I just finished reading "My family and other animals" by Gerard Durell.
Very enjoyable reading and a much appreciated gift.

quote:

Originally posted by Boogerhead:
Currently reading "Snuff" by Palahniuk.

Snuff was ok, but seemed to really just try to plumb the depths of depravity for no real reason. I didn't hate it, but I think it's one of my least favorites of Palahniuk's. That and Diary, which kinda bored me.

Let me know what you think Boog.

Snuff was alright. Rant had ambition but failed IMO. At least I feel like Chuck is writing something more akin to literate satire again rather than total spectacle.

I am reading VL again becuase I find it comforting to read things I know well when working on my own novel. otherwise I get to much cog/diss.

I enjoyed "Snuff" as a rather scathing commentary on what Hollywood was, and what it has become. Also, loved the twist.

Started "Americana" by DeLillo this morning.

Finished Stephen King's Duma Key last weekend. Very enjoyable page turner that held me throughout.

As always, such deep characterisation, sadness, hope, elation and pure horror, albeit with a plot not too dissimilar to that of Ghost Busters II.

I really hope this book is made into a film, just as long as it's awarded a grandiose CGI budget.

picked up today from the library:
The Onion Girl - Charles de Lint
Shatterglass - Tamora Pierce
Dune: House Atreides - Herbert and Anderson

i've got a few on the go as well:
Hard Candy - Andrew Vachss
American Gods - Neil Gaiman

and i'll probably do another run-through of Stephanie Meyer's Twilight series too. _{shush. they are girl-crack, ok?}

You might, might want to read the first "Dune" first.

i could not find it for love nor money, Boog.
or at least, not at the library.
i might check the used bookstore tomorrow.
but i'm reading the other books i got first.

quote:

Originally posted by Boogerhead:
I enjoyed "Snuff" as a rather scathing commentary on what Hollywood was, and what it has become. Also, loved the twist.

Started "Americana" by DeLillo this morning.

Which twist? The one that was apparent on page, like, two?

Spoilers Ahead!!!!!


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Are we talking about the fact that the girl was the kid, not the boy? That was clear really early. Chuck has too much of that M. Night thing going on, he gets obsessed with being too clever.

quote:

Originally posted by green-robot:
i could not find it for love nor money, Boog.
or at least, not at the library.
i might check the used bookstore tomorrow.
but i'm reading the other books i got first.

I think you have to read Dune first. I;m not sure, I never made it through the whole series, but Dune sets everything up.

Of course, you may have seen the Lynch film, which will give you some idea of what is going on.

I thought the fact that it was Sheila was the only twist there was.

Spin

quote:

Originally posted by green-robot:
i could not find it for love nor money, Boog.
or at least, not at the library.
i might check the used bookstore tomorrow.
but i'm reading the other books i got first.

You really need to read Dune first if only so you don't get the bad taste of the fan-fic initially. I don't want to get all snobby, but Brian Herbert can't carry Frank's jock with a wheelbarrow... literarily speaking.

Just starting:

• Michael Flynn's "Eifelheim"
  
• Michael Chabon's "The Yiddish Policemen's Union"
  

I have made a break in between RPG books (met an old friend who lent me a ton of Warhammer FRP adventures) and technical journals to read Pamuk's The White Castle, a fable on the meaning of the self, and possibly exploring the different views of it in the Western and the Ottoman traditions. A bit too dense and ambitious for a novella, but I like his heavy, rich narrative.

To balance it out, Neal Asher's The Enginner Reconditioned, a collection of early short stories, most of them in the Polity universe. I would have enjoyed more if I had read them before the novels, but I am the kind of obsessive that enjoys filling the small details of different universes and what is the background of some detail in a novel. Makes it easier to suspend disbelief.

The Splatterjay short story reminded me how much I liked the two novels set in that planet, so I plan on reread both. I have almost finished The Skinner and plan on following it up with The Voyage of the Sable Keech.

I have often referred to Neal Asher as "ersatz Banks". In those two novels he goes quite beyond Banks' shadow, and they are better for it, even if the AI's interactions owes a lot to Excession.

reading The Onion Girl, and its like... Neil Gaiman meets Andrew Vachss in a bar one night and they decide they're going to write a book about the Children of the Secret together. so its gritty, dark realism in a world where Fairy Tales are real, too.

Indian Killer by Spokane homeboy Sherman Alexie. He stretches out and applies a full range of literary techniques (without, so far, stooping to Pynchonesque 'digressionism'), and he has a good grasp on them all, but I'm just barely into it and anticipate excessive ambition will show itself yet.

Still, nothing can gainsay that wicked sly slow Injun humor that Sherman wields, beginning with that first name of his.

I went to read my copy of "The Frogs" but can’t find it.

It has my all time favorite joke in it.

Paraphrased with liberties from memory, it goes:

Hercules is relaxing at home when he hears a knock on the door. He answers it and is surprised to find Dionysus standing there, scrawny and obviously drunk Dionysus who happens to be wearing the exact same clothing Hercules currently is, a lion’s hide.

Dionysus explains that he is in desperate and urgent need to travel to Hades, that this is a matter of extreme importance and little time, and would like to know how to get there in the quickest possible fashion. As Hercules has made this journey before, who better to ask.

Hercules says, "End of a rope."

Trust me, audiences love this stuff.

Currently reading The Varieties of Religious Experience by William James, with Mutual Aid by Kropotkin on deck. I'd just read several brainless books in a row, and I was sick of it.

But I'm also thinking of rereading some Gibson or something, because I miss Japan really badly lately.

I'm almost done with Douglas Coupland's All families are psychotic. It's not really doing much for me. Of course, the book is well written - it is Coupland after all - but it is seriously flawed. The characters go through so much incredible situations that credibility hurls itself out of the nearest window. While each character has kind of a redeeming moment somewhere in the book, i still care nothing for them. JPod did this as well, actually.