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Post by jimmalone on Jan 17, 2019 8:43:59 GMT
The End of the Affair by Graham Greene
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Post by Tommen_Saperstein on Jan 25, 2019 19:57:13 GMT
just finished King's Pet Sematary. Can't say I cared much for it although I understand why he'd consider it so disturbing. It is after all about a parent coming to terms with death, which is something King would have related to deeply and still does. I think after Carrie this is the first longer(ish) form fiction I've read from him and I didn't care for that one either. His short fiction is what tends to stick with me, and maybe that's just because it's more concise and consumable. I don't know. I may try the Dark Tower series someday because I really enjoyed the "The Little Sisters of Eluria" in his Everything's Eventual collection (which was fantastic by the way and I meant to do a write up of it but oh well.) I also read his short fiction collection The Bazaar of Bad Dreams over December and I quite loved that. Next up I'll probably do some more Hitchens. Either his essay collection or the memoir, not sure which. I just love the guy. And some part of me wants to pick up Gibbon's The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire on Audible just because of it's freakish length (I think it's something like 135 hours, one of the lengthiest books in the whole catalog) and the cheapskate in me absolutely loves the idea of picking up a book of that size for the price of a $7 credit. That it's such an important historical work is just the icing on the cake also need to finish Gone with the Wind which I started almost a decade ago, not to mention Tom Jones. But god, when?
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Post by Mattsby on Jan 26, 2019 20:21:01 GMT
Just went back to read the first part of Three Wogs again, a triptych satirizing racism in England, written by the great Alexander Theroux. 'Mrs Proby Gets Hers' (the "first wog") is a kooky revenge-tale that uses a screening of a Fu Manchu movie as its catalyst. Theroux is one of most challenging, exciting, and wittiest writers of the modern era. Nobody ever talks about him, he's sort of been gliding under the radar in his lifetime, only lauded sometimes by the literary elite.
Here's how Theroux describes a movie theater: "funereal, anonymous, the nethermost retreat where the tired, amorous, and lonesome could sleep or fondle or expatiate in ones or twos or threes, far from the madding crowd and unbothered in the reliquary of pure imagination."
Otherwise taking my time with Ebert's memoir Life Itself, which is okay, a bit more depressing than I thought it'd be. His (reprinted) writeup on Lee Marvin is the best part so far.
Also just started A.S. Hamrah's collection of his essays and writeups, The Earth Dies Streaming, a whim buy. He at least confronts the new era of movie criticism - Twitter, RT, etc - but in his attempted refocus, as a critic, comes off as wispy and too easily offended. He's obsessed with vetting accents and how they invariably distract - yawn.
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Post by pacinoyes on Feb 1, 2019 0:34:14 GMT
Crime Novels: American Noir of the 1950s: The Killer Inside Me / The Talented Mr. Ripley / Pick-up / Down There / The Real Cool Killers
Got this for Pick Up and The Real Cool Killers, I'd read the others. Pick Up is great - the writing stinks of gin - and RCK is good so far.........this is only the second Himes I've ever read but, it's kind of incomprehensible that his stuff hasn't been filmed.
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Post by stephen on Feb 1, 2019 1:11:43 GMT
Crime Novels: American Noir of the 1950s: The Killer Inside Me / The Talented Mr. Ripley / Pick-up / Down There / The Real Cool KillersGot this for Pick Up and The Real Cool Killers, I'd read the others. Pick Up is great - the writing stinks of gin - and RCK is good so far.........this is only the second Himes I've ever read but, it's kind of incomprehensible that his stuff hasn't been filmed. Chester Himes is a god, and it is indeed ridiculous that they haven't adapted his Coffin Ed/Grave Digger Jones stories into a True Detective-esque series. They have made films based on a couple of his books (Ossie Davis's Cotton Comes to Harlem is solid and well-worth the watch), though.
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Post by pacinoyes on Feb 1, 2019 2:10:40 GMT
Crime Novels: American Noir of the 1950s: The Killer Inside Me / The Talented Mr. Ripley / Pick-up / Down There / The Real Cool KillersGot this for Pick Up and The Real Cool Killers, I'd read the others. Pick Up is great - the writing stinks of gin - and RCK is good so far.........this is only the second Himes I've ever read but, it's kind of incomprehensible that his stuff hasn't been filmed. Willeford the GOAT. Thoughts on Pick-Up's ending? Well it kind of kills a film version Yeah its pretty much my kind of thing and a novel that bleak doesn't read (to me) as merely depressing. You read it, get to the end, re-read the last lines are sorting out how to take it and shortly thereafter are like "Oh Fnck" - in the best sense of those words.......
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Post by Mattsby on Feb 1, 2019 20:55:44 GMT
Epitaph for a Tramp & Epitaph for a Dead Beat: the Harry Fannin Detective Novels by David Markson I just yesterday finished Tramp, published 1959, so '50s-Noir abound! 170pg. Plot: PI, Harry Fannin, investigates the death of his nympho ex-wife. Fannin's got a great voice - dry, jaded sarcasm, and the mystery is told tightly, urgently, practically in real-time. Markson almost always ends his chapters with a zinger that compels you to turn the page. The ending could be a little better, it’s a little too explained-away, and there are dated aspects, par the course. As for Markson -- Not many writers can say they were chummy with Dylan Thomas, Malcolm Lowry, Jack Kerouac, Frederick Exley, Kurt Vonnegut, etc. All the while, for most of his career, keeping a low profile. He was NYC-based and initially made company with the Beat Gen, neighbors and friends with those fellas. And though known (and in some circles highly lauded) for his later experimental works, he began his career writing pulp, genre stuff, cashing checks. What’s extra interesting about Tramp is that the mystery takes us into the Village beatnik scene, where Fannin—who’s our hero, we get to like him—and the other policemen truly disparage these fringe artists and bohemians, who are portrayed as egocentric and simpering. One character is specifically satirizing Kerouac (who, friends with Markson, would read the manuscripts, offering notes, before they were published). So while the send-up of the Beat scene is there, and it’s sometimes funny, there’s curiously more than a pinch of vitriol too. I heard Dead Beat is lighter, looser, more self-aware; I’ll be reading that one next.
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Post by jimmalone on Feb 7, 2019 9:22:11 GMT
Rereading Tad Williams' Memory, Sorrow, Thorn, which needs of course it's time. Along with Lord of the Rings not only my favorite fantasy novel, but my favorite novel overall. It's a shame that, while it has a huge fan base, it doesn't enjoy the overall popularity like some much lesser works of that genre. Especially as contrary to most writers of this genre (George Martin ) Williams has a very fine prose. The slow and extremely detailed style is probably exactly what puts some readers off, but it just helps to create a wonderful and diversified mysterial and fascinating world, where I want to stay as long as possible.
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Post by mhynson27 on Feb 7, 2019 9:33:37 GMT
Haven't read a book since Year 12.
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Post by DeepArcher on Feb 8, 2019 23:30:49 GMT
Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro.
Well, I just finished reading it, actually. The entire novel felt like it was building to something big that I was patiently waiting for, and then ultimately it's just underwhelming. It sort of gets out all of its reveals through exposition rather than it actually being an organic conclusion to its story, which is super annoying and really not at all rewarding. The entire novel is filled with such a potent sense of mystery, that by the end I think I would've preferred had it left a lot of things unsaid. There's enough stated already for the reader to speculate about the truth. If the characters were left in the same position, it would've made for something much more powerful, I think. Oh, well. It's an incredibly well-crafted piece, but it doesn't do enough with its own concepts. Left me indifferent by the end. Will probably watch the film at some point, but I'm in no rush.
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Zeb31
Based
Bernardo is not believing que vous êtes come to bing bing avec nous
Posts: 2,557
Likes: 3,794
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Post by Zeb31 on Feb 8, 2019 23:36:06 GMT
I read The Unbearable Lightness of Being a while back, am now finishing the first volume in Haruki Murakami's 1Q84 trilogy. I picked it up completely in the dark and still have no idea where he's going with it, but I'm certainly intrigued.
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Post by jimmalone on Feb 9, 2019 10:02:33 GMT
Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro. Well, I just finished reading it, actually. The entire novel felt like it was building to something big that I was patiently waiting for, and then ultimately it's just underwhelming. It sort of gets out all of its reveals through exposition rather than it actually being an organic conclusion to its story, which is super annoying and really not at all rewarding. The entire novel is filled with such a potent sense of mystery, that by the end I think I would've preferred had it left a lot of things unsaid. There's enough stated already for the reader to speculate about the truth. If the characters were left in the same position, it would've made for something much more powerful, I think. Oh, well. It's an incredibly well-crafted piece, but it doesn't do enough with its own concepts. Left me indifferent by the end. Will probably watch the film at some point, but I'm in no rush. One of the rare Ishiguros I haven't read. The only other one is "A Pale View of Hills", which is already in my bookshelf. I didn't like the film of "Never Let Me Got" and don't really care for that topic so I'm not sure if I'll ever give it a try.
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Post by jimmalone on Feb 9, 2019 10:06:48 GMT
I read The Unbearable Lightness of Being a while back, am now finishing the first volume in Haruki Murakami's 1Q84 trilogy. I picked it up completely in the dark and still have no idea where he's going with it, but I'm certainly intrigued. The Unbearable Lightness of Being has been on my Must-Read-List for quite a time, but still haven't gotten to it.
I love 1Q84. More than most authors Murakami is not only about what happens, but what you feel within the strange settings and atmosphere he creates. And in that regard this novel, that many people consider his magnum opus is certainly right at the top of his work. It's such a fascinating journey full of mysteries.
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Post by Mattsby on Feb 11, 2019 3:16:50 GMT
Sweet Days of Discipline by Fleur Jaeggy (1989) An older woman looking back at when she was a young girl at a Swiss alpine boarding school, infatuated by a mysterious new classmate. Crisp, concentrated prose—someone called her style “Gothic minimalism.” Only 100pg. Succinct, sardonic, suggestive. Like a poetically clipped autobiography, a coming of age that feels like a memory gush (or to illustrate memory has no tense). Obsessive adoration, so hushed for the unnamed narrator it seems to have forever lingered. She recalls everything with rejuvenated warmth, directness, and sudden claps of deep morbid thought. It very intuitively unwinds itself. I'll have to check but probably among my fav 1980s books along with Darconville's Cat and some Raymond Carver.
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Post by jimmalone on Feb 14, 2019 12:44:09 GMT
Jeffrey Eugenides - The Virgin Suicides
Written in a fine style and quite a nice read, but the problem of it is that it doesn't go very deep. The storyteller is hardly more than an observer and the whole book is told in a strangely neutral tone, despite the tragedy that happens and from what the boys tell us they are very touched by what happens, but the point is you just don't feel it. So the book just scratches on the surface of the mystery below. But in the end you just even don't care for the reasons any much more.
Also reading a Leonardo Da Vinci biography by Walter Isaacson.
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Post by Mattsby on Feb 14, 2019 19:40:33 GMT
Fantomas Versus the Multinational Vampires (1975) by Julio Cortázar Witty and well-written, a satiric micro meta-text; it’s like 80pgs including the appendix document, and the afterword, which should be read first for necessary background. It’s a slapstick tract with a mass-market veneer, slyly devised by Cortázar, after two things: the private Tribunal in Jan ’75 that investigated and presented evidence of human rights violations in Latin American countries, issuing verdicts - albeit metaphoric, mainly the US. And a few months later, the release of edition #201 of the popular Fantômas comic book that included real life characters such as Cortázar and Susan Sontag (who becomes a hilarious, key character in this extension). A little confused? Tldr: Cortázar’s sneaking political pillory via deconstruction of a then newly released comic book. It’s actually a digestible, enjoyably quick read; unique too, I can’t think of anything else like it.
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Post by jimmalone on Feb 17, 2019 14:14:24 GMT
Ivan Turgenev - Fathers and Sons
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Post by pacinoyes on Feb 20, 2019 17:33:31 GMT
Closer You Are : The Story Of Robert Pollard - Interesting bio that I didn't know came out - wtf - on one of the few guys in 90s Rock that I can stand and even I don't like the band THAT much - well at least not to the level of their biggest fans but he's a uniquely America story and artist and this book helps to sort of get him and get the bands ridiculously large catalog in a coherent way. Very easy read, illuminating and has interesting detours into his "normal life" as a teacher.
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Post by jimmalone on Feb 21, 2019 17:51:30 GMT
Ivan Turgenev - Fathers and Sons Another great russian novel. Staying in the 19th century for the next few days: Wilkie Collins - The Woman in White
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agent69
New Member
Posts: 246
Likes: 83
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Post by agent69 on Feb 28, 2019 10:39:03 GMT
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
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Post by DeepArcher on Mar 5, 2019 4:36:07 GMT
The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen.
I'm kind of in love with this book. The best thing I've read in awhile and certainly among my favorites from this decade. It's certainly reminiscent of great mid-20th century postmodernism in a lot of ways but it's very much a beast of its own. It not only revels in its incredibly acute sense of observation, but it's also just soooo damn funny. I can't remember the last time something I read had me actually laughing-out-loud nearly every minute. The number of absurd situations and characters here is only exceeded by its amount of clever zingers. Truly a great piece of dark comedy that is a consistently damning critique of Western culture in general in a way that is just boundlessly fascinating. This book offers up such a great perspective and, even if it can be self-indulgent in patches, I am loving it and don't really want it to end.
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Post by jimmalone on Mar 5, 2019 16:20:45 GMT
The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen. I'm kind of in love with this book. The best thing I've read in awhile and certainly among my favorites from this decade. It's certainly reminiscent of great mid-20th century postmodernism in a lot of ways but it's very much a best of its own. It not only revels in its incredibly acute sense of observation, but it's also just soooo damn funny. I can't remember the last time I read had me actually laughing-out-loud nearly every minute. The number of absurd situations and characters here is only exceeded by its amount of clever zingers. Truly a great piece of dark comedy that is a consistently damning critique of Western culture in general in a way that is just boundlessly fascinating. This book offers up such a great perspective and, even if it can be self-indulgent in patches, I am loving it and don't really want it to end. Never heard about this, but just looked up the plot and it sounds interesting. I started "Exodus" by Leon Uris. But so far I'm greatly displeased. The story itsself wouldn't be bad. But it's written in a clumsy, almost propagandistic style, which bothers me heavily. Also after a bit of research I think it's not always totally accurate historically. And while I've usually not problem with artistic freedom I have to criticise it this time because of the way in which it is written. Not sure if I'll continue to read it. In the meantime I also started "A Pale View of Hills" by Kazuo Ishiguro, which seems far more interesting.
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Post by Johnny_Hellzapoppin on Mar 14, 2019 13:25:19 GMT
I just finished off the Bill Hodges Trilogy, which was great for two books, then decent for the third.
I'm cracking into Pet Sematary now. This is my first read, and I hear it is one of the better King books, some I'm excited to see what comes.
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Post by stephen on Mar 14, 2019 14:53:12 GMT
I just finished off the Bill Hodges Trilogy, which was great for two books, then decent for the third. I'm cracking into Pet Sematary now. This is my first read, and I hear it is one of the better King books, some I'm excited to see what comes. I hated Mr. Mercedes and even though I own the other two books in the series (one autographed by King himself when I went to an End of Watch book tour stop), I haven't even cracked 'em open. Pet Sematary is a damn fine ride, but definitely a dark one. There's a reason King locked it away in his dresser after he finished it and thought there was no way in hell it'd get published. Wait till you meet Timmy Baterman ; that chapter is a highlight of King's career.
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Post by Johnny_Hellzapoppin on Mar 14, 2019 15:06:20 GMT
I just finished off the Bill Hodges Trilogy, which was great for two books, then decent for the third. I'm cracking into Pet Sematary now. This is my first read, and I hear it is one of the better King books, some I'm excited to see what comes. I hated Mr. Mercedes and even though I own the other two books in the series (one autographed by King himself when I went to an End of Watch book tour stop), I haven't even cracked 'em open. Pet Sematary is a damn fine ride, but definitely a dark one. There's a reason King locked it away in his dresser after he finished it and thought there was no way in hell it'd get published. Wait till you meet Timmy Baterman ; that chapter is a highlight of King's career. I reckon you should give the next two books a go. Finders Keepers is quite a bit different to the first, with the heroic trio of the first being practically a secondary story for a lot of it; and the story they are secondary to is really rather interesting and well drawn.
End of Watch is interesting, as while it steps into more familiar Kind ground of the supernatural, I didn't like that, and wished it had stayed out of that kind of world all together.
I'm only 40 odd pages into Pet Sematary, but I'm already detecting a notably gloomy tone. Fingers crossed I'll enjoy it.
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