Another reading thread

[Loz]

I've just started A Drink With Shane MacGowan

I'm only a few pages into it, but it's really good. I really like the style. Rather than reading a story of his life, it's like you're listening in to him having a chat. More informal, less boring and certainly more entertaining.

If only I was as cool as Shane MacGowan. And I've got better teeth (not by much). I'd be unstoppable!

[penciLneck]

I'm reading 'Years of Rice and Salt' by Kim Stanley Robinson. Quite Good really, interesting departure from his usual SF style.

Kim Stanley Robinson delivers a thoughtful and powerful examination of cultures and the people who shape them. How might human history be different if 14th-century Europe was utterly wiped out by plague, and Islamic and Buddhist societies emerged as the world's dominant religious and political forces? The Years of Rice and Salt considers this question through the stories of individuals who experience and influence various crucial periods in the seven centuries that follow. The credible alternate history that Robinson constructs becomes the framework for a tapestry of ideas about philosophy, science, theology, and politics.

[Loz]

I quite like alternative history books. The Man In The High Castle being the obvious example.

[penciLneck]

Aye its quite common in scifi, but styles vary. I like the way he's approached this one.

[drop]

reading 'genius: a mosaic of one hundred exemplary creative minds' by harold bloom

[alex cortex]

mario vargas llosa - historia de mayta: interesting novel, deals with the unreliability of the authorial voice.

mario vargas llosa - la casa verde: maybe his best novel.

gerard genette - paratexts: somewhat of a metabook. analysis of what else than the actual text makes up a book. sounds dry, but genette makes it a good read.

tom wolfe - the electric kool-aid acid test: best book i´ve read in a while.

last thursday, bloomsday, participated in a scenic reading of the theatre-play chapter in ulysses. hilariously funny. am really keen on reading the whole book.

and can´t wait to read lawrence durrell´s avignon quintet.

[sire.uri]

cool thread!
hope, here are lots of literatur guys.

I`m reading right now "the suffer of the young werther" by goethe and "the concoction of the german idealism( a biographie about friedrich schiller)" by rüdiger safranski, "nathan, the sage" by lessing and " the book of living and dying of tibet" by sogyal rinpoche

[Hagbard]

Originally posted by alex cortex
tom wolfe - the electric kool-aid acid test: best book i´ve read in a while.

I might have to read that again one day, very enjoyable.

[V Knid esq]

Originally posted by Loz
I've just started A Drink With Shane MacGowan

Rather than reading a story of his life, it's like you're listening in to him having a chat.

What - you mean you can't understand a word he says and it's punctuated with laughter that sounds like a gas leak?

[V Knid esq]

If yr reading Electric Kool Aid Acid Test, check out Storming Heaven: LSD And The American Dream... interesting parallel narrative of many of the same events.

I'm still making my way through the works of Ken Macleod... finished the Fall Revolution series, and am half way through the first novel in the Engines Of Light set. His styles are so varied it's mental, but always good.

[seawolf]

i'm reading the corrections by jonathan franzen. only on chapter 3 but am loving it so far.

i'm also reading the ex-machina comics

[Hagbard]

I'm reading a book about Chris Marker, best known for directing the film 'La Jetee'.
Good stuff so far, his work covers the interplay of fields like history, memory and propaganda... The power of images and the deception of memories.

[grobelaar]

I found 10 Phillip K Dick novels in a secondhand bookshop in Portsmouth yesterday...

Brighton seems to have lots of Seconhand bookshops too - is this common across the south coast? Do all the old books in England tumble their way to the south - or is there just a peculiar culture of recycling books here?

[Hagbard]

Theres a really good secondhand bookshop near me in Bournemouth as well, where I picked up 'The Man in the High Castle' as it goes. I use Abebooks a lot to buy books as well.

[V Knid esq]

You think the South Coast has lots, you should check out Hay-On-Wye on the Welsh border. Every other shop is a 2nd hand bookshop. You can lose days on end browsing them.

[grobelaar]

The characters that run them as well - they're usually very eccentric - with bizarre systems/no system at all of ordering their books...

[Hagbard]

Heh yeh.. I find for the shop near me its best not to go in with any ideas of specific books you are after.. I did that once.. I asked him if he had a book and he said yes... and then he sort of paused and looked at this massive 2 metre cube of books and said.. hmm maybe come back next week. A lot more charm than Amazon ;)

[V Knid esq]

Oh fuck yes... there was a classic guy who owned two shops opposite one another on Queens Rd. Lanky guy with white beard and red boozy fact... just stood in the doorway all day surrounded by vast teetering piles of books in seemingly random order, but if you asked for something he would be able to locate it in seconds.

Ian Sinclair is an ex book dealer and has written some good stuff about the bizarre characters in the trade.

[Hagbard]

This fellar in Bournemouth is slightly seedy but pretty harmless.. he gives my girlfriend loads of free books and cuts the price in half all the time... he's a proper 'Boozy Colonel'... Bloody good chap type...

[Hagbard]

Have you read any books in this series Knid?

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0826415482

This one is about MBV - Loveless.. I wonder if its just a re-hash of old interviews etc.. or actually contains stuff about what they did in the studio etc...

[Loz]

Originally posted by Steev
This fellar in Bournemouth is slightly seedy but pretty harmless.. he gives my girlfriend loads of free books and cuts the price in half all the time... he's a proper 'Boozy Colonel'... Bloody good chap type...

I can't wait until I'm old enough to be letcherous and lude and still be thought of as harmless. Now I just get the police coming around.

[Hagbard]

Originally posted by Loz


I can't wait until I'm old enough to be letcherous and lude and still be thought of as harmless. Now I just get the police coming around.

I wouldn't say he was letcherous or lude at all, just a ladies man...

[love_tempo]

I'm just finishing "Wide Sargasso Sea," by Jean Rhys. It's suited the balmy, edgy weather here.

I read a lot of Mario Vargas Llosa last summer and really enjoyed it. The one about the anthropologist who turns wild was the one I liked the most. Can't remember what it was called. I still have one of his books yet to read on my bookshelf.

Manchester is crap for second hand books. Waterstones have taken over. San Francisco and Berkeley had some great places like City Lights and especially Moe's on Telegraph near Berkeley University.

[love_tempo]

Shane Macgowan was staying for weeks on end in a silly uppity hotel in Dublin that my girlfriend was working as a concierge in.

He had turned his suite into a squat and was on a massive life-ending bender. His poor addled parents were calling every day to see if he was still alive. Not sure how cool that is.

[Loz]

Originally posted by love_tempo
He had turned his suite into a squat and was on a massive life-ending bender. His poor addled parents were calling every day to see if he was still alive. Not sure how cool that is.

Very cool.

The good (and cool) die young. The cooler try to die young, and yet somehow survive.

See Shane MacGowan; Keith Richards; etc

[Spandex]

Originally posted by V Knid esq
If yr reading Electric Kool Aid Acid Test, check out Storming Heaven: LSD And The American Dream... interesting parallel narrative of many of the same events.

Yeah.. I read Storming Heaven and really enjoyed it... it's sympathetic to the whole scene, but doesn't get too hung up on all the highpriest and psuedo-religious stuff that seems to go hand in hand with people taking too much acid for years.

[love_tempo]

Well, I suppose he is pretty cool, but still a bit shite for his parents ringing every day to see if he had finally choked on his own vomit.

And anyway, with Shane MacGowan it's getting ridiculous. I mean, he SHOULD be dead. Cigarette and whiskey companies could use him as a counter-example. Live fast, live forever :)

[Loz]

I love people like that because they're really unrepentant, too. They haven't gone near to death, had a life changing experience and said "fuck me, I'm staying off drink and drugs for the rest of my life"

They've gone near to death, had a life changing experience, and said "fuck me, I've done all this and nearly died. Yet I haven't. Might as well carry on, then."

Class.

[nikrem]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by V Knid esq
[B]Oh fuck yes... there was a classic guy who owned two shops opposite one another on Queens Rd. Lanky guy with white beard and red boozy fact... just stood in the doorway all day surrounded by vast teetering piles of books in seemingly random order, but if you asked for something he would be able to locate it in seconds.

he was amazing! him and the old boy with the cloven thumb who runs selectadisc by the station who's got the ability to nail record label name/catalogue numbers of any obscure piece of music you care to ask him about (if you're in town try him out, he's infallible. i went in there years ago and got a history of can/spoon records - just don't mention cd's..)

a different species.

[nikrem]

back on topic - i just started reading "the little friend" by donna tartt. the first chapter is devastating.

[V Knid esq]

Originally posted by Steev


I wouldn't say he was letcherous or lude at all, just a ladies man...

<img src="http://www.terra.com.br/diversao/galeria/nova_personagens/leslie%20phillips.jpg"width=150>

Ding DONG!

[V Knid esq]

Originally posted by Steev
Have you read any books in this series Knid?

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0826415482

This one is about MBV - Loveless.. I wonder if its just a re-hash of old interviews etc.. or actually contains stuff about what they did in the studio etc...

Interesting. I've been websearching recently to find out what Mr Shields is up to now, and there are all kinds of plans to reform MBV, to release a box-set with unreleased songs / different versions and so forth, to do live albums (he recorded every gig MBV ever did through the mixing desk), to remaster the old tracks etc - which of course the slack fuck will never get round to :( :(

[isoprax]

I just ordered two books and should have them this week if I'm lucky - I need some new stuff


Why Things Break : Understanding the World By the Way It Comes Apart

Beyond Genetics: Putting the Power of DNA to Work in Your Life

just some stuff t ponder while working a boring job ;)

[V Knid esq]

Originally posted by love_tempo
I'm just finishing "Wide Sargasso Sea," by Jean Rhys. It's suited the balmy, edgy weather here.


Such a great book. One of the very few I read for university that I actually *did* read cover-to-cover and properly enjoyed. Feverish, sexy, weird. Mrs Knid has read all her other stuff and highly recommends it.

[Hagbard]

Originally posted by V Knid esq


Interesting. I've been websearching recently to find out what Mr Shields is up to now, and there are all kinds of plans to reform MBV, to release a box-set with unreleased songs / different versions and so forth, to do live albums (he recorded every gig MBV ever did through the mixing desk), to remaster the old tracks etc - which of course the slack fuck will never get round to :( :(

Yeah I've read all those rumours too... I try and ignore them though.. sigh..

The truth is it took Sofia Coppola and a lot of dough to get him releasing again :)

[thembuzz]

i'm currently reading a bunch of bloom county books my girlfriend lent me

[alex cortex]

picked up at the shop today:

blutopia - visions of the future and revisions of the past in the works of su ra, duke ellington, and anthony braxton.

sounds interesting.

[May Kasahara]

I've just finished The Faded Sun trilogy by CJ Cherryh, which was as high quality, intelligent and gripping as all her work. More meditative than the main Company Wars books, too - a bit more like 40,000 In Gehenna. Very cool.

Have picked up Blindness by Jose Saramago off the bookshelf this morning, not started it yet though.

[Orang Utan]

Just finished reading Granny Made Me An Anarchist by Stuart Christie - made me realise I've been an anarchist all these years but didn't know it.
Now reading Who Runs This Place? by Anthony Sampson, a rather disheartening book about the sham of democracy in the UK.

[Loz]

out of interest, how does one know if they're an anarchist?

I could be an anarchist, but I strongly believe that human nature would make sure that some people lead and others followed, which wouldn't be an anarchy, strictly speaking.

[Orang Utan]

Well, I guess that an anarchist realises that humans can be weak and easily led but feels that humanity is a work in progress and instead of being resigned to human nature, should strive to improve on it.

[Loz]

ah, so I'm not then, I think human nature, and the way people exploit it for their own ends, damns this race to many more years of not growing

[Orang Utan]

By the way - looking at anarchism as simply being against leaders and followers is a very simplistic way of looking at it - which is why I was wary of studying it all these years - I couldn't get over the image in my head of a sweaty hairy bloke in a mask and a black wooly jumper throwing marblles at a horse.

[Loz]

Originally posted by Orang Utan
a sweaty hairy bloke in a mask and a black wooly jumper throwing marblles at a horse.

lol

[Orang Utan]

Originally posted by Loz
ah, so I'm not then, I think human nature, and the way people exploit it for their own ends, damns this race to many more years of not growing

But we all need to rage against this - anarchism is raging against this - stressing the importance of the individual to be involved with doing whatever they can to stop the powerful exploiting the week.
If we all took that stand, the powerful would have no chance!

[bitch one]

Originally posted by isoprax

Beyond Genetics: Putting the Power of DNA

what's this? sounds dodgy

[Spandex]

Originally posted by Orang Utan
But we all need to rage against this - anarchism is raging against this - stressing the importance of the individual to be involved with doing whatever they can to stop the powerful exploiting the week.
If we all took that stand, the powerful would have no chance!

yeh.. anarchism says "hang on.. we can work out how to fix everything cos we all want the same thing".. whereas the current situation is more like "hang on.. *I* know how to fix this, everyone do as I say... right.. first off.. fetch me a cushion.. cool.. right.. now, go make me a sandwich.. " etc

[deccard]

just finished phillip k. dick - A Scanner Darkly.
great book. there gonna be a movie...
...with keanu reaves... :/
http://www.philipkdick.com/films_scanner.html

ups saw that there is already thread about that movie...thx loz
me getting old :-)

[isoprax]

My next books are...

Sinclair Lewis "Elmer Gantry"
Stephen Hawking "A Brief History of Time"
some other thing my wifey grabbed for me and says I'll like but probably wont

[Hagbard]

Originally posted by Loz
I quite like alternative history books. The Man In The High Castle being the obvious example.

Are there any other Dick books like this one? I thought it was really good, the writing was a bit clunky at times but the ideas are great.

I didn't really get into A Scanner Darkly, it kept making me think of William Burroughs and William Gibson books which I enjoyed more.. I couldn't really get into Ubik either.. a bit too Sci-Fi for me to be honest.

[Loz]

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep is good once you get past the first chapter, which is a bit annoying in all honesty.

I liked Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said, too.

[Hagbard]

Originally posted by Loz
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep is good once you get past the first chapter, which is a bit annoying in all honesty.

I liked Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said, too.

I'll check them out, I'm a bit resitant to reading 'Do Androids..' though.. I'd rather read something I don't have preconceptions about.

[Loz]

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep has virtually nothing in common with the film Blade Runner. The only thing is does have in common is Replicants, and the main character's names. Practically everything else is completely different. Deckard is even married in the book.

[Daddys Girl]

my current book is 'the black dahlia', which i'm engrossed in.

[seawolf]

reading 'time out of joint', the first philip k dick book i've read

[carrot ram]

Just started 'Noise water meat'.

[dan gulberry]

Writing up Qualitative Research, by Harry Wolcott.

Trust me. It'll change your life.


No, it really will. It'll make you into a dull, computer potato. Whereas before you were just a potato.

[labrat]

allright, now can someone recommend a GOOD book to read? i'm back in the fluoro orange flying tin can tomorrow

[phil]

K Hole - by A. Entity

A daring and sideways look into the nightmarish world of Gypsy Chic

[Orang Utan]

Originally posted by labrat
allright, now can someone recommend a GOOD book to read? i'm back in the fluoro orange flying tin can tomorrow

Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell

[Hagbard]

Originally posted by carrot ram
Just started 'Noise water meat'.

I really enjoyed bits of that, a bit hard going at times though.

[Lady E]

a few points to respond to:

* whoever was reading 'electric kool aid acid test', i recommend that you also read 'uptight' by gerard malanga, and 'hell's angels' by hunter s. thompson as they are all about the same period and overlap in lots of ways.

* kevin shields was playing with primal scream last time i looked.

* i have just finished teen sex book 'doing it' by melvin burgess (not very true to life, but a good reminder of what it is like to be a teenager), and 'hey nostradamus' by douglas coupland (which made me cry).

i am now reading ' a short history of nearly everything' by bill bryson (quite entertaining) and 'a guide to teaching practice' by no-one anyone here needs to hear about.

[Daddys Girl]

Originally posted by emma
a few points to respond to:* i have just finished teen sex book 'doing it' by melvin burgess (not very true to life, but a good reminder of what it is like to be a teenager),

I've got that book, and really loved it!

[Sheridan]

I've been reading england's hidden reverse: a secret history of the esoteric underground

the book chronicles the formation and influence of current 93, coil and nurse with wound.

[Hagbard]

Originally posted by Sheridan
I've been reading england's hidden reverse: a secret history of the esoteric underground

the book chronicles the formation and influence of current 93, coil and nurse with wound.

Is it good? I've considered buying that.

[Sheridan]

so far it is really interesting.
although I've really only just started it.
I have it on loan from a friend of mine who said that when he started reading it he took it everywhere with him. he would read it at any chance he could, he was that into it. it also comes with a cd with songs from all three artists. so from time to time you can listen to a track that the author is covering in a given point. I'd recommend picking that one up if you can.

[alex cortex]

just finished "do androids...". it´s okay, didn´t stun me as the film did and constantly does, but then it has been said already, they have little in common. also just read some of his short stories. minority report and so on. okay stuff. but now i´m reading a scanner darkly and this to me is the best by p.k.dick i read so far. maybe because it´s not so much tech-based scifi, apart from the scrambler suits. maybe i enjoyed man in the high castle for the same reason. still have flow my tears waiting here. ubik and valis seem to be worth reading too. any opinions?

also just started reading toop´s "ocean of sound" again. still interesting.

[alex cortex]

Originally posted by emma
* whoever was reading 'electric kool aid acid test', i recommend that you also read 'uptight' by gerard malanga, and 'hell's angels' by hunter s. thompson as they are all about the same period and overlap in lots of ways.

thanks for that info. anyone got more ideas about novels dealing with psychedelic culture? (apart from the obvious burroughs, kesey, wolfe, huxley, burroughs, etc). i´d be especially interested in british authors. would be for a term paper, roughly said a comparison of british and american psychedelic novels. though any non-fictional material would of course be helpful too (or books like electric kool aid acid test, which is somewhere inbetween).