Do you read?

[leemond2008]

On 1/2/2018 at 17:57, leemond2008 said:

Finished this, I didn't really enjoy it, I reckon that when I re-read I will probably get it a bit more.

I don't know, I couldn't get into it, maybe I just wasn't in the mood for it, I'll give it another go some day.

next up, as part of my little horror kick

Quote

“The finest writer of paperback originals in America.” — Stephen King

After a bizarre and disturbing incident at the funeral of matriarch Marian Savage, the McCray and Savage families look forward to a restful and relaxing summer at Beldame, on Alabama’s Gulf Coast, where three Victorian houses loom over the shimmering beach. Two of the houses are habitable, while the third is slowly and mysteriously being buried beneath an enormous dune of blindingly white sand. But though long uninhabited, the third house is not empty. Inside, something deadly lies in wait. Something that has terrified Dauphin Savage and Luker McCray since they were boys and which still haunts their nightmares. Something horrific that may be responsible for several terrible and unexplained deaths years earlier — and is now ready to kill again . . .

A haunted house story unlike any other, Michael McDowell’s The Elementals (1981) was one of the finest novels to come out of the horror publishing explosion of the 1970s and ’80s. Though best known for his screenplays for Tim Burton’s Beetlejuice and The Nightmare Before Christmas, McDowell is now being rediscovered as one of the best modern horror writers and a master of Southern Gothic literature. This edition of McDowell’s masterpiece of terror features a new introduction by award-winning horror author Michael Rowe. McDowell’s first novel, the grisly and darkly comic The Amulet (1979), is also available from Valancourt Books.

 

[Rugeley Villa]

Not far from finishing Dracula. 

Is anyone familiar with the novelist, Wilbur Smith? I think I'm going to give his Ancient Egypt novels a go. 

[Mandy Lifeboats]

Presently reading my dishwasher loading instructions. There's some annoying gaps that aren'the covered.

 

[Vive_La_Villa]

Self help books. Anybody read them and if so any recommendations? 

[mjmooney]

On 18/02/2018 at 14:09, Vive_La_Villa said:

Self help books. Anybody read them and if so any recommendations? 

No, and no. Sorry. 

Some current reading:

[wazzap24]

On 18/02/2018 at 14:09, Vive_La_Villa said:

Self help books. Anybody read them and if so any recommendations? 

The chimp paradox, by professor Steve Peters 

I don't know if it's 'self help' as such, you don't have to stand in front of a mirror and tell yourself you love you every morning, but it's a brilliant book on the mind and how it can work for and against us. 

[wazzap24]

I've read/am reading quite a few books on and off at the minute.

Recently read:

The Secret History of Twin Peaks 

Twin Peaks: The Final Dossier

Both written by co-creator Mark Frost and they are beautifully put together. Great additions to the TV series.

Chimp Paradox (see above post)

Reading: 

Meet Me in the Bathroom by Elizabeth Goodman

This is a cracking little book about the 00's NY music scene and the rise of The Strokes, LCD Soundsystem, Interpol and other great bands from that era. It's written entirely in quotes from the main players and it's excellent.

'S' by JJ Abrams and Doug Dorst.

Not far into this, but very interesting. It's essentially a novel within a novel. There's a main story and then a back and forth between two people written in annotations around the text. Hard going, but unique.

The Stand by Stephen King 

Only just started, been meaning to read it for nigh on 20 years. 

[leemond2008]

2 hours ago, wazzap24 said:

 

'S' by JJ Abrams and Doug Dorst.

Not far into this, but very interesting. It's essentially a novel within a novel. There's a main story and then a back and forth between two people written in annotations around the text. Hard going, but unique.

I'e had this on my book shelf for about 4 months now, haven't got around to reading it yet, the fact that there is a treasure map wrote on an actual napkin in the book is pretty bizarre 

[coda]

Chinese sci-fi! Think it's the first book I've read by a Chinese author. Really enjoyed it and will read the rest of the trilogy.

[V01]

Planning on reading it soon, on Time of Dread by John Gwynne at the minute then going to finish Black Company.

[mjmooney]

A bit of poetry. Actually, a lot. It's a long narrative poem in the Beat Generation tradition, about a damaged Canadian WWII veteran in postwar New York and L.A. It's pure film noir, best read with a forties jazz soundtrack. 

Utterly brilliant. 

Edited March 25, 2018 by mjmooney

[TheAuthority]

Interesting sci-fi jaunt over several millennia. Took until about 1/3 of the way through to really warm up but has some salient sci-fi philosophies to mull over.

[leemond2008]

7 hours ago, TheAuthority said:

Interesting sci-fi jaunt over several millennia. Took until about 1/3 of the way through to really warm up but has some salient sci-fi philosophies to mull over.

Just added that to my 'to read' list.

I've got 3 or 4 books to get through at the minute but I might jump onto this one next.

[V01]

On 3/27/2018 at 05:29, TheAuthority said:

Interesting sci-fi jaunt over several millennia. Took until about 1/3 of the way through to really warm up but has some salient sci-fi philosophies to mull over.

 

I found it to be an uncomfortable read

Spoiler

Eek spiders.

I was still rooting for them though.

[TheAuthority]

3 hours ago, V01 said:

 

I found it to be an uncomfortable read

  Reveal hidden contents

Eek spiders.

I was still rooting for them though.

Spoiler

At 1st I thought, spiders - oh come on!

But the science particuarly at the end with the idea of biotech web constructs was really cool. 

I was rooting for the humans but I guess everyone got a warm fuzzy Hollywood ending :-)

 

[mjmooney]

I've just been in a charity shop. To buy a copy of Lawrence Durrell's "Alexandria Quartet". To replace the copy that I gave away. To a charity shop. 

[8pints]

Just finished this

I liked it, very weird in a good way.

Unsure about what to read next. Any suggestions?

Edited April 6, 2018 by 8pints

[tonyh29]

2 minutes ago, 8pints said:

Just finished this

I liked it, very weird in a good way.

Unsire about what to read next. Any suggestions?

Book reviews for dummies ?

 

[8pints]

1 minute ago, tonyh29 said:

Book reviews for dummies ?

 

I'm trying to be the @pooligan of book reviews. 

[TheAuthority]

5 hours ago, 8pints said:

Just finished this

I liked it, very weird in a good way.

Unsure about what to read next. Any suggestions?

That's a masterpiece of 20th century Russian literature. If you want to continue with the Russian masters I would suggest "Ada" by Nabokov - the first book he wrote in English.

Or, A Confederacy of Dunces by JKT.

Bulgakov threw Master and the Margarita on the fire but it was fished out and published. 
JKT's book was published finally 11 years after his suicide. So that's why it sparked some sort of connection in my mis-firing old brain.

I might re-read it after you reminded me about it 

Quote

As outlined in the introduction to a later revised edition, the book would never have been published if Toole's mother had not found a smeared carbon copy of the manuscript left in the house following Toole's 1969 suicide, at 31. She was persistent and tried several different publishers, to no avail.

Thelma repeatedly called Walker Percy, an author and college instructor at Loyola University New Orleans, to demand for him to read it. He initially resisted; however, as he recounts in the book's foreword:

...the lady was persistent, and it somehow came to pass that she stood in my office handing me the hefty manuscript. There was no getting out of it; only one hope remained—that I could read a few pages and that they would be bad enough for me, in good conscience, to read no farther. Usually I can do just that. Indeed the first paragraph often suffices. My only fear was that this one might not be bad enough, or might be just good enough, so that I would have to keep reading.

In this case I read on. And on. First with the sinking feeling that it was not bad enough to quit, then with a prickle of interest, then a growing excitement, and finally an incredulity: surely it was not possible that it was so good.^[11]

The book was published by LSU Press in 1980. It won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1981. In 2005, Blackstone Audio released an unabridged audiobook of the novel, read by Barrett Whitener.

While Tulane University in New Orleans retains a collection of Toole's papers, and some early drafts have been found, the location of the original manuscript is unknown.^[12]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Confederacy_of_Dunces