic.htm

 

[hermie]

reading is great isnt it. i often look down at people who claim to never read books.

are you very tall?

 

[hermie]

how are you finding it? it wasn't the first of his stuff i'd read but since then, i can't get the big fuss over atonement, saturday, etc, when there's batshit brilliance like 'complex geometry'.

absolutely loving it. Just read the first 3 so far. I was a big fan of Atonement actually too. I'm afraid to go see the film

Edit: 'Batshit brilliance', I love it

 

[La La]

wonderful, wonderful, wonderful.

had a real 'curious incident' feel to it. a book i will definitely read to my children. simple, bawling crying ending.

hats off to john boyne, so glad i finally got around to reading this. worth it.

 

[magicbastarder]

i thought that book was just forgettable. i had understood before reading it that it was a book ostensibly for kids in their teens, not nine year olds as it turned out.

am reading a book about daylight saving time at the moment.

 

[travispickle]

Reading "Everyman" by Phillip Roth; subdued and sad but enjoying it so far.

 

[BC]

read recently:

fast food nation. i must admit that i found the first couple of chapters rather boring, and as i despise the mcdeath factories and their endless regurgitation of uniform fast-shit, i found the most shocking aspects to be in the descriptions of slaughter house workers in america.

kitchen confidential. a great read. recommended. the eccentric adrenaline-soaked nature of the business and the sheer joyfully obsessive love of food, via the snappy writing style, makes this an incredibly enjoyable little book.

currently reading:

joyce carol oates : blonde. a fictionalised account of the life of marilyn monroe : an absolutely stunning epic of an innocence repeatedly abused. a true classic.

 

[flashback]

kitchen confidential. a great read. recommended. the eccentric adrenaline-soaked nature of the business and the sheer joyfully obsessive love of food, via the snappy writing style, makes this an incredibly enjoyable little book.

Yeah, that was a good laugh alright.

Khaled Hosseini thousand splendid suns. Not very good. No writing style, just fucking grim shit happening. A bit like watching England playing rugby.

Just finished The Glass Castle.
I liked it. Its not extremely elegantly written or anything. But, it was a good interesting, pretty astonishing book.

Before that The Time Traveler's wife. I fell for that book a bit too. I liked it. I liked her style, the dirtiness, and the result of the concept.

Before that: Water for elephants. Not that engaging really. Decent story, just coldly written. I read that the author's day job is writing technical texts for programming books, and I could see that alright.

 

[david jatt]

read recently:



kitchen confidential. a great read. recommended. the eccentric adrenaline-soaked nature of the business and the sheer joyfully obsessive love of food, via the snappy writing style, makes this an incredibly enjoyable little book.

a great book. The Nasty Bits well worth a read too. Bourdain is a great writer.

 

[Mormon Nailer]

read recently:

kitchen confidential. a great read. recommended. the eccentric adrenaline-soaked nature of the business and the sheer joyfully obsessive love of food, via the snappy writing style, makes this an incredibly enjoyable little book.

a great book. The Nasty Bits well worth a read too. Bourdain is a great writer.

Good book
He does get a malicious thrill out of trying to shock the reader though and he does overplay the hedonism involved in working an a kitchen.
(that said I did once see a chef put cornflower down his jocks to cure a case of ringrot as he was working - just like Bourdain describes!)

 

[Lili Marlene]

imho not enough Greenwich

 

[BC]

read recently:

joyce carol oates : blonde. great, viciously extended and gloriously repetative.

cormac mccarthy : the road. i must admit this one didnt really do it for me. some emotionally potent moments, but my interest waned towards the end.

re-read shuttle + redgroves' "the wise wound" (one of the most profound books i have read) along with blackledge's "the story of v". an excellent pairing, revealing and fascinating.

the sophisticated cat, anthology. been dipping in and out of this one, but much of the writing is too flowery for my taste. wsb's "the cat inside" remains unrivalled in its insight not only on the subject in particular, but in a further sense as an ecological pamphlet ("the medium in which unicorns, big foot, green dear exist growing always thinner.. the whole magic universe is dying" - must give that another read, its always worth the time).

currently returning to burroughs : the soft machine, and next to nova express.

 

[Moods For Mallards]

I've been reading Orlando Figes' "The Whisperers: Private Life in Stalin's Russia" for a while now. It's a biggish one and absolutely fascinating. Quite moving at times, a litany of absolute heartbreak and loneliness and the supression of anything natural. What a kip.

Interspersed with this, I've been reading Siobhán Kilfeather's "Dublin: A Cultural and Literary History", which is quite enjoyable as a 'read a chapter' book.
Also: The Lonely Planet Argentina buke.

 

[david jatt]

been reading "the hotel new hampshire" by john irving, typically eccentric and brilliant. tucking into "charlie wilsons war" on the side, enjoyable read too, will rent the flick when it comes out on dvd but i imagine the film omits alot of detail from the book.

 

[rettucs]

reading Herzog by Saul Bellow. Its really doing my head in. I've been tempted to give up on it a good few times but something compels me to keep going, even though I'm crawling through it. It is superbly well written, but goes off in tangents that are impossible to get your head around at times. It'll take me another month to read the last 100 or so pages. But I'll stick with it. I've come too far not to.

 

[Moods For Mallards]

reading Herzog by Saul Bellow. Its really doing my head in. I've been tempted to give up on it a good few times but something compels me to keep going, even though I'm crawling through it. It is superbly well written, but goes off in tangents that are impossible to get your head around at times. It'll take me another month to read the last 100 or so pages. But I'll stick with it. I've come too far not to.

That's really brave, scutter.

 

[rettucs]

That's really brave, scutter.

I've always wanted to read something by him.

dunno why, but I always have.

and I'm determined to get through it.

 

[Mitchum]

I've always wanted to read something by him.

dunno why, but I always have.

and I'm determined to get through it.

'Seize The Day' has a more straight-forward narrative to it than 'Herzog'. Better place to start perhaps but why not jump in at the deep end, says I. 'The Adventures Of Augie March' is another one of his recognized masterpieces-by whom I'm not sure (Harold Bloom, perhaps?!)-I enjoyed it though but not nearly as much as 'Ravelstein'.
What's my point? Some of his other novels are more accessible and enjoyable than 'Herzog'.
His collected short stories are worth picking up.

Stylish bastid too.

 

[Moods For Mallards]

Reade's of Nassau St. has 'Judging Dev' at half price at the moment. It's a beautiful book, design-wise. Lots of reproductions of letters & telegrams, great photos, etc. I'll have to pick it up.

Next reading:
Out Stealing Horses by Per Petterson. It's been sitting there since Christmas, I'll get stuck into it when I've finished The Whisperers.
Then some more Kurt Vonnegut, who I neglected until recently when I read Slaughterhouse 5 and loved it. I thought he was too trendy to read when I was younger.