Books The BOOK thread

[Plechazunga]

I suspect "My Manchester United Years" isn't as good as either "Crime and Punishment" or "Gravity's Rainbow".

The best thing I've read on United is a little book called "The Red Devils' Disciples", the story of a day at OT in the 70s... has some superb photos too. It'll be out of print, but you might be able to get it on the net.

 

[Maroon Lucifer]

I care more about United than I do about gravity. Thanks for the other info though.
Gerogie Best - Scoring at Half-Time... any good?

 

[Plechazunga]

It's not really about gravity...

 

[Wibble]

Just rainbows then?

And bombs and boning.

 

[mehro]

I've not read Crime and Punishment. Gravity's Rainbow's the best novel I've ever read, I reckon.

It's about lots of things, but the basic premise is, there's this American spy in London in WWII, and every time he bones anyone, a V2 rocket lands in the place where the boning took place, about a day later.

You should read it then. It's one of the best novels I've ever read.

I'm currently reading Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. Been pretty good so far.

 

[Plechazunga]

Just rainbows then?

And bombs and boning.

And banana beer, insane Nazis, conspiracy theories and pig-gods.

You should read it then. It's one of the best novels I've ever read.

I'm currently reading Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. Been pretty good so far.

Why not just take it to a mechanic?

 

[mehro]

I don't have a motorcycle. The book is about this guy on a 17 day motorbike trip across the US and he keeps having these, I guess you could call them philosophical thoughts, about life and other stuff.

 

[spinoza]

Right have any of you knobjockeys read Foundation and I, Robot by Asimov and Neuromancer?

Yes, yes and yes

Neuromancer is Gibson's one good novel - the rest were rubbish

Alastair Reynolds is good if you like the dark dystopian type of science fiction. Try Revelation Space, and work up to the rest.

 

[Wibble]

Banana beer? I don't like the sound of that.

Zen ATAOMM was one of the most annoying books I ever read.

 

[spinoza]

Banana beer? I don't like the sound of that.

It wasn't the only bananary product there was - GR had the best recipe for Banana Breakfasts I've ever found. And they work.

Zen ATAOMM was one of the most annoying books I ever read.

It seems to appeal to those people with mid-life crises.

 

[mehro]

I haven't even reached mid-life. I've only read the first 80 odd pages out of 500 something but it seems to be pretty good so far.

Actually Spin, it was a recommendation that you made that led me to this book indirectly.

 

[VP]

I tried reading Gravity's Rainbow, just couldn't get into it. I'll try again sometime later. I'm reading Midnight's Children right now.

 

[Plechazunga]

I don't have a motorcycle. The book is about this guy on a 17 day motorbike trip across the US and he keeps having these, I guess you could call them philosophical thoughts, about life and other stuff.

I know twathead, it was a joke

It wasn't the only bananary product there was - GR had the best recipe for Banana Breakfasts I've ever found. And they work.

trust you to actually make it

I tried reading Gravity's Rainbow, just couldn't get into it. I'll try again sometime later. I'm reading Midnight's Children right now.

A lot of people have that experience... you kind of have to get into the groove with GR, and not try to understand everything.

Midnight's Children is very good

 

[peterstorey]

I don't have a motorcycle. The book is about this guy on a 17 day motorbike trip across the US and he keeps having these, I guess you could call them philosophical thoughts, about life and other stuff.

You'd get more philosophical insight from the average mechanic than that humourless prick.

 

[mehro]

You people are putting me off the book. Stop it. I don't like leaving books midway.

 

[spinoza]

Actually Spin, it was a recommendation that you made that led me to this book indirectly.

Eh? Which one was that?

 

[spinoza]

trust you to actually make it

It involves a hell of a lot of bananas. I don't have a bloody plantation growing on my roof like Pirate, unfortunately.

I found this site moderately useful when reading GR - took me 2 years to finish off and on.

 

[Plechazunga]

Ooh, I've not seen that one before. I used Spermatikos Logos a bit.

 

[The_Red_Hope]

Neuromancer is Gibson's one good novel - the rest were rubbish

Agree completely. Neuromancer was brilliant. Couldn't get into anything else by Gibson.

Anyone here a Dan Simmons' fan ? Currently reading his Illium-Olympos series.
As is Simmon's style there are three different story lines that do not begin to converge until the end of the novel.

Its a brilliant combination of Homer's Illiad and Shakespeare's Tempest. Picture a world millions of years in the future where a group of metahumans/Gods are living out as the pantheon of Greek God's (Zeus, Athena, Aphrodite et all). They have recreated the Trojan War and have commissioned 20th century historians from earth to observe the war and report on the accuracy of Homer's Illiad. One of these historians, Thomas Hockenberry, turns the war on its head with drastic consequences for both the Gods and the humans(Greeks/Trojans).
The other storylines includes two robots, one a die-hard Shakespeare fan and the other a Proust fan, on an expedition to Mars to find out the source of vast Quantum Energy emitting from a Volcano(Mount Olympos) there. The last storyline is the one on Earth, where there are roughly only a million survivors who are on a quest to find out the nature of their mysterious past and existence.

The countless literary references are brilliant. This is a grand Sci-fi-Space-opera-epic-story. You guys should read it.

 

[Kristjan]

Yeah finished Ilium a few weeks back, enjoyed it.

Didn't quite suck me in as the first Hyperion did but very good though, need to get a copy of Olympus soon.

 

[The_Red_Hope]

Haven't been able to get a copy of the Hyperion Cantos in any book store. Been wanting to read it for ages now. I guess i'll put it on my 'Amazon Christmas Shopping List'.

 

[Suprah™]

I just completed "Tar Baby" by Toni Morrison

What a magnificent book. Excellent.

No wonder it won a Nobel Prize for literature

 

[pillory]

I tried reading Gravity's Rainbow, just couldn't get into it.

Try Mason & Dixon instead. It's slightly smaller and (possibly) slightly easier to get into. It is also the greatest novel ever.

 

[sincher]

Mason & Dixon is probably Pynchon's worst to date, I reckon.

 

[pillory]

Mason & Dixon is probably Pynchon's worst to date, I reckon.

If I didn't boycott smileys, I would have replaced this sentence with Mr. Nono. Would you mind telling me why you don't like it? If you do, I'll admit my love for it is partly due to my interest in British 18th and 19th century literature (and history).

 

[Salvation]

You should read it then. It's one of the best novels I've ever read.

I'm currently reading Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. Been pretty good so far.

Strangely, I bought Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance today. And I also loved Crime and Punishment

Recently finished Shalimar the Clown, my first go at Rushdie and thoroughly enjoyed it. Before STC, it was Cuckoo's Nest, which, was excellent too. Sad I saw the movie beforehand 'cos had I not known the gist of things, it'd have been appreciated a few thousand times more

 

[Dyslexic Untied]

Just started reading Emperor - The Gates of Rome by Conn Iggulden. It`s the first book in a series of four about Julius Ceasar apparantly. They`re going to film it as well.

 

[Donaldo]

Plech, did you get to reading Against The Day?

 

[jatin]

Currently reading the third installment of Robert Ludlum's "Covert-One" series called The Paris Option. The others are The Hades Factor, The Cassandra Compact, The Altman Code, ,The Lazarus Vendetta and The Moscow Vector.

The books are medical/military thrillers revolving around a covert agent and his team. Very good read if you like the genre.

I am currently reading the Lazarus Vendetta

very interesting one

this is the first covert one of ludlum i am reading

so far I have read - The Tristan Betrayal, The Scorpio Illusion, The Bancroft Strategy(this one was disappointing tbh)....

any other good ones you would suggest

 

[LizardKing]

I just bought Arthur Rimbaud - Illuminations.

It's a poetry book, I'm sure quite a few of you will have heard of Rimbaud. I never cared for poetry until recently but this guy's work is phenomenal considering he quit at the age of 21 ffs! He has inspired many songwriter's including my favourite Jim Morrison.

Anyone who likes poetry or writes songs should get a copy and steal all his ideas muahaha.

 

[Gaz.]

I just bought Arthur Rimbaud - Illuminations.

It's a poetry book, I'm sure quite a few of you will have heard of Rimbaud. I never cared for poetry until recently but this guy's work is phenomenal considering he quit at the age of 21 ffs! He has inspired many songwriter's including my favourite Jim Morrison.

Anyone who likes poetry or writes songs should get a copy and steal all his ideas muahaha.

You're a bollocks, you can't even read

 

[spinoza]

Reread Foundation over the holidays.

It's probably the finest pastiche novel (cobbled together from a bunch of short stories) ever.

 

[Mihajlovic]

60 pages into "Valis" by PKD. Hard stuff. The more I try to make sense of it the more it confuses me. And then there is always this fear that it's not even supposed to make sense in the first place. Let's see how it goes.

 

[Wibble]

Blind Faith - Ben Elton. Darker and less laugh out loud funny than some of his others but his darkest and best book by some way. Succeeds in savaging religion in a way that The God Delusion should have done but failed to do.

 

[PTME]

I recommend the Valis trilogy by Philip K. Dick - "Valis", "The Divine Invasion" and "The Transmigration of Timothy Archer".

Gravitys Rainbow is very good too.

 

[utdalltheway]

reading "Soccer in the Sun and Shadow" by Eduardo Galeano translated into english by someone.
anyway, Galeano is a Urugauyan writer that writes a short history of soccer (football) and his love for the game. interspersed are commentaries of world events that are taking place at the same time as the world cups down through the years.
betcha it'd be a better read in Spanish but it's still pretty good so far. a real trip down memory lane. As expected it has a south american slant to it and some of the players he mentions I've never heard of.

 

[LizardKing]

I ordered a book earlier by the philosipher Friedrich Nietzsche, hopefully it'll be good

 

[Plechazunga]

Mason & Dixon is probably Pynchon's worst to date, I reckon.

I'd put it above Lot 49, but I agree, it's not great. I'm currently near the end of my second re-reading of it, I've kept coming back because I assume I'm missing something, but now I'm not so sure. I's strange, cos the characters are great, especially Dixon, he's absolutely nailed the 18th-century style and language, and the central idea of the Line as a metaphor for the Age of Reason dissecting the old magical world into categories is great. But somehow, it just doesn't work. His humour seems to have gone a bit dad-ish, almost twee at times, especially in the framing narrative. The magical bits are just tedious, for some reason, you're left waiting for all the mechanical ducks and talking dogs to sod off so you can get back to the story (with the exception of the Missing Eleven Days bit, which is good). And even more than usual with Pynchon, the dialogue is so oblique at times it's incomprehensible.

Plech, did you get to reading Against The Day?

Not yet Don, I've started it a couple of times. Next on my list after Exit Ghost.

I ordered a book earlier by the philosipher Friedrich Nietzsche, hopefully it'll be good

It'll probably be beyond good...

 

[Alex]

Read The Last Tycoon today, great read recommend it to anyone

 

[Frosty]

I ordered a book earlier by the philosipher Friedrich Nietzsche, hopefully it'll be good

Which one is it?

It'll probably be beyond good...

I see what you did there.