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 » 03 Aug 2020, 09:27

Minnie the Minx wrote:Image

I finished this yesterday after being pretty gripped by it for a few weeks. Unlike my reaction to Roth's other main characters, I found myself increasingly disliking Sabbath - his utter self absorption, his disgust for emotional intimacy, the way any intimacy he did foster inevitably ended in grubby sperm events, his emotionless dissection of everyone who had tried to love him/ hadn't loved him, his empathy bypass, his endless cock gazing as though his penis had been his only friend. I got to the end of the book finding no redeeming features in him whatsoever. I was waiting to find some, to end on a high. That high didn't come.

Beautifully written, mind you!

That's one of Roth's best, in my opinion, it has to be difficult to write a book where the protagonist is so consistently repellent, yet make it thoroughly engrossing. Irvine Welsh with an understanding of properly beautiful prose. Also, in the literary-heavyweights writing about puppeteers league, it's way ahead of Salman Rushdie's terrible Fury.
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Re: New now reading

Postby Jimbo » 03 Aug 2020, 09:53

Darkness_Fish wrote: the protagonist is so consistently repellent ....


So he gets caught jerking off over the grave of his married lover by her policeman husband.

And if Curb Your Enthusiasm Larry David isn't perfect for the movie role I don't know what else to say.
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Re: New now reading

Postby Jimbo » 04 Aug 2020, 13:22

Image

Just started this. Never saw the film. The author writes like an aristocrat, very upright, very fancy, very 19th century but writes about the most gruesome and inhumane behavior. That it was America and not that long ago makes it more shocking.
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Re: New now reading

Postby Darkness_Fish » 04 Aug 2020, 15:44

Jimbo wrote:Image

Just started this. Never saw the film. The author writes like an aristocrat, very upright, very fancy, very 19th century but writes about the most gruesome and inhumane behavior. That it was America and not that long ago makes it more shocking.

I read that a few months ago, too, and haven't seen the film either. It really is a shocking description of mundane everyday terror, but the formal 19th century style at times makes the brutal existence of life under slavery sound like an inconvenience. Properly fascinating read though.
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Re: New now reading

Postby Jimbo » 05 Aug 2020, 14:15

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Alternating my listening between Twelve Years a Slave with this one, both free downloads while Audible credit is not yet in place.

Das Boat was one of my favorite reads and so when I saw this was available I grabbed it and so far it ain't bad, except for how haughty the main character is. Also how chaste he is, how hard it is for him to even kiss the woman he loves is hard to believe, but times were different I guess.

FYI

http://www.loyalbooks.com/
Loyal Books
Free Public Domain Audiobooks & eBook Downloads
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Re: New now reading

Postby Jimbo » 07 Aug 2020, 07:52

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Re: New now reading

Postby Jimbo » 10 Aug 2020, 03:41

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Another freebie! And it's great! Real noir stuff.

Shackleton was good but this is GOOD.
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Re: New now reading

Postby Jimbo » 11 Aug 2020, 15:24

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Another submarine adventure.
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Re: New now reading

Postby Darkness_Fish » 15 Aug 2020, 21:46

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Celebrated the reopening of the local book cycle by trying to find something esoteric I wouldn't see in a Waterstones or whatever. Think I succeeded.
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Re: New now reading

Postby Flower » 26 Aug 2020, 11:54

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I recently finished reading Dead Land and was disappointed. When authors write series of books, they usually fill in character details in each book of the series so that if a reader is picking up any book of the series, all the background is explained and makes sense to a new reader. While character back ground was sketchy, the plot was good but not great. Maybe it's just me but the last few V.I. Warshawski books weren't as enjoyable as the previous ones in this series.
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Re: New now reading

Postby Brickyard Jack » 27 Aug 2020, 07:48

What Maisie Knew, by Henry James.

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Re: New now reading

Postby Darkness_Fish » 27 Aug 2020, 21:03

Image

Better known as one of The Wire's music critics (and author of the excellent "England's Hidden Reverse" on Coil, Current 93 and NWW), this is his second novel, set in Belfast during The Troubles. Pretty bloody good so far, something of a less puerile Irvine Welsh about it, perhaps even a hint of Roddy Doyle.
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Re: New now reading

Postby Snarfyguy » 31 Aug 2020, 03:11

Evelyn Waugh - Vile Bodies

Still funny.
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Re: New now reading

Postby Jimbo » 01 Sep 2020, 08:15

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Second listening but it still feels fresh. Bernie Gunther flashing back and forth from 1954 to his SS duty in 1941.
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Re: New now reading

Postby Tactful Cactus » 01 Sep 2020, 13:10

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Few chapters in. Very readable.

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Re: New now reading

Postby BARON CORNY DOG » 01 Sep 2020, 13:44

Snarfyguy wrote:Evelyn Waugh - Vile Bodies

Still funny.


At some point I want to re-read all those funny Waugh books. Still haven’t read Brideshead, which I gather is a different deal.
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Re: New now reading

Postby Brickyard Jack » 01 Sep 2020, 14:23

Dr. Baron wrote:
Snarfyguy wrote:Evelyn Waugh - Vile Bodies

Still funny.


At some point I want to re-read all those funny Waugh books. Still haven’t read Brideshead, which I gather is a different deal.


But really very good. Elegaic rather than farcical.
I found the Sword of Honour books less engaging, but then I was only about 23 when I read them and maybe didn't understand them.

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Re: New now reading

Postby Darkness_Fish » 02 Sep 2020, 13:05

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1970s Bombay via a series of opium-riddled disconnected ramblings. Not sure it's for me, to be fair.
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Re: New now reading

Postby Samoan » 02 Sep 2020, 14:20

Positive Passion wrote:
Dr. Baron wrote:
Snarfyguy wrote:Evelyn Waugh - Vile Bodies

Still funny.


At some point I want to re-read all those funny Waugh books. Still haven’t read Brideshead, which I gather is a different deal.


But really very good. Elegaic rather than farcical.
I found the Sword of Honour books less engaging, but then I was only about 23 when I read them and maybe didn't understand them.

Brideshead is extraordinary and deeply poignant.

A Handful of Dust is also very moving and one heck of a story.
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Re: New now reading

Postby ` » 02 Sep 2020, 15:52

Samoan wrote:
A Handful of Dust is also very moving and one heck of a story.




Sounds a bit dry for my literary taste.


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