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Your current read?


Guest Jake Wifebeater

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I've read quite a bit these past few months:

The Battle For Spain by Antony Beevor

Arthur & George by Julian Barnes

The Alienist by Caleb Carr

The Angel of Darkness by Caleb Carr

Cosa Nostra by John Dickie

Destination: Morgue! by James Ellroy

Nightmares & Dreamscapes by Stephen King

The Naming of The Dead by Ian Rankin

Currently reading Lisey's Story by Stephen King and next on the hit is The Algebraist by Iain M Banks

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I have to read The Magic Toyshop by Angela Carter for uni and I can't say I'm enjoying it much. I've just finished a rather stange chapter involving a girl being molested by a swan puppet.

xxx

Did you know there was a film version of 'The Magic Toyshop'? - I have it somewhere on video.

I quite liked 'The Magic Toyshop', although 'Fireworks' is a far better book.

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Dresden is involved, but its not exactly a straight forward war novel. That said, its one of my favourite novels. Please read it, you won't regret it!

just ordered it off amazon for 79p plus postage!

will get into it once i've finished the four i'm reading at the moment. i've been off reading for so long but now i'm back with a vengance!!

/x

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some of Nathaniel Hawthorne's short stories for uni, as well as 'The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym' by Edgar Allen Poe which I'm really enjoying.

I did Poe for my dissertation last year, haven't read that particular one, although I do mean to at some point. His short stories are brilliant. I had to read a Hawthorne story last year too, it was Young Goodman Brown if I recall correctly.

I'm doing a course on Victorian realism, so in the last few weeks I have read Oliver Twist (enjoyable but a ridiculous ending to the plot), Middlemarch (enjoyed it much more than last time I tried to read it), Jude the Obscure by Hardy (the most depressing book ever, but good) and I just finished The Awkward Age by Henry James. I hated it, and I've got to read Virginia Woolf's Mrs Dalloway for next week, meh.

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i finished romo - bill romanowski's autobiography and catch 22 - joseph heller at the weekend and started fear and loathing in las vegas - hunter s. thomson this morning on the bus. it's as good as i expected so far!

/x

Catch 22 is brilliant as I recall, although it was years ago that I read it, perhaps I should again when I get time. Fear and Loathing is even better, classic.

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  • 2 weeks later...
Guest Kilgore Trout

i'm currently getting through will self's "book of dave", so far its pretty good. i would obviously prefer more drugs and sexual devience in the story but "dorian" pretty much covered all the bases on that respect. Then again anything he does suits me fine. recently i dug myself through a nice rock music related box set that i got from work for about 8, the Led Zep book "hammer of the gods" was allmost as boring as the bands music but the status quo, acdc and black sabbath stuff was good. had no idea ac/dc were of scottish decent. ach well.

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Guest Kilgore Trout
Catch 22 is brilliant as I recall, although it was years ago that I read it, perhaps I should again when I get time. Fear and Loathing is even better, classic.

the sequel to catch 22 - "closing time" is really strange, wierd underground complexes and the return of yossarian. might have tae dig that one out.

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i'm currently getting through will self's "book of dave", so far its pretty good. i would obviously prefer more drugs and sexual devience in the story but "dorian" pretty much covered all the bases on that respect. Then again anything he does suits me fine. recently i dug myself through a nice rock music related box set that i got from work for about 8, the Led Zep book "hammer of the gods" was allmost as boring as the bands music but the status quo, acdc and black sabbath stuff was good. had no idea ac/dc were of scottish decent. ach well.

you don't perchance work in a book world do you?

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Guest Kilgore Trout
you don't perchance work in a book world do you?

na, work at Makro(double ding!)- they have loads of box sets in for xmas. i once tried to get a job at book world, it was a bit of a disaster.

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I wanted a job in a bookshop, until on thursday I was in waterstones (in edinburgh) and was in the downstairs section and saw two of the worst customers ever.

The first was a guy phoning to complain (he was basically just shouting) at the poor girl that worked there because the publisher of a book had pushed back the date of publication, like there is anything she can do about it. And she told him there was nothing she could do about it and that he should phone the publisher but in the end she had to get a manager on the phone to speak to him. Then, some lady that was buying a dictionary and taking herself waaay too seriously started going nuts because the chairs had arms on them and she apparently couldn't sit down and open the book at the same time. She kept saying "I sit down and I'm trapped!" and "Buying a dictionary is a very serious business" and telling the girl (same girl) that if she ever gets a chance to buy some new chairs she should buy ones without arms...and this complaining went on for like 5 minutes!

It seems to have lost something in the process of being written down. It was far more irritating in real life than I have managed to describe it.

And to get the thread back on topic:

I'm still reading the bible, but i took a short break and read 'The Music Of The Primes' by Marcus du sautoy and 'The Millenium Problems' by Keith Devlin

In the bible I am currently at the first book of Samuel. David has just owned Goliath.

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I've just finished Nathaniel Hawthorne's 'The Marble Faun'. It's really good in the middle section, but I found it took a bit long to get into and then dragged on towards the end. Prefer his short stories to this, but the the middle part is VERY, VERY good.

Once I've done my presentation on above book, I have Claude Levi-Strauss's 'Myth and Meaning' and Marcel Mauss's 'A General Theory of Magic' to work through/skim read over Christmas.

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about 3/4 way through fear and loathing and it's fantastic. have got a shitload more books coming through the door from recommendations on here every day so i've plenty to get through. they're coming through about 2 a day at the mo!

/x

Speaking books which tell of drug-rampages, I'm currently reading Aleister Crowley's "Diary of a Drug Fiend". Never actually read any of Crowley's stuff before, but i suspect this is one of his easier to read novels. . . I once picked up the Book of Thoth in Waterstones. One look at it and i knew it wasn't meant to be. Instead I picked up Lon Milo Duquette's "Understanding Aleister Crowley's Book of Thoth". Hah!

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I've just finished Nathaniel Hawthorne's 'The Marble Faun'. It's really good in the middle section, but I found it took a bit long to get into and then dragged on towards the end. Prefer his short stories to this, but the the middle part is VERY, VERY good.

Once I've done my presentation on above book, I have Claude Levi-Strauss's 'Myth and Meaning' and Marcel Mauss's 'A General Theory of Magic' to work through/skim read over Christmas.

If you have an interest in that stuff, have you ever read any of Israel Regardie's work? I highly recommend "The Tree of Life" and especially "The Middle Pillar". Both works are extremely informative and give A LOT to think about.

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If you have an interest in that stuff, have you ever read any of Israel Regardie's work? I highly recommend "The Tree of Life" and especially "The Middle Pillar". Both works are extremely informative and give A LOT to think about.

The Mauss and Strauss books are background reading for my Uni Dissertation, not really for fun - although I'm quite looking forward to getting stuck in to them. However, I may check out said books you have recommended.

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Guest Kilgore Trout
Speaking books which tell of drug-rampages, I'm currently reading Aleister Crowley's "Diary of a Drug Fiend". Never actually read any of Crowley's stuff before, but i suspect this is one of his easier to read novels. . . I once picked up the Book of Thoth in Waterstones. One look at it and i knew it wasn't meant to be. Instead I picked up Lon Milo Duquette's "Understanding Aleister Crowley's Book of Thoth". Hah!

is he that devil worshipping fruit loop that hung about with Jimmy page?

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