New now reading

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

Postby Darkness_Fish » 30 Oct 2016, 07:53

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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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KeithPratt
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Re: New now reading

Postby KeithPratt » 02 Nov 2016, 13:38

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Working my way through these 3. I find Gogol hard work but this translation of Dead Souls is my favourite. Just starting on the Parfit.

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clive gash
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Re: New now reading

Postby clive gash » 10 Nov 2016, 10:58

It takes a big man to cry, but it takes a bigger man to laugh at that man.

Diamond Dog wrote:...it quite clearly hit the target with you and your nonce...

...a multitude of innuendo and hearsay...

...I'm producing facts here...

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clive gash
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Re: New now reading

Postby clive gash » 10 Nov 2016, 11:02

Toby wrote:Just starting on the Parfait.


More decadence, how will this go down with BCBs hair shirts?
It takes a big man to cry, but it takes a bigger man to laugh at that man.

Diamond Dog wrote:...it quite clearly hit the target with you and your nonce...

...a multitude of innuendo and hearsay...

...I'm producing facts here...

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Belle Lettre
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Re: New now reading

Postby Belle Lettre » 10 Nov 2016, 11:19

They're gooseberries, Fool
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Get a fucking grip you narcissistic cretins.

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Re: New now reading

Postby Belle Lettre » 10 Nov 2016, 11:30

Time to revisit this:
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Re: New now reading

Postby Jimbo » 10 Nov 2016, 13:29

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Finally finished this. Not that it was a hard one to get thru necessarily but there was so much other media, what with the election, etc., but it is done and I really enjoyed it. If you like Boardwalk Empire or The Sopranos-type action this is for you.

And promising myself more time for books, today I dived into this one, book nine in the series.

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clive gash
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Re: New now reading

Postby clive gash » 11 Nov 2016, 23:20

clive gash wrote:https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/nov/08/eve-babitz-tv-adaptations-la-woman-slow-days-fast-company


Well, this is excellent. And don't just/even take my word for it

[The] radiantly specificSlow Days, Fast Company...might serve to explicate LA better than any other book I ve ever read... Like her generational and aesthetic peer Renata Adler, Babitz has a nervous, windblown eye, a knack for perceptual and associative leaps. Like her West Coast fellow Joan Didion, she has a stringent in fact, rather stark intelligence...Babitz s perceptions, her aphoristic formulations, are legion and strike me as both startling and profound. Matthew Specktor

http://www.tinhouse.com/blog/43144/lost ... abitz.html
It takes a big man to cry, but it takes a bigger man to laugh at that man.

Diamond Dog wrote:...it quite clearly hit the target with you and your nonce...

...a multitude of innuendo and hearsay...

...I'm producing facts here...

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echolalia
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Re: New now reading

Postby echolalia » 12 Nov 2016, 15:19

clive gash wrote:
clive gash wrote:https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/nov/08/eve-babitz-tv-adaptations-la-woman-slow-days-fast-company


Well, this is excellent. And don't just/even take my word for it

[The] radiantly specificSlow Days, Fast Company...might serve to explicate LA better than any other book I ve ever read... Like her generational and aesthetic peer Renata Adler, Babitz has a nervous, windblown eye, a knack for perceptual and associative leaps. Like her West Coast fellow Joan Didion, she has a stringent in fact, rather stark intelligence...Babitz s perceptions, her aphoristic formulations, are legion and strike me as both startling and profound. Matthew Specktor

http://www.tinhouse.com/blog/43144/lost ... abitz.html

I ordered Eve’s Hollywood last week after hearing a guy on the radio enthuse about it. I was out when they came to deliver it however and the delivery people sent it back it as undelivered. The fucking bastards. I’ve re-ordered it now, anyway. Glad to see you’re enjoying it – I have a feeling there’s an Eve Babitz binge in the offing.

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Velvis
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Re: New now reading

Postby Velvis » 12 Nov 2016, 15:23

I finished Alan Moore's Jerusalem. It's a really wonderful thing. But it's hard to jump back into reading normal, average books after it.
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Re: New now reading

Postby ... » 12 Nov 2016, 15:51

Velvis wrote:
Snarfyguy wrote:Image

This is going to take forever. I'm only up to the introduction and the thing's huge and too heavy to carry conveniently - and there are two more volumes. Bedside reading then, for the next year or so. On the upside, it seems like a pretty gripping narrative, well told.


Three more volumes! And the fifth one in the works. All great! And so is The Power Broker.


Only read the most recent of these in which Caro covers the six-week period between Dallas and LBJ's first state of the union address. Takes him something like 700 pages to do so and it's a tribute to his skill as a researcher and writer that not one word or sentence is wasted. Simply awesome piece of scholarly writing.

The only thing putting me off reading the three earlier volumes is their sheer size.

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Velvis
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Re: New now reading

Postby Velvis » 12 Nov 2016, 16:14

Master of the Senate is a master class on how the Senate works. Means of Ascent is a Master Class on campaign skullduggery.
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Re: New now reading

Postby mentalist (slight return) » 13 Nov 2016, 07:36

always wanted to read those Caro books, one of these days
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Re: New now reading

Postby ... » 13 Nov 2016, 09:26

Velvis wrote:Master of the Senate is a master class on how the Senate works. Means of Ascent is a Master Class on campaign skullduggery.


For me, LBJ is one of the most morally complex and fascinating of all POTUSes (POTUSii?) because of where he came from, what he tried to become and how his efforts were doomed. He was certainly one of the most earthy and quotable as Gerry Ford found out to his cost. So will get round to all three earlier of Caro's LBJ bios one of these days - probably starting with MOA before jumping forward to MOTS and the back to the first book Path to Power.

Ultimately, Caro has done LBJ - and indeed the first 75 years of 20th Century US politics - proud. One only hopes that he will get to finish the two or possibly three more books about his life and times he still has to write. Caro's dissecting of America during probably the most turbulent decade in its history (until now anyway) promises to be truly fucking riveting reading.

If you can get BBC iPlayer, V, there is a great Rich Hall trawl through past US presidents whcih contains tape of a typically coarse but amusing call LBJ made to his tailor when ordering some slacks

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Velvis
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Re: New now reading

Postby Velvis » 13 Nov 2016, 12:10

If f you like Caro, also try Rick Perlstein. I've read Nixonland and The Invisible Bridge. I still need to go back and read the Goldwater book.
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Re: New now reading

Postby ... » 13 Nov 2016, 12:56

Velvis wrote:If f you like Caro, also try Rick Perlstein. I've read Nixonland and The Invisible Bridge. I still need to go back and read the Goldwater book.



Read the Goldwater book a few years back and Nixonland is on the lengthy list of things I really ought to read...

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Re: New now reading

Postby Darkness_Fish » 20 Nov 2016, 20:36

Finally finished Marlon James' A Brief History of Seven Killings, which I think must be as good a Booker prize winner as I've ever read, a proper sprawling character study set in the drug-drenched ganglands of 70s Jamaica and 80s New York. Must remember never to use the phrases "bombocloth" or "r'asscloth", despite it having been part of my vernacular for the last 3 weeks.

Now onto a massively pretentiously titled book, but one that sounds interesting:
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Re: New now reading

Postby Jimbo » 20 Nov 2016, 21:27

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Comic satire with a long hip-hop-ish prelude but the plot is now kicking in and looks likely to be a good one.
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Velvis
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Re: New now reading

Postby Velvis » 20 Nov 2016, 22:41

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I give this a high recommendation. It's like one of the better books by Tom Wolfe or John Irving. Very "finger on the pulse of society", and very poignant.
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Re: New now reading

Postby fange » 25 Nov 2016, 13:56

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S. C. Gwynne - "Empire of the Summer Moon"

About half way through, and I absolutely love it. Fascinating stuff, and immensely readable.
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