Books - What are you reading?

I'm only into the first chapter. It's not too bad so far.

Besides, that article's waaaaay to long...

I don't think the London Review of Books is targeting the internet generation.

I think you're right.

Looks likeI'm reading NOTHING on holiday unless the postie delivers my Amazon order today!!

Better start downloading some stuff instead in case..

Just started reading rabbit, run. It's super depressing, and sort of too close to the bone.

I was flicking through my parents book shelf for something more 'up'. So i considered reading Chabon's 'telegraph avenue' which I imagine is sad for a slew of other reasons. anyway the opening line is;

'A white boy rode flat floot on a skateboard, towed along, hand to shoulder by a black boy pedaling a brakeless fixed gear bike.'

so, um, yeah.

Telegraph Avenue is good, despite some of the slightly taught race stuff, there's some really well-done characters and the music bits are fantastic if you're into funk/soul/beat stuff. Really like Chabon as a writer, The Yiddish Policemen's Union and The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Klay and both fantastic - and I really like the varied focus of his stories - he doesn't write the same US campus-focused coming-of-age stuff that his contemporaries Franzen and Eugenides seem to stick with... so, yeah, would recommend, although its definitely not a life-changing classic.

Just started reading rabbit, run. It's super depressing, and sort of too close to the bone.

I was flicking through my parents book shelf for something more 'up'. So i considered reading Chabon's 'telegraph avenue' which I imagine is sad for a slew of other reasons. anyway the opening line is;

'A white boy rode flat floot on a skateboard, towed along, hand to shoulder by a black boy pedaling a brakeless fixed gear bike.'

so, um, yeah.

The Yiddish Policemen's Union and The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Klay and both fantastic.

+1 to this. Both excellent...

just finished reading "nothing to envy " about North Korea.

Interesting book.
Nothing to Envy: Real Lives in North Korea: Amazon.co.uk: Barbara Demick: Books

Finished the Earthsea trilogy. Really nicely put together - I definitely wish that I'd read them when I was younger. Far superior to the Lord of the Rings, would've made a much more rewarding early teen obsession.

Onto Paul Auster's New York Trilogy now. The first of which I've read before but can remember almost nothing about...

I have just ordered this. It is going to be amazing.

What the fuck is it?

An art book about sleepy hipsters?

Mike Brodie - a Period of Juvenile Prosperity: Amazon.co.uk: Mike Brodie: Books

Google tells me anyhow

How were we supposed to fucking guess??

Ooh, I can't wait to get reading this...

I hear the ending is brilliant!

wanted to put up a linked picture actually but the internet was so slow I gave up so luci, fuck off

I'm just coming to the end of Murakami's 1Q84 (part 3) and loving it. I really love the weird twisted reality his books always evoke, and the crazy translated cultural reference points as well... plus he makes smoking, drinking and eating seem incredibly desirable, sensual activities, which is nice....

How were we supposed to fucking guess??

Ooh, I can't wait to get reading this...

I hear the ending is brilliant!

Don't bother, it was a let down and the prose was disappointing in its obviousness.

About to start Saul Bellow's Henderson the Rain King. I hear it's brilliant.

nice thread, currently reading my first Sharpe book, 'Sharpe's Tiger', most enjoyable so far..

Really like the Sharpe books. Been meaning to read some more of the Flashman series too

When I was a kid I was addicted to the Sharp books. I used to hide the books in my revision papers so my parents thought I was working. Flashman and the Master and Commander series were great too but never had quite the same pull as Sharp.

E.H. Gombrich, 'A Little History of the World' is wonderful. I've read the hard copy and now have the audiobook in my car on it's 3rd time through, I want to make sure I learn it by heart.

Read the Velominati's book version of THE RULES on holiday. It adds a bit of depth to the online version..

Read more of my thoughts here if you are interested..
http://wp.me/p3EEKP-7H

Love the Flashman series have also really enjoyed the Black Ajax by Macdonald Fraiser I think it would make a great Britain flick film

Finished Auster's New York Trilogy. Big fat 'meh'. Pretty sterile. All three feel too much like they are pushing to be more clever than they actually are. The strain shows.

Moved on to Doris Lessing's Briefing for a descent into hell, which defeated me the first time I tried to read it.

Finished Charly Wegelius' "Domestique" the other night. It really is a good balancer to the usual biogs - showing the less lime-lit areas of the pro cycling circus.

I wrote a bit more about it here

Got this through the post today. Looking forward to it. Going to inspire some Rapha-esque levels of grit and suffering I hope.

I've just started Three Men on the Bummel, shortly after finishing Three Men in a Boat, which I loved. Simultaneously of its time and absolutely timeless, and hilarious.

Three Men on the Bummel has started brilliantly too, the part about overhauling bikes still rings very true 113 years later, and seems particularly apt for those of us a little too keen on the Current Projects thread and without much time to ride:

There are two ways you can get exercise out of a bicycle: you can “overhaul” it, or you can ride it. On the whole, I am not sure that a man who takes his pleasure overhauling does not have the best of the bargain. He is independent of the weather and the wind; the state of the roads troubles him not. Give him a screw-hammer, a bundle of rags, an oil-can, and something to sit down upon, and he is happy for the day. He has to put up with certain disadvantages, of course; there is no joy without alloy. He himself always looks like a tinker, and his machine always suggests the idea that, having stolen it, he has tried to disguise it; but as he rarely gets beyond the first milestone with it, this, perhaps, does not much matter. The mistake some people make is in thinking they can get both forms of sport out of the same machine. This is impossible; no machine will stand the double strain. You must make up your mind whether you are going to be an “overhauler” or a rider. Personally, I prefer to ride, therefore I take care to have near me nothing that can tempt me to overhaul. When anything happens to my machine I wheel it to the nearest repairing shop. If I am too far from the town or village to walk, I sit by the roadside and wait till a cart comes along. My chief danger, I always find, is from the wandering overhauler. The sight of a broken-down machine is to the overhauler as a wayside corpse to a crow; he swoops down upon it with a friendly yell of triumph. At first I used to try politeness. I would say:

“It is nothing; don’t you trouble. You ride on, and enjoy yourself, I beg it of you as a favour; please go away.”

Experience has taught me, however, that courtesy is of no use in such an extremity. Now I say:

“You go away and leave the thing alone, or I will knock your silly head off.”