i read some books (2024)

[blombluss]

I want to write a Famous Five bok like 'Lies Inc'.

[dng]

i read some books while i was on holiday:

The High Window by Raymond Chandler - there was some private eyeing going on and it was pretty enjoyable

A Rage In Harlem by Chester Himes - absurdly entertaining 1950s crime nonsense. Also, weirdly, and strangely horrifyingly, due to the 1950s not allowing swear words to be published or something, every time the characters say motherfucker or motherfucking, its turned into motherraper/mother raping instead, which is pretty much definitely a million times more offensive than if they hadn't changed it at all

The Long Shoe by Bob Mortimer - this qas quite entertaining but almost completely half arsed and nowhere near as funny as the other bopb mortimer book i've read (the satsuma complex).

Riddley Walker by Russell Hoban - excellent post apocalyptic novel set in kent and written entireliy in some futuristic version of old archaic kentishness. i expect alan moore had been reading this when he wrote the first chapter of voice in the fire

Signs Of Life by M. John Harrison - this was very like a couple of other M John Harrison's not overtly science fiction/fantasy books (but still sort of science fiction/fantasy books) I've read (Course Of The Heart, The Sunken Land Begins To Rise Again) but not as good, possibly due to being genuinely relentlessly depressing (instead of just mostly largely depressing). Still pretty good though

The Secret History Of The Lord Of Musashi/Arrowroot by Junichiro Tanizaki - two books in one. The first is a fake history of a real old samurai warlord man, and the second is a fake history of a trip he ha dto the mountains for some reason. Anyway they were both quite good, but not as good as this book of his i read before - https://dauntbookspublishing.co.uk/book ... two-women/ - about a useless lonely man who just wants to spend his life being friends with his cat instead of getting a job or doing anything else at all really. Needless to say I empathised quite extensively with the main character in that one

[Pual]

I read M John Harrison’s baffling autobiography a few weeks ago.

Also Steve Aylett’s newest book.

Also a 1950s murder mystery book called Uncle Paul that my sister leant to me because it was called Uncle Paul.

Also a fairly average YA fantasy based loosely on Beauty and the beast that my wife bought me for my birthday cos she listened to the audio book.

[vom]

I read We Have Always Lived In The Castle by Shirley Jackson and it had previously belonged to a young (presumably) girl (presumably) who had annotated and graffittied it in really fun ways that actually enhanced the experience

Then I read Box Office Poison by Tim Robey which is about movies since the beginning of movies that have dramatically flopped and why, it was solidly entertaining without anything TOO memorable. I like movies

[dng]

I absolutely loved we have always lived in the castle and now i want to read the graffitied version

[blombluss]

Then I read Box Office Poison by Tim Robey which is about movies since the beginning of movies that have dramatically flopped and why, it was solidly entertaining without anything TOO memorable. I like movies

That sounds pretty good!
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2024/ ... ting-flops

[An Unicorn]

I read Giovanni's Room by James Baldwin

It was very gay, melancholy, sad, arous

I quite liked it

[dng]

i started reading that recently, but the text is so small in my copy it hurts my eyes. its like they took a normal paperback and shrunk it down 33%

[dng]

(i am old, blind)

[vom]

I got some new reading glasses and also I've been trying to read more of The Classics after seeing that recent Guardian list of the top 100 novels and realising I'd only read FOUR of them. I've been trying to find them all in charity shops, because it makes it into a fun scavenger hunt

so far:
1. The Left Hand of Darkness, Ursula K. LeGuin - I knew I'd like this one and already owned it so it was a good entry point. It was good obviously, I'm not sure I could pick a favourite from this, The Dispossessed or Lathe of Heaven but they're all pretty brilliant.

2. The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald - wasn't sure about this one since the film version I've seen (the Baz Luhrmann one) didn't do much for me, but I absolutely loved it. The writing is beautiful and the descriptions reminded me a bit of Raymond Chandler, albeit with less hard-boiled mystery.

3. The God of Small Things, Arundhati Roy - a more modern one (1997), about Indian twins who are separated for years and then reunited. I found the style and humour quite engaging at first but it gets a bit too wrapped up in its own stylistic quirks I think and the jumping back and forth in time started to wear me out a little by the end. But still quite good.

4. Persuasion, Jane Austen - the only one I've found Quite Hard Work so far, I think I probably should have started with one of the other Austen options on the list that I had a little familiarity with. The writing style took me a long time to get used to and I'm not sure this particular story, which is essentially "oh no, a woman isn't married!!!" was worth it. But I liked that some of it took place in Lyme Regis because I've been there, relatable.

5. Invisible Cities, Italo Calvino - this was wonderful and poetic and strange, a bit like an Out of the Pit-style bestiary, but for imaginary cities. I wasn't totally convinced by the framing story but also I didn't really care.

6. Mrs. Dalloway, Virginia Woolf - loved this one too, the way the story bounces from character to character over the course of the day felt very striking and modern, and (aside from those in the medical profession) it feels like Woolf has a ton of affection for all of her characters which I always enjoy.

7. Things Fall Apart, Chinua Achebe - a punchy tale of rural Nigeria just as The Christians start to arrive to fuck everything up. Although I thought it was surprisingly even-handed about the influence of The White Man, e.g. perhaps it is not the WORST idea to accept that babies can be twins and not label them an abomination and throw them into a forest to die. There are two more books that follow this one but I must not get distracted from my noble quest.

Next up: My Brilliant Friend, Elena Ferrante

[dng]

Yes, I love invisible cities too. I was kind of thinking of that (and the atlas of remote islands) when I wrote this

https://accumulationofthings.com/islands/

[vom]

Ah yes, I thought it reminded me of something in particular (other than Atlas of Remote Islands which I definitely thought about, even more than usual)

[Bruce Sato]

I haven't read The Great Gatsby in decades, but it's bloody brilliant. Of all the candidates for the Great American Novel (tm), it seems the closest.

[vom]

It's cheating a bit by having Great in the title. I bet you wouldn't be saying that if it was called The Shit Gatsby

[dng]

The Great American Gatsby Book

[endar]

Make the Gatsby Great A*BANG*

[An Unicorn]

2 Great 2 Gatsby

[Pual]

Greg Gatsby

[blombluss]

The Super Mairo Bros ripoff The Great Gatsby Sisters for the Amiga and C64.