What Did You Read Today?

[VerbalPuke]

Weird, Brave New World is next on my list after In Dubious Battle (another Steinbeck novel). I've got it packed away for when my wife goes into labor as something to keep me busy while in the hospital. I actually tried to buy 1984 the same day that I bought Brave New World but the bookstore didn't have a copy if you can fucking believe that. I was one of the unlucky folks that didn't have an English teacher that had us read 1984 in High School.

[Skummy]

I never did either 1984 or Brave New World at school at all. School English lessons for me were appalling, and almost all Carol Ann Duffy and Shakespeare, and some shitty 1960s kitchen sink drama about how grim it is up North. That shitty school killed my love of literature for years.

Don't let me put you off Brave New World at all - it's a classic, and deservedly so. Brilliant book, as is 1984, it's just Revisited that was a waste of time.

[GA!]

I never did either 1984 or Brave New World at school at all. School English lessons for me were appalling, and almost all Carol Ann Duffy and Shakespeare, and some shitty 1960s kitchen sink drama about how grim it is up North. That shitty school killed my love of literature for years.

Me too! Was the grim northern book 'A Kestrel for a Knave' by any chance?

[Skummy]

I almost wish it was.

I can't remember what it was called. It was about divorce in a Northern town. That's about all I remember. I'm not sure I'd even remember the book if I saw it.

[Schlitzbrille]

Still not really getting into The Gods Will Have Blood, despite the fact that I'm up to Chapter Nine.

[chikbot]

Right now for my mythology class,I'm reading Dante's Inferno. I love it so much

Such an interesting tale of a guy going through hell,seeing all these real people who were known to do bad things

[Nick Adams]

Took a break from the Spanish to read the novel of It's Kind of A Funny Story. The movie actually skipped about half of the book, and yet, having seen both, I felt like both of them worked for their intended media. On the other hand, having read the book, I was annoyed that they cast Zack Galifianakis and Jim Gaffigan in roles that really weren't suited for, and changed the roles to suit the people so that those two could be in the film.

[The DBZemon King]

Taking a film and literature class at my University and we've read a bunch of books so far, 5 to be exact. 3 of them I loved and the other 2 were decent. The one's I loved

W. Somerset Maugham's "The Razor's Edge"

Oscar Wilde's "A Picture of Dorian Gray"

Guy de Maupassant's "Bel-Ami" - The movie was atrocious. I'm talking the Twilight guy's version.

All three were fantastic books, but Bel-Ami I absolutely loved. Slightly better than The Razor's Edge.

If you were curious, the other two were...

Shakespeare's "Richard III"

Ford Maddox Ford's "The Good Soldier"

[Froot Loop]

If you were curious, the other two were...

Shakespeare's "Richard III"

Ford Maddox Ford's "The Good Soldier"

I love "The Good Soldier" - I read it during my literature degree as well. Another text from the same era and dealing with similar themes is "Quartet" by Jean Rhys (Ford's former lover.)

[The DBZemon King]

If you were curious, the other two were...

Shakespeare's "Richard III"

Ford Maddox Ford's "The Good Soldier"

I love "The Good Soldier" - I read it during my literature degree as well. Another text from the same era and dealing with similar themes is "Quartet" by Jean Rhys (Ford's former lover.)

It was my least favorite book of the ones I've read. Don't get me wrong, the subject matter was great, it's just the way in which it was written, as if directly talking to the reader, left something to be desired.

[Nick Adams]

So I red this book written for teens called The List. It would seem that the success of Twilight has caused all writers that are writing to a female audience to dumb down the writing, but unlike Stephanie Meyer, this author happened to make a plot that was at least interesting, with characters that made you mostly care. However, I hated the big reveal, and I definitely hated the way the book ended. It wasn't like it wasn't fitting, but there just wasn't enough of an end, not enough of a resolution to the story.

Of course, one of the "ugly" girls totally deserved to be on the list, even though it seems like she's being unfairly targeted at first. She is just a terrible person. If you bother to read it, you'll know why, but let's just say you always feel weird about this girl, and your feelings get justified.

Not quite sure it was worth my money, but it was at least interesting enough. Thumbs in the middle.

[Monkey D. Lars]

I'm reading the book from Andy van der Meyde, crazy crazy guy. But the book is very funny

[ZJ Penn]

Finished A Game of Thrones and about a third of the way through Clash of Kings. Ive never wanted a fictional 14 year old to get the shit kicked out of him as much as Joffrey.

[Skummy]

I'm reaching the end of the Richard Burton Diaries. Absolutely brilliant read - witty, intelligent, insightful and interesting. Brilliant stuff.

[K]

It's not good. It's not bad. It's just there.

It is absolutely not worth the £11 or whatever amazon is selling it new for. It might be worth the £0.01p you can get it used for. But only if there's free shipping.

[MalaCloudy Black]

Just started in on David Simon's Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets. I'm only 32 pages in, but it's already a pretty interesting read.

[SRN]

Finished another one of Mikael Niemi's books last week; Shoot The Orange. It was, well, not exactly revolutionary or anything but I do so like his writing style and even though the story was rather bland, I still enjoyed it. Next up on my list is Gormenghast, the Foundation series by Isaac Asimov and also Samiland.

[KONGO]

The first book of Gormenghast is great and Foundation is amazing, like, all of it. One of my favorite series. I still need to finish the Foundation series, actually, I've just read the trilogy.

[Skummy]

The first two books of Gormenghast are both amazing. One of my favourite books, and easily my all-time favourite fantasy novel. Mervyn Peake was an absolute genius.

Foundation isn't really my thing, but I read the first book and found it really interesting to begin with, but increasingly repetitive and confusing. Which is kind of the point, I think. Everyone I know who's really into sci-fi (which I'm not, particularly) loves it, though.

I just finished reading Julian Cope's "Copendium", which is basically a collection of his "album of the month" reviews from Head Heritage, loosely grouped together by decade. Because it's less structured, it's not nearly as interesting, or as good a read, as his Krautrocksampler or Japrocksampler, and some of it isn't all that good devoid of context. He also has what I think of as the "H.P. Lovecraft Problem", which is that this work was originally seralised, and reading it one after the other you start to realise how much he repeats key phrases and ideas, and how small a frame of reference he has.

That said, I like Julian's writing style, even if it is ridiculously over the top, and as ridiculous as he is, he's brilliant. Most of the reviews - especially the modern-day stuff - lean towards doom, drone and experimental metal, so there's a huge amount of stuff I'm going to have to check out now that I've finished. Luckily there's a companion CD out any day now that will help a little.

Today, I've started reading a graphic novel adaptation of "Hellraisers". I can't remember the name of the author of the top of my head, but Hellraisers was a fantastic biography of Richard Burton, Richard Harris, Oliver Reed and Peter O'Toole, largely focused on their heavy drinking and this idea of a idealised golden age of British acting. It's full of brilliant anecdotes, and does a good job of presenting it all just as good stories with a biographical framework, without falling into the trap of being nothing but glorifying alcohol abuse, which the later books in the series (Hollywood Hellraisers and A-Z of Hellraisers) really, really do.

So...yeah, I felt it was an odd prospect, and possibly beating a dead horse, but it's a lot of fun. It's all told in quite an abstract selection of anecdotes, through a mock-Christmas Carol narrative, as the alcohol protagonist is visited by the ghost of his father, who tells him to expect visits from four spirits to teach him the error of his ways; those spirits being Burton, Harris, Reed and O'Toole. Presumably ignoring the fact that O'Toole is very much still alive. I'm only early on, with Richard Burton at the moment, but it's a good read, witty, a fun idea, and brilliantly drawn. I'm going to attempt to recreate some of the pictures of Burton myself, I think.

[ZJ Penn]

Argh. Just sat down to have a relaxing hour finishing Steel and Snow, only to finish it after one chapter. I forgot theres 100 pages of appendices at the end of every Game of Thrones book. :/

And to make it worse, I missed delivery on the second part today.

Edited December 4, 2012 by ZJ Penn