[mini]

Gun Machine - Warren Ellis: Comic book writer turns his hand to novel that works really well. Kind of weird and a bit creepy.  Good horror noir.

Had a nice little interaction with the author whilst reading this, asking via twitter whether "red onion marmalade made with beer" mentioned in the book really existed, which was confirmed with a link to a receipe!

And yes, an enjoyable noir!

[SA Chris]

Top 5 Dream Jobs

1. Journalist for Rolling Stone magazine, 1976 to 1979
2. Producer, Atlantic Records, 1964 to 1971
3. Any kind of musician, besides classical or rap
4. Film director, any kind except German or silent
5. Architect (replace by record store owner)

(unashamed cut and paste).

[casa]

Another author i have just never fancied for some reason...Dickens.
So, having in recent years got through most of the Russian/German/French classics i thought i'd better make a start on the British authors. So Dickens first up and just read The Tale of Two Cities and Great Expectations and....wowzer. I guess that's why they are called classics.
GE in particular is a proper gem. I had never really heard or associated Dixens with comedy, but both books are at times proper laugh out loud funny. Black humour at its finest. So what are your favourite Dixens books that are must reads?
Also any recommendations for British classics for when i've got through a good proportion of Dickens'?
On another note for all you SF addicts...Lord of Light by Zelazny...a must read.

[andy popp]

Humour is as central to Dickens as sentiment or righteous anger. My personal favourite is Bleak House for its epic sweep and its humanity.

[casa]

cheers Andy, have moved Bleak House up the batting order

[Muenchener]

Another author i have just never fancied for some reason...Dickens.
... So Dickens first up and just read The Tale of Two Cities and Great Expectations and....wowzer. I guess that's why they are called classics.

I never really got Dickens. I mean, as a prose stylist yes. Nobody can craft an English sentence like he could: see for example the opening paragraphs of Bleak House. But I was never able to give a sh*t about any of his characters or plots.

Also any recommendations for British classics for when i've got through a good proportion of Dickens'?

Jane Austen. Brilliant.

On another note for all you SF addicts...Lord of Light by Zelazny...a must read.

[moose]

Jane Austen. Brilliant.

Agreed, an author whose style is so beguiling you'll catch yourself speaking in an arch C18th manner for weeks afterwards.  PG Wodeshouse has a similar effect and a compilation of the Wooster short stories is recommended for some light relief. 

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte is brilliant - another "so that's why it's called a classic" read.  Frankenstein by Mary Shelley is wonderful and thought provoking, the films are truly only half the story.

More contemporaneously, a bit of Orwell might be good - Down and out in Paris and London is a favourite of mine. Eveyln Waugh's Scoop is very funny and likely as relevant a portrayal of journalist ethics now as it was then. Brideshead Revisited surprised me with it's callous causticness - I think I must have been mislead by hazy memories of whimsy nostalgic TV adaptations.   

This thread does remind me though how little Dickens I've read... sad to say but I've been put off his best works by their length... I just don't have the leisure these days for books over 700 pages.

[jmews]

Quite enjoyed blood knots by Luke Jennings. Ostensibly a memoir, but great fishing stories, and a real feel for the Southern English countryside.


What I talk about when I talk about running by Murakami. Starts very strong, but tails off about halfway through. Interesting non fiction insight into his worldview.

[Rocksteady]

Jane Austen. Brilliant.

Agreed, an author whose style is so beguiling you'll catch yourself speaking in an arch C18th manner for weeks afterwards.  PG Wodeshouse has a similar effect and a compilation of the Wooster short stories is recommended for some light relief. 

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte is brilliant - another "so that's why it's called a classic" read.  Frankenstein by Mary Shelley is wonderful and thought provoking, the films are truly only half the story.

This thread does remind me though how little Dickens I've read... sad to say but I've been put off his best works by their length... I just don't have the leisure these days for books over 700 pages.

Interesting. I went on a bit of a spree reading 'classics' over the last couple of years when someone showed me one of those 'best 100 books ever' lists and despite reading all the time I'd read hardly any of them.

However, while most classics I've read justified the hype, there are a few I couldn't stand. 'Jane Eyre' was one of them. To me the emotions are overblown, the story is implausible, the characters are unlikeable, and the tone/themes are just too moralising. Similarly, didn't like 'Wuthering Heights', for some of the same reasons - in my experience in life and reading other books people just don't think or act like the people in the Brontes' books.
I find Dickens pretty patchy. I studied 'Great Expectations' at school so that ruined that one for me. Couldn't get on with 'Tale of Two Cities' or 'Hard Times'. Enjoyed 'A Christmas Carol' but I read it at Christmas so might have just been in the right mood. I don't like being preached at too overtly, and I find that Dickens does that.

I've been put off Jane Austen by the people I knew on my English degree at uni who were advocates of Jane Austen. I should have a go though, any excuse to talk in an arch C18th manner for weeks. My favourite books for being arch and witty are anything by Oscar Wilde, and of course the Flashman books by George MacDonald Fraser, one of my all time favourite authors for everything he's written.

I think I actually prefer foreign classics to English ones. I can't recommend highly enough 'The Romance of the Three Kingdoms' written in the C14th by Luo Guanzhong. Style and content so sophisticated for a book written so long ago, an insight into politics and how honour is subservient to self-interest - for me it blows Chaucer out of the water.

I probably don't need to say anything about how good 'War and Peace' is. For me it explored sensitively nearly the whole experience of living. I'm glad I read it on Kindle though instead of lugging it around. Might have been good for my pinch strength though.

[GCW]

I'm still working through my list.

Jane Eyre is great.
Actually really enjoyed Gone With The Wind.
On Great Expectations at present, good so far.

[Muenchener]

Jane Austen ... being arch and witty

Northanger Abbey. Totally taking the piss, brilliantly.

[Tom J]

Another author i have just never fancied for some reason...Dickens.
So, having in recent years got through most of the Russian/German/French classics i thought i'd better make a start on the British authors. So Dickens first up and just read The Tale of Two Cities and Great Expectations and....wowzer. I guess that's why they are called classics.
GE in particular is a proper gem. I had never really heard or associated Dixens with comedy, but both books are at times proper laugh out loud funny. Black humour at its finest. So what are your favourite Dixens books that are must reads?
Also any recommendations for British classics for when i've got through a good proportion of Dickens'?
On another note for all you SF addicts...Lord of Light by Zelazny...a must read.

Hanfy threads this.
On a similar trend I've been focusing my classic reading on stuff written in English for the last year or so
Highlights have been largely J Conrad:

The Secret Agent
Typhoon
Under Westerrn Eyes
The Rover

Also,

Jekyll & Hyde - R.L Stevenson

The Old Man & The Sea - Hemingway
All pretty phenomenal.

Tale of two cities is edging toward the top of the to read list.

[Tom J]

Hanfy = Handy.

Also a big shout out to DI John Rebus - the career defining creation of Ian Rankin - I recently finished the last in the series and the void they've left is substantial.
Quality page turners each and every one.

[krymson]

been reading Outliers, it's an "old" book but damn is it insightful.

As an engineering major and a person with a rather analytical mind it's obvious that the author's reasoning has holes in it at times but on the whole the conclusions and stories illustrated in the book really make you think about what constitutes success, and what creates it.

In the context of climbing its clear that "prodigies" like Ondra, Megos, Ashima  may have some innate predisposition to climbing, but on the whole they are made, not born. Both in terms of hard work - putting in their 10,000 hours, as well as being in a situation that lends itself to them having the 10,000 hours to give to quality climbing.

For me even though I've heard these principles before, seeing them illustrated so clearly brings more insight and I feel like it has given me insight into why i am the way i am, and what i can do to tilt things in my favor, as well as exaclty what i need to do to get better at climbing - get as many quality climbing hours in as i can.

[rich d]

Crime and Punishment by Dostoyesky would be on my foreign classics, and whilst on the russian theme I've recently reread the Gulag Archipelago by Solzhenitsyn and thought again it was amazing. I was always put off by Dickens as that's my surname, but thought Oliver Twist was passable - however there was a bit too much singing in it for my liking.

[Boredboy]

Bravo 2 Zero was a riveting read, I picked it up in a second hand book shop in Horsham, my climbing partner took the piss, but he couldn't put it down when I passed it on to him.

[fried]

Crime and Punishment by Dostoyesky would be on my foreign classics, and whilst on the russian theme I've recently reread the Gulag Archipelago by Solzhenitsyn and thought again it was amazing. I was always put off by Dickens as that's my surname, but thought Oliver Twist was passable - however there was a bit too much singing in it for my liking.

I've only ever read 'Hard times' by Dickens and it was O.K. a bit full of caractures I recall.

Best foreign classic - Madame Bovary, for too many reasons to explain typ9ng on a phone.

I do like being Oliver twist though.

[Falling Down]

Currently reading Paul Morley's "North" like a W.G Sebald of Stockport.

[andy popp]

Best foreign classic - Madame Bovary, for too many reasons to explain.

This. x10.

[fried]

How does ' A sentimental education' compare? I have it in a big 'to read' pile.

[moose]

I wasn't too impressed by A Sentimental Education.  Seemed like a sketch for a much better book. Most of the characters felt like ciphers: the foppish aristo, the honest yeoman, the sharp elbowed bourgeois, the venal moneyman, the crap artist, the revolutionary, the republican etc (like a French Revolutionary "The Breakfast Club"!).  No interior life, just there for the purpose of social commentary.  Maybe I'm being a little harsh - I did enjoy it.  I guess that when it comes to books about self-obsessed social climbers, there is only room in my heart for Lost Time.

Good shout-out on Solzhenitsyn - though I'll admit I've only read the abridged version of the Gulag Archipelago (a mere 500ish pages).  One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich is my recommendation for the more time poor.  Other favourite short Russian classics are "A Diary of a Madman and Other Stories" by Gogal and, most especially, the very strange "A Hero of Our Time" by Lermantov. 

Another "that's why they call 'em classics" is Canide by Voltaire.  One of those books that so caustic, vibrant and knowing in its voice you can scarcely believe when it was written.  Full of memorable lines.

[Tom J]

Yep One day in the life of Ivan Dennisovich is brilliant.
Other class eastern eurpoean shorts are

Notes From underground - Dostoevsky
Ashes & Diamonds -  Jerzy Andrzejewski

Had Gulag Archipelago on my comp in pdf format for a while and this has prompted me to convert to epub and get it on the kobo.

[Rocksteady]

Crime and Punishment by Dostoyesky would be on my foreign classics, and whilst on the russian theme I've recently reread the Gulag Archipelago by Solzhenitsyn and thought again it was amazing. I was always put off by Dickens as that's my surname, but thought Oliver Twist was passable - however there was a bit too much singing in it for my liking.

I've only ever read 'Hard times' by Dickens and it was O.K. a bit full of caractures I recall.

Best foreign classic - Madame Bovary, for too many reasons to explain typ9ng on a phone.

I do like being Oliver twist though.

Interesting. I thought there were a lot of caricatures in Madame Bovary eg. the druggist. I thought it was extremely well-written, and felt the theme rang very true. But I just couldn't sympathise with Madame Bovary herself. Maybe that's the point, but I never rate a novel as highly if I just don't like the main character in any way.

Crime and Punishment I also didn't like very much, for the same reasons as I don't like Jane Eyre. I don't recognise humans as having emotions that are so overblown and consuming yet so well-articulated. I don't find it realistic and so I can't believe in the characters. Then I start to just see them as transparent agents of the story or means to convey the author's moral or message. I find this annoying and it stops me enjoying the book.

Outliers I thought was awesome.

Just finished reading 'Catch-22' which is another one of those books I don't know why I didn't read before. Found it laugh out loud funny, true and depressing at the same time. Not on my all time list of favourites but very, very good.

[fried]

I was reading some of the comments on Amazon today that reflect how important the translation is in foreign literature. I have no idea now, which version I read and only really recall some fleeting memories from it which have stayed with me.

It was interesting to read that most of the translations seemed amateurish and didn't convey the operatic tone of the French text.

I know this is a subject dear to the heart of Proust scholars. I have read bits in English and in French and somehow the French version seems less academic and stilted ( both Proust and Flaubert) .

Your thoughts on Crime and Punishment echo mine for a lot of Dickens that I've started and given up.

I read Catch 22 and then immediately started rereading it, it was that good, and I'd put it off for years.

[Falling Down]

A previous colleague of mine (commercial manager in an IT consultancy - shows what an arts degree can manifest in career wise ?!?!) did her Masters thesis on how the role and character of a translator can influence a novel or text. 

As a Kindle owner, this is why I never read the freely available ebook classics as most are really bad translations or reproductions that go nowhere near the original.