Books

[Maggot Colony]

Back on a Discworld buzz myself after years of not reading any Pratchett. Finished Wyrd Sisters recently, and currently reading Mort.

I love Mort! There's one character in it that's near and dear to me as it happens...

Actually got a fresh copy of it not too long ago as well

Bought a copy of Mort and Reaper Man with the original Josh Kirby artwork, and found an old copy of Hogfather when I was back home at the weekend. I'm not a fan of the newer covers.

I was a huge Pratchett fan as a teen, and dismissed him for some reason when I was 17. I was probably too busy being edgy listening to Marilyn Manson and reading Christopher Pike! It's great coming back to his style of writing. Looking forward to spending some time in the Discworld again.

[StoutAndAle]

Reading a ton of Bukowski's poetry. The most recent one is Sometimes You Get So Alone it Just Makes Sense. Really enjoyed it, one of the better ones (Last Night of the Earth Poems being the best so far).

Someone on here (StoutnAle maybe?) recommended the David Bowie oral history, strong recommend for that as well, couldn't put it down. Great to hear all the varying opinions of him from people who are bitter, in awe, begrudgingly respectful, and all the people who try to claim a little piece of his history as their own (I actually wrote that riff, I contributed that lyric etc, from nobodies).

Bukowski is the man. I've never read much of his poetry though. Bit and pieces only over the years.

Glad that you enjoyed that Dylan Jones book on David Bowie. Apparently his book on 1995 is great too but I haven't read it.

[Crystal_Logic]

I started re-reading through the Discworld books from the start, I am just about to finish Thief of Time.

The only one I actually didn't absolutely love has been Interesting Times - I thought his attempts to satirize ancient Chinese culture was clunky and came across as awkward. Also the story seemed to drag.

On the non-fiction side, I read Red Famine: Stalin's War on Ukraine by Anne Applebaum. Very interesting, really helped explain Russia's current attitude towards Ukraine. Harrowing at times.

[Mooncat]

Reading a ton of Bukowski's poetry. The most recent one is Sometimes You Get So Alone it Just Makes Sense. Really enjoyed it, one of the better ones (Last Night of the Earth Poems being the best so far).

Someone on here (StoutnAle maybe?) recommended the David Bowie oral history, strong recommend for that as well, couldn't put it down. Great to hear all the varying opinions of him from people who are bitter, in awe, begrudgingly respectful, and all the people who try to claim a little piece of his history as their own (I actually wrote that riff, I contributed that lyric etc, from nobodies).

Bukowski is the man. I've never read much of his poetry though. Bit and pieces only over the years.

Glad that you enjoyed that Dylan Jones book on David Bowie. Apparently his book on 1995 is great too but I haven't read it.

One of the things I like about his poetry is that it doesn't read like poetry, more like prose. If you read it with the line breaks it's weird, but if you just read it as complete sentences it just reads like his books. More a collection of his thoughts, opinions, and observations than poetry. I love getting sucked into his world. So many of the poems take about 30secs to read, but have you putting the book down and thinking for several minutes afterwards.

[ldj]

Have one chapter left of LOTR The Return of the King to read before completing the entire series, started with The Hobbit back in March or April, usually only have time to read a chapter a night.

Have to say it was absolutely fantastic, well worth it and should have read it years ago (could see myself re-reading at some point too), off next weekend so might as well fire up the films with some good beer and pipeweed  .

[astfgyl]

Have one chapter left of LOTR The Return of the King to read before completing the entire series, started with The Hobbit back in March or April, usually only have time to read a chapter a night.

Have to say it was absolutely fantastic, well worth it and should have read it years ago (could see myself re-reading at some point too), off next weekend so might as well fire up the films with some good beer and pipeweed  .

I didn't think much of The Hobbit but the Lord of The Rings ones are flawless. My major gripe with those was that there had to be an end to them. I fucking hoovered them up so I did.

It's been about five or six years now as well I might get away with a re reading soon enough hopefully

[Eoin McLove]

It's twenty something years since I read LOTR. I should give it another spin one of these years. I loved it.

[Maggot Colony]

Just finished Savage Night by Jim Thompson. The darkest of the noir writers, his stuff never fails to shock and surprise me. 

[Don Gately]

Tokyo Express - Seicho Matsumoto,  recommended for mystery,  crime buffs.

[Carnage]

I'm a third of the way through Bob Mould's autobiography at the moment, it's not bad. Maybe I was spoiled by Peter Hook's Joy Division book, that went into quite a bit of detail about pretty much every element of their career but this seems to be fairly vague in places, skips over a lot of specifics. I'm enjoying it though, just coming to the end of the Hüsker Dü period so there's still plenty to go.

It inspired me to go looking for the HD CDs (I own none of theirs and all of Mould's), I'm assuming they're mostly out of print as the prices for secondhand are fairly hefty.

[Don Gately]

I'm reading The Room by Hubert Selby , follow up to Last Exit to Brooklyn,  which is one of my favourite books.

[Maggot Colony]

I'm a third of the way through Bob Mould's autobiography at the moment, it's not bad. Maybe I was spoiled by Peter Hook's Joy Division book, that went into quite a lit of detail about pretty much every element of their career but this seems to be fairly vague in places, skips over a lot of specifics. I'm enjoying it though, just coming to the end of the Hüsker Dü period so there's still plenty to go.

It inspired me to go looking for the HD CDs (I own none of theirs and all of Mould's), I'm assuming they're mostly out of print as the prices for secondhand are fairly hefty.

Warehouse: Songs and Stories is still available on Amazon and I'm pretty sure I saw it in Tower not so long ago, but the rest of the catalogue seems to be harder to find. I can't comment on the quality of Warehouse, but I don't think it's as well regarded as their earlier releases.

[Carnage]

It's decent but you could tell their hearts weren't in it. Just going by the book the animosity between Mould and Hart was coming to a head at that point.

Yeah, had a deeper look after that last night and the Warner albums are a bit easier to find, the earlier/SST releases are the pricey ones. The label has them for reasonable prices but I assume they're coming from the U.S., postage and customs charges would drive the price up.

[StoutAndAle]

It's decent but you could tell their hearts weren't in it. Just going by the book the animosity between Mould and Hart was coming to a head at that point.

Yeah, had a deeper look after that last night and the Warner albums are a bit easier to find, the earlier/SST releases are the pricey ones. The label has them for reasonable prices but I assume they're coming from the U.S., postage and customs charges would drive the price up.

I really rate "Warehouse Songs And Stories" - it's a bit self indulgent and overly long but it's also the culmination of HD's growth over 7 years. There's some absolutely classic tracks on it - mainly Mould's contributions "Could You Be The One?", "Ice Cold Ice", "Up In The Air", "Bed Of Nails" and "Friend, You've Got To Fall".

I would have thought that you could get HD records - especially CDs - relatively cheaply these days. I picked up new vinyls of "Zen Arcade" and "Candy Apple Grey" for less than $20 each in the US. (That was about 15 years ago though!)

Had a quick look at Amazon US there. Some of the used CDs are reasonable. If the CDs are sold by or if an order is fulfilled by Amazon then you won't be reamed too much in my experience.

A great Saturday afternoon/evening cans and records pairing is the twofer of "Zen Arcade" and The Minutemen's "Double Nickels On The Dime".

[Carnage]

I'll have a look there, as Discogs isn't great either. Some reasonable prices but again, mostly shipping from the sates.