Books you are reading

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Korea Hammer
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Re: Books you are reading

Post by Korea Hammer »

Elizabeth Taylor - A Game Of Seek

Another impressive and involving novel by Taylor, following Angel, which I read earlier this year. This was written in 1951, but is a new discovery to me (via the excellent books podcast, Backlisted.
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smuts
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Re: Books you are reading

Post by smuts »

Finished Stephen King's Fairy Tale.

Crap. :thdn:
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szola
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Re: Books you are reading

Post by szola »

Image

Atwood's MaddAdam triology

Started ok, second book was fine as well and maybe a littlebit better then the first. Then meh.
All in all, not worth to spend time on.

:nonpl:
Spammy The Vee
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Re: Books you are reading

Post by Spammy The Vee »

smuts wrote: Wed Sep 21, 2022 10:35 pm The Peter Guralnick Elvis books. Very good and in depth.
I think Guralnick's 2 part Elvis Presley biography will be THE Elvis biography, I can't see anyone doing a better job. I found the first one/part "last Train To Memphis" really exhilarating and the second one/part 'Careless Love" incredibly depressing.
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smuts
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Re: Books you are reading

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Spammy The Vee wrote: Mon Oct 03, 2022 12:47 pm I think Guralnick's 2 part Elvis Presley biography will be THE Elvis biography, I can't see anyone doing a better job. I found the first one/part "last Train To Memphis" really exhilarating and the second one/part 'Careless Love" incredibly depressing.
Yep. Wonder how many writers as think of doing an Elvis biography, read these and just don't bother...
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Korea Hammer
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Re: Books you are reading

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William Golding - Rites Of Passage

My eighth Golding in the last few years, and another unique and memorable book.
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Korea Hammer
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Re: Books you are reading

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Gwendoline Riley - My Phantoms

I read this stunning short novel about the relationship between a woman and her mother in one day. The kind of book to send you out buying everything else the author has written.
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Re: Books you are reading

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Esther Kinsky ~ Grove

Another beautiful translation on Fitzcarraldo, this time an autobiographical novel by a German writer set in 3 different locations in Italy. It's slow and elegiac, describing the landscape in minute detail as the narrator reflects on grief, childhood and memory. Not for everyone and almost nothing 'happens' but I loved it.
Last edited by Korea Hammer on Tue Oct 25, 2022 5:42 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Books you are reading

Post by Tenbury »

I'm sure you've read it, but sounds like you'd really like Carlo Levi's 'Christ Stopped at Eboli'.
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Korea Hammer
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Re: Books you are reading

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Tenbury wrote: Tue Oct 25, 2022 5:26 pm I'm sure you've read it, but sounds like you'd really like Carlo Levi's 'Christ Stopped at Eboli'.
Thanks, Tenners! I'm delighted to say I've never heard of it! Another one for the list :fist:
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Re: Books you are reading

Post by Spammy The Vee »

At the suggestion of my #2 son, I finally got round to reading Alex Bellos' "Fufbol; The Brazilian Way Of Life", Despite my "updated" 2014 edition, being a bit "out of date' , I did find it very insightful into both the history of Brazilian football and the Brazilian way of life.
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Re: Books you are reading

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Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? - P.K. Dick

As a lover of the Bladerunner films, which are based on this book, I was really looking forward to re-reading this. I first read it decades ago and couldn't remember how the book plot went.

I can remeber that my first impression of this book decades ago, was the same as now: The book is almost nothing like the film.

In the book Deckard has to "retire the Andys" because a previous Bladerunner got badly wounded by the Andy's and was unable to continue. In addition it has whole swathes of dialoge about animals - real of electric. Deckard is so unhappy and embarassedwith his electric sheep that he spends his newly-aquired bounty money on buying a real goat. That gets pushed off of the top of his block and dies. He covets his neighbous horse, nearly gets a squirrel and find a a toad.

The plot is also significantly different. Deckard gets lumbered with a Bladerunner from Russia - who (Spolier alert) ...

is really an adny and tries to kill him.

He then finds an opera sinnger andy who gets him arrested and spoiler alert...

he gets taken to a police station, where all the police are andys and the Blade Runner he finds there isin't!

Thow in a swathe of quasi religious/philisophical nonsense - Mercerism, Emotion boxes - with imaginary people turning up and helping him in tiems of need and Rachel being a corporate Andy who is ultinately there to kill Deckard and I think i don't have to go any further - it's a real jumble of a book, that starts and stutters and eventually ends in an anti climax.

No wonder that they made the film very very losely follow the book. This is an occasion IMHO - where the film is much better than the book. They got rid of the highly convoluted story line, the religious tosh and animal nonsense and made the film a SF detedtive thriller.

If you haven't read the book and like Bladerunner, don't read the book. It will leave you thinking WTAF!
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Re: Books you are reading

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Merce Rodoreda - Death In Spring

Earlier this year, I read this Catalan writer's 1962 novel, In Diamond Square, an excellent but reasonably straightforward story of a woman's marriage and life with the Spanish Civil War in the background. This one, however, written in exile and published 24 years later and after the author's own death, is a very different kettle of pez (or should I say, peixos), being a surreal and nightmarish fable of a Spanish village during the Franco era.

It reminded me at times of Laszlo Krasznahorkai's sinister and dreamlike depictions of rural, communist Hungary, or things like Angela Carter's The Company Of Wolves. A big surprise after reading In Diamond Square, and a good one.
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Re: Books you are reading

Post by ironsonthebrain »

Have just started the third one of Stuart Cosgrove's soul history books - 'Harlem 69- the Future of Soul'
Can heartily recommend the previous two books in this trilogy.
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Odessa
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Re: Books you are reading

Post by Odessa »

A quiet American by Graham Greene.
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Re: Books you are reading

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Sped through Willy Vlautin's latest 'The Night Always Comes' the last couple of days. More of a noirish feel to this one than his earlier works, but still filled with a mix of the heartbreaking and empathetic prose that his books are known for. Another superb effort.
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Re: Books you are reading

Post by vietnammer »

Korea Hammer wrote: Thu Oct 20, 2022 8:50 pm William Golding - Rites Of Passage

My eighth Golding in the last few years, and another unique and memorable book.
"I never thought I'd get a chew off a parson"
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Korea Hammer
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Re: Books you are reading

Post by Korea Hammer »

Paul Auster - The Book Of Illusions

I've read 7 or 8 of Auster's novels now, ranging from the brilliant (4321, New York Trilogy) to the disappointing (Timbuktu, Mr Vertigo), and I would put this somewhere in the upper middle, alongside Moon Palace maybe.

Some of it feels a bit too far-fetched and action-driven, but on the other hand the clever psychological stuff and doubling and ideas that are typical of his best writing are in there too. Overall, pretty good.
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Re: Books you are reading

Post by Spammy The Vee »

Just finished Andy Campbell's "We Are The Proud Boys" published earlier this year. I decided to give it a go, in order to learn more about why I no longer wear a black Fred Perry with yellow trim. I'm not sure that this will be the definitive book on these right wing thugs, perhaps that will depend on what else they get up to, but I did learn a lot I didn't know.
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Re: Books you are reading

Post by Spammy The Vee »

Odessa wrote: Fri Nov 04, 2022 12:03 pm A quiet American by Graham Greene.
One of his best !
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