Now reading...

[ejp626]

About 3/4 through Gary Shteyngart's Absurdistan. Some parts are laugh-out-loud funny. One of the best lines is when the main characters start talking about shelling the capital of Absurdistan, and the narrator asks this other guy whether that is wise. He reponds, "I'm a poet, not an urban planner."

Also reading some of Nabokov's shorter works. Halfway through The Eye now.

Probably next book after this will be Narayan's The Dark Room.

[ghost of miles]

This, in advance of this week's "Goin' Up: Space Age Jazz" Night Lights show:

A fascinating book so far.

[Van Basten II]

Carl Hiaasen: Sick Puppy

Perhaps if more people read Hiaasen's novels and took them to heart, we might have a lot less voters in this country. In my more cynical moments, I think that might not be a bad thing.

A big favourite of mine.

Meanwhile reading this, so far I'm hooked.

[Shawn]

[ghost of miles]

VOA jazz DJ Willis Conover's pen pal! (True story.)

[Jazzmoose]

I haven't read Lovecraft since I was a teen. Back then it was pretty much "damn, this guy writes horribly...are those doors locked?"

[BillF]

Just finished this. Le Carré has here moved from British spies to the world of Israeli/Arab espionage and, while gripping, it doesn't come up to the perfection of the George Smiley novels IMHO. Perhaps it's the English class system that Le Carré did so well!

Edited September 19, 2010 by BillF

[jlhoots]

Cristina Garcia: The Lady Matador's Hotel

[B. Goren.]

Just finished this. Le Carré has here moved from British spies to the world of Israeli/Arab espionage and, while gripping, it doesn't come up to the perfection of the George Smiley novels IMHO. Perhaps it's the English class system that Le Carré did so well!

IIRC, this is one of his oldies, from the early 80's and I agree with you that it can't be compared with the Smiley trilogy.

Edited September 19, 2010 by B. Goren.

[jostber]

Paul Theroux - The Pillars Of Hercules

The writer is traveling all the way around the Mediterranean cost from Gibraltar to Morocco. Going to Sicilia myself in three weeks.

[paul secor]

Lightening up a bit: Reginald Hill's Midnight Fugue

[paul secor]

Spent a couple of hours this afternoon looking at the photographs and reading the documents in Chan Parker's and Francis Paudras' To Bird with Love.

[jlhoots]

Nic Pizzolatto: Galveston

[jazzbo]

Re-reading "Gateway" by Fredrick Pohl

[BillF]

Re-reading "Gateway" by Fredrick Pohl

A favorite!

[Jazzmoose]

I started rereading The Space Merchants by Pohl & Kornbluth. Every time I read this one it seems less like SF and more like a documentary...

[BillF]

I started rereading The Space Merchants by Pohl & Kornbluth. Every time I read this one it seems less like SF and more like a documentary...

Yet another favorite! (Reminds me in some ways of PKD's Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch)

[BruceH]

I started rereading The Space Merchants by Pohl & Kornbluth. Every time I read this one it seems less like SF and more like a documentary...

I know what you mean. Depressing, isn't it?

[Van Basten II]

Read about 100 pages so far. Not sure if we are supposed to take the main character at face value but griping and fascinating story nonetheless.

My last comment about this series if the story is griping, can't say the writing by itself distinguishes itself positively from other polars, either the way it is written is a at times clumsy because the writer is not great or because the main character/narrator thinks he is smarter than he really is and that's a way of showing it.

[paul secor]

Colin Dexter's The Secret of Annexe 3

[B. Goren.]

[ejp626]

Nice one. One of the last things I read prior to leaving the UK. It's a nice photo, though it is a bit odd to use one of London when probably 3/4 of the book takes place in Paris. Must be a couple of photos floating about of people sleeping rough near the banks of the Seine...

[Shawn]

THE KILLER INSIDE ME - Thompson

Watched the movie, now digging into the novel. I noticed that in the introductory scenes of the book, the dialogue was copied almost word for word in the film.

[jazzbo]

That is pretty much how it is throughout the (remade) movie. The director DID decide not to film some scenes, and much of Lou Ford's interna "dialog" is not "narrated" either, which adds surprise to some scenes. . . in the book Ford talks to himself about "the sickness" returning, etc. and that gives a bit of warning and explanation for the violence that so abruptly erupts in the film.

.

There was a time in the 'eighties when reading Orwell seemed to be eerie. . . it's as if I could easily bond and share his viewpoint and ideas.

Only two other authors have ever really reached me in the same way: Dick and Miller.

Edited September 24, 2010 by jazzbo

[BillF]

Only two other authors have ever really reached me in the same way: [Dick and] Miller.

Is that Arthur or Henry?