New now reading
- Diamond Dog
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Re: New now reading
A couple of chapters into this... fascinating read so far.. debunking quite important parts of the origins of Rome, but also taking the time to explain why it couldn't possibly be so and then offering the more likely explanations. What I really like is that when the answer is genuinely "we don't know" then that is the answer provided, instead of running off into the more favoured and exotic hypothesis that has become a major pitfall of many history books I've read lately.
Nicotine, valium, vicadin, marijuana, ecstasy, and alcohol -
Cocaine
Cocaine
- Snarfyguy
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Re: New now reading
^^^ Found that bool Populuxe, that you & echolalia were discussing. Four bucks at a flea market, which was nice because Amazon had for way too much money. Looking forward.
Meanwhile,
Meanwhile,
GoogaMooga wrote: The further away from home you go, the greater the risk of getting stuck there.
- Darkness_Fish
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Re: New now reading
Shriver's terrorism satire, apparently. I'm only 60 or so pages in, so there's remarkably little terrorism yet, but it seems very much a kind of Heart of Darkness meets Gatsby thing so far. Which is pleasant.
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.
- rorebhoy
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Re: New now reading
Snarfyguy wrote:^^^ Found that bool Populuxe, that you & echolalia were discussing. Four bucks at a flea market, which was nice because Amazon had for way too much money.
I also just got it....from amazon though, d'oh!
- rorebhoy
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Re: New now reading
Diamond Dog wrote:
A couple of chapters into this... fascinating read so far.. debunking quite important parts of the origins of Rome, but also taking the time to explain why it couldn't possibly be so and then offering the more likely explanations. What I really like is that when the answer is genuinely "we don't know" then that is the answer provided, instead of running off into the more favoured and exotic hypothesis that has become a major pitfall of many history books I've read lately.
That does look good - did the rest of the book hold up?
- Diamond Dog
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Re: New now reading
rorebhoy wrote:Diamond Dog wrote:
A couple of chapters into this... fascinating read so far.. debunking quite important parts of the origins of Rome, but also taking the time to explain why it couldn't possibly be so and then offering the more likely explanations. What I really like is that when the answer is genuinely "we don't know" then that is the answer provided, instead of running off into the more favoured and exotic hypothesis that has become a major pitfall of many history books I've read lately.
That does look good - did the rest of the book hold up?
So far so good, yes. It is such a vast subject, I'm not sure it can provide the detail that some would like but - as an overview- it's really very good. The way certain well known 'facts' are blown apart is very informative.
Nicotine, valium, vicadin, marijuana, ecstasy, and alcohol -
Cocaine
Cocaine
- Snarfyguy
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Re: New now reading
I find his work by turns exasperating and captivating.
GoogaMooga wrote: The further away from home you go, the greater the risk of getting stuck there.
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Re: New now reading
Doing the audio of this, Cornwell's newest in the Utred series. All the macho posturing, the wanton slaughter, the disregard for treaties, the plundering, the game of thrones thing, it all feels contemporary in this, the age of Trump.
Question authority.
- Snarfyguy
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Re: New now reading
GoogaMooga wrote: The further away from home you go, the greater the risk of getting stuck there.
- Penk!
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Re: New now reading
Robert wrote:Did anyone here read ‘A little Life’ ?
Interested about opinions
Only just seen this but yeah, I did.
I liked it a lot - big New York novel with a good flow, strong characters, serious scope, compelling plot, lots of emotional pull - but it was certainly very flawed, some of it verges on the gratuitous or plain unpleasant, and one's disbelief needs a pair of very strong suspenders at some times.
fange wrote:One of the things i really dislike in this life is people raising their voices in German.
- Robert
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Re: New now reading
PENK wrote:Robert wrote:Did anyone here read ‘A little Life’ ?
Interested about opinions
Only just seen this but yeah, I did.
I liked it a lot - big New York novel with a good flow, strong characters, serious scope, compelling plot, lots of emotional pull - but it was certainly very flawed, some of it verges on the gratuitous or plain unpleasant, and one's disbelief needs a pair of very strong suspenders at some times.
I like the story a lot but especially the contrast of the extremely vulnerable protagonist who’s at the same time a top dog in the lawyering/consulting world seemed a bit unreal. For some reason I kept having the picture of Sebastian Flyte in mind while reading.
- Snarfyguy
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Re: New now reading
I'm about to start
Dead Low Tide, a 1953 John D. MacDonald, republished in 2014.
Someone left it on bench in the subway. I felt kind of guilty taking it, but it sat there for a while (during which time I dropped my daughter off at school and returned), so I figured its owner wasn't coming back for it. MacDonald's pretty reliably good, for this sort of thing.
Dead Low Tide, a 1953 John D. MacDonald, republished in 2014.
Someone left it on bench in the subway. I felt kind of guilty taking it, but it sat there for a while (during which time I dropped my daughter off at school and returned), so I figured its owner wasn't coming back for it. MacDonald's pretty reliably good, for this sort of thing.
GoogaMooga wrote: The further away from home you go, the greater the risk of getting stuck there.
- echolalia
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Re: New now reading
“Weird stories for weird times”, it says on the back.
It’s a collection of short stories, some only half a page long (and they wouldn’t look out of place in Nextdoorland) and others longer. The subtitle is “Stories of Ghosts”. Where exactly the ghosts are coming from is unclear. In one story a woman rents an air bnb down on the beach and is haunted by the voices of the previous occupants of the house. At first it’s just period bickering between the departed husband and wife, like recorded conversations from long ago. Until the woman gets home one day and the voices turn contemporary – my spine was chilled. In another story a detective makes his living tracking down people who have “vanished inside their own lives”. It gets to the point we don’t know who’s a ghost and who’s real – there’s a Lynchian tale about a man whose ex keeps sending him video clips of her sightings of him on the underground, except he’s dressed differently, and carries a shoulder bag which is not his style, and has a different expression etc. Obviously it’s not him – he doesn’t even use that particular tube line. But perhaps he doesn’t realize… it’s so fucked up.
None of the stories has a satisfying outcome. But they’re always set near water, usually the Thames, often in the near future with the natives dropping like flies from global warming (Thames Fever). Water seems to be the metaphor for the immanence versus transcendence theme that slinks through all of the stories – where the ghosts come from (transcendent from another world, immanent from this one – but which is worse, and is it bad).
It’s fucking brilliant writing. Especially in some of the shorter things, which are very self-referential and “postmodern”.
- Fonz
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Re: New now reading
Snarfyguy wrote:I'm about to start
Dead Low Tide, a 1953 John D. MacDonald, republished in 2014.
Someone left it on bench in the subway. I felt kind of guilty taking it, but it sat there for a while (during which time I dropped my daughter off at school and returned), so I figured its owner wasn't coming back for it. MacDonald's pretty reliably good, for this sort of thing.
The Travis McGee author, right? I’ve read 7 TM books, all great. Is that one part of the series?
Heyyyy!
"Fonz clearly has no fucks to give. I like the cut of his Cupicidal gib."
"Fonz clearly has no fucks to give. I like the cut of his Cupicidal gib."
- Snarfyguy
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Re: New now reading
Fonz wrote:The Travis McGee author, right? I’ve read 7 TM books, all great. Is that one part of the series?
Yes, the Travis McGee author. This one isn't part of that series, but I'm really liking it.
GoogaMooga wrote: The further away from home you go, the greater the risk of getting stuck there.
- Fonz
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Re: New now reading
Cool. His stuff seems surprisingly gritty and contemporary sometimes.
Heyyyy!
"Fonz clearly has no fucks to give. I like the cut of his Cupicidal gib."
"Fonz clearly has no fucks to give. I like the cut of his Cupicidal gib."
Re: New now reading
Picked this practically brand new hardcover up along with a Chaplin bio at a library sale for a quarter a piece. I paid a buck cuz I'm a high rolla:
I've only read Go Tell It on the Mountain from Baldwin and that was some time ago.
I've only read Go Tell It on the Mountain from Baldwin and that was some time ago.
- KeithPratt
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Re: New now reading
I've not read enough Theroux to my shame. This is only my second after the Patagonian one. Brilliant.
- Snarfyguy
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Re: New now reading
^^^ The Great Railway Bazaar and Riding the Iron Rooster are both excellent. Later on, his crankiness rather gets the better of him.
NR:
NR:
GoogaMooga wrote: The further away from home you go, the greater the risk of getting stuck there.
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Re: New now reading
So far a novel about the tribulations of young CIA agent, I mean a representative of the Del Monte corporation in the Vietnam war. This shit goes deep.
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