Books - What are you reading?

Talking psychogeography, and looking at that list, have you read The city and the city? Theres a few weird fiction books that use alternative geography as a crucial part of the story. Its something I love and China Miéville is one of may favourites. Also Neil Gaiman and recently as an easy read The rivers of London series.

Is this going to be like that time you gave us your dissertation on the Lord of the Rings?

Where did you post that @Oliver Schick would love read that

The City and The City is decent! I'm not a huge fan of his but enjoyed that.

Definitely an acquired taste. Suits me well but I can completely see why a lot of people don't like his stuff.

She may be referring to this:

https://www.lfgss.com/comments/13985075/incontext

It was just two posts of very moderate length (by my standards). :)

I haven't! Thanks for the suggestion, I'll add it to the list. I've only read a couple of short stories by China Miéville and keep meaning to pick up something bigger as I really enjoyed what I did read.

I've not read the rivers of london books yet either but a mate recommended them recently with the summary "a copper starts fucking one of the avatars of the London rivers" so obviously that went right to the top of the to-read pile.

Yeah just not really my thing I don't think. Listened to the audiobook of Perdido Street Station and read The Scar. Both a bit too fantasy for me but he's a decent writer. The City and The City was definitely more my cup of tea.

Thanks Oliver
Always interested in your opinion

Edit. Links to itsbruce

It was prompted by Bruce's post, that's why. I forgot to add 'incontext'. Try now. (There's another longer post following a short discussion a little further along.)

Excellent Oliver
Need more of your reviews

You never clarified what the book's pivotal scene, ruined in the films, was.

Well, yes, obviously I had no intention of doing that. It would be a massive spoiler. I mean, I'm sure you can easily find in-depth discussions of it on the Internet, but I wouldn't recommend that.

I saw an advert on Instagram awhile back about a book buying platform online that allowed you to buy books from actual brick & mortar shops rather than amazon etc. I can't for the life of me remember who it was, any clues?

https://www.hive.co.uk/ or Abebooks maybe?

Edit: probably not hive, that is something different.

Hive was the thing that came to my mind - IIRC they basically pay a commission to an indie bookshop of your choice, and you can either have the book shipped there or to a home address.

This is one I was reading about the other day as it was in the news, but it's US-only: https://bookshop.org/

Hive does look kind of similar!

Abebooks is owned by amazon. There’s no escaping the fuckers.

Did not know that! I guess the positive is that there is at least some money going to independents, and cuts out some of the worst practices of amazon warehouses etc.

Bookshop was the one! Thanks, sadly it's USA only.

Yeah, it’s nowhere near as bad ad the majority of the cut goes to the bookseller, but I was still bummed out when I discovered they’d bought it up.

Alibris is the other big second-hand online book marketplace; AFAIK it's still a private co. (not that that's necessarily a guarantee they're any better than Amazon of course), and lots of book dealers will list stuff on there as well as on ABE.

I buy a lot of secondhand books from eBay, a fair amount seem to come from World Of Books. Again, can't vouch for the fact that they're not total shits though.

I usually aim to buy second hand books through Amazon and generally go for Oxfam (ideally) or World of Books. Most of the time the book is going for 1p (or at least under £1) and they make some money on the flat rate £2.80 postage.

Not sure how much Amazon are creaming off for this, although they deserve something as they will be running the cataloguing, picking and dispatch side of things.

The orders for books bought through those sellers on eBay are generally routed through Amazon anyway, so that doesn't help you avoiding the behemoth.

Appreciate that it's Amazon and that's a Bad Thing, but Jonathan Vaughters' book is 99p on Kindle at the moment:

One Way Ticket: Nine Lives on Two Wheels

I'm reading Wise Blood by Flannery O'Connor at the minute. Really enjoying it, anyone got suggestions for anything else by her or anything in a similar vein worth checking out? It reminds me a bit of the Carson McCullers stuff I've read.