What are you reading?

[danoldboy]

[dreamizm]

Ok so I've officially given up on:

as it was putting me off reading full stop

I have gone back to to this to finish


And picked up these yesterday 2nd hand to read next (I'm all abt the late 20th Century ficition):

[HamCrescendo]

Naked Lunch.


Maybe I just dont get it but it just seems like an ok book about nothing. Maybe theres some big payoff at the end but at the moment its just like meh. Maybe this was shocking back when it was published, its nicely written in some part, but huge blah so far.


Before that I read Crash. I'm getting into Ballard, really like him thus far.

[thomas]

Naked Lunch, apart from its style of cut-up, and being a "never ending book, which will send everybody crazy" as Ginsberg said, has some of burroughs politics and thoughts in. Its a cult book though, not alot of people will have read or enjoyed it. I thought it was good, but its a book i wish i read more slowly, in small chunks rather than like it was a classic novel.


Im about to start reading:



Once i finish the last half of:

[ben freeman]

Both exellent books. I've been adjusting my lifestyle slowly to try and be more self sufficient, as in growing my own food, (bought my first house this year) and getting out of debt, which is the cancer of of society. I should be out of credit card debt by the new year.

[dreamizm]

[quote="dreamizm"]
Sicccccccckk. Inna on this 1.

[snuff]

^ great book...

just started this as Placido Street Statiom was superb

[firky]

Arrived today in the post, not going to read it until I go away though.

[slothrop]

^ great book...

just started this as Placido Street Statiom was superb

Kind of want to read The City & The City at some point, but I don't really get all the fuss about Perdido Street Station - everyone goes on about it as some kind of genre redefining masterpiece of socially aware left wing fantasy, but I found that it had some cool ideas to start with (eg the Garuda social model) which it never really did much with, a corrupt government / oppressed proles type setting that's kind of unusual in fantasy but so standard as to be cliche in sci fi since forever, and had some fairly awesome moments (ie the Weaver is immense, the Council is pretty cool) but the entire second half was basically a generic action sci-fi / fantasy bug hunt. When from what I was heard I was expecting something that messed around with the whole genre like, I dunno, Neil Gaiman or Susanna Clarke or Alasdair Gray have done in recent years

I'd love it if you or someone else could justify the hype to me, though...

I'm currently rereading


Oh, and I'm not currently reading it and have already mentioned it upthread, but everyone should read

because it's brilliant.

[firky]

Oh, and I'm not currently reading it and have already mentioned it upthread, but everyone should read

because it's brilliant.

Sounds shit, isn't it just another "magical negro" tale?

[thomas]

I went a big ahead of myself and bought:



Good peice of art on the cover, even if i don't understand it.

[elibomyekip]

Just bought The Road on amazon for 3 quid. It'll be the first bit of fiction I've read since GCSE english lit.

[limb]

I went a big ahead of myself and bought:



Good peice of art on the cover, even if i don't understand it.

that art's awesome must be german expressionist, Franz Marc type stuff (though it's not him) the books ok, I did it at uni, just basically an attack on Christianity, has to be taken with a huge pinch of salt though.

[thomas]

Cool, good introduction to his work? Thats what i have heard.

[gettingcolder]

Wilfred Bion - Transformations

A wonderful book, highly stimulating intellectually, but very difficult. I keep fighting with it, and am rewarded from time to time. It's the third book of a trilogy developing a psychoanalytical theory of thinking. I'd recommend it to anyone interested in a psychoanalytically informed philosophy, and particularly in big questions like 'What are the origins of meaning?'

[kay]

^ great book...

just started this as Placido Street Statiom was superb

Kind of want to read The City & The City at some point, but I don't really get all the fuss about Perdido Street Station - everyone goes on about it as some kind of genre redefining masterpiece of socially aware left wing fantasy, but I found that it had some cool ideas to start with (eg the Garuda social model) which it never really did much with, a corrupt government / oppressed proles type setting that's kind of unusual in fantasy but so standard as to be cliche in sci fi since forever, and had some fairly awesome moments (ie the Weaver is immense, the Council is pretty cool) but the entire second half was basically a generic action sci-fi / fantasy bug hunt. When from what I was heard I was expecting something that messed around with the whole genre like, I dunno, Neil Gaiman or Susanna Clarke or Alasdair Gray have done in recent years

I'd love it if you or someone else could justify the hype to me, though...

For me, China Mieville's Perdido St Station series wasn't amazing from the point of view of the story, but his style/prose. The atmosphere was present from the very first page, which isn't something that's that common in sci-fi/fantasy. The other two books might be slightly better from the story perspective. But again, I think it was more possibly more a case of reading for his writing than the stories which did it for me.

The City & The City's sitting in my to-read pile. Read King Rat recently, the style's quite different. I'd be curious if anyone into DnB back in the day has read it as it makes a fair bit of reference to the music in its earlier days (which was when it was written), and what they think of his portrayal of it.

[tr0tsky]

I went a big ahead of myself and bought:



Good peice of art on the cover, even if i don't understand it.

Superb book.

As is Thus Spoke Zarathustra, On the Genealogy of Morality, the Antichrist and my favourite, Ecce Homo.

All fucking excellent books.

[magma]

I went a big ahead of myself and bought:



Good peice of art on the cover, even if i don't understand it.

Superb book.

As is Thus Spoke Zarathustra, On the Genealogy of Morality, the Antichrist and my favourite, Ecce Homo.

All fucking excellent books.

I've been catching up with this sort of stuff over the last 18 months or so. The Antichrist is probably the one I've enjoyed the most... I refer to it an awful lot when arguing with my housemate.

Worth keeping Nietsche in proper context though, he's got a rather bad rap over the years thanks to certain associates (whom he promptly disassociated himself from).

[tr0tsky]

I went a big ahead of myself and bought:



Good peice of art on the cover, even if i don't understand it.

Superb book.

As is Thus Spoke Zarathustra, On the Genealogy of Morality, the Antichrist and my favourite, Ecce Homo.

All fucking excellent books.

I've been catching up with this sort of stuff over the last 18 months or so. The Antichrist is probably the one I've enjoyed the most... I refer to it an awful lot when arguing with my housemate.

Worth keeping Nietsche in proper context though, he's got a rather bad rap over the years thanks to certain associates (whom he promptly disassociated himself from).

Totally. People who think Nietzsche is an anti-Semite either haven't read nor understand him. The whole point of the point of the Parable of the Jews is that the Jews of the temple were moral. This is why the following slave morality was not. Simple shit.

[snuff]

^ great book...

just started this as Placido Street Statiom was superb

Kind of want to read The City & The City at some point, but I don't really get all the fuss about Perdido Street Station - everyone goes on about it as some kind of genre redefining masterpiece of socially aware left wing fantasy, but I found that it had some cool ideas to start with (eg the Garuda social model) which it never really did much with, a corrupt government / oppressed proles type setting that's kind of unusual in fantasy but so standard as to be cliche in sci fi since forever, and had some fairly awesome moments (ie the Weaver is immense, the Council is pretty cool) but the entire second half was basically a generic action sci-fi / fantasy bug hunt. When from what I was heard I was expecting something that messed around with the whole genre like, I dunno, Neil Gaiman or Susanna Clarke or Alasdair Gray have done in recent years

I'd love it if you or someone else could justify the hype to me, though...

For me, China Mieville's Perdido St Station series wasn't amazing from the point of view of the story, but his style/prose. The atmosphere was present from the very first page, which isn't something that's that common in sci-fi/fantasy. The other two books might be slightly better from the story perspective. But again, I think it was more possibly more a case of reading for his writing than the stories which did it for me.

The City & The City's sitting in my to-read pile. Read King Rat recently, the style's quite different. I'd be curious if anyone into DnB back in the day has read it as it makes a fair bit of reference to the music in its earlier days (which was when it was written), and what they think of his portrayal of it.

i think anything succesful inevitably becomes a victim of it's own PR. I read for pleasure though and am not going to over-think it too much, it's just as satisafying sometimes to read a trashy trashy terry pratchet novel as it is to read a balletic Alastair Reynolds...

Un_lun_dun is really dope though in a enjoyable kids book way