Just read a brilliant book by Luke Haines (The Auteurs) called Bad Vibes. Very funny memoir of the Brit Pop era - very acidic and plenty of LOL moments.
What have you read recently?
13 days later
William Gibson’s Blue Ant-trilogy (Pattern Recognation, Spook County, Zero History) was fucking awesome.
Joe Hill - Heart Shaped Box
I was aware that he is Stephen King’s son and there were certainly shades of early King in this. It is one of his earlier novels so I will probably seek out some of his other work. @Homegrove have you read this?
gcw of course. I’ve read everything he’s written, except for Fireman. I have that too, just could not get into it at the time it was released. Too grim, I must try again soon. He’s got a knack for writing ugly people (inside and outside) really realistically. He’s also has talent of delivering a gut punching unhappy ending. I was almost angry at him after finishing the story about guns in his Strange Weather-collection.
Homegrove Grady Hendrix - The Final Girl Support Group. This was a fantastic take on the slasher-genre. Loved it. 395 pages and I breezed through it in three days.
I tried hard to get into this. It’s so, so shit. I don’t understand why people love this nonsense. It’s like those R.L. Stine Babysitter Point Horror books except even shitter.
5 days later
Reading this. Bio chronicling the rise of the big 8 so-called 80s action heroes. Lots of insider anecdotes and pics too. Enjoying it so far….
8 days later
Hard cover copies of the new Stephen King and John Connolly-novels in the mail today, so a good day here. Connelly is a sequel to his superb fantasy A Book of Lost Things from 2006, and King is about a couple who are geriatric cannibals. Both should be fun. But first have to finish the Gibson I’m currently reading, The Peripheral. 90 pages left, and this is almost nothing like the Amazon TV show, characters and setting aside.
5 days later
I enjoyed Holly a lot.
2666 Roberto Bolaño - took me almost a year on an off but amazing. defies description really.
Worth a whirl Baggers?
Am looking for a read as off to Corfu next week.
Smallman1 it really is - it’s a weird mixture of navel gazing literary intrigue and a sort of detective story - indescribable almost. here is the LRB review which sort of hints at its weirdness https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v31/n04/michael-wood/more-like-a-cemetery
Got Rory Stuart’s latest book to read next.
Link a brother up please D-Man!
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Finally giving The Spider by Leo Carew a read, quite fun and like that he’s approaching it as a murder mystery so far.
i’m about 100 pages into In Ascension by Martin MacInnes.
Pretty “deep” so far
(that’s actually a really clever joke but you wouldn’t know that unless you’d read the book or at least knew what it was about).
I’ve given King and his publishers a few bucks over the years. Add to this about 10 of his books translated to Finnish I got before I got good enough in English to read him on the original language. I left those with my parents when I got my first own place.
16 days later
Just read The Amateurs by John Niven. Classic John Niven, very funny and enjoyable and more so if you like golf
21 days later
I finished my through read of everything William Gibson’s written (well almost everything, did not include his screenplays). The Difference Engine (his only collaboration written with Bruce Sterling) was pretty bad, but enjoyed all his solo works. The Blue Ant-trilogy (Pattern Recognition, Spook Country, Zero History) was my favorite. I read his books otherwise in the order they were published, but ended with Distrust That Particula Flavor, which is a collection of his non fiction essays. It was great way to end it, because it helped make sense of what I’d otherwise just read.
8 days later
Got about 200 quid to splurge on books from the company (normally use this for badminton/tt classes, but paying the coaches under the table this year).
Any must-have coffee table hardcover books worth looking at? Design, art, music, history…
Just Finished ‘ The most dangerous man in Brighton by Martin Webb’ A gangsters second man decides to steal a million pounds from his boss. There’s a lot plot twists along the way It’s all set in & around Brighton.
I’m now going to read ‘Purfume by Patrick Suskind’. I first read it over 20 years rated it.
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Just finished “Sweet Dreams: From Club Culture to Style Culture, the Story of the New Romantics” by Dylan Jones. Brilliant, well researched/told read on that era
Ended up getting Taschen’s latest “complete paintings” of Dali, Van Gogh, and Basquiat. Not very original, I know. The fourth book was a Taschen compilation of Japanese wood block paintings. All very sexy looking, and I’m hoping they will bring some value to my daughter’s life down the line. Doubt most of her generation will know who they are.
The Rizzoli stuff was quite nice too. Maybe next financial year.
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rhouses not sure how well these fit your key terms there mate but i can highly recommend these two books:
https://www.waterstones.com/book/a-theory-of-everyone/michael-muthukrishna/9781399810630
https://www.waterstones.com/book/21-lessons-for-the-21st-century/yuval-noah-harari/9781784708283
11 days later
Stephen King - The Dead Zone (1979). King at some point said this is his best book. I don’t agree, but it’s a damn good one. Greg Stillson is also pretty damn close to Trump in many ways (“regular” people love him, as does the press), but I guess it’s just the fact that both are populists.
Recommended if you’ve not read this one. Not seen the Cronenberg-adaptation ever, might have to check it out. I’ve seen clips of Martin Sheen as Stillson comparing him to Trump, and he at least seems perfect. Christopher Walken might be too weird for me as Johnny Smith.