[underground]

Of late I have read:

pr0no, Irvine Welsh
Sequel to Trainspotting following the same group of characters on their latest venture into the pr0n industry. Sadly this feels like it was purely written because Welsh knew that it would sell off the back of the success of Trainspotting. At times it felt a little tedious, however it does highlight the exploitative nature of the pr0n industry for those naive enough not to be aware of it already. Begbie is also a great, terrifying character. Some scenes, particularly those at the end, do well to explore the complexities of what the group call "friendship".

I've always found Welsh's books excellent in the nasty side of things - he does do grim and downright horrible characters very well. I thought Trainspotting was far more compelling as a book due to the depth of it in comparison to the film.

I don't know how I'd find it now, but around 12 years ago I found 'Filth' utterly compelling as well as hilarious - so disturbing in the characters and content, yet totally comedic. I still call my equally-daft-as-me mate 'Boontay' whenever we speak, and often go to the work toilets to have a rake at my flaking inner thighs and line them with toilet roll to soak up the sweat*

*not very often 

[stevej]

Half way through David Millar's autobiography. Even with my goldfish attention span I'm a third of the way through in a sitting. It's really really good. Brutally honest, fascinating, well written and really interesting. link

[Falling Down]

That's going on my reading list, it sounds great.

As for the wierd censorship thing... Very bizarre and quite disturbing.  I remember when the kindles first came out, Amazon caused a right ding-dong by deleting books that people had bought.

[moose]

I've been reading lots of travel / biography of late - as an alternative to denser, more scholary "proper" history texts.  The biggest highlight was this:

Nothing to Envy: Real Lives in North Korea, B Demick
I just can't recommend this enough, just superb: touching, shocking, educational.  It's a history of post-civil war North Korea told through the stories of defectors who made it out to South Korea.  The ordinariness of the stories are what makes it so heart-breaking.  None of the defectors are politically active, would-be revolutionaries; they just want to be with those they love, feed their families, or learn about the world.   Unfortunately they live in a hideously despotic and corrupt regime, the sheer idiotic madness of which beggers belief.  The stats and details about the all-pervasive nature of the state are mind blowing and make 1984's "Airstrip 1" sound like Amsterdam.  But, despite the weight of the subject matter,  it reads easily and is so fascinating that it never feels dry.  The only dour aspect is that you'll never again laugh at Team America: World Police without a smidgin' of guilt.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/184708141X/ref=oss_product

 

[magpie]

I've just finished Geek Love and Middlesex. 

Geek Love has to be the weirdest book I have ever read but it was utterly compelling, I couldn't put it down, it's basically about a family who run a circus, the parents have genetically modified their kids to make them super freaky so that they can bring in money.  It's weird and freaky but also an excellent story well worth reading.

Middlesex is a kind of family saga / coming of age story / nature vs nurture debate and also excellent.

I read The Hunger Games too which are technically young adult books but they were really brilliant, I finished all three in as many days and loved them, a really gripping story.  Maybe not for any of you lot to read yourselves but definitely worth remembering if you have young people / teens to buy a gift for or encourage to read.  It's basically Battle Royale for teens. 

[Will Hunt]

 
I enjoyed Middlesex very much.

[andy popp]

Just getting stuck into Deirdre N. McCloskey's The Bourgeois Virtues: Ethics for an Age of Commerce, which is shaping up to be a brilliantly erudite, learned, wide-ranging, engaging and funny plea for and paean to capitalism and, well, bourgeois virtue. Agree with her or not, its a truly barnstorming performance.

[Falling Down]

Another one for the list...

On a sporting note, Joanne, the first girl I ever kissed has just ghosted her husbands Autobiography to outstanding reviews in the press.  http://m.guardian.co.uk/football/blog/2011/jul/20/im-not-really-here-paul-lake-review?cat=football&type=article

[Jaspersharpe]

That sounds rather good.

[Rocksteady]

The best books I've read in the last couple of months are:

Romance of the Three Kingdoms - Luo Guanzhong. One of the 4 classics of Chinese literature. A massive historical novel with key events of this period around 200AD. Interesting insight into Chinese cultural heroes, and a damn good tale. If you can't be bothered to read 800,000 words 'Red Cliff' is a good film which portrays one of the key episodes in the book. It's a bit disjointed as the Western release is a compression of the two Chinese versions into one film, but the battles are Lord of the Rings epic.

A Moveable Feast - Ernest Hemmingway. A novelisation of Hemmingway's life as a young man in Paris. Fascinating and exquisitely well-written, providing you like Hemmingway's pared-down prose style.

The Big Short - Michael Lewis. An expose of the causes of the financial crisis written in an entertaining and engaging way. I found it difficult to put down. Michael Lewis finds the guys who did predict the financial crisis and who made a lot of money from it against the prevailing wisdom of the time. Fascinating.

Matterhorn - Karl Marlantes. A Vietnam war novel which I bought off strength of advertising on the tube. Start is a bit turgid but once you start to know the characters it gets very good and conveys an appropriate sense of the numbing futility of war. Reminded me of First World War poetry.

The Long & the Short of It - John Kay. Read this after getting interested in the financial world after reading the Big Short. Basically gives you a toolkit for making the most of your own money. Assesses and exposes much of the economic theory on which the modern financial world is based, and gives you ideas for how you might make the most of these weaknesses. I thought it was excellent, but will need a re-read to really take on the salient points.

Racing Weight - Matt Fitzgerald. How to eat for endurance athletes - bought on strength of Dave MacLeod's recommendation. Some good knowledge in there: I haven't digested it yet (sorry, couldn't resist). Doesn't give me everything I'd want to understand how to structure my own diet for performance, but does give me a lot of useful facts on when and what to eat to maximise performance and get to my ideal lean weight for climbing.

[Johnny Brown]

Seem to remember a few folk bemoaning the escalating second-hand price of Julian Cope's The Modern Antiquarian a while back. Happily its back in print in the original rainbow hardback with slipcase at under £20 from Amazon. Essential.

[Will Hunt]

Dracula by Stoker. Awesome. Surprisingly contemporary narrative and great fun to read. Full of gothic verbosity (which can at times become wearisome. Perhaps a book to read alongside something else?) Tense and exciting.

As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning by Laurie Lee. Somebody in the book exclaims that Lee has "beautiful thoughts". They couldn't have put it better. A great portrait of rural Spain before Franco.

Cider with Rosie by Laurie Lee. Another beautiful portrait, this time of a childhood spent in an isolated Cotswolds village. Even the most mundane things are described in a way which sparks the imagination. I couldn't stop smiling as I read it.

[Falling Down]

Hitch-22 the memoirs and selected essays of Christopher Hitchens.  Quite brilliant.

[fried]

Seem to remember a few folk bemoaning the escalating second-hand price of Julian Cope's The Modern Antiquarian a while back. Happily its back in print in the original rainbow hardback with slipcase at under £20 from Amazon. Essential.

This book (and the megalithic European) are absolute joys. I thought I was the only one who bought the originals. Just looking at them on the bookshelf gives me a golden glow.

[Falling Down]

Geoff Dyer: Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanasi.  Two novellas in one book, tenuously related.  This book has attracted wildly contrasting reviews on Amazon.  I loved it.  The first made me laugh out loud and the second prompted reflection.

La Seduction: Elaine Sciolino An American newspaper editor based in Paris explores the French manners of seduction in the professional, political and personal spheres. Quite entertaining and insightful if you work with the French or have a relationship.

[andy popp]

I'm reading Richardson's Clarissa and, to be honest, even I think its a complete fucking 'mare; but I'm not going to give up. Never!

[gremlin]

The Crimson Petal and the White by Michael Faber. Bit long at nearly a thousand pages but never boring, it tells the life of a Victorian prostitute. The beeb did a good job of dramatising it.

Just got a copy of The Apple by the same author which is a series of short stories about characters in Crimson Petal.

[Oldmanmatt]

Dracula by Stoker. Awesome. Surprisingly contemporary narrative and great fun to read. Full of gothic verbosity (which can at times become wearisome. Perhaps a book to read alongside something else?) Tense and exciting.

As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning by Laurie Lee. Somebody in the book exclaims that Lee has "beautiful thoughts". They couldn't have put it better. A great portrait of rural Spain before Franco.

Cider with Rosie by Laurie Lee. Another beautiful portrait, this time of a childhood spent in an isolated Cotswolds village. Even the most mundane things are described in a way which sparks the imagination. I couldn't stop smiling as I read it.

Problem with ol' Laurie is, they're always too short.

Dracula is banned in our house...

Something about Vlad Tzepesh being a National hero (definately not a vampire).

Go figure...

[casa]

Just spent an excellent last week with Moby Dick.
Talk about waxing lyrical, tis drippingly poetical in parts.
Also surprisingly i found it extremely funny (chuckle out loud stylee) with dark humour throughout.
Can't believe i left it this long before reading, it's been gathering dust on the bookshelf for years but for some reason i always fancied something else ahead of it 

[Falling Down]

  having been turned on to it by Mr Popp who told me several years ago it was his favourite/best ever.  A quite remarkable thing.

I'm currently absolutely riveted by and totally immersed in Michael Moorcock's (yes him of Elric and Jerry Cornelius fame but this is very far away from SF)  King of the City. An elegaic paean to a lost London and the rest-of-world in the 70's and 80's, heartbreaking, absorbing and thoroughly addictive.  In spite of being tired, I've stayed up far too late recently just immersing myself and reading sections out loud. Amazing stuff.

[moose]

Moby Dick is my second favourite book, I just love the mixture of the whaling plot and all of the digressions into the uses and habits of the whale and whaling.  I've got no idea what it's all a metaphor for (the critics don't seem to agree) but the whole affair is so redolent with "significance" that I read it with an absolute sense that I was engaged upon something of true worth.  That reading a 10 page tangent into types of oil was the greatest thing that I could be doing with my time! If you like it, I recommend Melville's "White Jacket", its a slighter more plot driven sea-faring story that addresses the horrors of serving on a tyranically-run fighting ship.

The Moorcock book sounds good - I liked Mother London and have an affection for the Cornelius books (though I find them a bit maddening).  I've not read anything else by Moorcock, say Gloriana or any of the Elric or Dancers books, mainly because I don't know where to start (there are so many to chose from).  Am I missing out, any recommendations?
 

[casa]

Cheers Moose will get the White jacket & report back with thoughts

[fried]

Just a quick happy 50th to 'Catch-22'. A book which never loses its relevance.

[SA Chris]

Moby Dick is my second favourite book, I just love the mixture of the whaling plot and all of the digressions into the uses and habits of the whale and whaling. 

And there was me thinking it was about an STD.

[moose]

That's Mouldy Dick - a fine tale of syphilis at sea.  Fans of the genre might like Gonnorhea With Wind, a poignant saga of Confederate clap.