What Are You Reading? (6 Viewers)

crazy shit happens, bad decisions get made but that's okay, real, good & appropriate. Strong female lead as well. As a young man I knew women a bit like that.
 
I read about half of that book. It was good, but the trek wore me out. The show's good entertainment, though the most recent season was so-so.

Here's some of G. R. R. Martin's best prose:

"He found a line and pulled on it, fighting toward the hatch to get himself below out of the storm, but a gust of wind knocked his feet from under him and a second slammed him into the rail and there he clung. Rain lashed at his face, blinding him. His mouth was full of blood again. The ship groaned and growled beneath him like a constipated fat man straining to shit."

Oh, and the sex? Who could ever forget the line, "her cunt became the world"? Earlier, she was described as "sopping wet." My girlfriend said that the "sopping wet" bit reminded her of a dirty mop.

Most people consider this bad taste, but there's a certain joy to be had in finding nuggets such as these printed on a page. Sadly I don't recall reading these lines in the book I read.

EDIT: When I was writing this post, some new ones popped up about this Panopticon novel. I'll give it a go. Seems like the kind of novel I would like.
 
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"a constipated fat man straining to shit."
"her cunt became the world"
I missed those too while reading. The second one could almost be Bukowski :D

One character who's really great is Tyrion Lannister. The Dwarf. Finally I get what all the rage is about. The dude is the only one with style in the whole book. Everybody else is heroic or demonic or honorable or a traitor or a kingslayer and all this shit, but "The Imp" rocks it with humor.

And if ever an actor was fitting for this part, they truly found him:

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Yesterday I read a critical book review in the paper. It was about David Talbot's The Devil's chessboard: Allen Dulles, the CIA, and the Rise of America's Secret Government. Has anyone of you heard about this book?
 
I'm reading a lot of B. Traven. His writing is good approximately 99% of the time. I had read The Treasure of the Sierra Madre and seen the film some time ago, but didn't venture into other works. He is definitely a writer whom I imagine that Bukowski would have liked had he read him.
 
Have been reading lately:

- Arnold Schwarzenegger: Total Recall. My Unbelievably True Live Story. No big surprises there if you already know the story, but ok written and still mindblowing how some scrawny kid out of a backass Austrian hick town (can relate) can make it to greatest bodybuilder, moviestar, Terminator, governor of California etc. blabla.

- Henry Miller: The Air Conditioned-Nightmare. This was one of the worst Millers for me. Didn't do anything for me, just found it sort of boring.

- Steven Pressfield: The War of Art. About how resistance fucks your life, like you know you should sit down to write that novel but simply CAN'T DO it. The whole resistance part is very good and could relate (like many, probably), but he uses weird christian metaphors at times that are irritating, like "if you plow through ALL THE ANGELS WILL BE ON YOUR SIDE!!" Like wtf? Not necessary imo.

- Mark Hyman: The Ultramind Solution: You should sleep enough, exercise, get enough Vitamin D and other essential Vitamins, avoid High Fructose Corn Syrup and gluten at all costs and most of your worries will disappear, including depression and, possibly, autism. Don't know about this. The High Fructose Corn Syrup appears to be a US phenomenon from what I read, in Europe it's not that common. Not sure if you can back up the autism and depression claims scientifically. His theory appears to be that gluten and High Fructose Corn Syrup are inflaming your brain and causing all kind of bad shit to your body. Very possible, but who knows?
 
Just finished In Search of the Third Man by Charles Drazin about the making of and eventual success of The Third Man movie. Well researched and easy read. Good book, favorite movie. Also, reading Silver Screen Fiend by Patton Oswalt. He was obsessed with movies and from 95 to 99 he went to at least 5 a week, often 2 a day or 4 on a weekend and had one time where he saw 12 movies in two days! He went insane. There's a natural flow to his amusing and intelligent run on sentences. Great book.
 
Reading and enjoying Inherent Vice by Thomas Pynchon. I'm sure I'll watch the movie again when I finish the book. Also picked up for 25 cents an old hardback edition from the 70's of The Portable Beat Reader just for ha ha's. I have the stuff I already like in other books but It was amusing to see the one Buk entry from Notes of a Dirty Old Man. It was the piece about having met Neal Cassady.
 
I'm digging through Patty Yumi Cottrell's Sorry to Disrupt the Peace. It isn't a hard read, but the main character is delightfully delusional. I presume there will be a larger reveal to the reasons for this behavior later on, but at the moment it's enjoyable, if a bit off-putting.

I've got a couple comics on the back burner (March Vol 3 and Snotgirl Vol 1) but I don't know when I'll get to those. Some day maybe.
 
almost finished " then we came to the end" by joshua ferris my best read so far this year,almost never bought it having spotted a blurb by nick hornby...a pet hate with me.
 
I have recently started to read erotic fiction, something that I never really enjoyed in the past. Maybe I'm just getting older and hornier... At the moment I'm reading through all those free erotica websites, some of which some good, raw stories. My current destination is noveltrove.com, which thankfully comes ads free, as I really dislike porn ads.
 
This probably isn't the right place but thought you might be interested in my review of a new study of Weldon Kees, the mid-century poet. If you don't know Kees, you should. He's a very good poet and storywriter. His novel doesn't really succeed, so I would suggest sticking to the poems, stories and letters. Here is the review.
 
Yes, the poems in Sick Fly 15 are:

1926
The Coming of the Plague
A Musician's Wife
Rites for Winter
No Sleep

They were previously published in The Collected Poems of Weldon Kees (1960). What this doesn't tell us is whether there are other poems that are uncollected. We do, on the other hand, have a reasonable certainty that none were edited by JM.
 
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Mainly about the role of Myelin in skill building and mastery through what the author calls "Deep Practice". The existence of Myelin was news to me, therefore interesting.
 
Somehow Elmore Leonard was the Quentin Tarantino 1.0 ... I can't read his stuff without seeing a Tarantino movie in my mind, soundtrack inclusive.

Or rather is Tarantino the Elmore Leonard 2.0? Hard to say.
 
Rainy Day in Rio de Janeiro

I've been reading Brief Interview with Hedious Men, by David Foster Wallace (yeah) for the past two weeks, and it looks like a good book to start reading him (although it's not his masterpiece). His prose is somewhat boring, but I guess it fits on his intentions.

Trying to keep up with Methaphysics, by Aristotle (oh god...).
 
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So far, a really good read. First person perspectives require an interesting character and a unique voice and Habash does a great job at making Stephen really odd. I'm not sure where it's going, or what the ultimate purpose of it is. It's about a kid who wants to be the top college wrestler (but at the same time, it's about so much more as any good novel).
 
Rainy Day in Rio de Janeiro

I've been reading Brief Interview with Hedious Men, by David Foster Wallace (yeah) for the past two weeks, and it looks like a good book to start reading him (although it's not his masterpiece). His prose is somewhat boring, but I guess it fits on his intentions.

Trying to keep up with Methaphysics, by Aristotle (oh god...).

Right on with the DFW. I love him but some of the stories in that one you're reading wore me out a bit. I hope you enjoy it though. But if you don't please don't give up on his stuff. Believe it or not for me his essays were the most fun. Whether or not you like Brief Interviews check out:
Consider the Lobster
A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again
McCain's Promise

If you still like him after that then you know what's next... (the monster) Infinite Jest.
 
Besides read w the son S.E. Hinton's The Outsiders and enjoying it, I just picked up 2 while in Canada from this awesome record store/book store in Perth http://www.backbeatperth.com/ Don't Suck, Don't Die the memoir by Kristin Hersh and the memoir The Lonely City by Olivia Laing
 
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I read Tampa a couple of years ago and it was darkly funny and disturbing in that deluded-protagonist-Lolita-way. I enjoyed it and it stuck with me for awhile after finishing it.

This is her new novel and it's a lot lighter, the first seventy or so pages in. But there's a darkness hiding just a few chapters ahead, I'm almost certain of it.

I also was just reading that Jeffrey Eugenides has a new book coming out... but it's a short story collection that I've read a lot of already... damn lazy writers...
 
Right on with the DFW. I love him but some of the stories in that one you're reading wore me out a bit. I hope you enjoy it though. But if you don't please don't give up on his stuff. Believe it or not for me his essays were the most fun.
Some of the stories in the book are really cool. He can capture those things and put them in those long-complex-full-of-footnotes narratives and it still can be very fun and really honest, imo. I'll definitely check them out.
 
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Shit, this is a good one. About young pool hustler "Fast Eddie Felson" who thinks he's the best and challenges his nemesis, "Minnesota Fats" (best name) in a 40-hour-pool showdown.

I've never seen the movie with Paul Newman but the novel is dope. It's virtually unknown in the German speaking crowd, I was only able to locate one ancient translation from 1987. A shame.

Kindle version is only a couple bucks.
 
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The movie is dope. I'd even go so far as to say it's the jawn and there's an interesting backstory on the director Robert Rossen, blacklisted for being a Commie. And hell he also directed All The King's Men.

I've read Walter Tevis's The Queen's Gambit and enjoyed it but not that one. He also wrote The Man Who Fell to Earth that became the Bowie movie. That book is collecting dust in my "to read" bookshelves.
 
My Struggle part I, by Knausgaard, and finishing The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge, by Rilke (actually, in a struggle with this one - hehehehehehe)
 

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