Underworld is his best work, the opening section at the baseball game is masterful.Originally Posted by -james-
Wasn't a huge fan of White Noise.
Underworld is his best work, the opening section at the baseball game is masterful.
Wasn't a huge fan of White Noise.
White Noise is OK, it's got a certain style and metre to it that I found difficult to get into a rhythm with though so I do know what you mean.
I would have periods of chipping away at it a few pages at a time and then suddenly hit a stride a knock of large section of it off in one sitting and think it was amazing. Definitely a mixed bag. It's worth finishing I would say, mainly just because I liked a lot of the themes he was writing about. He some oddly prophetic ideas in there.
I read another of his recently (Great Jones Street) and fucking hated it though.
I'll try and crack on with it. I've got 10 hours of travel and not much else to read so I haven't got much choice. My main issue is it keeps trying to be funny in a 1980s American I am so smart sort of way and it's not landing. I feel like I'm going to find the whole thing a bit played out.
Defo try Underworld if you do get the chance mate. Its the more 'serious' of his works and feels like when he hit his stride.
Iff you're in the UK (can't remember) happy to post it out.
What's it called?
Warhol / Chris Chan: The Lifespan of American Pop Culture, or The Suppression of Reality
https://amzn.to/3Cs0RlK
I'm a twit
Okay, I'm interested but not £23 interested.
I also have to wonder what a book can say about Chris Chan that hasn't already been spilled over the internet.
In the spirit of the recent explosion of Dune fever I've returned to that series after a while away from it with Heretics of Dune, which I'm maybe just over half way through and mostly enjoying.
He definitely didn't plan to spin it out this long and and it becomes generally stranger the longer the series goes on (God Emperor of Dune in particular, as a concept and an actual book, is fucking insane, but still great) but he's so good at world building that it's still really readable and really good sci-fi.
I'm on Dune fever at the minute too. Read the first book in time for Dune 2 coming out (hadn't seen the first one but managed to catch it in the cinema the day before Dune 2 came out). Currently on Messiah. Just got back from seeing Dune 2 for the second time tonight.
I read somewhere (I think it was on twitter) that towards the end of the Frank Herbert books they get a bit meh. Apparently the Brian Herbert (and that other guy) books are best avoided. Anyone read any of them?
Dune Messiah is class. I wouldn't say it's a better book than the first one but I do think it's possibly a better story. If that makes sense. I love where it takes it.
I'm reading The Steel Bonnets by George Macdonald Fraser.
Just finished this book. Very good read if you enjoy WW2 history.
I recently “read” (listened to) James Acaster’s Classic Scrapes. I appreciate he’s a bit of a Marmite comedian and after finding him hilarious upon first discovering him, I got a bit sick of his shtick. Thankfully, not bothering to see him on anything for years meant the dust settled and I actually enjoyed his first book.
However, jumping straight into [listening to] his second book, I’m not sure if the annoyance has crept it or the subject matters just not gripping me. The first book is about funny stories that have occurred in his life and it is amusing. The second book is him forcing his opinion on you that 2016 is the best year in music ever. I didn’t mind the first few chapters about Kendrick Lamar, David Bowie, Beyoncé and Frank Ocean but now he’s gone down a weird rabbit hole trying to educate me about musicians I’ve never heard of.
Thinking I’ll skip this book and give his latest one, Guide to Quitting Social Media, a go. While again the subject matter is pretty much falling on deaf ears (Reddit boi only these days) the summary does make it sound like it might be funny. He basically finds new hobbies to fill the time he’d otherwise spend on social media. So will start that next, I think.
Failing that, after owning Brandon Novak’s (of Jackass fame, kinda) two books for a while - Dreamseller and Streets of Baltimore - I now have them as audiobooks, so if Acaster’s third isn’t making me laugh after the first hour, I’ll take a complete change of pace and listen to how one of Bam Margera’s friends sorted out his drug addiction. Fun!
I'm a twit
I loved Acaster's scrapes book.
I think I gave his music one about 2 chapters.
Have you read his Guide To Quitting Social Media? Hoping it’s more like the first than the second, where he’s basically reading Wikipedia to you.
I'm a twit
Didn't even realise a third book was out tbh. I might get on it.
His scrapes book is great. La la la la la humpty
Read all Joe Abercrombie's books recently and really enjoyed them. The Best Served Cold film which is on the way will be interesting.
@Ian
Last edited by randomlegend; 21-06-2024 at 09:38 PM.
I actually haven't read that one and didn't know there was a film coming so I'd better get on that.
The main trilogies are really good though. Did you read the Shattered Sea ones? They're YA and thus don't go quite as hard as his big boy books but they're still good and it really doesn't feel like he compromises that much other than that they're a breezier read for the audience.
Yeah I read everything.
He's also got a new series starting next year called The Devils - set in a new world - which sounds great.
Currently reading the Prince/King/Emperor of Thorns series by Mark Lawrence, which has a somewhat similar vibe.
If you're after other fantasy recs I really enjoyed the two books A.K. Larkwood has done so far.
Bob Mortimer’s “And Away” autobiography is very funny, and I’m only 51% of the way through.
I'm a twit
It's a great book and highly recommend the audio version when it's him reading it.
Oh yeah of course. I don’t read actual books.
I'm a twit
Finished this and went onto Vic Reeves’. Completely different in that the latter only seems to cover up to his teenage years, but still an amusing listen.
I'm a twit
The second of the "of Thorns" series constantly skips between present day and four years earlier, which is slightly doing my head in.
My dad once listened to an audiobook that was split between lots of files. He didn’t realise til about half way through that he had it on shuffle. Sounds like that.
I'm a twit
I think I enjoyed this more than Bob Mortimer’s. Gutted it only covers up until him turning 18, and it was released 17 years ago so seems like we’ll never get anymore. Highly recommended though.
I’m onto David Mitchell’s “Backstory” book now, which is a completely different change of pace, but it’s something mildly amusing to listen to while I mooch about in the sunshine.
I'm a twit
I'm 500 pages into Dune. It starts slowly but it's really bloody good at this point, superb storytelling.
Finished David Mitchell’s “Backstory” and went straight into “How To Be A Boy” by Robert Webb and it’s already better despite only being 5% in. Looking forward to it.
Need to start thinking about who to listen to next. Maybe Ade Edmondsen?
I'm a twit
Finished Robert Webb’s book. It’s a bit preachy and rams feminism down your vagina, but I did really enjoy it. Probably moreso than David Mitchell’s although they’re really not comparable beyond them being a double act - completely different types of books.
Anyway, something completely different away from comedians autobiographies and I’m now half way through 120 Days of Sodom.
I'm a twit
I don’t know who or what David Sedaris is but his audiobook When You Are Engulfed In Flames is very funny.
Thinking of giving the Dungeon Crawler Carl series a go next. Anyone here a fan?
I'm a twit
The best writer in the world, probably, at least now that Clive James is dead. I have all of his in the loo and dip in with each shit.
It was a random Reddit recommendation, and I’m very glad I paid attention. His ability to just drop a gag in out of nowhere is brilliant, and his delivery is great.
I also have Me Talk Pretty One Day queued up.
I'm a twit
Got a Kobo Libra Colour with the idea of getting back into reading, I used to absolutely devour books but not read properly in years.
Thought I'd try and be cultured so read Kafka's Metamorphosis... Heady stuff in 1915 I'm sure but didn't quite match my expectations.
Anything new worth a go?
I've been reading inordinate amounts lately, most of it spy stuff which is apparently what I can't get enough of these days. Every work of Le Carré (brilliant, especially the Karla trilogy), Wolf Hall (meh), the remaining oeuvre of Ben Macintyre (pretty good) and now starting Mick Herron which surely can't go wrong.
Also read 'A Spy Alone' by Charles Beaumont which was in one sense a very good fast-paced modern spy thriller and in another sense yet another massive liberal whinge. I'm starting to tire of the supervillain clichés of the modern novel - please no more fictional oligarchs or fictional Musk pastiches.
I'm reading Ulysses at the moment, which.......I don't know. I mean I knew what I was getting into when I started it didn't I? It's just been sat on "the pile" staring at me for years and I took the plunge.
It's often great and always interesting, if sometimes only in its strangeness. It's just mad as fuck and it's long. And it's going to take me longer than something that long would normally take me anyway because it's not even something you can just dip in and out of whenever you have a spare ten minutes.
I find I need to be setting aside a couple of hours of free time to have a proper chisel away at it. It's enough of a fucking fever dream doing it like that but at least you get into a bit of a rhythm with it, a few pages at a time and it just becomes totally meaningless.
I've tried it but never managed it. Maybe would be better if you popped some opium or whatever they took back then.
I vaguely recall enjoying Dubliners enough to finish it.
Never went further.
Ulysees seemed like it would go the way of Gravity's Rainbow and just be too much/too impenetrable to bother with.
I'mlistening toreading Play Nice: The Rise, Fall, and Future Of Blizzard Entertainment.
Proper nerdy but I'm loving it.
I'm a twit
I'm still making my way, very slowly, through the Wheel of Time books. Currently just under halfway through book 8.
I'm also listening to Shogun when I'm on the treadmill.
Enjoying both.
I'm listening to Character Limit: How Elon Musk Destroyed Twitter between football podcasts and I am enjoying it, 6 chapters in and it's as much about what a tit Jack Dorsey is as Musk.
Started John Le Carre's 'Agent Running in the Field' based on Jim's exuberance.
I read all of Murderbot in the past couple of months. It is very good.
And two fucking days ago I finished that.
It effectively (and somewhat embarrassingly) took me two and a half months to read it. Obviously there were some extended periods of ignoring it completely for days on on end during that time.
Probably, in retrospect, something you need to be reading an annotated version of if you're not well versed in The Odyssey and/or the social context of Dublin in the early twentieth century. Not to say there were not parts of it I enjoyed immensely/thought were genius, because there were.
I'm not shy in admitting there were often pages on end (sometimes entire chapters, if you can call them that) where I hadn't the slightest clue what was occurring either, though.
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote