New now reading

in reality, all of this has been a total load of old bollocks
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Minnie the Minx
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Re: New now reading

Postby Minnie the Minx » 30 Oct 2017, 02:04

Italo Calvino - Path to the Spider's Nest.
Like all his work, just beautiful.
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Re: New now reading

Postby Penk! » 30 Oct 2017, 07:17

Neige wrote:One of the books I devoured in my holidays:

Image

I had never bothered with Cloud Atlas, because I'd seen the film (which didn't really work for me) and hate reading books when images (and the actors playing the characters) are already stuck in my mind, but then I figured I'd give this a try.

I thought it was indeed fantastic, a stylistic tour de force, a riveting read and a real page turner. Any fans - and any suggestion on what I should pick up next?


I like him: I think he’s a great storyteller with a fine style and a head overflowing with ideas, and he is excellent on character and detail, though I also find him a little lightweight and frivolous.

I think that The Bone Clocks is his most enjoyable so far but I did like Cloud Atlas. The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet was also very good - the most human and affecting of the ones I’ve read - and introduces some of the ideas (and even characters) from The Bone Clocks.
I read one of his earlier (pre-Cloud Atlas) efforts and didn't think much of it.

He did a novella recently which ties in with Bone Clocks, too.
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Re: New now reading

Postby Darkness_Fish » 30 Oct 2017, 09:24

Neige wrote:One of the books I devoured in my holidays:

Image

I had never bothered with Cloud Atlas, because I'd seen the film (which didn't really work for me) and hate reading books when images (and the actors playing the characters) are already stuck in my mind, but then I figured I'd give this a try.

I thought it was indeed fantastic, a stylistic tour de force, a riveting read and a real page turner. Any fans - and any suggestion on what I should pick up next?

I've read everything except Slade House, and liked the vast majority of it. Ghostwritten and Number9Dream are a bit on the disappointing side, they feel very much like the author trying to find his feet, and in some respect finding Haruki Marakumi's feet instead. Cloud Atlas and and 1000 Autumns of Jacob De Zoet are his best works so far, in my opinion, the latter especially so for taking such an apparent step sideways from Mitchell's comfort zone of timeline and narrative jumping sci-fi stuff.
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Re: New now reading

Postby Fonz » 30 Oct 2017, 12:43

‘The Devil’s Chessboard’

A book about the early CIA.

They’ve been fucking shit up for 70 years.

Some of it is pretty sad-the repression of democracy in Central America, just to support corporate interests etc
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Re: New now reading

Postby harvey k-tel » 30 Oct 2017, 13:20

Currently re-reading Jim Harrison's True North.

Image

I read it last year, and then a month or so ago I read Returning To Earth, which revisits many of the same characters from True North (but which I hadn't known before I started it). He really was an amazing writer.
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Re: New now reading

Postby Darkness_Fish » 06 Nov 2017, 09:08

Image
Like fast-moving clouds casting shadows against a hillside, the melody-loop shuddered with a sense of the sublime, the awful unknowable majesty of the world.

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Re: New now reading

Postby Penk! » 06 Nov 2017, 20:02

Yeah, I've had it on the shelf for ages without ever being inspired to pick it up after reading some iffy reviews. I've really enjoyed everything else I've read of his, but...
fange wrote:One of the things i really dislike in this life is people raising their voices in German.

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Re: New now reading

Postby Darkness_Fish » 06 Nov 2017, 20:16

Darryl Strawberry wrote:
Darkness_Fish wrote:Image

I didn't enjoy that. Quit way before the end.

So far, not very far in, I'd say it's fun, but the grasping-for-hipness level of prose is a bit wearying. Still, it'd be rare for me to quit on a novel that's got music and a record shop involved.
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Re: New now reading

Postby Snarfyguy » 06 Nov 2017, 21:15

Darryl Strawberry wrote:
Darkness_Fish wrote:Image

I didn't enjoy that. Quit way before the end.

Me too. The deal-breaker was that one pages-long sentence that just seemed to be begging for critics to call it a 'bravura feat' or something. Give me break.

Image

Really enjoying this!
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Re: New now reading

Postby Snarfyguy » 06 Nov 2017, 22:21

Darryl Strawberry wrote:
Snarfyguy wrote:
Darryl Strawberry wrote:I didn't enjoy that. Quit way before the end.

Me too. The deal-breaker was that one pages-long sentence that just seemed to be begging for critics to call a 'bravura feat' or something. Give me break.

T'was a shame, as I love a lot of Chabon: The Yiddish Policeman's Union, The Wonder Boys, Kavalier & Clay, A Model World - all excellent.

This is the only one of his I've looked at, but perhaps I'll give one of those a go at some point.
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Re: New now reading

Postby Moleskin » 07 Nov 2017, 15:10

Harvey K-Tel wrote:Image

I don't know how many of you are familiar with Baker's writing, but he specializes in the minutiae of daily life. This is, as I'm about a third of the way through, one of his best that I've read.


I read his first half dozen or so. Is this a particularly good one? I was put off by Vox and the Fermata, but enjoyed The Anthologist.
Last edited by Moleskin on 07 Nov 2017, 15:17, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: New now reading

Postby Moleskin » 07 Nov 2017, 15:14

Snarfyguy wrote:Me too. The deal-breaker was that one pages-long sentence that just seemed to be begging for critics to call it a 'bravura feat' or something. Give me break.


Have you read any Gabriel Garcia Marquez? That 'bravura feat' was accomplished decades ago.
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Re: New now reading

Postby Moleskin » 07 Nov 2017, 15:16

Image (Not this edition)

The third of his I've read. I'm going through an Icelandic fiction phase.
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Re: New now reading

Postby Insouciant Western People » 07 Nov 2017, 15:20

Moleskin wrote:Image (Not this edition)

The third of his I've read. I'm going through an Icelandic fiction phase.


I've got the Harvill edition of that, picked it up cheaply in Oxfam a while back, but it's still on my to-read pile. I liked The Atom Station a lot.

I went through a period a few years ago, after my first visit to Norway, of devouring everything by Knut Hamsun and Karl Ove Knausgård that I could get hold of.
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Re: New now reading

Postby harvey k-tel » 07 Nov 2017, 15:44

Moleskin wrote:
Harvey K-Tel wrote:Image

I don't know how many of you are familiar with Baker's writing, but he specializes in the minutiae of daily life. This is, as I'm about a third of the way through, one of his best that I've read.


I read his first half dozen or so. Is this a particularly good one? I was put off by Vox and the Fermata, but enjoyed The Anthologist.


If you liked The Anthologist then I can pretty much guarantee you'll like this one.
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Re: New now reading

Postby Moleskin » 07 Nov 2017, 15:52

Nick wrote:
Moleskin wrote:Image (Not this edition)

The third of his I've read. I'm going through an Icelandic fiction phase.


I've got the Harvill edition of that, picked it up cheaply in Oxfam a while back, but it's still on my to-read pile. I liked The Atom Station a lot.


Iceland's Bell is the one. Fantastic. I'll get back to you once I've read this. It seems to be reckoned his masterpiece.
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Re: New now reading

Postby Snarfyguy » 09 Nov 2017, 15:00

Image

The blurbs on the cover are right. I'm really enjoying this.
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Re: New now reading

Postby Tactful Cactus » 11 Nov 2017, 11:55

Snarfyguy wrote:The blurbs on the cover are right. I'm really enjoying this.


I gave up halfway through -- it was very well pieced together and I enjoyed reading about 40's/50's London but as his character develops he's nothing much more than a colourful hanger-on. The people around him were far more interesting.


I've started into I, Claudius...confusing, a lot of names to get used to up-front but enjoying it after a few chapters in
Image

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Re: New now reading

Postby Darkness_Fish » 14 Nov 2017, 09:23

Snarfyguy wrote:
Darryl Strawberry wrote:
Darkness_Fish wrote:Image

I didn't enjoy that. Quit way before the end.

Me too. The deal-breaker was that one pages-long sentence that just seemed to be begging for critics to call it a 'bravura feat' or something. Give me break.

Well, I enjoyed it plenty, but it's undoubtedly an aimless mess of a novel. I enjoyed the prose, but there seem to be about 5 characters and two plotlines that could've been chopped, without anything being lost, because in the end they never went anywhere. The whole novel never seemed to go anywhere, really. That one-sentence chapter is a Steve Vai solo. You're meant to be impressed, he's got the chops, but it doesn't fit and it's very contrived.
Like fast-moving clouds casting shadows against a hillside, the melody-loop shuddered with a sense of the sublime, the awful unknowable majesty of the world.

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Re: New now reading

Postby Darkness_Fish » 14 Nov 2017, 09:28

Image

Absolutely loving this. Ok, the plot is really a sequence of set-pieces, and I'm not really sure where some of the characters emerged from only to be killed (Jerry, Lew Yard, anyone?), but you'd have to be blind not to love the clipped-yet-florid prose.
Like fast-moving clouds casting shadows against a hillside, the melody-loop shuddered with a sense of the sublime, the awful unknowable majesty of the world.


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