What Book Are You Currently Reading ?

[Beanz]

I have just finished



@Andre you would love it mate and I am assuming @killersheep and many others here have already read it because it's at least a year old which is quite a long time for fast moving sciences about slow moving subjects like cosmology. Here is a Quote that gives the gist of it



A nice quick read after Eco

[Beanz]

I have now started this huge omnibus which I bought, like many of my books from a charity shop for a £1.




I must have got it a year ago and have finally now got around to reading my first John Updike. I don't know if the American guys here would see him as one of the quintessential modern American novelists but I have been bowled over by the quality of the prose. By page 8 my mouth was almost hanging open with the succinctness and beauty of his phrasing. It is really good stuff, so much so that it has inspired me to design some original artwork on which I will shortly be working. I hope to travel to the States one day but would like to do so with enough spare money and free time to create and exhibit some art over there and this just whets the appetite. It is full of little dramas lived out in front of epic backdrops.

[walrus]

I was recently on a Cormac McCarthy kick. Great reading. I plan on getting back to Kafka next. I like all my music and literature as depressing as possible.

[Andre]

I was recently on a Cormac McCarthy kick. Great reading. I plan on getting back to Kafka next. I like all my music and literature as depressing as possible.

Interesting.

So whats your favorite music genre, song, band and Book?

The play Les Miserables, a good night out maybe

[walrus]

Bob Dylan is amongst my favorites. Mississippi John Hurt and Johnny Lee Hooked are up there. Funny you mentioned Les Mis, I finished reading it about a month ago. What an epic. I will definitely see in in theatre at some point. By the way, I just started reading Kafkas "The Trial"

[Beanz]

I was recently on a Cormac McCarthy kick. Great reading. I plan on getting back to Kafka next. I like all my music and literature as depressing as possible.

If you really like depressing music then Gorecki's Sympnony Number 3 "Sorrowful Songs" will definitely break your heart and fill your head with black sand, but for something a little less full of dread and leaden mourning you can't beat a bit of old misery Guts

[Beanz]

I have now started this huge omnibus which I bought, like many of my books from a charity shop for a £1.




I must have got it a year ago and have finally now got around to reading my first John Updike. I don't know if the American guys here would see him as one of the quintessential modern American novelists but I have been bowled over by the quality of the prose. By page 8 my mouth was almost hanging open with the succinctness and beauty of his phrasing. It is really good stuff, so much so that it has inspired me to design some original artwork on which I will shortly be working. I hope to travel to the States one day but would like to do so with enough spare money and free time to create and exhibit some art over there and this just whets the appetite. It is full of little dramas lived out in front of epic backdrops.

I am now just starting the third book in the omnibus "Rabbit is Rich" and have to say I am still blown away. The characters are presented with none of the rough corners knocked off, and the plot is pretty incidental, but the eye and descriptive power of Updike just never wanes. Quality Read.

[Gandalf]

Alfred Hitchcock: A life in darkness and light by Patrick McGilligan.

[Beanz]

Alfred Hitchcock: A life in darkness and light by Patrick McGilligan.

I love HITCH

This came out very recently



Bernard Hermann his long time musical collaborator is one of my heroes and his work right the way up to and including his terrifying score to Scorcese's Taxi Driver has remained a huge influence

You can hear snippets of the new collection here

Alfred Hitchcock and His Music - Various Artists : Songs, Reviews, Credits, Awards : AllMusic

[Gandalf]

Hitchcock is great and Hermann was a perfect complement. I always return to Hitchcock as he has it all. Best scripts,music, actors and actresses, angles etc. So many great films inthe ouvre. Every development and there was Hitch honing his craft at every stage.

Its a nicely written book thus far and its only 13 dollars on a Kindle.

[Beanz]

I have now started this huge omnibus which I bought, like many of my books from a charity shop for a £1.




I must have got it a year ago and have finally now got around to reading my first John Updike. I don't know if the American guys here would see him as one of the quintessential modern American novelists but I have been bowled over by the quality of the prose. By page 8 my mouth was almost hanging open with the succinctness and beauty of his phrasing. It is really good stuff, so much so that it has inspired me to design some original artwork on which I will shortly be working. I hope to travel to the States one day but would like to do so with enough spare money and free time to create and exhibit some art over there and this just whets the appetite. It is full of little dramas lived out in front of epic backdrops.

I am now just starting the third book in the omnibus "Rabbit is Rich" and have to say I am still blown away. The characters are presented with none of the rough corners knocked off, and the plot is pretty incidental, but the eye and descriptive power of Updike just never wanes. Quality Read.

I have now finished this trilogy, thinking that was it for Harry Angstrom. If it were it would still make perfect sense finishing as it did, but no there is a fourth and final book in the tetralogy "Rabbit at Rest" which I have ordered online. Then there is a short novella "Rabbitt Remembered" which is included in the short story collection "Licks of Love", where he is remembered by people from his life. I don't know whether that should be included to make a pentalogy but I think probably not. Anyway I only found this out today which was a nice surprise. I bought the short story collection second hand from a hospices charity shop online which concludes a nice synergy initiated with the original trilogy omnibus being bought in person at a hospice charity shop. I can see why he got the Pulitzer and was also interested to find that he wrote a lot of art criticism too which I will read at some point.

[Beanz]

Have started this as a quick snack before the other Updikes arrive. Got it in a big pile of Murakami's from the local Charity shop.




He seems very different from the guy I imagined after reading some of his novels. It talks about the process of writing also, which is very instructive as I have started to do so again, in a much more structured,consistent and considered way.

[Master]

I have bought the David Hayes,s book making haye I will start reading it today.

[Gandalf]

I'm reading a Suede biography that finally got put onto the Kindle. It is written by David Barnett and I am enjoying it so far. It's a book I have wanted to read for a long time.

[Beanz]

Have started this as a quick snack before the other Updikes arrive. Got it in a big pile of Murakami's from the local Charity shop.




He seems very different from the guy I imagined after reading some of his novels. It talks about the process of writing also, which is very instructive as I have started to do so again, in a much more structured,consistent and considered way.

Finished the Murakami now. Can't really say it gives too much insight into his personality but it was an interesting distraction. I have now started this, the fourth and final book in John Updike's Rabbit tetralogy



Rabbit at Rest is great so far, and he does not seem to have let his brilliant prose fall below the bar he raised so high, with the previous three books. It is set in the late 80's, early 90's and the central character is now in his mid 50's. Not a lot happens but the books do not need a plot to hold your attention. It is Updike's acute observation of people and their reaction to the world around them that pulls you through it. Harry Angstrom the central character is constantly amazed and confused by everything that happens. Not just the external world but his own body and the condition of being, what it is to be a human living in a body that is gradually sinking back down to the earth from which it came. He is not J.G.Ballard but I would definitely have him in my top 5. Great stuff.