December 2010 and I am Reading...
How is it?
Actually, what I like best about this book is the picture of Ellroy on the back cover. He's never looked happier, which is quite reassuring after the disastrous past few years he experienced.
The book is still pretty good though, especially if you like it when he starts ranting. A solid companion to My Dark Places. One thing you can't deny is that he doesn't pull punches even in the often gratifying exercise of the self-portrait.
Finished Under the Skin by Michel Faber.
Now onto Neuromancer by William Gibson.
Auster's The New York Trilogy. "City of Glass" is badass so far. This is my first Auster. And I'm liking his style.
OUT OF TOUCH by Brandon Tietz!
The new edition?
Indeed. 
Lucky you, with your advanced reader copy.
I feel very lucky! Have you read it, Matt? The previous version, I mean?
I've read the previous version. And I read the first chapter of the new one online the other day. It's completely different. This new opening chapter has a bit of a Survivor feel, no?
Maybe a little, but I'm thinking BLACKBOX (By Nick Walker) if I had to compare it to anything. I'm really enjoying the hell out of it.
hey, I just finished this - my first Auster also. Really liked all of the stories, and liked the little common threads running through them. Also, I got a distinct kick out of knowing exactly what the places he was talking about looked like and where they were.
[whingy baby tone]I wanna go to New York!!![/whingy baby tone]
patience, young grasshopper!
FUCK YEAH!!
Finished The Contortionist's Handbook, it was great.
Think I'll read Kurt Vonnegut - Breakfast of Champions next.
War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells.
Lady Chatterley's Lover by DH Lawrence. This by miles my favorite Lawrence so far. If it stays this engaging I'll have some very nice things to say about it.
thanks for sharing.blackhawk tactical pants.
— Spambot
"I could have done worse!" exultantly cried the murderer Lebret, sentenced at Rouen to hard labor for life. — Félix Fénéon
God, the movies from that are all terrible. Good to hear the books good.
I finished reading The Contortionists Handbook and I'll be reading Underworld next.
"The rat inside your brain rules the world."
Citizen Kane SUCKED!!!!!!! True fact.
Alcoholism is the cure not the disease.
Think I'll read Kurt Vonnegut - Breakfast of Champions next.
Nice, have you read any other Vonnegut?
Nope, not yet!
Well Breakfast of Champions or Slaughterhouse Five are perfect introductions to Vonnegut. After reading them both I became hooked and couldn't get enough of him. Hope you enjoy BoC if you decide to read it!
My holiday book is Full Dark, No Stars by Stephen King.
Dermaphoria (almost finished)
It Came From Del Rio by Stephen Graham Jones (almost finsished)
Blood's A Rover (James Ellroy) (in the middle)
Off Season by Jack Ketchum (just started)
Candy by Luke Davies for the book club -a month late. (Matthew I'm Almost finished! Told you I'm a slow reader ahahah)
Was reading Year of The Flood by Margaret Atwood, but damn, I hate to admit this but I haven't cracked it open in a month. I made it all the way to page 257 and something positive that I do have to say about it is, Nothing Happens, really, yet I was Still interested for 200 pages. So that says Something. But 57 pages later... I don't know. I Hate to give up on a book, but it's getting to be work rather than pleasure. Has anyone else read this book?
I just finished Rock, Paper, Tiger -and while I started out liking it, not so much by book's end. On the flipside, The City And The City by China Mieville started out rough for me, but I ended up actually really liking that one.
Someone up there mentioned Auster -I have Invisible? in the Queue but haven't cracked it open yet -has anyone read that one or is it good? I've never read him before.
Visit me at Solarcide—A Writer’s Hideout: http://solarcide.com/fiction/nathan-pettigrew/
ENTIRELY TRUE DIARY OF A PART TIME INDIAN -- alexie
www.triplebeard.com
http://darkroomreview.blogspot.com
“...There are so many ways of being despicable it quite makes one's head spin. But the way to be really despicable is to be contemptuous of other people's pain. You ought to have some apprehension that the man you see before you was once even younger than you are now and arrived at his present wretchedness by imperceptible degrees.”
-James Baldwin
Dry by Augusten Burroughs.
It's a disastrous fucking riot so far.
| adj | facebook | an american atheist| warmed and bound |
Snow Crash - Neal Stephenson
Damien fucking Mayfair. You show your face. It's been a while. Your humour has been sorely missed (by me, at least). Sticking around long?
Currently reading this book, probably on 275 or so. I'm loving it; I loved Oryx and Crake too. Did you read that first? Around where you stopped is where the two books start coming together. From what I'm getting out of this so far and predicting what's going to happen is that the first book was from Jimmy's perspective, this book is from Oryx's perspective (I believe to be Ren - don't know where the ki#$ie pron came from in Oryx and Crake though), and the I'm guessing the next book will be from Crake's perspective.
I can see this (already) happening in real life - I've had the theory that Pharma doesn't make cures, only alleviates symptoms and maybe even prolongs diseases with medicine since I was maybe 10. (I now, maybe, only believe the first part of that)
Edit: Ok, reading a little further has made me rethink my theory. This book is just more from the God's Gardeners perspective, not specifically Oryx. Also thinking a little more about this, I've determined that Amanda is Oryx, not Ren, the ki#$ie pron can make sense with her. I have no theory on what the third book in the trilogy would be about.
Think for yourself. Question Authority.
i will try matt. i miss this place.
Currently reading The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula Le Guin, which is fantastic, but I've been dying to read The Orange Eats Creeps by Grace Krilanovich, so I might go pick it up at the bookstore tonight.
The Girl with The Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson.
Full Dark, No Stars by Stephen KIng is soooooo good.
Seriously, where do you people find so much reading time?!? 
This is why we can't have nice things.
I finished Nick Cave's novel The Death of Bunny Munro. What a weird book. I enjoyed it.
Still also reading Lady Chatterley's Lover, which has remained great.
My next audiobook will probably be another DH Lawrence book: The Lost Girl.
thanks for sharing.blackhawk tactical pants.
— Spambot
"I could have done worse!" exultantly cried the murderer Lebret, sentenced at Rouen to hard labor for life. — Félix Fénéon
Personally speaking, Tuffy, movies and tv have made it a lot easier for me. It's just my opinion, but for whatever reason, I feel like TV for the most part sucks, and I get more out of books. And if I catch myself going home after work tired, putting on a sitcom or a reality show, well I've gotten a Lot better about catching myself and turning it off. I'll reach for a book. It's not even hard anymore. Where I used to channel surf, I'll read. There's literally 1 or 2 shows on AMC or FX that I actually look forward to watching anymore, and they're not in season right now.
Movies? I don't go to much anymore, either. Every fuc#in' movie that comes out is a disappointment. Iron Man 2. Matrix sequels. Pirates sequels. Whatever. I just feel, at least speaking to the mainstream, the quality that made me even love movies in the 80's and 90's, is Extremely hard to come by. More times than not, even the good ones, are underwhelming. Like Tron Legacy. REALLY looking forward to that -But watch it either blow, or be eh, not so great. Just watch. They can't make a fucking movie to save their lives, anymore.
I'm seriously finding better/more interesting stories and all around entertainment in books right now -but I hear what you're saying -where's the fucking time? Because I also write and I also hold down a full time job. So I read on the toilet. At work and at home. I read at my desk when no one's paying attention. When I take a break from writing at home, even if it's 10 minutes, I'll read. Wherever and whenever I can. Even if it's 10 pages a day. I don't try to overdo it -even if it's a couple of pages while waiting in line somewhere for something. But now that I'm doing this, I mean sooner or later you come accross that book that you Just Can't Put Down and you actually set aside a chunk of time for it. And it becomes easier. That's just how it goes for me.
Visit me at Solarcide—A Writer’s Hideout: http://solarcide.com/fiction/nathan-pettigrew/
I wonder that every time Derek posts. He seems to read a book a day. He's like Bukowski.
I gave up drinking.
How is it?
Actually, what I like best about this book is the picture of Ellroy on the back cover. He's never looked happier, which is quite reassuring after the disastrous past few years he experienced.
The book is still pretty good though, especially if you like it when he starts ranting. A solid companion to My Dark Places. One thing you can't deny is that he doesn't pull punches even in the often gratifying exercise of the self-portrait.
But is it actually different from My Dark Places? Or any of his memoir stuff, for that matter?
How is it?
Actually, what I like best about this book is the picture of Ellroy on the back cover. He's never looked happier, which is quite reassuring after the disastrous past few years he experienced.
The book is still pretty good though, especially if you like it when he starts ranting. A solid companion to My Dark Places. One thing you can't deny is that he doesn't pull punches even in the often gratifying exercise of the self-portrait.
But is it actually different from My Dark Places? Or any of his memoir stuff, for that matter?
I haven't read My Dark Places either. I just ordered the L.A. Quartet so it'll be a while until I read anything else by Ellroy.
....
Cut out tv and movies.
Find good books.
Set aside time to read them.
Gotcha.
This is why we can't have nice things.
The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen. It is amazing so far.
"A celibate clergy is an especially good idea, because it tends to suppress any hereditary propensity toward fanaticism." -Carl Sagan
"Am I cruel? Probably. Is she an idiot? Yes." -jane s.
....
Cut out tv and movies.
Find good books.
Set aside time to read them.
Gotcha.
reading on the shitter is some productive time also.
unless you got a tv in there.
i get most of my reading done during slow movie seasons. between games worth playing, between classes (or for classes, in some cases) and on long bus rides.
i once read a 500 some page book in a day riding between portland and the oregon coast. the easiest way to deal with my family was always to put my nose in a book. it was just about the only obliviousness-inducing-hobby no one could find anything wrong with.
www.triplebeard.com
http://darkroomreview.blogspot.com
“...There are so many ways of being despicable it quite makes one's head spin. But the way to be really despicable is to be contemptuous of other people's pain. You ought to have some apprehension that the man you see before you was once even younger than you are now and arrived at his present wretchedness by imperceptible degrees.”
-James Baldwin
....
Cut out tv and movies.
Find good books.
Set aside time to read them.
Gotcha.
reading on the shitter is some productive time also.
unless you got a tv in there.
It's where I do a lot of my reading. But I normally catch up on all my lit mag reading on the loo. Or I have short story and poetry collections there too. Plus plenty of other magazines. It's a good time. And the ladies wonder why we spend so much time there. Come on, cut a motherfucker some slack, honey.
Think I'll read Kurt Vonnegut - Breakfast of Champions next.
I'm about halfway through BOC.
I like it.
It's my second Vonnegut book.
After, I think I'll read Slaughterhouse-Five.
You're a brighter little soul than all of the jaded people here. Never take them seriously. NEVER.
How is it?
But is it actually different from My Dark Places? Or any of his memoir stuff, for that matter?
I haven't read My Dark Places either. I just ordered the L.A. Quartet so it'll be a while until I read anything else by Ellroy.
It is in the same vein as My Dark Places, except that instead of following the criminal investigation on his mother's murder, Ellroy composes his biography through the angle of his lifelong obsession with women. There are of course intersecting elements but both books are very complementary.
For those who haven't read Ellroy before, I'd recommend them to start either with the L.A. Quartet (the 4 novels he wrote about Los Angeles in the 1950s) or the Underworld USA trilogy (about American politics 1959-1972). His autobiographical work is excellent too but knowing his fiction makes it even more enjoyable.
For those curious about him I'm reposting his latest long interview :
i've been taking Into Thin Air with me when I go into the john. It's pretty engrossing. I've been sitting in there some 5-10 minutes after I'm all done just to finish the next chapter.
It's also adding to me despising the cold.
It's about to be ruined by Keira Knightley and Carey Mulligan (seriously can these annoying actresses f-off already?)
I actually thought the movie was OK. Haven't read the book yet, been meaning to though