What are you fuckers reading?

[ishtat]

I have decided upon a rather silly plan of reading the greatest works in genres for which I don't actually care.

To that end, I am going to be reading Middlemarch, something I have never before attempted (no doubt Des would be scandalised were he here) due to my absolute and utter hatred of Victorian realism—really I cannot begin to express how profoundly it is so—but I believe I shall manage. I am sceptical, however, that I am going to come away regarding it as the greatest novel ever written.

.

Start with 'Silas Marner' it's much shorter, tho' Middlemarch is easier going than 'Mill on the Floss.

 

[Radiohead]

I have decided upon a rather silly plan of reading the greatest works in genres for which I don't actually care.

To that end, I am going to be reading Middlemarch, something I have never before attempted (no doubt Des would be scandalised were he here) due to my absolute and utter hatred of Victorian realism—really I cannot begin to express how profoundly it is so—but I believe I shall manage. I am sceptical, however, that I am going to come away regarding it as the greatest novel ever written.

I shall also be reading The Book of the New Sun, considered by many the greatest science fiction novel, or perhaps 'speculative fiction' (oh how I hate that term), of all time. Now, I love fantasy but am bored to tears by most science fiction and despite being perennially conjoined in discussion I don't think they actually have all that much in common. This book is a bit of a hybrid from what I understand, so I have reason to think I may enjoy it.

Where do you get your silly plan from?

 

[RubiDia]

I just read "The Perks of being a Wallflower" and I wish someone pointed me at it when it came out, not me tracking it down now.


I read anything that I thought was awesome again, I guess the 'youngest' would be Roald Dahl and CS Lewis.

I need a new book; is it worth checking out? I suppose I could find it at the library. I have The Kept Woman on Audible, but would rather have a paper book. I've read both of those authors you mentioned.

Mere Christianity
James and the Giant Peach

 

[Equinoxe]

Start with 'Silas Marner' it's much shorter, tho' Middlemarch is easier going than 'Mill on the Floss.

I had considered that approach, though I have read Silas Marner before, when I was a teenager—when I also read Dickens and Hardy and James, etc..

I came upon my dislike of Victorian realism honestly. (For what it's worth, thus far, despite a slow start of having an instant dislike of every single character in the book, except maybe Mary, I would still much rather read Eliot than Dickens or Hardy.)

Where do you get your silly plan from?

It came to me in a dream.

 

[Radiohead]

I need a new book; is it worth checking out? I suppose I could find it at the library. I have The Kept Woman on Audible, but would rather have a paper book. I've read both of those authors you mentioned.

Mere Christianity
James and the Giant Peach

Fuck, I went to say I read it 20 years ago, but that accounts for both

 

[Radiohead]

I had considered that approach, though I have read Silas Marner before, when I was a teenager—when I also read Dickens and Hardy and James, etc..

I came upon my dislike of Victorian realism honestly. (For what it's worth, thus far, despite a slow start of having an instant dislike of every single character in the book, except maybe Mary, I would still much rather read Eliot than Dickens or Hardy.)



It came to me in a dream.

I had a plan, once... I shall send it to you. It was American classics.

 

[raindancer]

Bad Feminist by Gina Mei

 

[Fata Morgana]

I switched books to The White Road by Sarah Lotz. Dead exciting. A bit like the first half of Descent when it was just caving, then Everest. With a pervy ghost thrown in.

That was really bloody good. Up next is The Changeling by Victor Lavalle.

 

[lovetoread]

i pre ordered this

30 bucks for a book is a bit much

 

[goodhands_4u]

I stumbled across an old hardcover of Nine and a Half Weeks: A Memoir of a Love Affair (the one the movie is based on). It was a quick read, not as explicit as I expected but very well written.

 

[Radiohead]

i pre ordered this

30 bucks for a book is a bit much

Ooooh.

Little less oooh that its not Joe Hill though

 

[Fata Morgana]

The Radium Girls by Kate Moore

Ordinary women in 1920s America.

All they wanted was the chance to shine.

Be careful what you wish for.

‘The first thing we asked was, “Does this stuff hurt you?” And they said, “No.” The company said that it wasn’t dangerous, that we didn’t need to be afraid.’

1917. As a war raged across the world, young American women flocked to work, painting watches, clocks and military dials with a special luminous substance made from radium. It was a fun job, lucrative and glamorous – the girls themselves shone brightly in the dark, covered head to toe in the dust from the paint. They were the radium girls.
As the years passed, the women began to suffer from mysterious and crippling illnesses. The very thing that had made them feel alive – their work – was in fact slowly killing them: they had been poisoned by the radium paint. Yet their employers denied all responsibility. And so, in the face of unimaginable suffering – in the face of death – these courageous women refused to accept their fate quietly, and instead became determined to fight for justice.
Drawing on previously unpublished sources – including diaries, letters and court transcripts, as well as original interviews with the women’s relatives – The Radium Girls is an intimate narrative account of an unforgettable true story. It is the powerful tale of a group of ordinary women from the Roaring Twenties, who themselves learned how to roar.

(from Simon & Schuster)

Horrifying read.

 

[ishtat]

The Arab Mind by Rafael Patai

Patai an Israeli Jewish academic wrote this surprisingly insightful and sympathetic analysis back in 1973.

One cannot help think that if some of our leaders had read this book they might have avoided their many and varied errors. A bit dated but probably the best available on the subject.

 

[Bacigalupo]

 

[TheWhiteBull]

Run Toward The Nightland by Jack Frederick Kilpatrick

 

[ryan8558]

Blood Line by Lynda La Plante

 

[Radiohead]

Blood Line by Lynda La Plante

Someone I've never read. How is she?

 

[ryan8558]

Someone I've never read. How is she?

Very good! I've read several of her books and the characters are always interesting. She's the creator of the Prime Suspect tv series with Helen Mirren.

 

[Radiohead]

Very good! I've read several of her books and the characters are always interesting. She's the creator of the Prime Suspect tv series with Helen Mirren.

I'm totally aware of that, I was just asking whether she was any good.

Telemovies are fine (so to speak), but again asking about the books.

There is a bunch of people I read over and over, and never have plans to see any film that comes out of it, as I know the Prime Suspect stuff has become.

The only film I saw off the author was Shawshank.

And only after a rereading that I realised the change in Red.

Which was how good the film was, as with Green Mile.

I did make my MIL read Stephen King off the back of those, and others, so if but for nothing else, that was great.

 

[ChubbyButtCute]

The Chemist by Stephanie Meyer.

 

[MelissaBaby]

I've just started Neil Gaiman's Norse Mythology.

 

[lovetoread]

I've just started Neil Gaiman's Norse Mythology.

thats an awesome read

 

[Freudian_Slit]

Why Information Grows, by Cesar Hidalgo.

 

[GeorgeWalker]

Whatever Dava Foxx is reading is fine with me.

 

[ryan8558]