Books - What are you reading?

I petted that cat at the Evening Standard's 1000 most influential Londoners event (he was one, I wasn't). He played it pretty cool but I think he liked it.

If you read the book you'll find that he is probably the most petted cat ever from strangers, he got so used to that… I'm also sure that he knows how to act like a star…

Paid a little visit to the local Break yesterday.
Picked up and started this:

^ really great series.

I'm ashamed to say I read Gone Girl over Christmas and thought it was fucking epic.

Reading Richie McRaw's autobio now to balance things out.

Any Charles Bukowski aficionados here?!

Yep love Bukowski. I've read all his novels.

I just finished reading Gone Girl and enjoyed it too. I watched the film last night and it's not so good.

A Cat Called Newton is a fun little read if you're into books about felines.

Started my second Robert Macfarlane. Truly great writer.

I started Ayoade On Ayoade and I'll be honest, I just can't be fucked - I can't make head nor tail of it. I hate leaving books partway through but I'm enjoying The Race Against the Stasi, which I move onto.

You need to be in the mood. I'm reading it in small doses, which seems to help.

Started reading The Cosmic Serpent last night. Its about how people living in the Amazon gain information by taking Ayahuasca and how they and other cultures such as the ancient Egyptians "knew" about the double helix structure of DNA.
One interesting thing I read last night was that the active ingredient in Ayahuasca, DMT, is digested and neutralised in the stomach by an enzyme, so they boil it with another plant that stops that particular enzyme from working, allowing the DMT to get in to your blood stream.
Of the 80,000 or so plant species in the Amazon, they figured that out.

Roger deakin' snooks are things of beauty

Yes they are. Am reading Wildwood at the moment. Have read Waterlog many times. Notes form Walnut Tree Farm is a nice diary too. I find them inspiring and incredibly calming.

Been readng loads of non-fiction lately. Mainly technical stuff around music production, interviews with songwriters and musician bios. Read the Big Star Biography and have been dipping in and out of Feral by George Monbiot and Roger Deakin's Wildwood as well as Bass Culture: When Reggae was King by Lloyd Bradley. Just started We are all Completely Beside Ourselves by Karen Joy Fowler to wean myself back into the literary fold.

How's Ayoade On Ayoade treating you? Looks really decent and he is too funny so I am thinking that is next on my list... Friend of mine at Bristol just met him and managed to wrangle the rights for the first dramatic production of Submarine which she is hoping to take to Edinburgh Fringe this summer. Looks to be a great production after a brilliant film.

I am reading Decline and Fall by Evelyn Waugh right now. Fantastic book with that old-school satire that he does so well. Strong recommendation from me

Is the Big Star book any good?

Started Slaughterhouse Five - been meaning to read it for years and years.

You need to be in the mood. I'm reading it in small doses, which seems to help.

It's not a linear book.

Re: Big Star, It's pretty pedestrian to be honest. Well written but part of the problem is that the era of most interest to most people, the three albums, were made in such a short timescale with limited source material to draw upon there's not a lot of coverage of them. It feels like a lot of ho-hum backstory then the making of the records flies past in a few pages. But that's how it was I suppose. Did learn a few nuggets about th erecording and production; who wrote and played what etc which I love as a musician nerd.

After Sister Lovers/Third and Chris's sad decline and fall the last third of the book concentrates on Alex's decent into narcisitic, self-destructive nihilism. It's interesting that the book frames him as some sort of proto-punk sonic explorer/performance artist in this phase whereas it looks very much to me like the account of damaged, unhinged and unhappy man hell-bent of self distruction. More than a few passing references to him behaving like a total c*nt too including burning people with cigarettes etc. Not exactly an uplifting read. But then again I haven't got to the '90s renaisaince/drying out/never-ending greatest hits tour bit yet. He seemed pretty together when I met him the year before he died.

He seemed pretty together when I met him the year before he died

!!!!

*clang!

I know right!? I only grabbed him for a hover-hand grinning fan photo op after a gig in London. One of his last as it turns out. He was sweet.

Books read in January - a good start to one a week for the year

twice, again

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Have to say I didn't get on with Girl with the Dragon Tattoo; couldn't finish it. I gave up after about 200 pages.

Just finished reading this:

And now just about to start this:

Primo Levi - If This Is A Man

I read it when I was 15. It is now very obvious that I didn't get it at all when I was that age.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Escape-Camp-14-remarkable-odyssey/dp/0330519549

Just finished reading this today. Jesus christ. Terrifying that these places exist and that they're tolerated by governments all over the world even though they're so well known to world leaders.

I realised when I was halfway through that Shin has been in the news over the last couple of weeks apologising for misleading people over his story and recanting parts of it. The DPRK propaganda machine has latched onto that and are busy pumping out gleeful screeds about what a lying traitor he is. Even some Westerners who ought to know better have been mincing about the comments sections on websites going "he took back the whole thing! It was all lies!". As if it's reasonable to expect somebody who was born in a prison camp and spent the first 20-odd years of his life being beaten and tortured by sadistic guards to get every detail about times or locations of his experiences right. In all the interviews about it he seems to really be beating himself up about timeline inaccuracies over things that happened when he was 6, 13, and 20 years old.

I grew up fat and comfortable in a 3 bedroom house with bikes and computers and biscuits whenever I fancied them and even I can't remember wtf I was doing at any of those ages. Seems ridiculous that a kid growing up mostly illiterate in a forced labour camp and then coming out with PTSD should have a better grasp of calendar events than people like me.

I've only read If Not Now, When? by Primo Levi but really enjoyed it...

Just finished Stoner by John Williams - very moving, great book.

Any thoughts on Freedom by Jonathan Franzen? I'm thinking of reading it next. I know he tends to polarize opinions but I enjoyed The Corrections.