OT: Watcha reading?

[Lion Hound]

Im reading HP's Blackbook this weekend in honor of the draft coming up. I actually printed it at work. No joke it is 765 pages of Scouting reports.

 

[eco's bones]

Im reading HP's Blackbook this weekend in honor of the draft coming up. I actually printed it at work. No joke it is 765 pages of Scouting reports.

I've been reading and rereading parts of that for the last couple months.

 

[eco's bones]

Reading is a good way to occupy your time while waiting out a pandemic.......and it looks like we've probably started a second wave unfortunately. Find the things you like though stretching the boundaries now and again isn't a bad idea either. One book that I read a long time ago which seems tailor made for the period of time we're living through now is Giovanni Boccaccio's 14th century book of shorter stories The Decameron.

If I remember correctly 10 young people (I believe 4 men and 6 women) unknown to each other find themselves in an isolated castle in a time of plague. In the nearby Italian city of Florence from which they've just escaped people are dying like flies. The DeCameron covers a period of 10 days and as a way to get to know each other and to pass the time every day one of them sets a theme and each of them keeping with the theme regales the others with stories. So it comes to 100 stories altogether or 10 people x 10 stories over 10 days. It's quite ribald and often a bit on the side of lewd by the way. Not everyone who lived in 14th century Italy was a monk or a nun. It's a fun read.

 

[motopanekeku]

I've read a lot of all of Calvino (btw an Oulipo writer), Borges and Nabokov. Speaking of Calvino--back in Kreider's draft year in his draft bio he cites Baron in the trees as his favorite book. Not sure I'm the greatest sci-fi reader. I do like JG Ballard quite a lot--particularly Atrocity Exhibition. I'm not sure I'd categorize Mitchell as sci-fi per se though there seem to be some elements of sci-fi--much of his work is kind of intra-dimensional and/or imaginative of future times. Generally I read a lot in translation and am prone to all kinds of whimsy choosing what to buy or what to read next. I have a lot of favorite writers--the first that really had great impact on me was Louis Ferdinand Celine who certainly had a problematic history.

JG Ballard is certainly an author I will explore. Celine seems a bit.. challenging. For example Dostoevsky is one of my favorites and I will reread Brothers Karamazov forever but I will probably never revisit Crime And Punishment and not because it isn't a masterfully written book.

Edit: upon thinking about it further I'd definitely revisit Crime and Punishment but I'd skip the first half..

 

[Nickmo82]

Splitting my time between Dickens (A Tale of Two Cities) and a book about Japanese history.

It's my first Dickens. It's better than I was expecting. Much more readable than I had assumed it would be.

 

[CasusBelli]

The Man Without a Face
The Sun Also Rises

Love Hemingway’s style and European settings. Recently finished Atlas Shrugged for the second time.

 

[True Blue]

Just completed a re-read of "Count of Monte Cristo". Such a classic. So good.

 

[True Blue]

Recently finished Atlas Shrugged for the second time.

Oof. Not for the faint of heart.

 

[True Blue]

It's my first Dickens. It's better than I was expecting. Much more readable than I had assumed it would be.

For such a lover of the classics, Dickens is a failure of mine. I keep thinking that what needs to be done is to read him the way that it was originally meant to: released one chapter per week.

 

[CasusBelli]

Oof. Not for the faint of heart.

I love her books. Anthem is another one I like. The Fountainhead got too tedious for me.

 

[eco's bones]

JG Ballard is certainly an author I will explore. Celine seems a bit.. challenging. For example Dostoevsky is one of my favorites and I will reread Brothers Karamazov forever but I will probably never revisit Crime And Punishment and not because it isn't a masterfully written book.

Edit: upon thinking about it further I'd definitely revisit Crime and Punishment but I'd skip the first half..

Those classic Russian writers loved to write epics. You really have to set time aside to read a lot of their books properly. I've read 4 of Dostoyevsky's works--Brothers Karamazov, The Devils (The Possessed), Notes from the Underground and The double.

I don't think Celine is a difficult writer at all--he had a lyrical and rhythmic style. It's pretty unique and flows. An angry, angry man though. World War 1 vet--a half paralyzed writing arm and probably what amounted to a fractured skull that was never treated. He got caught up with the Vichy regime in WWII despite the fact that he hated almost all of them and they didn't like him either. He has some pre-WWII pamphlets that are considered very anti-semitic and extolled Hitler. An extremely creative writer but also a damaged psychology and ironically he hated Germans and made that clear numerous times during the occupation. After the war he spent about a year in a Danish prison and when he ended up back in France they attempted to put him on trial for collaboration. His lawyer pulled a fast one--Celine was a pen name--his last name was really Destouches and he got listed with a bunch of ordinary Frenchman on a pardon that was signed by the head of govt.

Ballard had his own WWII stories. Born and raised in Shanghai China circa the early 1930's. He and his family were in a Japanese interment camp throughout a large part of the war. Empire of the Sun is a pretty straightforward (not sci-fi) biographical novel about that experience that was made into a fairly popular movie. I think Atrocity Exhibition (besides also being the name of a Joy Division song) is an extraordinary novel though. 'Crash' is another one that he's famous for but after reading AE I found that to be kind of disappointing.

 

[Shadowtron]

Just completed a re-read of "Count of Monte Cristo". Such a classic. So good.

One of my favorite books. Talk about a total destruction lol. Dantes is my spirit animal Hahha.

 

[Thirty One]

Just completed a re-read of "Count of Monte Cristo". Such a classic. So good.

All-time fave.

 

[Shadowtron]

Book 5 of the Wheel of Time. Been meaning to tackle the series for a number for a number of years. I’m dreading what many fans consider the slog lol!

 

[mike14]

Of recent I finished Anna Burns No Bones--a novel set in Belfast during the troubles. She's very good at contrasting the grim with a macabre humor. A couple books by the fairly recently departed British culturalist theorist Mark Fisher (recommended by the more recently departed Michael Brooks) The weird and the eerie and Capitalist Realism: Is there no alternative? Also Molly Crabapple's Drawing Blood which comes illustrated with a number or her drawings. She's a NYC based artist and former sex worker who was diagnosed as a youngster with something called ODD (Oppositional Defiant Disorder--I thought when I read that 'it sounds like me. I have ODD too. You can not tell me different'.--so you can see I was already gathering my oppositional forces of defiance together to be ready to battle over it')--so naturally I had to check that out.

Right now I'm finishing a novel by a Spaniard A.G. Porta titled The No World Concerto. It's not the greatest thing I've ever read but it's pretty good.

What's coming up is Alan Garner's Red Shift (which is follow up from Fisher's above mentioned Weird and eerie), David Niven's The f***-it List and David Mitchell's Utopia Avenue. When it comes to modern English novelists--David Mitchell and David Peace (GB84) are the best IMO. One of the novels Mitchell is known for is Cloud Atlas.

Have you started Utopia Avenue?
I'm about 3/4s through and mainly enjoying it. The first few chapters were very strong and then it has gone through some peaks and troughs since. Excellent world building though, you can almost feel the sticky floors and see the terrible haircuts. It has also made me really dig in to the music of the time.

Other recent reads:
- re-read Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy. Still marvelous story-telling. Went back through it so I could read
- the first two books of The Book of Dust trilogy. Book 1 La Belle Sauvage is an almost fantasy like tale and a self-contained story, while book 2 The Secret Commonwealth is incredibly bleak and sets up the story for the final book.
- Black Leopard Red Wolf by Marlon James. I loved A Brief history of 7 Killings but at times BLRF veers to far into the weird. Some of the the writing and scenes are awesome, sometimes it's almost unreadable and oddly cliche. Worth the read but was trying at times. Unsure if I'll stick around for the rest of the series
- Boy Swallows Universe by Trent Dalton. Best book I've read in a while, just a fun story and I could picture every scene that was described. Possibly not as good if you aren't Australian and so can't relate to the very specific time period that it's set in (early 80s suburbia)
- Also re-read Hell's Angels because sometimes you just want to hear Hunter's voice in your head

 

[Harbour Dog]

I love Bukowski poems, and recently read that one of them (An Almost Made Up Poem) may have been about Sylvia Plath. So I am on the cusp of starting to read The Heart is a Lonely Hunter.

I'm about halfway through Robinson Crusoe right now, but may break a personal rule and juggle two fiction books at once.

 

[IronBloodedLion]

Just about wrapping up “Dark Money” by Jane Mayer. Really eye opening book. It kinda confirms what a lot of us speculate, while naming names and organizations.

I have Anand Giridharadas’s book “Winners Take All,” Andrew Yangs “The War On Normal People,” and Richald Wolffs “Democracy at Work” to end the month.

 

[eco's bones]

No I haven't started Utopia Avenue. I've read all his other books though so it's going to be soon.

I love Marlon James--A brief history of 7 killings is awesome. I checked out his first two books--John Crow's Devil and Book of Night Women. They're good but he really found himself with 7 killings. I've also read Black Leopard Red Wolf and liked that as well. There's something of the fantastic in his first two books and BLRW and 7 killings is more straightforward. 7 Killings IMO is his best and then BLRW. The books 7 Killings reminds me most of are Madison Smartt Bell's 3 historical novel on Haiti--All Soul's rising, Master of the Crossroads and The stone that the builder refused.

Pullman and Dalton I don't know. There are a few writers I talk to from time to time. None of them are big names though--Rick Harsch, George Salis, Jeff Bursey, the translator Naomi Lindstrom and here or there others connect like Sesshu Foster recently sent me a postcard for a book he has coming out soon at City Lights. It's a really tough business.

 

[GeorgeKaplan]

Went looking for this thread a month or two ago, couldn't find it and assumed it was deleted, but I'm glad it wasn't.

Without going back to see what I was reading the last time I posted in here, I'll just say what I've read since quarantine started:
J.A. Baker - The Peregrine
Nabokov - Mary
Nabokov- King, Queen, Knave
Nabokov - Glory
W.G. Sebald - The Rings of Saturn
Jozef Czapski - Lost Time: Lectures on Proust in a Soviet Prison Camp
Richard Brautigam - The Hawkline Monster
Werner Herzog - Conquest of the Useless: Reflections From the Making of Fitzcarraldo
and I reread Raymond Chandler's Farewell My Lovely

Right now I'm reading Eve Babitz's Slow Days, Fast Company, with a stack of some more Nabokov's, Babitz's, Bruce Chatwin's In Patagonia, Balzac's The Unknown Masterpiece, and Sebald's The Emigrants on my nightstand

 

[eco's bones]

I love Bukowski poems, and recently read that one of them (An Almost Made Up Poem) may have been about Sylvia Plath. So I am on the cusp of starting to read The Heart is a Lonely Hunter.

I'm about halfway through Robinson Crusoe right now, but may break a personal rule and juggle two fiction books at once.

I was a postal worker and I'm on vacation and in a bookstore on Martha's Vineyard and I see Bukowski's 'Post Office'. My first time. Hilarious and he had the job nailed. I must have about 20 books of his.

 

[Harbour Dog]

I was a postal worker and I'm on vacation and in a bookstore on Martha's Vineyard and I see Bukowski's 'Post Office'. My first time. Hilarious and he had the job nailed. I must have about 20 books of his.

It's rare to come across a writer who can sum things up so poetically and so concisely, and who is also so easily consumed by readers of any level.

I haven't read Post Office, but I have no doubt that the cynical old bastard captured it perfectly

 

[eco's bones]

It's rare to come across a writer who can sum things up so poetically and so concisely, and who is also so easily consumed by readers of any level.

I haven't read Post Office, but I have no doubt that the cynical old bastard captured it perfectly

Post Office is f***ing hilarious. First line goes something like 'It was christmas season and I heard from the drunk up the hill that the Post Office would hire damn near anybody'.

They have the movie Barfly with Mickey Rourke as Bukowski's alter ego Henry Chinaski staggering around drunk all the time and Faye Dunaway as his femme fatale stealing cobs from a cornfield. I think it's in Factotum where he describes working in a slaughterhouse for 10/12 hour days in Southern California---hopping on a transit bus then to get back home stinking from his own sweat---the clothes he's wearing covered in animal blood--the people already on the bus glaring at him and trying to get as far away as possible.

 

[eco's bones]

Just about wrapping up “Dark Money” by Jane Mayer. Really eye opening book. It kinda confirms what a lot of us speculate, while naming names and organizations.

I have Anand Giridharadas’s book “Winners Take All,” Andrew Yangs “The War On Normal People,” and Richald Wolffs “Democracy at Work” to end the month.

Wolff use to be on with Michael Brooks a lot before Brooks unfortunately passed away. I usually like most of Giridharadas's commentary when I see him on TV and Yang's UBI ideas would be worth considering especially with so many people having lost their jobs from the pandemic.

 

[eco's bones]

Went looking for this thread a month or two ago, couldn't find it and assumed it was deleted, but I'm glad it wasn't.

Without going back to see what I was reading the last time I posted in here, I'll just say what I've read since quarantine started:
J.A. Baker - The Peregrine
Nabokov - Mary
Nabokov- King, Queen, Knave
Nabokov - Glory
W.G. Sebald - The Rings of Saturn
Jozef Czapski - Lost Time: Lectures on Proust in a Soviet Prison Camp
Richard Brautigam - The Hawkline Monster
Werner Herzog - Conquest of the Useless: Reflections From the Making of Fitzcarraldo
and I reread Raymond Chandler's Farewell My Lovely

Right now I'm reading Eve Babitz's Slow Days, Fast Company, with a stack of some more Nabokov's, Babitz's, Bruce Chatwin's In Patagonia, Balzac's The Unknown Masterpiece, and Sebald's The Emigrants on my nightstand

There's a lot of variety here which is a good thing. I've read the Nabokov's and Sebald's you mention--have read some Chandler and Balzac and like Chatwin's In Patagonia.

 

[IronBloodedLion]

Wolff use to be on with Michael Brooks a lot before Brooks unfortunately passed away. I usually like most of Giridharadas's commentary when I see him on TV and Yang's UBI ideas would be worth considering especially with so many people having lost their jobs from the pandemic.

I was a huge fan of Michael Brooks. I didn’t agree with him on everything, but he completely changed the way I see politics and society.

I think Yang is an example of what we need more of in politics. Younger people with new, modern ideas.