What Book Did You Read Last Night??? (11 Viewers)

[pete]

Riddled with inaccuracies and a complete lack of knowledge about anything that happens after about 1995; the first 10 years of his career get 200 odd pages and the last 30 years about 50 pages. Bizarrely, despite all that, it's fairly well written and it'd be passable if the author had decided on a thesis about Prince's music beyond "he's just died and I was commissioned to write a book".

THE Mick Wall? I thought he was a well-regarded music writer person? As well as being THE BEST TV MUSIC SHOW PRESENTER EVER.

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[dudley]

Had been bold and not read a book in a while. Picked up Undermajordomo by Patrick DeWitt in Fopp last week and demolished it in about two days, utterly loved it. I remember really enjoying The Sisters Brothers too, is his first book any use?

 

[hermie]

Have you read his short stories? Love them so have been looking forward to this. Wondering how they compare.

 

[Lili Marlene]

THE Mick Wall? I thought he was a well-regarded music writer person? As well as being THE BEST TV MUSIC SHOW PRESENTER EVER.

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Yup, yup, he talks a little about working for the heavy metal press in it in a few places. Maybe it would have been a better as a podcast. Like I said, it's well written but likely he just summoned up everything he knew about Prince, didn't fact check a thing or interview anyone, and wrote the book in a few days.

 

[dunderhead]

Have you read his short stories? Love them so have been looking forward to this. Wondering how they compare.

no, I haven't. Have heard great things about them alright, must check one out

 

[IFF]

started this last night and absolutely loved the first 40 odd pages. Looking forward to picking it up again later. wanted a bit of a reprieve after Bardo, think I chose well

i have that on my shelf to be read

when i finish procrastinating online, i'm going back to this

 

[Lili Marlene]

Read The Leavetaking by John Mcgahern, the first half is real Irish misery-lit and tough-going but the second half flies by, really good in the end. Fuckin' Ireland though.

 

[pavlos]

Reading this at the moment. One for the Ken Loach fans.

 

[Denny Oubidoux]

Zoroastrians: Their Religious Beliefs and Practices by Mary Boyce

This is a great read, totally fascinating and fairly sad history, I wish I'd read it before visiting all those Zoroastrian sites in Iran last year. Like, I saw a fire that has supposedly been kept burning continuously since approx 400AD and I scoffed (silently) at the very notion but this book convinced me it's true. I didn't know that so much was known about the beliefs of people living 3000+ years ago. I'd almost convert except I'm not sure they accept converts and it's basically nonsense anyway, but mostly nice nonsense.

 

[pete]

And we’re done. It was very good sf with abysmal dialogue.

For the record the audiobooks were 13 hours & 26 minutes, 22 hours & 37 minutes, and 28 hours, 52 minutes, proving the expansion of the universe.


Meanwhile...

The Three-Body Problem: I (2017) - IMDb

Amazon is reportedly pursuing a deal for a three-season TV series based on Liu Cixin’s Hugo-winning sci-fi novel trilogy “Remembrance of Earth’s Past”. The price tag? Up to $1 billion.
The Financial Times broke the report, saying international investors are telling them Amazon is negotiating for the rights to produce three seasons based on the book series that began with (and is better known by) the title “The Three-Body Problem”.
Set against the backdrop of China’s Cultural Revolution, in the first book a secret military project sends signals into space to establish contact with aliens. One civilization, on the brink of destruction, captures the signal and plans to invade Earth. Meanwhile different camps start forming amongst humanity with plans to either welcome the superior beings and help them take over a world seen as corrupt, or to fight against the invasion.
In a statement reported by Chinese news outlets, including Caixin, YooZoo Pictures stated that it remains the sole owners for the film and TV rights for the series and didn’t comment on whether Amazon had approached the company.
Cixin was also asked by Chinese news outlets and he revealed he knew nothing about the project and doesn’t know if he’d be invited to work on it. A $30 million film adaptation of the first book was shot in 2015 but has yet to be released.
Amazon previously made a deal for two seasons of a “Lord of the Rings” series, a deal rumored to cost $500 million for two seasons. “The Three-Body Problem” deal, if the report is accurate, is notably bigger than that.

 

[egg_]

Read Blindboy's book, pretty great. Some stories are better than others and because it ignores the rules of polite storytelling for madbuzz writing it doesn't always work. It's still a good laugh when it doesn't though. Well worth a read anyway, lots of great slaggings of everyone in Ireland. Better than whatever the latest John Boyne is gonna be anyway.

Why does someone have to die horribly in pretty much every story? The horror of it all started to bum me out eventually, and I gave up on it

 

[travispickle]

Currently reading Juliet Naked by Nick Hornby; it's a great read.

 

[ilovehoovering]

The Story of the Ramones by Everett True. Obviously the author is an unsufferable arsehole at times but that doesn't come across too much I think. Anyway, this was a two quid purchase and was well worth it.

 

[Lili Marlene]

Finally got around to reading A Little Life.

Very good. Sad, sad, sad, sad, sad, sad sad, sad sad and then at the end,

Spoiler

sad.

I've now read the Luminaries, The GoldFinch, City on Fire and A Little Life. I just need to read a Brief History of Seven Killers and I think that'll be all the ridiculously long books in recent years.


I also recently read Fiona Mozley's booker nominated Elmet which is an entire novel of noble savage bullshit and it's frankly really disturbing that anyone found it in the slightest bit convincing, nevermind good enough to win an award.

Why does someone have to die horribly in pretty much every story? The horror of it all started to bum me out eventually, and I gave up on it

Listen up snowflake, that's just life. Go back to your trigger warnings if you can't handle the Classics. Imagine someone told shakespeare there were too many deaths in Titus Andronicus and as a result he stopped writing. ARE YOU IMAGINING THAT?

Also that doesn't happen in every story, just one or two. Maybe they're at the start, I can't fully remember. I do think it's worth going back and finishing though, not every story in it works but the writing is full of humour and life (and, uh, death?).

 

[egg_]

Listen up snowflake, that's just life.

You're like me Ma - she loves a good weepie. There's enough weeping in real life for me already, thanks very much (though fuck me I've gotten off some lightly compared to most)

I find body horror kinda hard to handle, and people being gratuitously mean/cruel to each other even harder. 'Arse children' is where I had to stop. Might go back to it once I finish this cool sci-fi yoke I'm reading (Proxima)

 

[IFF]

I've now read the Luminaries, The GoldFinch, City on Fire and A Little Life. I just need to read a Brief History of Seven Killers and I think that'll be all the ridiculously long books in recent years

I have found recently I have moved away from longer novels to shorter ones. I've read 15 books so far this year and only 3 were over 300 pages. The longest so far was the last one in the Neapolitan series of Elena ferrante. I think that was my favourite one.

A highlight so far has been thatI did read over Easter, sorry to disrupt the peace by patty yumi cottrell. I found it darkly humourous, quirky and the narrator voice to be quite endearing. I enjoyed it a lot.

Currently rereading the maid's version by Daniel woodrell. He has a great way with words.

 

[Kermit McDermott]

Gangsters and Goodfellas: Wiseguys, Witness Protection, and Life on the Run. By Henry Hill.

 

[sleepy]

The Story of the Ramones by Everett True. Obviously the author is an unsufferable arsehole at times but that doesn't come across too much I think. Anyway, this was a two quid purchase and was well worth it.

I remember reading that years ago. I think a lot of what @Lili Marlene said about Mick Wall's prince book applies here. I think he even says at 1 point that he started writing it the day Joey died. His only interview with Dee Dee was 2 days before he died and from what I remember it went like this:

ET: Hey Dee Dee, I'm writing a book about the Ramones, can I interview you for it?
DD: Um, no (Hangs up phone)

 

[Lili Marlene]

I remember reading that years ago. I think a lot of what @Lili Marlene said about Mick Wall's prince book applies here. I think he even says at 1 point that he started writing it the day Joey died. His only interview with Dee Dee was 2 days before he died and from what I remember it went like this:

ET: Hey Dee Dee, I'm writing a book about the Ramones, can I interview you for it?
DD: Um, no (Hangs up phone)

Everett True can be a great writer, when he gets impassioned about something it's fantastic. His massive failing is that he thinks he can be a funny writer and boy, no siree.

 

[sleepy]

Everett True can be a great writer, when he gets impassioned about something it's fantastic. His massive failing is that he thinks he can be a funny writer and boy, no siree.

Jesus, you're right about that.