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

[pete]

this week i have read:

this book fucking rules. fingers crossed the movie is half as good.

followed by:

which was also deadly, but just didn't have enough zombies.

 

[MDR]

I'm reading Brodie's Report, which is a short story collection by Argentinian writer jorge luis Borges, written when he was in his seventies. It's really simple and astute. He was blind when he wrote a lot of the stories so some of them are only a page or two. If anyone buys this and doesn't like it I'll give them their money back myself.

 

[c0De_n1NjA]

i didnt read any books last night, i was locked.

 

[MDR]

Reading the book of life eh Ninja? And possibly the book of riding/eating burgers.

 

[david jatt]

Some of Paul McGrath's auto biography, which is great and when pissed on the train home last night some of "The Handmaids tale" by Margaret Atwood, not the easiest of reads when your brain is pickled.

 

[IFF]

currently reading

percival everitt - wounded
michel houellebecq - atomised
newton emrson - last of the portadown news

 

[Mormon Nailer]

michel houellebecq - atomised

I havent read that on but i read Possability of an Island and Elimentary particles

He really gives me the creeps. Something very depressing and unsettling about his writing. Very very bleak. They are interesting to read but he is a terrible joyless misanthrope.

 

[muffin]

i finished alex james' 'a bit of a blur'..i was really dissappointed with it..spends about 1 page talking about parklife and about 100 talking about how many drugs he took with damien hirst..super wanky..

 

[cpr]

yeah it was bleedin rubbish..and i know you told me it was before i borrowed it muffin!!!wasn't he a total prick to his bird justine?and she kept taking him back...beer me some patience

 

[IFF]

I havent read that on but i read Possability of an Island and Elimentary particles

He really gives me the creeps. Something very depressing and unsettling about his writing. Very very bleak. They are interesting to read but he is a terrible joyless misanthrope.

 

[Denny Oubidoux]

finished reading "A Long Long Way" by Sebastian Barry at last. I read the first 100 pages a couple of months ago but found the writing style to be very irritating and didnt touch it again until saturday but i totally got into it this weekend - deadly book and very moving. it kinda covers the same ground as one of his other books "the whereabouts of eneas mcnulty" - ie irish fella fights in the war for the brits and and gets shit for it from other irish people but although its not quite as good as Eneas McNulty its still a good read - highly recommended.

next up: Cryptozoic by Brian Aldiss

a tense psycho-sexual thriller apparently.

 

[Mitchum]

I havent read that on but i read Possability of an Island and Elimentary particles

He really gives me the creeps. Something very depressing and unsettling about his writing. Very very bleak. They are interesting to read but he is a terrible joyless misanthrope.

Isn't Elementary Particles the American title for Atomized?
I think I read that somewhere.

Either way I think Atomized is his best book, closely followed by Platform, obviously.
I find his cynicism & misanthropy quite refreshing & he's got a great, visceral prose style that say, Charles Bukowski never had.

Camus for cnts.

 

[MDR]

Just bought a second collection of Jorge Luis Borges short stories ('Fictions'). Anyone ever read any other Argentinian writers? What's Manuel Puig like?

 

[Wilbert]

yeah it was bleedin rubbish..and i know you told me it was before i borrowed it muffin!!!wasn't he a total prick to his bird justine?and she kept taking him back...beer me some patience

If I had any idea that his book would be more about cheese, champagne and flying than it was about Modern Life.... and Parklife I wouldn't have bothered.

 

[Space]

Read Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close in one day last week, another amazing book by Jonathan Safran Foer.

 

[nEiLo]

Read Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close in one day last week, another amazing book by Jonathan Safran Foer.

Yeah. It's great.

Currently reading:
"The Stars' Tennis Balls" by Stephen Fry. - It's enjoyable, I suppose. It's not a patch on "The Liar" or "The Hippopotamus"

 

[Duncan_Thaw]

Isn't Elementary Particles the American title for Atomized?
Camus for cnts.

My favourite book of his - in fact one of my favourite books of all time - is 'Against The World, Against Life', his HP Lovecraft biography. Highly recommended.

http://books.guardian.co.uk/departments/sciencefiction/story/0,,1498709,00.html

 

[Jim Daniels]

Read Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close in one day last week, another amazing book by Jonathan Safran Foer.

Yeah, its my favourite book of the last few years.
Have re-read it 3 times.

 

[Skrankio-X]

I finished this a while ago:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_leaves
House Of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski

A criminally underlooked future cult classic mindfuck debut!

It a book about a book about a film. Told through four levels of reality at once. Makes me dizzy thinking about it (and I do, a lot.) Terrifying in a strange way, believeable in a creepy H.P. Lovecraft/Blair Witch Project style, and full of hidden codes, anagrams, clues, and side stories. You'll need about five bookmarks to read it as the footnotes lead on to more footnotes which send you to the appendix which has footnotes, in a J.L. Borges, "The book and the labyrinth were one and the same" sorta thing. (It's got a forty page index with the listed appearance of every word.) You'll have to spin the book around, flip backwards through pages and hold it up to mirrors to read the text.

Apart from all the high concept, gimmicky stuff, it's full of genuine quality writing with big ideas and great characters, one of whom is written in gobsmacking spontaneous horror prose which hints at the intelligence of the author. I never read 700 pages as fast, and when I was finished, I went trawling through it again taking notes and trying to figure out more clues. I don't think its in print in Ireland (I got it in Amsterdam) but it's well worth ordering in Amazon. Track it down!

Review here:
http://www.powells.com/biblio/1-0375703764-0

P.S. Kurt Vonnegut said that reading a long book is like being married to someone no-one knows or cares about - which is why I'm posting this.

 

[Mitchum]

I've been tempted to buy House Of Leaves for a few years now. I think you've convincingly nudged me toward a purchase. Sounds ideal fare for these cold, rainy summer nights.