What Did You Read Today?

[Colossus]

Started reading, by the billionth time, the Harry Potter seires.

I know, I know, but I really like them.

Also, the last book I read was "Cell", by Stephen King. Dear God, was that shit

[GA!]

I don't own one myself, but I've heard good things. I thought about buying one myself, but I'd rather buy real books instead I just enjoy it more than reading on an electronic screen, regardless of how awesome the quality might be.

I'd rather have books, but the amount of storage space I have left is quite low to say the least.

[Guest jocky]

Started reading, by the billionth time, the Harry Potter seires.

I know, I know, but I really like them.

Also, the last book I read was "Cell", by Stephen King. Dear God, was that shit

I read Cell and that was indeed very shit!

[VerbalPuke]

This might not come as much surprise to some people, but I adore William S. Burroughs. I enjoyed Junky, but I prefer his later work when, frankly, it's like exploring his deranged fucking mind - and it's so much better after you've heard his voice. Listen to a ton of his spoken word stuff, and suddenly his writing makes so much more sense when you're reading it in that pained, Southern gentleman junky drawl. Beautiful stuff. Actually just picked up The Soft Machine, The Ticket That Exploded and The Place Of Dead Roads today, which pretty much completes my collection. All for £4 each. Bargain.

Burroughs Jr. is worth a read too, though some of it's pretty harrowing stuff. Not exactly laugh a minute.

Currently I seem to be taking forever to read through Jon Savage's biography of the Sex Pistols. It's brilliant stuff, but it's bloody long, and I don't get nearly as much time to just sit and read as I used to, so it's taking me a while. Really enjoying it, but I get into this weird frame of mind when I'm more than halfway through a book I've been reading for a while, wherein I know I've got a mountain of books to read when I finish this one, so rather than just focus on enjoying what I'm reading, I'm dwelling on what I'm going to read next, and almost wishing I could just get the current read out of the way, rather than letting myself enjoy the rest of it.

Are you referring to England's Dreaming Skummy? I bought that book probably five years ago and still haven't finished it. I'm probably halfway through but for some reason I became occupied with other things. It is a good read though, and it does go into more detail of the UK punk scene than just the Sex Pistols which is nice. I think you've already read it, but Johnny Rotten's biography was great, really gave me a ton of respect for him just because he came across as intelligent and thoughtful even if a bit arrogant. I still appreciated that he was honest and genuine, atleast that's what I took from it.

In the last few weeks I've managed to finish Party Monster by James St. James which is basically the book that inspired the movie. It pretty much documents the life style of the Club Kids, but also (and obviously) the events surrounding the murder of Angel Melendez.

I also read No Angel written by Jay Dobynz, he was an ATF agent that went undercover and infiltrated the Hells Angels Motor Cycle Club. This was a fascinating look into the Hells Angels lifestyle, and biker culture in general.

After that was Women by my favorite writer, Charles Bukowski. It's the typical affair of Bukowski, but by this point his altar ego Henry Chinaski is now a semi-famous writer and poet. The book is pretty much detailing his escapades with various women. It's incredibly funny as most of his books are, and of course is a good read for those of you that enjoy the stories of a dirty old drunk. Tales of Ordinary Madness is next on my list of Bukowski.

As for now I'm about halfway through a book called Outlaw Biker, written by Richard "Deadeye" Hayes. As the title would suggest it's a biography of his life as an outlaw biker. It's a pretty easy and to the point read, but it's also interesting as well. It's the kind of story that makes you envious, that makes you wish you had the balls to say fuck it and become a biker yourself and live on the outside of edge of society. As you can tell, I'm somewhat enamored with the outlaw biker culture, or 1%'s as they like to refer to themselves as. It's everything somebody that hates their 9 to 5 lifestyle wishes they could be.

[Timmoru Suzuki]

Started 'Of Mice and Men' today after finishing a random Jeeves & Wooster book. I also got 'The Midwich Cuckoos' and the Discword novel 'Going Postal' as birthday presents, so they're next on the reading list.

[VerbalPuke]

I loved Of Mice and Men, it's a classic. And strangely enough, I'm reading Steinbeck's other big hit "Grapes of Wrath". My folks got me this excellent collection of his works for Christmas that I haven't dug into enough barring Pastures of Heaven (but I have read Of Mice and Men and Tortilla Flat previously).

I also finished the Outlaw Biker book I mentioned previously. Oh and I picked up Jericho's autobiography on Saturday and had it finished by Monday night. It was that fucking good, I could not put it down, it sucked me right in. It was definitely up there with Hart and Foley's books.

[Ruki]

So, my friend has written a book called Spirit Chasers......wanna give her a hand? Please? Guess what, all you have to do is sign up and it's yours for free with this code! Even if you don't pay for it, it still counts as a purchase, and she will be shopping it around to publishers, so if you could help her out, that'd be great!

TD88Z

http://www.smashword...ooks/view/22600

[Hickey]

I just used the code and got the book, Ruki. I added it to my kindle. I'll take a look at it.

And recently I read the first two books of The Dark Tower Series from Stephen King. I started the third, but I'm only about 20% through it. I've also been reading I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell by Tucker Max. Very entertaining.

[Skummy]

Currently I seem to be taking forever to read through Jon Savage's biography of the Sex Pistols. It's brilliant stuff, but it's bloody long, and I don't get nearly as much time to just sit and read as I used to, so it's taking me a while. Really enjoying it, but I get into this weird frame of mind when I'm more than halfway through a book I've been reading for a while, wherein I know I've got a mountain of books to read when I finish this one, so rather than just focus on enjoying what I'm reading, I'm dwelling on what I'm going to read next, and almost wishing I could just get the current read out of the way, rather than letting myself enjoy the rest of it.

Are you referring to England's Dreaming Skummy? I bought that book probably five years ago and still haven't finished it. I'm probably halfway through but for some reason I became occupied with other things. It is a good read though, and it does go into more detail of the UK punk scene than just the Sex Pistols which is nice. I think you've already read it, but Johnny Rotten's biography was great, really gave me a ton of respect for him just because he came across as intelligent and thoughtful even if a bit arrogant. I still appreciated that he was honest and genuine, atleast that's what I took from it.

That's the one, yeah. Took me a hell of a long time, it's pretty heavy-going. As you say, it's very good at going into detail as to what else was going on around the same time, whereas in my experience most biographies of the Pistols tend to act as if the band existed in a vacuum, and although they acknowledge the social problems the country had at the time, tend to gloss over it as a backdrop to punk, while Jon Savage explains it at length and really gives the whole scene a sociological context as much as musical one. Hell, you need to get about four or five chapters in before John Lydon even shows up for the first time. Fantastic read, anyway.

Johnny Rotten's biography is fantastic - the guy's an arrogant prick, but I think that's got a lot to do with being shoved into the Pistols and essentially handed the world on a plate at such a young age, probably fucked him up a bit. But yeah, it's a hell of a read, and he's an incredibly intelligent guy. It's just a shame that he realised there's more money to be made in playing up the obnoxious Johnny Rotten persona than just being John Lydon, as when he's not "in character" he can be quite interesting and compelling without having to resort to sneering and sarcasm. Plus, it would mean he could make more interesting music instead of increasingly embarrassing Sex Pistols reunions.

Anyway, currently reading. "The Place Of Dead Roads" by Burroughs. A little tricky to follow (obviously), and needlessly sexual in places, but for the most part it's a damn interesting read...about halfway through and still have barely figured out what the fuck is going on.

Just finished "Black Coffee Blues" by Henry Rollins. Good in places, drags when it's just a list of micro-stories, but at its best it's brilliant. It's all stuff written on the road, so it's a lot of Rollins writing about loneliness, displacement and alienation which, while repetitive, is generally his best stuff - I'd rather read that than generically angry tough guy Henry Rollins, at least.

[Damian WayLNKe]

Just finished The Prestige. Words can't describe how awesome it was. I recommend everyone to drop what they are doing and read it right away. 10/10. I don't want to give anything away in terms of differences from the movie, but the differences are pretty interesting and I could see why they wouldn't work for Nolan's film.

[Guest The Phenomenal Red]

I am reading text books for school. Most notable, The Wall Street Journal Complete Personal Finance Guidebook and Moral Theory. This along with NAU job fair paraphernalia.

[Jimmy]

I'm reading The Woman Who Walked Into Doors in preperation for my English Literature course. It's impressed that a male writer has captured the woman's voice so convincingly. And her life is very, very well constructed. About 90 pages in and I'm enjoying it. But the character development is stunning.

[KoA]

Just started reading King Lear today for my Combined English A2 course. It's fecking awful.

[KoA]

Double post.

Edited September 7, 2010 by KoA

[fr34k]

I just finished Dracula by Bram Stoker, as well as Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain.

Dracula is just an awesome book all around. Although everybody knows the story, this book still grabs you by the throat and keeps you breathless until you finished it. It's just awesome. Knowing what's going beforehand even has it's upsides, because if you know what's going to happen, it puts an entirely new spin on things. Definitely recommened.

Kitchen Confidential was an interesting read as well. I'm not involved in the food-industry in any kind, but I highly enjoyed Anthony's TV show and decided to check out his writing. It's really cool to get a look behind the scenes of a restaurant, and Anthony's Rock'N'Roll lifestyle and attitude, which I absolutely love, makes this into a really enjoyable book. I'd recommend it, especially to people who are fans of his TV work.

Next up, is "Infinite Jest" by David Foster Wallace, purchased on GRIFT's love for the book he stated somewhere. I thought I'd give it a try, but damn, it's intimidating. I probably need ages to finish it .

[Vamp]

I'm reading 'The Enigma of Arrival' which is reading material for one of my uni modules this year, and I'm finding it a pretty hard slog to be honest. Its got some good reviews but so far I'm finding it one of those painfully slow books in which noting remotely interesting happens bar a few odd pages here and there. I've taken to skimming through it for any passages of interest to me rather than reading it as I normally would. I've also reading 'The Trial' by Kafka on and off. I wish I could devote more time to it but at the moment that's just not feasible, still, I recommond Kafka. Probably overrated in terms of importance but still an enjoyable, atmospheric and thoughtful read.

I've also just finished 'Anita and Me' which I totally recommend.

[Pettengill_Mark]

I'm in the middle of a Star Wars expanded universe kick. Just finished off the New Jedi Order and now halfway through The Joiner King. Not massively impressed so far, given how awesome Star by Star was I was expecting a litle more. However, this is only the first book of The Dark Nest Crisis, so there is plenty of room for improvement.

[Blue Rosler]

Tony Hawks - One Hit Wonderland. It's quite funny so far.

[Timmoru Suzuki]

Night of the Living Trekkies, a book about a zombie outbreak at a Star Trek convention. It's published by the same company that did Pride & Prejudice & Zombies and Sense and Sensability & Sea Monsters.

Some parts are badly written, and it's really little more then glorified fan fiction, but some parts are also genuinely funny, though probably only to Star Trek fans.

[GA!]

'Mogworld' by Yahtzee Croshaw. Good but not great. If you know what the world really 'is' (as spoiled by Amazon), you'll be bored shitless for about 150 pages. Also falls into the trap of aping his favourite authors too much with toothless metaphors. I swear he likens things to scenarios involving cats and mice about five times.

Currently reading 'Fangland' by John Marks.

Edited October 12, 2010 by GA.