Me too. Just finished it the other day. Absolutely terrific read. Found it tough getting into it initially, but I was completely hooked after a while. More Cormac McCarthy for me.
Reading 'A Confederacy of Dunces' now.
Books The BOOK thread
- Thread starter Livvie
- Start date
Reading 'A Confederacy of Dunces' now.
Picked up one of those books On Sunday and found it hard to put down.
The Contractors by John B Keane
Was referred to me by a friend. First Fiction book I have read in over a decade, but I am led to believe it is based on Fact. Keane being a Pub Landlord in Kerry Ireland, it is believed he created fictional characters based on real life Irishmen who went to London after the war to help regenertae London about the war.
Its an excellent read, and I recommend it to anyone who like old History and business.
Last 5 Books I have read just so as you know my taste in Books
Shackelton The Endurance
Bill Cullen - Penny Apples
Bill Cullen - Golden Apples
Alasitair Campbell - The Blair Years
John B Keane - The Contractors
The Contractors by John B Keane
Was referred to me by a friend. First Fiction book I have read in over a decade, but I am led to believe it is based on Fact. Keane being a Pub Landlord in Kerry Ireland, it is believed he created fictional characters based on real life Irishmen who went to London after the war to help regenertae London about the war.
Its an excellent read, and I recommend it to anyone who like old History and business.
Last 5 Books I have read just so as you know my taste in Books
Shackelton The Endurance
Bill Cullen - Penny Apples
Bill Cullen - Golden Apples
Alasitair Campbell - The Blair Years
John B Keane - The Contractors
I'm reading that one too!
Inside the Third Reich - Albert Speer
Fascinating book so far, only read 12 pages!
Fascinating book so far, only read 12 pages!
would you believe I got a signed copy waiting in Dublin for me with a message from Bill himself to me.
Will take a pic of what he said to me.
You'll like Golden apples after Livvie...
My copy of Manchester United The Biography by Jim White has just turned up. Tidy. Got it on the strength of what I read of it in this month's UWS. Looks excellent.
I just bought
Ed Macy - Apache
Looks good
Ed Macy - Apache
Looks good
currently reading...
good read...
good read...
I am re-reading The Big Sleep at the moment, I had forgotten how cool it is. How come popular literature these days is so often completely vacuous? Chandler wrote basically populist fiction, but it is so atmospheric and an awesome read
I didn't know there was a sequel - I'll look out for that.
Don't forget to scan the message..would like to see that.
I'm a reader of biographies and here are a couple of ones that are not obvious ones to read but I can totally recommend them both (in fact the first one is one of my favourite books)
1 Kinski Uncut - Klaus Kinski. Auto-biography of the eccentric German actor. Incredible read, a totally one sided account of his life; to the point where you can't believe the things that he is telling you and it becomes a book about the sanity of that strange man:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Kinski-Uncu...=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1222903543&sr=1-1
2 Harpo Speaks - Harpo Marx. Auto-biogrpahy of the famous comedian, it reads like a who's who of the early 20th century in the US. The people he knew and the things he was a part of could be said to have shaped the country. But above all, it's just great aecdotes of a different time:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Harpo-Speak...=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1222903875&sr=1-2
1 Kinski Uncut - Klaus Kinski. Auto-biography of the eccentric German actor. Incredible read, a totally one sided account of his life; to the point where you can't believe the things that he is telling you and it becomes a book about the sanity of that strange man:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Kinski-Uncu...=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1222903543&sr=1-1
2 Harpo Speaks - Harpo Marx. Auto-biogrpahy of the famous comedian, it reads like a who's who of the early 20th century in the US. The people he knew and the things he was a part of could be said to have shaped the country. But above all, it's just great aecdotes of a different time:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Harpo-Speak...=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1222903875&sr=1-2
Just got 'Duma Key' by Stephen King. Any good?
Read that one a while back. Good read. Sparse style with clipped dialog still seems to cram in a hell of a lot of dread.
Just finished "No Country for Old Men" which was a cracker. He gets a lot done without saying so much. Very Hemingway.
I had just finished Infinite Jest when David Foster Wallace killed himself, and now I've developed an obsession with James Incadenza's filmography (found in the novel's notes), which I read several times a week. It makes me happy-sad.
"Immanent Domain" - B.S. Latrodectus Mactans Productions. Cosgrove Watt, Judith Fukuoka-Hearn, Pam Heath, Pamel-Sue Vorrheis, Herbert G. Birch; 35 mm; 88 minutes; black and white w/ microphotography; sound. Three memory-neurons (Fukuoka-Hearn, Heath, Voorheis (w/ polyurethane costumes)) in the Inferior frontal gyrus of a man's (Watt's) brain fight heroically to prevent their displacement by new memory-neurons as the man undergoes intense psychoanalysis. CELLULOID; INTERLACE TELENT CARTRIDGE RE-RELEASE #340-03-70 (Y.P.W.)
"Valuable Coupon Has Been Removed" - Year of the Tucks Medicated Pad. Poor Yorick Entertainment Unlimited. Cosgrove Watt, Phillip T. Smothergill, Dianne Saltoone; 16 mm; 52 minutes; color; silent. Possible Scandinavian psychodrama parody, a boy helps his alcoholic-delusional father and disassociated mother dismantle their bed to search for rodents, and later he intuits the future feasibility of D.T.-cycle lithiumized annular fusion. CELLULOID (UNRELEASED)
"As Of Yore" - Year of the Tucks Medicated Pad. Poor Yorick Entertainment Unlimited. Cosgrove Watt, Marlon Bain; 16/78 mm; 181 minutes; black and white/color; sound. A middle-aged tennis instructor, preparing to instruct his son in tennis, becomes intoxicated in the family's garage and subjects his son to a rambling monologue while the son weeps and perspires. INTERLACE TELENT CARTRIDGE #357-16-09
"Safe Boating Is No Accident" - Year of the Tucks Medicated Pad (?) Poor Yorick Entertainment Unlimited/X-Ray and Infrared Photography by Shuco-Mist Medical Pressure Systems, Enfield, MA. Ken N. Johnson, 'Madame Psychosis', P.A. Heaven. Kierkegaard/Lynch (?) parody, a claustrophobic water-ski instructor (Johnson), struggling with his romantic conscience after his fiancee's ('Psychosis's') face is grotesquely mangled by an outboard propeller, becomes trapped in an overcrowded hospital elevator with a defrocked Trappist monk, two overcombed missionaries for the Church Of Jesus Christ Of Latter-Day Saints, an enigmatic fitness guru, the Massachusetts State Commissioner for Beach and Water Safety, and seven severely intoxicated opticians with silly hats and exploding cigars. Listed by some archivists as completed the following year, Y.T.-S.D.B. UNRELEASED
"Dial C For Concupiscence" - Year of the Trial-Size Dove Bar. Poor Yorick Entertainment Unlimited. Soma Richardson-Levy-O'Byrne, Marla-Dean Chumm, Ibn-Said Chawaf, Yves Francouer; 35 mm; 122 minutes; black and white; silent w/ subtitles. Parodic noir-style tribute to Bresson's Les Anges du Peche', a cellular phone operator (Richardson-Levy-O'Byrne), mistaken by a Quebecois terrorist (Francouer) for another cellular phone operator (Chumm) the FLQ had mistakenly tried to assassinate, mistakes his mistaken attempts to apologize as attempts to assassinate her (Richardson-Levy-O'Byrne) and flees to a bizarre Islamic religious community whose members communicate with each other by means of semaphore flags, where she falls in love with an armless Near Eastern medical attache' (Chawaf). RELEASED IN INTERLACE TELENT'S 'HOWLS FROM THE MARGIN' UNDERGROUND FILM SERIES - MARCH/Y.T.-S.D.B. - AND INTERLACE TELENT CARTRIDGE #357-75-43
"Insubstantial Country" - Year of the Trial-Size Dove Bar. Poor Yorick Entertainment Unlimited. Cosgrove Watt; 16 mm; 30 minutes; black and white; silent/sound. An unpopular apres-garde filmmaker (Watt) either suffers a temporal lobe seizure and becomes mute or else is the victim of everyone else's delusion that his (Watt's) temporal lobe seizure has left him mute. PRIVATE CARTRIDGE RELEASE BY POOR YORICK ENTERTAINMENT UNLIMITED
"The Film Adaptation Of Peter Weiss's 'The Persecution And Assassination Of Marat As Performed By The Inmates Of The Asylum At Charenton Under The Direction Of The Marquis de Sade'" - Year of the Trial-Size Dove Bar. Poor Yorick Entertainment Unlimited. James O. Incadenza, Disney Leith, Urquhart Ogilvie Jr., Jane Ann Prickett, Herbert G. Birch, 'Madame Psychosis', Marla-Dean Chumm, Marlon Bain, Pam Heath, Soma Richardson-Levy-O'Byrne-Chawaf, Ken N. Johnson, Dianne Saltoone; Super-8 mm; 88 minutes; black and white; silent/sound. Fictional 'interactive documentary' on Boston stage production of Weiss's 20th-century play within play, in which the documentary's chemically impaired director (Incadenza) repeatedly interupts the inmates' dumbshow-capering and Marat and Sade's dialogues to discourse incoherently on the implications of Brando's Method Acting and Artaud's Theatre of Cruelty for North American filmed entertainment, irritating the actor who plays Marat (Leith) to such an extent that he has a cerebral hemorrhage and collapses onstage well before Marat's scripted death, whereupon the play's nearsighted director (Ogilvie), mistaking the actor who plays Sade (Johnson) for Incadenza, throws Sade into Marat's medicinal bath and throttles him to death, whereupon the extra-dramatic figure of Death ('Psychosis') descends deus ex machina to bear Marat (Leith) and Sade (Johnson) away, while Incadenza becomes ill all over the theater audience's first row. 8 MM SYNC-PROJECTION CELLULOID. UNRELEASED DUE TO LITIGATION, HOSPITALIZATION
"Immanent Domain" - B.S. Latrodectus Mactans Productions. Cosgrove Watt, Judith Fukuoka-Hearn, Pam Heath, Pamel-Sue Vorrheis, Herbert G. Birch; 35 mm; 88 minutes; black and white w/ microphotography; sound. Three memory-neurons (Fukuoka-Hearn, Heath, Voorheis (w/ polyurethane costumes)) in the Inferior frontal gyrus of a man's (Watt's) brain fight heroically to prevent their displacement by new memory-neurons as the man undergoes intense psychoanalysis. CELLULOID; INTERLACE TELENT CARTRIDGE RE-RELEASE #340-03-70 (Y.P.W.)
"Valuable Coupon Has Been Removed" - Year of the Tucks Medicated Pad. Poor Yorick Entertainment Unlimited. Cosgrove Watt, Phillip T. Smothergill, Dianne Saltoone; 16 mm; 52 minutes; color; silent. Possible Scandinavian psychodrama parody, a boy helps his alcoholic-delusional father and disassociated mother dismantle their bed to search for rodents, and later he intuits the future feasibility of D.T.-cycle lithiumized annular fusion. CELLULOID (UNRELEASED)
"As Of Yore" - Year of the Tucks Medicated Pad. Poor Yorick Entertainment Unlimited. Cosgrove Watt, Marlon Bain; 16/78 mm; 181 minutes; black and white/color; sound. A middle-aged tennis instructor, preparing to instruct his son in tennis, becomes intoxicated in the family's garage and subjects his son to a rambling monologue while the son weeps and perspires. INTERLACE TELENT CARTRIDGE #357-16-09
"Safe Boating Is No Accident" - Year of the Tucks Medicated Pad (?) Poor Yorick Entertainment Unlimited/X-Ray and Infrared Photography by Shuco-Mist Medical Pressure Systems, Enfield, MA. Ken N. Johnson, 'Madame Psychosis', P.A. Heaven. Kierkegaard/Lynch (?) parody, a claustrophobic water-ski instructor (Johnson), struggling with his romantic conscience after his fiancee's ('Psychosis's') face is grotesquely mangled by an outboard propeller, becomes trapped in an overcrowded hospital elevator with a defrocked Trappist monk, two overcombed missionaries for the Church Of Jesus Christ Of Latter-Day Saints, an enigmatic fitness guru, the Massachusetts State Commissioner for Beach and Water Safety, and seven severely intoxicated opticians with silly hats and exploding cigars. Listed by some archivists as completed the following year, Y.T.-S.D.B. UNRELEASED
"Dial C For Concupiscence" - Year of the Trial-Size Dove Bar. Poor Yorick Entertainment Unlimited. Soma Richardson-Levy-O'Byrne, Marla-Dean Chumm, Ibn-Said Chawaf, Yves Francouer; 35 mm; 122 minutes; black and white; silent w/ subtitles. Parodic noir-style tribute to Bresson's Les Anges du Peche', a cellular phone operator (Richardson-Levy-O'Byrne), mistaken by a Quebecois terrorist (Francouer) for another cellular phone operator (Chumm) the FLQ had mistakenly tried to assassinate, mistakes his mistaken attempts to apologize as attempts to assassinate her (Richardson-Levy-O'Byrne) and flees to a bizarre Islamic religious community whose members communicate with each other by means of semaphore flags, where she falls in love with an armless Near Eastern medical attache' (Chawaf). RELEASED IN INTERLACE TELENT'S 'HOWLS FROM THE MARGIN' UNDERGROUND FILM SERIES - MARCH/Y.T.-S.D.B. - AND INTERLACE TELENT CARTRIDGE #357-75-43
"Insubstantial Country" - Year of the Trial-Size Dove Bar. Poor Yorick Entertainment Unlimited. Cosgrove Watt; 16 mm; 30 minutes; black and white; silent/sound. An unpopular apres-garde filmmaker (Watt) either suffers a temporal lobe seizure and becomes mute or else is the victim of everyone else's delusion that his (Watt's) temporal lobe seizure has left him mute. PRIVATE CARTRIDGE RELEASE BY POOR YORICK ENTERTAINMENT UNLIMITED
"The Film Adaptation Of Peter Weiss's 'The Persecution And Assassination Of Marat As Performed By The Inmates Of The Asylum At Charenton Under The Direction Of The Marquis de Sade'" - Year of the Trial-Size Dove Bar. Poor Yorick Entertainment Unlimited. James O. Incadenza, Disney Leith, Urquhart Ogilvie Jr., Jane Ann Prickett, Herbert G. Birch, 'Madame Psychosis', Marla-Dean Chumm, Marlon Bain, Pam Heath, Soma Richardson-Levy-O'Byrne-Chawaf, Ken N. Johnson, Dianne Saltoone; Super-8 mm; 88 minutes; black and white; silent/sound. Fictional 'interactive documentary' on Boston stage production of Weiss's 20th-century play within play, in which the documentary's chemically impaired director (Incadenza) repeatedly interupts the inmates' dumbshow-capering and Marat and Sade's dialogues to discourse incoherently on the implications of Brando's Method Acting and Artaud's Theatre of Cruelty for North American filmed entertainment, irritating the actor who plays Marat (Leith) to such an extent that he has a cerebral hemorrhage and collapses onstage well before Marat's scripted death, whereupon the play's nearsighted director (Ogilvie), mistaking the actor who plays Sade (Johnson) for Incadenza, throws Sade into Marat's medicinal bath and throttles him to death, whereupon the extra-dramatic figure of Death ('Psychosis') descends deus ex machina to bear Marat (Leith) and Sade (Johnson) away, while Incadenza becomes ill all over the theater audience's first row. 8 MM SYNC-PROJECTION CELLULOID. UNRELEASED DUE TO LITIGATION, HOSPITALIZATION
Anyone read Lawrence Block? I've just finished Birdsong by Sebastien Faulkes and I've narrowed down the selection for my next book to 4.
To Kill A Mocking Bird - Harper Lee
Band Of Brothers - Stephen Ambrose
In Cold Blood - Truman Capote (read it years ago but loved it)
and one by Lawrence Block who I have never read but have heard some good things about.
What would you do?
To Kill A Mocking Bird - Harper Lee
Band Of Brothers - Stephen Ambrose
In Cold Blood - Truman Capote (read it years ago but loved it)
and one by Lawrence Block who I have never read but have heard some good things about.
What would you do?
It was surreal.The Lions of Al-Rassan - Guy Gavriel Kay.
Great so far. Had heard so many good things about this that I jumped this to the top of my read-list when I found a copy at a used book store.
Great so far. Had heard so many good things about this that I jumped this to the top of my read-list when I found a copy at a used book store.
Has anyone else here read the Wheel of Time Series by Robert Jordan?
Am seven books in ATM, but think I'm going to take a briend siesta to read Nagash the Sorcerer - a Warhammer book.
Am seven books in ATM, but think I'm going to take a briend siesta to read Nagash the Sorcerer - a Warhammer book.
Yeah, I've read all eleven. Its all downhill from seven onwards. I had such a tough time keeping track of the million characters that he kept introducing with every new book, but by then I had invested so much time and energy into the books that I stuck to it.
Which is Irvine Welsh's best book?
I found Trainspotting unreadable and gave up after 20 pages. Are his other books written in normal prose?
A title and a brief synopsis please, ta.
I found Trainspotting unreadable and gave up after 20 pages. Are his other books written in normal prose?
A title and a brief synopsis please, ta.
Trainspotting is the only one that's worth reading (and it falls apart a bit towards the end).
Yeah my dad said the exact same thing too, this annoys me 'cos I've rather loved it so far but it is getting to the stage where it's getting a tad tedious.
Whether you do it now or later, before you die be sure to read "To Kill a Mockingbird". Lovely book from another time.
Cesc ... I strongly recommend 'Lions of Al-Rassan' to you. It will be a great change from reading WoT. Much fewer and more interesting characters, more political intrigue, mild philosophy, commentary on Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Its more historical fantasy(Spanish Conquest) than mainstream fantasy .... no magic, but nonetheless fascinating stuff.
The Tristan Betrayal, by Robert Lungdum?
Fantastic book that, offers a very convincing WW2 plot and espionage.
Twist expected, but still brings a sniff.
Fantastic book that, offers a very convincing WW2 plot and espionage.
Twist expected, but still brings a sniff.
Birdsong is a brilliant, brilliant book, can't reccomend it enough. So well written.
I have an old copy of Band of Brothers, never really could get into the way it was written.
Agreed. Fantastic read and the film was great too with Gregory Peck turning in a fine performance as Atticus
I also agree, the film was awesome
Anyway, I went for Band of Brothers and finished it just before the re-runs started on Monday. Great timing or what?
To Kill a Mockingbird next, it is then. Thanks!
To Kill a Mockingbird next, it is then. Thanks!
Try reading Lee Childs Jack Reacher novels, they are pretty good , around 10 altogether , i have them read in a couple of days.
The Razor's Edge by W. Somerset Maugham and Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte. Excellent books.
Oh yes. I first read it in my teens, when my English wasn't really good enough for me to appreciate it (but I liked it anyway), then I read it again some years later, having gorged on 19th century fiction in the meantime, and realized it was fecking amazing, almost unbelievable. It's totally unique.
I picked A Confederacy of Dunces for a hefty 21 cents on Amazon the other day, after a mate recommended it to me, mentioning that it was Bill Hicks' favourite book as enticement.
What do you reckon of it?
James Patterson, is an amazing author.
His books on Detective Alex Cross, are a cracking read and I highly recommend them to everyone. They have so many twists and turns, always keeps you guessing and are hard to put down to be honest.
His books on Detective Alex Cross, are a cracking read and I highly recommend them to everyone. They have so many twists and turns, always keeps you guessing and are hard to put down to be honest.
Easily one of the funniest books I have ever read. Yes, it was Bill Hick's favourite book and I can absolutely guarantee that by the time you are done with it, Ignatius J Reilly will rank very highly in your favourite literary characters of all time.
Trivia -John Kennedy Toole, the author, committed suicide after years of failure at having ACoD published. Years later his mother found the manuscript in his bedroom and handed it to Walker Percy (famous author and publisher) to review, who initially refused to but then after reading a few pages was absolutely spellbound. It won the Pulitzer prize the next year.
Will definitely look into that Red Hope, cheers for the suggestion.
In the mean time, Nagash (the Sorcerer)'s been fantastic so far.
In the mean time, Nagash (the Sorcerer)'s been fantastic so far.