What Book Are You Currently Reading ?

[Gandalf]

I read the Iggy Pop biography 'Open up and bleed' last month and it was one of the best rock biographies I have read. It is an amazing life story with some of the most grueling experiences imaginable. Blood, vomit, and fights aplenty. When I was younger I looked upon those kinds of antics and the musicians who carried them out as deities, but now I just wince and say 'My, oh my!' He is an interesting chap, old James Osterberg.

I think I will read something by Richard Dawkins next, but haven't decided what. I had no idea he had a stroke earlier this year. I also didn't realise he was 75 years old. He always seemed so vigorous with that boyish, but knowledge imbued enthusiastic voice. Hopefully he will recover and live well.

[Batman]

I'm going to be finishing Hell at the Breech in the few days so I took a stroll to waterstones and purchased these today

The classic novel about a daring experiment in human intelligence

Charlie Gordon, IQ 68, is a floor sweeper and the gentle butt of everyone's jokes - until an experiment in the enhancement of human intelligence turns him into a genius.

But then Algernon, the mouse whose triumphal experimental tranformation preceded his, fades and dies, and Charlie has to face the possibility that his salvation was only temporary.

Oakley Hall's legendary Warlock revisits and reworks the traditional conventions of the Western to present a raw, funny, hypnotic, ultimately devastating picture of American unreality. First published in the 1950s, at the height of the McCarthy era, Warlock is not only one of the most original and entertaining of modern American novels but a lasting contribution to American fiction.

"Tombstone, Arizona, during the 1880's is, in ways, our national Camelot: a never-never land where American virtues are embodied in the Earps, and the opposite evils in the Clanton gang; where the confrontation at the OK Corral takes on some of the dry purity of the Arthurian joust. Oakley Hall, in his very fine novel Warlock has restored to the myth of Tombstone its full, mortal, blooded humanity. Wyatt Earp is transmogrified into a gunfighter named Blaisdell who . . . is summoned to the embattled town of Warlock by a committee of nervous citizens expressly to be a hero, but finds that he cannot, at last, live up to his image; that there is a flaw not only in him, but also, we feel, in the entire set of assumptions that have allowed the image to exist. . . . Before the agonized epic of Warlock is over with—the rebellion of the proto-Wobblies working in the mines, the struggling for political control of the area, the gunfighting, mob violence, the personal crises of those in power—the collective awareness that is Warlock must face its own inescapable Horror: that what is called society, with its law and order, is as frail, as precarious, as flesh and can be snuffed out and assimilated back into the desert as easily as a corpse can. It is the deep sensitivity to abysses that makes Warlock one of our best American novels. For we are a nation that can, many of us, toss with all aplomb our candy wrapper into the Grand Canyon itself, snap a color shot and drive away; and we need voices like Oakley Hall's to remind us how far that piece of paper, still fluttering brightly behind us, has to fall." —Thomas Pynchon

[SlimTrae]

I'm going to be finishing Hell at the Breech in the few days so I took a stroll to waterstones and purchased these today

The classic novel about a daring experiment in human intelligence

Charlie Gordon, IQ 68, is a floor sweeper and the gentle butt of everyone's jokes - until an experiment in the enhancement of human intelligence turns him into a genius.

But then Algernon, the mouse whose triumphal experimental tranformation preceded his, fades and dies, and Charlie has to face the possibility that his salvation was only temporary.

Oakley Hall's legendary Warlock revisits and reworks the traditional conventions of the Western to present a raw, funny, hypnotic, ultimately devastating picture of American unreality. First published in the 1950s, at the height of the McCarthy era, Warlock is not only one of the most original and entertaining of modern American novels but a lasting contribution to American fiction.

"Tombstone, Arizona, during the 1880's is, in ways, our national Camelot: a never-never land where American virtues are embodied in the Earps, and the opposite evils in the Clanton gang; where the confrontation at the OK Corral takes on some of the dry purity of the Arthurian joust. Oakley Hall, in his very fine novel Warlock has restored to the myth of Tombstone its full, mortal, blooded humanity. Wyatt Earp is transmogrified into a gunfighter named Blaisdell who . . . is summoned to the embattled town of Warlock by a committee of nervous citizens expressly to be a hero, but finds that he cannot, at last, live up to his image; that there is a flaw not only in him, but also, we feel, in the entire set of assumptions that have allowed the image to exist. . . . Before the agonized epic of Warlock is over with—the rebellion of the proto-Wobblies working in the mines, the struggling for political control of the area, the gunfighting, mob violence, the personal crises of those in power—the collective awareness that is Warlock must face its own inescapable Horror: that what is called society, with its law and order, is as frail, as precarious, as flesh and can be snuffed out and assimilated back into the desert as easily as a corpse can. It is the deep sensitivity to abysses that makes Warlock one of our best American novels. For we are a nation that can, many of us, toss with all aplomb our candy wrapper into the Grand Canyon itself, snap a color shot and drive away; and we need voices like Oakley Hall's to remind us how far that piece of paper, still fluttering brightly behind us, has to fall." —Thomas Pynchon

Batman is an undercover bookworm....haahaaaa

[Batman]

ha, I'm a massive bookworm

Anyways I finished Flowers for Algernon, brilliant book that is, only took me two days to read, its actually quite sad, its unlike me to think that of a book, I can find them depressing but sad isn't a word I usually use to describe a book.

4/5 from me

I started this yesterday

La Bete humaine (1890), the seventeenth novel in the Rougon-Macquart series, is one of Zola's most violent and explicit works. On one level a tale of murder, passion, and possession, it is also a compassionate study of individuals derailed by atavistic forces beyond their control. Zola considered this his 'most finely worked' novel, and in it he powerfully evokes life at the end of the Second Empire in France, where society seemed to be hurtling into the future like the new locomotives and railways it was building. While expressing the hope that human nature evolves through education and gradually frees itself of the burden of inherited evil, he is constantly reminding us that under the veneer of technological progress there remains, always, the beast within. This new translation captures Zola's fast-paced yet deliberately dispassionate style, while the introduction and detailed notes place the novel in its social, historical, and literary context.

I'm only 30 or 40 pages in and you can see why it was a wee bit on the contraversial side, he don't half give his missus a kicking at the start of the book.

I think this is going to take me a while to read its not exactly easy going, my next book was going to be another one from the 1890's but I think I'm going to need a break from that era after this one so I'll probably go with the 4th Salander book, can't remember what its called now, something like the girl who tickled the donkeys bollocks or something like that

[Batman]

Thats the badger

THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO IS BACK WITH A UK NUMBER ONE BESTSELLER

Lisbeth Salander and Mikael Blomkvist have not been in touch for some time.

Then Blomkvist is contacted by renowned Swedish scientist Professor Balder. Warned that his life is in danger, but more concerned for his son's well-being, Balder wants Millennium to publish his story - and it is a terrifying one.

More interesting to Blomkvist than Balder's world-leading advances in Artificial Intelligence, is his connection with a certain female superhacker.

It seems that Salander, like Balder, is a target of ruthless cyber gangsters - and a violent criminal conspiracy that will very soon bring terror to the snowbound streets of Stockholm, to the Millennium team, and to Blomkvist and Salander themselves.

I really enjoyed two out of the first three books (I am one of the few people that enjoyed the third and thought the second was terrible) and I know it isn't Steig Larrson writing but I'm going to give it a go and see if the dead horse has been flogged.

Having said that I may take a wonder down to waterstones or jump on Amazon today its pay day and I'm off work next week so I may purchase a book or two to get me through.

I'm also off down the charity shop next week, I really need to sort through my books desperately, I've got 2 bookcases which are overflowing and just looking around the living room there are 5 books on the coffee table 5 books on the floor 3 books on the settee and a pile in front of the book case.

I'm gunna have a look through at the ones I don't want any more and get rid of them.

[Batman]

took 68 books to the charity shop today

These are the ones that were in my living room



bookl case is looking much nicer now

[denilson200]

Just some of the books in my store

[El Kabong]

I am astonished that Denilson did not mention

'Things Fall Apart' by Chinua Achebe

Achebe is the most translated African author and is quite well known for his critique of Joseph Conrad's 'Heart of Darkness' which he discussed Conrad's racism found in that book.



....but perhaps he has read it already

[denilson200]

I am astonished that Denilson did not mention

'Things Fall Apart' by Chinua Achebe

Achebe is the most translated African author and is quite well known for his critique of Joseph Conrad's 'Heart of Darkness' which he discussed Conrad's racism found in that book.



....but perhaps he has read it already

That book (Things Fall Apart) is a novel. I hardly ever read novels.

[Batman]

I would put money on you never actually having read any of the above books you mentioned

[El Kabong]

I am astonished that Denilson did not mention

'Things Fall Apart' by Chinua Achebe

Achebe is the most translated African author and is quite well known for his critique of Joseph Conrad's 'Heart of Darkness' which he discussed Conrad's racism found in that book.



....but perhaps he has read it already

That book (Things Fall Apart) is a novel. I hardly ever read novels.

Well alright then....I guess I'll leave you to reading books authored by the "prince of pan-afrikanism" (yeah he spells it with a k) then


What does Dr. Umar Abdullah-Johnson have to teach us



....well isn't THAT special "I can always tell with the boys, because the mother psychologically castrated them....what do I mean by that mothers? Because you know yall tongue can CUT!"

HAHAHAHAHAHA....is that it Denilson? Were you psychologically castrated?

[Gandalf]

Dr. Umar knows his shit. So that's why I turned gay?

[Nameless]

Dr. Umar knows his shit. So that's why I turned gay?

I prefer the rice cooker incident theory

#onlyoldsaddoschoolerswillgetit.

[Batman]

I've just finished 'La Bete humaine' really good book, its not a long read at 368 pages but you can't just plough through it, you can't help but take your time with it.

The story is really good and whilst you get to like a few of the characters they all show their ruthless side, one woman is the catalyst for everything that happens in it, there is only one character who doesn't do anything wrong although he ends up the one punished for other peoples crimes.

Really good, I might get some more of Zola's books.

Anyway's onto the next book, this one should only take a day or so to get through, looks like a bog standard horror but I need something that doesn't require much thought at the moment.

Amanda loves her husband, her converted loft apartment and her job as an architect. On the surface she appears to have done everything right. So why does she feel so off-balance? There's a strange tapping noise in the apartment but, as Amanda's husband Ed has pointed out, it can't be a mouse because they only hear it when she's around. Much to her husband's disgust, Amanda has also taken up smoking again. Even the friendly dog at the train station shies away from her these days. Could it be something to do with the lustful and violent dreams she's been having recently? We could devote our lives to making sense of the odd, the inexplicable, the coincidental, but most of us don't. Neither does Amanda. After all, what we think is impossible happens all the time...

Rather than adding another post I thought I'd just update this one

Finished come closer this morning barely 12 hours after starting it, bog standard book on demonic possession, full of cliches whilst at the same time trying to put a new sort of spin on it, it was a decent read I suppose but if there was an extra 200 pages it could have been really good, as it is it is just a decent, mindless read.

[smashup]

Gravity - the truth

I can't put it down