what are you reading today?

[Baeyer-Drewson]

Over all their voices rang out the voice of one elderly man in the uniform of a prison guard, who was boasting drunkenly through the sea of chatter. "And every Wednesday, the perfumed young lady slips me a hundred-crown note to leave her alone with the convict. And by Thursday the hundred crowns are already gone in so much beer. And when the visiting hour is over, the young lady comes out with the stink of jail in her elegant clothes; and the prisoner goes back to his cell with the lady's perfume in his jailbird's suit. And I'm left with the smell of beer. Life is nothing but trading smells."

"Life and also death, you might say," interjected another drunk, whose profession, as I learned at once, was gravedigger. "With the smell of beer I try to get the smell of death off me. And only the smell of death will get the smell of beer off you, like all the drinkers whose graves I have to dig."

[Guest Bespoke]

Very interesting read. Most pointers good, the rest laughable and cheesy.

[gramps]

&

[into the rain]

[american_hearts]

word. I just picked up What We Talk About When We Talk About Love because it's silly that I've gone this far in life without my own copy.

[wild style]

Almost finished...

[weinfeld]

Reading this before I see it:

[STFU]

[into the rain]

word. I just picked up What We Talk About When We Talk About Love because it's silly that I've gone this far in life without my own copy.

I think Where I'm Calling From includes most of the stories in that book in addition to all the stories (if not most) in Elephant and Cathedral. I thought it would be better to pay $15 for the compilation piece rather than $15 each for 3 different books.

[spudeey]

Just finished Running Away by Jean-Philippe Toussaint and now its on to this. If I don’t like it after a little bit of time I’m not going to read it because I have such a long reading list.

Has anyone read it? How is it?

[capa]

I just finished this and was a little underwhelmed. It was an easy read but I thought it was a bit contrived. A lot of people rave about this book and I'm kind of not sure why. Same thing with Middlesex.

Next up is either:

Breakfast of Champions

The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

Invisible Man

[Quiver]

at the moment, white fang - jack london

there was a book sale near work and i went a bit stupid...wasn't familiar with quite a few of the authors so just judged those books by their covers..

Moxyland - l. Beukes

the hours - m. Cunningham

apache - e. Macy

the roar of butterflies - r. Hill

cosmic - f. C. Boyce

the rise of the iron moon - s. Hunt

my brother jack - g. Johnston

the last day of thr lacuna cabal - s. Dixon

blood meridian - needs no intro here

perdido street station - c. Mieville

ad infintum - n. Ostler

the king of vodka - l. Himelstein

walker's way - i. Storey

the vagrants - y. Li

here's to hoping they provide a good read

[Hocus Pocus]

I just finished Blood Meridian. Probably one of my favourite books I've ever read. Anyone know of something that deals with violence in a similar way?

[gramps]

Holy fuck this is good. Last Torontonian to not read this is a Fantino.

[denimdestroyedmylife]

Next up is either:

Breakfast of Champions

The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

Invisible Man

i've read all of those

BoC meant a lot to me as a highschooler but i haven't wanted to reread that

W-U BC surely passes the time. surely discussed to death in this thread.

INVISIBLE MAN is one of my favorite books ever, among the best american novels ever written. i am assuming yr talking about ralph ellison here, not like, a novelization of the Chevy Chase flick loosely based on the HG Wells joint.

[NESK]

imperial bedrooms aint all that.

[viv1984viv]

I just finished Blood Meridian. Probably one of my favourite books I've ever read. Anyone know of something that deals with violence in a similar way?

Cannot. off the top of my head think of any american gothic violence that is quite so miltonesque....... mmmm

[gramps]

There;s always more McCarthy. The Outer Dark and Child of God have similar elements. Some Faulkner, like Absalom, Absalom, Santuary, and As I Lay Dying are obvious influences too. I would also say, in less immediate ways, that the books The True History of the Kelly Gang by Peter Carey, and The Dog Fighter, may be satisfy what you're looking for too.

[THEBOY]

Blood Meridian, probably my favorite book ever written. So fucking good. Have not found anything that can really capture the rawness and violence of human nature as the book does. In The Rouge Blood is kind of a bootleg Blood Meridian, about 2 kids shooting and fighting their way around the south set in about the same time period, look it up. You could always go deeper into the actual book by reading My Confessions by Sam Chamberlain. He was part of the real Glanton Gang at some point and a lot of the events McCarthy wrote about are based off of this book.

The only other book that compares for me, and not all that directly, is Moby Dick. So if you haven't read that, I would highly suggest it.

I'd love to hear other people's suggestions as well.

Currently reading Run With the Hunted by Bukowski. If you've never read Bukowski and have only heard bad things about him being a drunk and a womanizer this is the perfect book to get an idea of what he's all about. It takes pieces from his novels as well as his collections of poetry and lays them out in a somewhat linear path of his life. Raw and observant and awesome. Dude did his thing, really taught me that you can live a full life without a whole lot of anything besides the head on your shoulders.

[american_hearts]

i've read all of those

BoC meant a lot to me as a highschooler but i haven't wanted to reread that

W-U BC surely passes the time. surely discussed to death in this thread.

INVISIBLE MAN is one of my favorite books ever, among the best american novels ever written. i am assuming yr talking about ralph ellison here, not like, a novelization of the Chevy Chase flick loosely based on the HG Wells joint.

agreed on Ellison -- one of the best pieces of writing I've ever had included in a course curriculum.

[capa]

i've read all of those

BoC meant a lot to me as a highschooler but i haven't wanted to reread that

W-U BC surely passes the time. surely discussed to death in this thread.

INVISIBLE MAN is one of my favorite books ever, among the best american novels ever written. i am assuming yr talking about ralph ellison here, not like, a novelization of the Chevy Chase flick loosely based on the HG Wells joint.

Well the only one I could get a copy of quickly was BoC. The other two are in the mail.

As for Breakfast of Champions: It's a easy, quick read. Unfortunately, while the story is humorous I feel like this book is too simple. I haven't read any Vonnegut since high school and I think I liked him a lot more then. This kind of reminds me of when I tried to read Ender's Game without having read it as a kid. I didn't even finish it because it was just too simple and unchallenging. I'm not saying I read books to challenge myself, cuz above all I like to enjoy books, but I think since the book was meant to be understood by younger people it just wasn't enjoyable to someone older.

Invisible Man is next when it arrives, I've been looking forward to it.

[Subculture]

What are you guys thoughts on Imperial Bedrooms?

I thought that it's a good stand alone book, but fails as a sequel. He took the characters far removed from what he did in Less Than Zero. Some of the shit borders on cheesy and cheap. Some faux could be ghost story in there. Some cliche detective shit. And, the exposing of the underworld of Hollywood, which is niether new exciting. Vintage Ellis pokes its head in from time to time especially with the passage towards the end of the book that couldve easily been in American Physcho. But all in all I feel like this could have easily been a short story that dragged on a bit too long and if you changed the characters names around you would never know it was a sequel. Dissapointed but slightly entertained for the few hours I spent reading it.

What Im reading right now...

Just got back from a trip to Savannah Georgia and pretty much fell in love with the place. Always heard about this book which takes place ion the city,,,and saw pieces of the film but decided to give it a read now.

[MGC3]

Going to spend this summer re-reading some favorites.

Nabokov makes me happy.

[ericdw]

good article in the nytimes on ellis. anyone pick up imperial bedrooms yet?

[BrokenGlass]

Just picked it up on lunch...only 20 pages in but i think i'll enjoy this one.... i wasnt crazy about lunar park

[Subculture]

good article in the nytimes on ellis. anyone pick up imperial bedrooms yet?

Yeah I read it. Check out what i said on the last page.

[NESK]

only nytimes articles i can find on ellis are for previous books, i think i suck at google.

[viv1984viv]

Agh!! Amazon UK still havent released Imperial Bedrooms, just cant wait, I have it on pre-order so as soon as it arrives ill read it and post a review on the blog.

I did post a ponderous article looking forward to it on my blog a while back.

Is the NYTimes article on the website? Any one care to post a link?

[ericdw]

here's the one i was talking about before:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/24/books/24book.html?ref=bret_easton_ellis

and here's a new one from this weekend Book Review:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/27/books/review/Wagner-t.html?ref=books

[NESK]

im at about the halfway point of imperial bedrooms. and having read all these reviews, ill say i agreed with them for about the first 20 pages and now im beginning to think this is one of those things where all their complaints about the novel are actually exactly what ellis was intending to satirize when he started writing this thing.