[milksnake]

I've been reading "south, the endurance mission"  by Ernest Shackelton. it's not well written but if you ever need the the inspiration to dig a little deeper you'll find it there. the shit those poeple lived through is amazing!
apart from that I've been getting into my Kafka at the moment

[magpie]

As a contrast, a list of what not to bother reading. 

I am currently reading my way through all the Christopher Brookmyre books I can get my hands on cause I think is ace.

[SteveM]

My second time reading it

Can I recommend picking it up for a third time sometime? Ignore the main speil of the book and just read the mind's conversations that punctuate the chapters - it's a mini-embedded story all of it's own 

[Jim]

I am currently reading my way through all the Christopher Brookmyre books I can get my hands on cause I think is ace.

Brookmyre is good, also go for some Colin bateman and Carl hiaasen.
Carl Hiaasen's tourist season is one of my top 10 books that I've read

[Bubba]

I've been reading "south, the endurance mission"  by Ernest Shackelton. it's not well written but if you ever need the the inspiration to dig a little deeper you'll find it there. the shit those poeple lived through is amazing!

Yeah, an amazing tale. Survival against some extremely steep odds.

[magpie]

Carl Hiaasen's tourist season is one of my top 10 books that I've read

Ta, I'll check it out, Native Tounge is ringing a bell so I may actually have already read some of his stuff.

[Houdini]

I imagine you more reading a book called Native Tongue, magpie 

[magpie]

 

[Houdini]

I'm reading this:



I like this book.

[Sloper]

I would strongly recommend Flat Earth News by Nick Davies, basically its about how the media is manipulated and PR is fed into the machine,

Does anyone have Mick Ryans address I might send him a copy.

[slackline]

I would strongly recommend Flat Earth News by Nick Davies, basically its about how the media is manipulated and PR is fed into the machine,

You had to read a book to find that out  Or does it go into fine detail as to how the manipulation is done (which I'd imagine isn't that hard)?

Perhaps a companion to it would be Darrell Huff's "How to Lie with Statistics".  An old book, but still relevant to todays spin-doctor culture/advertising culture.

Personally I think Bill Hicks was spot on...
.


(and on many other subjects too, but thats a whole separate topic).

[SA Chris]

Not sure if it was recommended here originally, but currently reading "Blood River: A journey into Africa's Broken Heart"

About a guy trying to retrace Stanley's journey down the Congo River. Fascinating reading, but also very sad how deeply fucked the place is. Definitley worth a read if you like this sort of thing.

[Jovial Geordie]

I can recommend any of the books by Harry Pearson in particular When Saturday Comes, which describes his travels around football grounds in the north east and is the funniest book I have read in the last ten years. It is possibly the closest I believe any author has come to explaining the feelings behind genuine football fans. I warn you not to read this while sitting opposite someone on the train, as I did while attempting to drink and gave the poor gentleman facing a tea facial from laughing out loud.
 
 

His articles in the Guardian and When Saturday Comes are also worth a read as well.

[Monolith]

Currently reading Georges Bataille's 'The Story of The Eye'. I suppose it falls under the rubric of 'art pr0nography' so don't go reading it to the young ones at bedtime.

A synopsis:

"Perhaps Bataille's most famous text, Story of the Eye is a tale of obsessive sexuality involving rape, necrophilia, coprophilia, fetish objects (particularly eggs and eyeballs), and half a dozen other types of deviance."

It's not a huge book and therefore you might like to read it across the course of a couple of lunch hours in digital format (which you can find here).

[SA Chris]

Not sure if it was recommended here originally, but currently reading "Blood River: A journey into Africa's Broken Heart"

About a guy trying to retrace Stanley's journey down the Congo River. Fascinating reading, but also very sad how deeply fucked the place is. Definitley worth a read if you like this sort of thing.

Ths has now become somewhat topical, as it all apprears to be kicking off over there again. Poor buggers.

[richdraws]

I read Midnights Children (Rushdie) whilst in Font last month. I really enjoyed it and would recommend it to anyone who likes Borges or any magical realist writers. I am reading Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murikami at the moment which is a good change of pace and mood from Rushdie. 

[soapy]

just finished the last of a disparate trio i was given for chrimble:

lord of light by roger zelazny : excellent

lust by geoff ryman : entertaining

the coma by alex garland : style above substance


it always arouses curiousity as to the giver's intentions, or perception of the recipient

[Yossarian]

Currently reading Georges Bataille's 'The Story of The Eye'. I suppose it falls under the rubric of 'art pr0nography' so don't go reading it to the young ones at bedtime.

My girlfriend suggested I read this last year.  After the first couple of chapters I sent her a text message explaining that if she thought it would encourage me to pee all over her then she was very much mistaken.

I gave her a copy of Bravo Two Zero.  She hasn't come back to me on that one...

My best books of 2008 were both by the same chap, the aforementioned Gary Shteyngart.  Read the Russian Debutante's Handbook before Absurdistan.

I am intending to start Child 44 sometime soon. Has anyone read it?

Winkler (Giles Coren) was good.

Aberystwyth Mon Amour was a bit annoying in retrospect.

I bought Paul Auster's New York Trilogy to read when I popped over last year, but ended up watching The Wire series 4 instead.

I intend to read some Aleksandar Hemon this year.  Maybe the Lazarus Project first.

[Duma]

Given I've already read Absurdistan, is it still worth getting The Russian Debutante's Handbook? No knowledge of child 44 I'm afraid, but did enjoy Absurdistan so may use the Christmas book vouchers on these two - will report back.

Edit: Just googled Child 44 and realised it's by someone comepletly different, apologies, I'm a tool

[Yossarian]

sorry for the confusion.

no, definitely go ahead with the russian debutantes.  it was only that i think that his style develops over the two books in a way that would especially reward the reader who tackles them in order. 

child 44 was the one that caused a bit of bother re last years booker prize. that bloke from cannongate (byng?) got stroppy about a thriller being longlisted. 

[Duma]

Cheers, have done some more reading and C44 looks worth a go. On a soviet tip, can't beleive I forgot to rave on this thread about One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovitch when Solzhenitsyn died a while back. I'm sure most will have already been there, but if not get to it, it's amazing.
Other thing from that part of the world I read last year and enjoyed was The Long Walk, Amazing true story: Pole escapes from POW camp in Siberia, walks through Siberia, round lake Baikal, across Mongolian desert, Tibetan plateau, over Himalayas, to British controlled India!

[Jaspersharpe]

There's a fair bit of controversy about how "true" that book is isn't there.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/6098218.stm

http://www.withoutvodka.com/faq.htm#9

http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=303344

[Duma]

Cheers Jasper, hadn't seen any of that, kind of glad I hadn't when I read the book as well! Does seem that a lot of Poles did do similar epic treks though, even if Slavomir wasn't one of them.

[Jaspersharpe]

Yes it looks as if it's based on fact but he embellished the truth (yetis, 17 year old girls, the fact that it wasn't him) somewhat.

Still looks to be an amazing tale.

[SA Chris]

Pole escapes from POW camp in Siberia, walks through Siberia, round lake Baikal, across Mongolian desert, Tibetan plateau, over Himalayas, to British controlled India!

Have you read "No Picnic on Mt Kenya" btw? Great story of Italian POWs in East Africa who get bored, decide to climbng Mt Kenya, so make all their own kit and break out. Great story. All they have as far as route descritions is a picture on the side of a coffee tin. Hope it isn't made up at all as well. I'm asuming most people have read it already, but check it out if you haven't.