What Did You Read Today?

[Marsl]

Nocnoi Docor is what I'm reading. The books are really different from the movies

[IDOL]

Just finished Bob Holly's autobiography, "The Hardcore Truth." Its really a great read as he pulls no punches, explain his case for some of the stories that have caught wind on the internet and made him seem like a huge prick, tells some awesome road stories and his take on the backstage happenings throughout his long run through multiple eras In WWE. The parts about racing are uninteresting and I dont agree with some of his views, but even if you can't stand him its worth the read.

[Johnny23]

Reading Tina Fey's book Bossypants. About halfway through, hoping to finish it off New Years day or so and just marathon read.

[RoHitman Reigns]

Just finished Bob Holly's autobiography, "The Hardcore Truth." Its really a great read as he pulls no punches, explain his case for some of the stories that have caught wind on the internet and made him seem like a huge prick, tells some awesome road stories and his take on the backstage happenings throughout his long run through multiple eras In WWE. The parts about racing are uninteresting and I dont agree with some of his views, but even if you can't stand him its worth the read.

I was chatting with Chester I think about this recently the other week. It really offered a new insight to Holly and I adore the new view.

[DMN in the House]

Since I'm out of work, and have to go to the library every day in order to avail myself of their internet to job hunt, I've decided to start reading the classics. Right now I'm working my way through Hemingway's For Whom The Bell Tolls. Great novel. After that, I'm going to re-read Huxley's Brave New World, and then go from there.

Maybe I'll start a thread with reviews of the books I read.

[Liam]

I'm currently reading '12 Years A Slave', 'Battle Royale', 'Watching the English' (a book about the social norms of English behaviour) and 'The Lies of Locke Lomorra', which I only just started.

Really need to commit to one book, but find it hard to do that at the moment.

[Benjamin]

I initially read that as '12 Years A Slave: Battle Royale'.

Wouldn't be all that different, I imagine

[Skummy]

Watching The English is wonderful! I make reference to the section on pub etiquette all the time.

I'm currently reading "Goodbye to Berlin" by Christopher Isherwood - the book that "Cabaret" was based on. It's rather lovely.

[Liam]

Watching The English is wonderful! I make reference to the section on pub etiquette all the time.

I'm currently reading "Goodbye to Berlin" by Christopher Isherwood - the book that "Cabaret" was based on. It's rather lovely.

Currently reading the pub etiquette section.

I find it all fascinating. I mean, it is obvious, but to know it is as ingrained as that in our interactions.

I like when I discuss bits of it with my socially awkward friend and my other, not socially awkward, friend. The first friends inability to understand common social norms is always good for a laugh.

[DMN in the House]

Finished For Whom The Bell Tolls. Excellent novel, and very moving at some points. Made me a little annoyed at myself that it's taken me so long to read any Hemingway, but that's an oversight I shall be correcting post-haste.

[DMN in the House]

On the classics front, I finished A Farewell to Arms, another great piece of work by Hemmingway, although, once again, no happy ending. Would definitely recommend it.

Tried to read some Faulkner, borrowed The Sound and the Fury from the library, but it fell flat to me. Not surely, but I couldn't get into it at all.

Didn't mention it, but I also read Brave New World for the first time since high school. It seems as topical today as it it must have been at the time it was written, I'd recommend it to anyone looking for sci-fi.

I'm going through Friday Night Lights for the first time since high school, as well. With the benefit of almost fifteen years of hindsight, the book just seems so sad now. When I was a teenager I wanted to have had that experience, to have that much emphasis put on football, which it wasn't at my school. Now I look back and realize how hollow and shallow it was, how meaningless. It does bring back great memories of my own playing days, along with gratitude that they weren't the highlight of my entire life.

[Benjamin]

Recently I picked up Mario Puzo's The Last Don dirt cheap and read it in like a couple of days. It was so weird, every character was handsome and perfect and beautiful and all of them were fucking athletic and super good at golf. I've never read The Godfather, so did he write it like that as well? Where every character is simply without flaw?

[Liam]

Finished 'The Stars My Destination.' Probably not the best idea to rattle off the last 3rd of the book after a night of some drinking, as I got a little confused towards the end, but generally enjoyed the book.

Not 100% sure what to move on to next - might go back to 'Battle Royale' which I started one weekend when I left my Kindle at work.

[Skummy]

I love The Stars My Destination - I like reading relatively early fantasy and sci-fi stuff, from before certain aspects of the genre became set in stone. So, pre-Tolkein fantasy, and sci-fi from before Star Wars, before Star Trek before, maybe, 2001: A Space Odyssey, that sort of thing. Interesting to see where other people's ideas go without those influences, and wondering how different the genre could have been. I seem to remember it getting reasonably confusing toward the end too, though it's been so long I can't quite remember why now.

Last night I finished reading "Elvis Died For Somebody's Sins But Not Mine", a collection of Mick Farren writing - I didn't really know him as anything other than a music writer, but there's all sorts in there, lyrics, poetry, political writing, novel excerpts, and some of it is absolutely fantastic. Music-wise, he spans the late '60s through to the present day with a general kind of counter-culture optimism that I quite like; you know it's naive, but reading about the possibilities of rock music changing the world is always quite fun when it's eloquent enough. He reads a little like Hunter S. Thompson at times, in a strange way. His fiction seems great, too - kind of hard-boiled prose, often in sci-fi situations, but sci-fi from the point of view of relatively mundane events; so his story about the first manned space flights outside of our solar system is all told from the point of view of a jaded drunk watching a launch from a bar, with very little interest in the whole thing. Didn't realise until I just Wiki'd him that Mick died last year - that makes the whole experience of basically reading across his entire career a little sadder.

This morning I read the new League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen spin-off, Nemo: The Roses Of Berlin. Honestly, I thought it was a bit underwhelming. It expands a little bit on ideas explored in earlier League books - the German equivalent to the League, their universe's equivalent of Hitler, exploring themes from German expressionist cinema - so Dr Caligari and Metropolis are very explicitly referenced - but doesn't seem to go far enough with any of the ideas to make them all that worthwhile. The story itself feels simplistic enough that it could have been a vignette in another League book, rather than a standalone story. There's a Moomins reference, though, which wins points from me. And it's beautifully drawn.

I've now started reading Ruby Wax's Sane New World. It's a bit self-help book, and not at all what I'd normally read, but I'm probably going to see her show on the same themes, so figured I'd give myself a head-start.

[LittleDaniel]

I finally finished 1Q84. I stand by my enthusiasm for the first half of the book. The second 500 pages, on the other hand, took for-fucking-ever to finish.

Basically, everything after

Tengo had sex with Fuka-Eri. That scene was what especially put me off of the book.

[Skummy]

I finally finished 1Q84. I stand by my enthusiasm for the first half of the book. The second 500 pages, on the other hand, took for-fucking-ever to finish.

Basically, everything after

Tengo had sex with Fuka-Eri. That scene was what especially put me off of the book.

I pretty much agree - I didn't mind the first half, but it was ruined by the second half, and the entirely superfluous final book.

It just annoys me that the theme of half the book is "don't write a book where nothing happens, or where you explain mundane things", and then Murakami proceeds to do

exactly that for 500 pages. Part of me wonders if it's the change in translator - because I'd like to think that it's a better book than it is, somehow, I guess - as there was plenty of nothing happening in Wind-Up Bird Chronicle and Kafka On The Shore too, but they were both fantastic.

[LittleDaniel]

I just finished At Night We Walk in Circles. It was a very refreshing read after 1Q84, as things actually happen. It didn't blow me away, but it was very enjoyable. There was a lot of foreshadowing in the book, and I felt like it evoked a sense of dread quite well.

I really want to read about history of the ancient world now for some reason. I wanted a historical account, like that of Herodotus, but the tiny library near my house didn't have anything like that. Instead I picked up Rubicon by Tom Holland as it seemed to be recieved well. Has anyone read it

[apsham]

Got really bugged about the fact that I don't read anymore, and I tried to on my phone but.. fuck e-books really.

So after some office discussion and some big reccomendations, I went out and picked up the first three books (collected) in the Legend of Drizzt series along with a few other mostly fantasy themed novels.

[Skummy]

Having to check Goodreads to remember what I read since I last posted in here to give some random thoughts;

I read the last two Moomins books - Moominpappa At Sea and Moominvalley In November, because the Moomins are fucking great and I'm not ashamed to be seen in public reading childrens' books. …in November was a bit odd, seeing as the Moomins themselves don't actually feature, but it was nice enough. …at Sea may well be one of my absolute favourite books, though, it's gorgeous. But it's bleak as all fuck. I can't really imagine how I'd have taken it as a kid.

Basically, Moominpappa has a crisis of self, basically questions his masculinity, and uproots his entire family to move to an island and become a lighthouse keeper. The remainder of the book basically deals with the entire Moomin family losing grip of their identities and sense of self and place; THE MOOMINS HAVE AN EXISTENTIAL CRISIS. Pappa stops being an adventurer and a fun guy and caregiver, and starts trying to be what he thinks a "Pappa" should be, doing handiwork and manly work, and without ever consulting his family on what they want at all. Moominmamma gets so lonely that she paints the entirety of Moominvalley on her walls and hides in it, and doesn't want to be found. Moomintroll falls in love with a beautiful creature, who laughs at him for it. Meanwhile, you're being made to feel sympathy for The Groke, a character who had only ever previously appeared as a symbol of loneliness and sadness and bad things.

So, yeah, it's beautiful, but it's sad as all hell. Almost a work of philosophy, it's mental.

I read The True History Of The Elephant Man, which I picked up for a couple of quid. I've always been fascinated by Joseph Merrick, Victorian society, and Victorian circuses and freakshows and so on, and that book did a fantastic job of exploring all of that.

Blue Blood On The Mat by Atholl Oakley, at NBT's suggestion, was a fun read, but absolutely bonkers. There's some really interesting historical stuff in there, and I love reading about wrestling from way back before my knowledge really starts, so there was a lot I loved about it, but there's also so much absolutely bollocks to it, that only serves to undermine his constant insistence on wrestling in his day being more legitimate and him being one of the last of the "real" wrestlers, when he's talking about fighting guys over 9 feet tall, discovering wrestlers he almost certainly didn't discover, and generally having a hand in every decision ever made in wrestling ever. It's also probably the worst edited book I have ever read, with numerous spelling mistakes, some passages repeated, and at one point entire pages just repeated at random points.

Atlas Of Remote Islands: Fifty Islands I Have Not Visited And Never Will is another that's become one of my favourite books, just for how bloody gorgeous it is. Beautiful book, beautifully bound, wonderfully daft concept, and superbly written. A really quick read, but one I didn't want to end. Just wanted to savour it forever. Full of mad little stories and stuff which I absolutely adore. Can't recommend this one enough.

A Rough Guide To The Future by James Lovelock, because for whatever reason I read all of his stuff. It was unstructured and rambling, and he tends to get on an irrelevant high horse about "health and safety culture" a few too many times for my liking, but he lays out a lot of good ideas, and makes the idea of Gaea a lot more sensible and approachable than some of the more bonkers claims he's made in the past. Interesting ideas on the notion of climate change and renewable energy, a lot of which gels with my world-view a lot; basically he argues that - as most people would agree - the majority of "green" policies enacted by governments are vote-winning exercises and have little or not scientific basis, and that the "cult of climate change" has become too much like a religion and won't question the received knowledge, even when scientific evidence is working against them, and that we should basically accept that climate change is an inevitable fact of living on Earth, and that rather than endorsing flawed approaches to try and combat it, science and government should be working on methods of dealing with it once it occurs. There's a lot he suggests that I'm utterly opposed to - he buys into the idea of the world being overpopulated, which is one of my bugbears - but it was an interesting read

Viper Wine by Hermione Eyre was a weird one. It's basically a kind of post-modern take on a historical novel, dealing with the life and death of Venetia Stanley, a (real) society beauty in the court of Charles I, and her husband, who was allegedly an alchemist. A lot of it's a satire on obsessions with beauty and whatnot, as well as exploring the crossover between science and magic in the "age of enlightenment", which is absolutely one of my favourite topics. The "gimmick" of the book, though, is on the post-modern angle; a figure from pop culture will pop up, or Kenelm Digby will sing his daughter to sleep singing "Starman", or he and Venetia will dance to "Love Will Tear Us Apart", the author will show up asking questions, or computing terms will be dropped in at random points…which seemed like a fun gimmick at first, but just never went anywhere. I thought it would buy into some kind of idea of non-linearity of time, or at least come to some conclusion, but it just doesn't seem to have any real bearing on the plot at all, and a lot of it just seems to be a gimmick and nothing more, though I suppose it suggests that the obsessions of the past aren't all that different from the obsessions of the present. An odd one.

Hawksmoor by Peter Ackroyd is something I should have read years ago. I love Ackroyd as a biographer and non-fiction writer - his "biography" of London is one of the most fascinating books I've ever read - and I've been meaning to read his fiction for a long time. I was actually looking to pick up his new biography of Charlie Chaplin, but ended up grabbing this instead. It's closer to what I wanted from Viper Wine, as it suggests a non-linearity of time from a kind of "psychogeography" perspective; the idea that events are tied to a place, and so on. Again it plays around with the overlap between scientific reasoning and occultism, and all that sort of stuff I love, and it's bloody good.

Currently, I'm reading Foucault's Pendulum by Umberto Eco, and fucking hell. It's dense as all hell, really full-on stuff, and I'm half-way through with very little seeming to have happened yet, but it just barrages you with information. Yet, at the same time, I can hardly wait to read more, and I'm absolutely fascinated by it all. I think I'd already decided within a couple of pages that it was something very special indeed.

[DMN in the House]

Finished Purgatario by Dante. You really need a good translation with lots of footnotes, which is what I got. Enjoyed it immensely.

Also finished The Corner, which has a subtitle I forgot, by... David Simon, I think. Basically one of two books that The Wire was based on. Another great read, I couldn't put it down, but also very, very, sad. You can pick out what inspired what for the show.

Tried to read Milton's Paradise Lost, but it was kicking my ass. I might go back to it at some point. I feel like it's something I SHOULD read, you know?

Currently reading Guns of August, about the first month of WWI. I absolutely LOVE history, and thus far it's been a very engaging read. I didn't know much about King Albert (Alfred? Damn, now I feel dumb) of Belgium, but I want to learn more now. I'm also the kind of person who gets emotional about stuff like what happens in this book, and actually teared up a few times reading parts of speeches and the like. The writer, Barbara Tuchman (I think) also does a good job with descriptions. I found myself easily imagining what it was like inside Parliament, things like that.