[BenF]

Ben - selling it to me, I will keep an eye out for that.

Good.  Do try to find it, I'd be amazed if you weren't impressed.

[Pantontino]

I can strongly recommend Cloud Atlas by Mitchell as well. Such a skilful and powerful writer.

[soapy]

heh,

on that tip, read murakami's kafka on the shore, then mitchell's dream number 9, followed by murakami's wild sheep chase

gwan..


other notable current author beginning with M: andrew miller, and his work ingenious pain; I *heart* this book

[BenF]

I can strongly recommend Cloud Atlas by Mitchell as well. Such a skilful and powerful writer.

Ah ha, quality.  Thanks for that Simon, I was wondering whether he'd written anything since his first novel.  I will seek it out.

[Fiend]

Alistair Reynolds - Century Rain.

Will just add to my previous comments that the way the book is written is very cinematic and would translate absolutely perfectly to film - it focuses on atmosphere, action, and dialogue rather than introspection, so pretty much all of it has strong imagery.

Not going to happen obviously, which is a pity....

[lurkio]

Just read Paul Pritchard's Deep Play. Nice to read about some British rock climbing instead of mountaineering for a change (at least in the early part of the book), especially in the 80s when so much was happening. Occurs to me that Johnny Dawes would write the quintessential book of the period. Was certainly central to the scene and has plenty of opinions to air!

What do you think? Anyone know if that's a possibility?

[Houdini]

Johnny Dawes can't remember his arse from his elbow of those years.  In short: he's smoked those memories away.  Any attempt at a book now would be to court the very fabric of implausability and skirt round the edges of recollection - which I don't mind (if you don't).

Which doesn't mean to say that he should not attempt such a book.  He can write.  He should.

PS  Deep Play is a brilliant book.  Far far better than The Totem Pole (IMO).  That was for catharsis.  This is a scummy youth in a wooly jumper on the hardest climbs in Britain.

[Duma]

Think Dawes is working on an autobiography at the moment no? - At least thats what Perrin seems to imply in his latest column.

[Houdini]

Think Dawes is working on an autobiography at the moment no?

  That's great news if true.

[Falling Down]

Think Dawes is working on an autobiography at the moment no?

  That's great news if true.

It's been true for a few years now.. whether it will ever see the light of day is another question.  I believe that Andy Caves editor/publisher is attempting to bring some kind discipline to the proceedings...

[Houdini]

This book is brilliant.  Read it.

[Somebody's Fool]

I've just finished Gertrude by Herman Hesse. Thought it was absolutely superb.  I'd not read anything by him before but heard very good things.  He has a very calm, straightforward delivery whilst describing some fairly tumultuous life events.   Quite the soothsayer I thought. 
I dare say I might read Steppenwolf next. Anyone read it?

[andy popp]

Books I have read recently include:

Haruki Murakami - Norwegian Wood, OK
Ali Smith - The Accidental, good
W.G. Sebald - The Emigrants, very good but not much like any normal conception of a novel. Would be interested in others' reactions to Sebald.
Irene Nemirovsky - Suite Francaise, excellent.

Have nearly finished Fingersmith by Sarah Waters, enjoying this immensely. Victorian villainy, perilous plots. All this and Sapphic sex!

Has anyone read any Michel Houellebecq and, if so, what did you think?

[Houdini]

Houellebecq.  Stunning writer*.  Seemingly despised as much as revered.  I love the way he readily admits to lying through his teeth for his own amusement.  A man seemingly unbound to any moral code at all, though perhaps too far to say that he is Beyond Good and Evil.

Bummer that Atomised was made into a film in German and not English.  Elementarteilchen.

*I'd say that on the strength of having read just one book, Platform.  This had a powerful effect on me as I read it during a period of hermeticism in Thailand this year, where one is free to observe the subject matter oneself.

[Monolith]

I was recently given this book as a gift and it is incredible. It made me smile all the way to work. Perhaps Nibile may know more of this Italian genius?

Available from Amazon as ever..

[Somebody's Fool]

I read Platform earlier this year and didn't really know what to think at the end. 
Very compelling but it certainly put me on a downer the afternoon I read the last chapter.  It only really sank it how good it was a day or two later.  Quite a strange mix of powerful emotions for a book to evoke. 
Can definately appreciate why he generates such polarised opinions.  I rate him though.

[Sam]

At the other end of the litarary spectrum, Outside in Hathersage have got 1st ed Power of Climbing in stock - I was unaware that it was still available but a £9.95 it's a snip. "It's having the power to link the moves" - amazing! 

[andy popp]

Well I got round to reading Platform. I wasn't at all convinced for a long time and, I know this is probably the point, there is too much sex. But, and a big but, the final 60 or 70 pages developed a real tenderness that took me by surprise and did make it very worthwhile in the end.

I'm currently reading The Sea by John Banville, which I think will build quietly to be very powerful. But it might be best suited to morose old men like me.

[Houdini]

Got two books on the go at the mo:  The Bedroom Secrets of the Masterchefs by Irvine Welsh.  (So far so good.)

And Straw Dogs (Thoughts on Humans and Other Animals.) by John Gray.  (I'm finding I agree with pretty much most of it, it's also lending much weight to my own theory that all of us, are in fact, doomed.)

"STRAW DOGS challenges all our assumptions about what it is to be human, and convincingly shows that most of them are delusions.  Who are we, and why are we here?  John Gray's answers will shock most of us deeply.  This is the most exhilarating book I have read since Richard Dawkins' THE SELFISH GENE."  J. G. Ballard

[Somebody's Fool]

I thought The Bedroom Secrets of the Masterchefs a little disappointing to be honest.  I think although the more fantastic themes were intricate and well handled there wasn't a single laugh out loud moment in the whole book.  Every other Welsh book has raised at least a few laughs.  I think with Welsh the humour comes from the incredibly dark places his writing goes to.  At this I think he is a master. 
I really didn't think that he was plumbing the darkest depths of his best work and as a result there was less humour to be found. 
I found myself pining for Begbie or Juice Terry to cameo.
But my high standards aside, it is still Welsh and therefore still well worth reading.

[JaseM]

Just finished:
Trick of the mind, Derren Brown: Quite good, skip the magic tricks and read his views on religion and psychics.
Life of Pi: excellent book, which I have the distinct feeling is talking about something else, but, I am not smart enough to work out what?!?
Boy Soldiers of the Great War: Thoroughly depressing as if the subject wasn't depressing enough, yet still interesting and informative
Reading The Hobbit. Why, oh, why have I waited so long to read this book?

[Sloper]

Room at the top (can't remember the author at the mo)
Borstal Boy, Behan
The lonliness of the long distance runner, Sillitoe
A rough shoot (with rogue male, two classic books for boys)

some non fiction

Dark Heart, Davies
The strange death of liberal england (and the strange death of tory england)

[Houdini]

I thought The Bedroom Secrets of the Masterchefs a little disappointing to be honest.  I think although the more fantastic themes were intricate and well handled there wasn't a single laugh out loud moment in the whole book. 

Finished it and agree with you.  Though I counted 1 (one) hearty belly laugh, but just the one.  Welsh is maturing (or so I thought with Masterchefs) - less character-led, for sure. I didn't think it better than Glue but I think it tops pr0no. 

Back to Paul Auster I guess...  Oh and something called The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon - which has so little to recommend it it's lucky it hasn't been burnt in a fit.

[jfw]

it is still Welsh and therefore still well worth reading.

i've got a bit of a love hate thing going on with welsh - loved trainspotting, quite liked ecstasy - but found filth and pr0no seemed a bit too much like he was trying hard to shock with the darkness (yes its dark and funny - but it becomes less real and so less engaging) - i set acid house aside because that was fully fantastical anyway

i love the way that reading trainspotting outsloud makes  you sound scottish - in the same way that reading sid the sexist outloud makes you sound like a geordie.

[Falling Down]

I'm a quarter of the way into 'Against the Day' by Thomas Pynchon.. It's the usual Herbert Melville meets James Joyce style but much better than Mason and Dixon. Unfortunately it's a 1000 page hardback which means I look like a mentalist when reading it in public and I have damaged my neck and right arm whilst reading it on the plane back from Aberdeen last night.