Books

[Black Shepherd Carnage]

Speaking of Nabokov, I read the first few pages of Ada and Ardor last week since I gained it via a friend leaving the country. Have only read Lolita before, but it dropped immediately into the top five best written works for me.

I'm also about halfway through Paradise Lost, which I'd never read. Really enjoying it, and Easter seems a perfect time.

Also slowly going through the complete Blake, as I'm sure there are passages I've missed in the past.

[kiehozero]

Cracking through Debt: The First 5000 Years by David Graeber which is a great piece of work on the history of financial systems. I've got his book Bullshit Jobs on the shelf and I'm tempted to go straight into that next. To get me to sleep at night I'm reading the autobiography of the Australian cricketer (sorry, I'm outing myself as a cricket fan) Shane Warne. It's much better than many sport biographies I've read, he'll go from immense detail about his technique to nailing Liz Hurley in one paragraph, but it never feels disjointed.

[Pedrito]

Just finished the Crossing by Cormac McCarthy. I picked it up 2 days ago and didn't stop until I finished the 437 pages. I'm meant to be working from home..I'm still shaking from all the coffee and the mindblowing genius of his writing. Crazy good.

[Scáthach]

Just finished the Crossing by Cormac McCarthy. I picked it up 2 days ago and didn't stop until I finished the 437 pages. I'm meant to be working from home..I'm still shaking from all the coffee and the mindblowing genius of his writing. Crazy good.

Brilliant! I love his writing, the last of his I read was his play, The Sunset Limited. It was good but good feck was it a bleak experience.

[Eoin McLove]

Finished 'Climbing Mount Improbable' by Richard Dawkins just now. It was a fascinating read. Dawkins presents clear and elegant insights into Darwinian theory (I'll have to pick up 'On The Origin of the Species' and give it a go) and makes complex ideas accessible for the most simple minds, such as my own.

And now to get stuck into 'The Square and the Tower'. Been looking forward to this one 

[Black Shepherd Carnage]

Origin is very readable. I don't think I'll ever read Dawkins again, but The Selfish Gene and The Extended Phenotype are very well presented perspectives, even if I don't believe them to be "true".

[kiehozero]

Just finished For the Good Times by David Keenan. Narrator is an IRA member living in Ardoyne in the 1970s, but it just gets very weird from there, and it is incredible. Strongly recommend supporting a local bookshop and picking this up.

[Carnage]

Finished High Concept: Don Simpson And The Hollywood Culture Of Excess yesterday. Essentially a tell-all collection of gossip and anecdotes framed around Simpson's rise and demise. Alright.

Finally dug out Dune and launched into my reread of that, the plan is to read all six books while I'm at it, they've been sitting on the shelf for long enough.

[Pedrito]

Finished McCarthy's Border Trilogy. The man would break your fekin heart, what a writer though. It's amazing really how controls the reader, I'm sure it's a sort of technique he has developed, where you get the sense that some of the more intense parts are almost a retelling or recollection by the person involved, a look into their memories. Things get heightened and exaggerated and then return to normal again. I'm sure there are breakdowns of it all out there in the ether somewhere. I found myself reading the final book with fragments of past books returning to me like memories, shadows, whatever...yeah so I enjoyed them immensely. I'll leave the shite breakdowns to Goodreads reviewers.

So I've read Border Trilogy, The Road and Blood M..any other recommendation?

Currently on 2001 A Space Odyssey.

[Carnage]

The only other one of his that I've read is No Country For Old Men, enjoyed it.

If you like 2001, keep going with the series. Diminishing returns but 2010 is almost as good and 2061 is a decent read. 3001 is shite, though.

[Wiseblood]

Currently persevering with David Ellefsons "More Life With Deth". It's a fucking chore. 

While he's roundly perceived as the good guy in that band he's a bit of a dose. Far too holy of a Joe and when you look past that you see that he'd try his hand at anything for a few quid... take for example his ordination as a minister, part of his love of the good Lord but also admits he did it as a potential income source when the band ends. The book is also full of pointless ass kissing by that dreadlocked shit heap from his solo band. Turns out he's his business partner in all his dealings but is nothing more than a fan that can't believe his luck for getting to hang with his fave bassist.

[Don Gately]

 

Finished McCarthy's Border Trilogy. The man would break your fekin heart, what a writer though. It's amazing really how controls the reader, I'm sure it's a sort of technique he has developed, where you get the sense that some of the more intense parts are almost a retelling or recollection by the person involved, a look into their memories. Things get heightened and exaggerated and then return to normal again. I'm sure there are breakdowns of it all out there in the ether somewhere. I found myself reading the final book with fragments of past books returning to me like memories, shadows, whatever...yeah so I enjoyed them immensely. I'll leave the shite breakdowns to Goodreads reviewers.

So I've read Border Trilogy, The Road and Blood M..any other recommendation?

Currently on 2001 A Space Odyssey.

Read Butcher's Crossing by John Williams. You can thank me after.

[Pedrito]

Finished McCarthy's Border Trilogy. The man would break your fekin heart, what a writer though. It's amazing really how controls the reader, I'm sure it's a sort of technique he has developed, where you get the sense that some of the more intense parts are almost a retelling or recollection by the person involved, a look into their memories. Things get heightened and exaggerated and then return to normal again. I'm sure there are breakdowns of it all out there in the ether somewhere. I found myself reading the final book with fragments of past books returning to me like memories, shadows, whatever...yeah so I enjoyed them immensely. I'll leave the shite breakdowns to Goodreads reviewers.

So I've read Border Trilogy, The Road and Blood M..any other recommendation?

Currently on 2001 A Space Odyssey.

Read Butcher's Crossing by John Williams. You can thank me after.

Was about to buy it last week and bought his book Stoner instead. Will rectify that..cheers for the recommendation.

[Eoin McLove]

Stoner is a brilliant book.  Must give that other one a look.

[Caomhaoin]

I'm on 'Stalins Englishman', a rapid biography of Guy Burgess, the most outrageous of the 'Cambridge 5'.

A life less ordinary, and that's putting it mildly. Recommended, a fantastic book.