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

A lot of his books are pretty long-winded as far as I remember. Which brings me to this:

My 14 year old has just started reading SK. Been through Carrie and Salem's Lot. What next? I think both The Stand and IT are way too long. I'm thinking either Pet Semetary or Needful Things. What say ye? I read them all a long time ago but that was ... a long time ago.
The Shining and Misery, they’d be my go to King for someone that age. The Gunslinger is wonderful and concise (even if The Dark Tower is monstrous in size).
 
Three Women by Lisa Taddeo. Extremely overhyped, a bit of a cheesy and sexy YA feel to it but also some really important themes and stories. Pretty good read if you're innocent to the daily horrors of being a woman.

Strange Hotel by Eimear McBride. Was very disappointed in this. Was hoping for more surreal and thriller but its more a depressing insight into the mind of a woman who has given up on life and love and spends every moment trying not to think of past romances.

Just about to finished Trick Mirror by Jia Tolentino. Some very good writing, could have done with ending three chapters ago.
 
The Shining and Misery, they’d be my go to King for someone that age. The Gunslinger is wonderful and concise (even if The Dark Tower is monstrous in size).

Thought about The Shining obviously but then thought that we'd have to watch the film afterwards and it's 18s. Having said that ... 18 certificates are clearly not what they used to be and if it was released today it would be probably be 15 or 16. Wasn't it the case once that every horror film had an 18s Certificate but these days most of them are 15/16?

My memory of reading Misery is of being utterly traumatised by the leg-breaking/hobbling sequence so I stayed away from that :)
 
Just about to finished Trick Mirror by Jia Tolentino. Some very good writing, could have done with ending three chapters ago.

That Jia Talentino one has been the real book of the season, been meaning to get to it. Some of her stuff annoys me but she also wrote possibly the greatest article ever.


I plan to get some serious reading done soon and make up for my pathetic couple of books this year, but stuff I have managed to read recently:

The Master and Margarita - Mikhail Bulgakov

eh...not my thing. It seems very fond of its own zaniness, I mostly found it annoying. I think maybe if I knew more about the internal politics of Stalin-era Russia or mid 20th century Russian literature i'd maybe get more from it but all I really know is the received wisdom. I have a theory that it's largely loved because of the past 70 odd years of US imperial policy that loves anything critical of Russia in general. I will say that there were some beautiful passages of writing though, quite cinematic scenes that feel possibly ahead of its time, although once again I don't know my mid 20th century Russian lit.

Ghost Wall - Sarah Moss

A short, slim book about a teenage girl and her parents living in an academic experiment as Iron Age britons. Fucking loved it.

Minor Monuments - Ian Malaney

Sometime Thumped contributer and forum member, watch what you say Lili. Yeah I liked it well enough, I was surprised how accessible it was since a lot of his writing elsewhere is incredibly dense. I really enjoyed the subject and what he was getting at but, for me, he didn't go deep enough; it was like each chapter pulled out just as it was scratching the surface of something really profound, I almost felt like each chapter could almost have been a book in itself. Still worth the read though.

The Secret Commonwealth - Philip Pullman

Still hard to know where all this Book of Dust stuff is going, there's a lot of plot to it. A few embarrassing "Philip Pulman tries to address sex directly" sentences aside I really enjoyed it, a step up from the last one (although that last one still feels necessary). He's digging at something in his own unconscious and i'm not sure he's going to reach gold but he's not phoning it in.
 
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I think I was about 14 when I read The Stand, it's probably the ideal age to read SK. I kinda feel like I grew out of his books - I am a snob? The last one I remember reading was Insomnia so I'm not exactly up to date. The scariest ones for me were Pet Sematary and Salem's Lot.
 
Thought about The Shining obviously but then thought that we'd have to watch the film afterwards and it's 18s. Having said that ... 18 certificates are clearly not what they used to be and if it was released today it would be probably be 15 or 16. Wasn't it the case once that every horror film had an 18s Certificate but these days most of them are 15/16?

My memory of reading Misery is of being utterly traumatised by the leg-breaking/hobbling sequence so I stayed away from that :)
The Shining is still scary but an 18s of that era probably tame compared to a 15s now. It's not particularly violent but some of the imagery is still very disturbing and scary - butchered children, naked old crone and bear suit blowjobs!
 
That Jia Talentino one has been the real book of the season, been meaning to get to it. Some of her stuff annoys me but she also wrote possibly the greatest article ever.


I plan to get some serious reading done soon and make up for my pathetic couple of books this year, but stuff I have managed to read recently:

The Master and Margarita - Mikhail Bulgakov

eh...not my thing. It seems very fond of its own zaniness, I mostly found it annoying. I think maybe if I knew more about the internal politics of Stalin-era Russia or mid 20th century Russian literature i'd maybe get more from it but all I really know is the received wisdom. I have a theory that it's largely loved because of the past 70 odd years of US imperial policy that loves anything critical of Russia in general. I will say that there were some beautiful passages of writing though, quite cinematic scenes that feel possibly ahead of its time, although once again I don't know my mid 20th century Russian lit.

Ghost Wall - Sarah Moss

A short, slim book about a teenage girl and her parents living in an academic experiment as Iron Age britons. Fucking loved it.

Minor Monuments - Ian Malaney

Sometime Thumped contributer and forum member, watch what you say Lili. Yeah I liked it well enough, I was surprised how accessible it was since a lot of his writing elsewhere is incredibly dense. I really enjoyed the subject and what he was getting at but, for me, he didn't go deep enough; it was like each chapter pulled out just as it was scratching the surface of something really profound, I almost felt like each chapter could almost have been a book in itself. Still worth the read though.

The Secret Commonwealth - Philip Pullman

Still hard to know where all this Book of Dust stuff is going, there's a lot of plot to it. A few embarrassing "Philip Pulman tries to address sex directly" sentences aside I really enjoyed it, a step up from the last one (although that last one still feels necessary). He's digging at something in his own unconscious and i'm not sure he's going to reach gold but he's not phoning it in.
Lauren Oyler seems to have a personal vendetta for her: Lauren Oyler · Ha ha! Ha ha! Jia Tolentino · LRB 13 January 2020
 
Different Seasons will always be the best SK for me. Devoured those stories when I was about 13 and still think fondly on them to this day. Obviously, 2 well-known movies came from those stories. The others are worth the read too.
I’ve never read that one but I have it in the To Read pile. I actually had two copies of it in there it turns out and both of them belong to my wife.

I think I was about 14 when I read The Stand, it's probably the ideal age to read SK.
I agree. I still like him but he’s definitely someone best consumed during your formative years.
 
Michael Gira's The Consumer. Grim, horrible short stories - well, most of them are fragments of stories. There's some good Cormac McCarthy-esque writing in there among his determination to describe the most horrible shit imaginable.
 
Oh I'm like not even a third of the way into The Stand. It's the most boring, drawn out, turgid character stuff punctuated by really great passages describing the pandemic destroying humanity. I'm not even at the Mother Abigail stuff yet but for every 20 pages of cool stuff there's 60 pages of pointless character interactions. I don't know if I can continue tbh.
 
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Has anyone read Exciting Times by Naoise Dolan? The post-Sally Rooney, sad, self aware Irish girl novel of the season.

It's getting great reviews but I don't really believe them.
 
I'm reading Saltwater by Jessica Andrews. Has a very poetic sensibility without being really cringy that I like so far. Very fragments of a life, character bits, classic Ciara woman in her 20s or 30s doing fuck all.

Next up, Another Planet by Tracey Thorn.
 
Threshold by Rob Doyle. Semi fictional autobiography, I guess, in which a young Irish writer drinks, drugs and attempts but mostly fails to shag his way around the world, while being a misanthropic pompous arsehole. Very enjoyable.
 

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