[Duma]

Currently waiting for the softback versions of:

Iain M Banks - Alchemist

Adam Roberts - The Snow

China Meiville - Iron Council

Alastair Reynolds - ???

Try FOPP for the Alchemist - its three quid in bristol at the mo, and was worth it when I spent 15 on the hardback. Read some Reynolds stuff recently (I think, not too good with authors names) - revelation space and chasm city. not worth shouting about, but decent technological sci fi, if not mightily subtle

[Yossarian]

I like Brett EE though he can be hard reading sometimes with his almost bland, disconnected style.

American Psycho is a classic, though I know a few people who haven't been able to finish it because of the gnarl, and I really enjoyed Glamorama too.

oooh - we could have a ukb book club, just like they did on cocktalk!

i prefered glamorama to american psycho actually.  bit more going on...

i would also like to propose london fields  (my fave martin amis), the quantity theory of insanity (will self - i think he's a far better short story writer, although my idea of fun was pretty good too), pretty much anything by ian mcewan (maybe amsterdam or a child in time), the closed circle - jonathan coe, and jg ballard, obviously.

[Fiend]

Duma - I really like Reynolds stuff because it's just very "proper" sci-fi with no pussying around diluting it for the washed masses. Which I can appreciate would be less inspiring for others. I do think he does a good job of blending a bit of cyberpunk "snappiness" into space opera settings, though. Also the latest book Absolution Gap is probably his best yet, quite convoluted stuff...

Anyway, now reading:

Ursula Le Guin - Changing Planes - ("Unreal" fiction) various short stories offering tantalising glimpses

[moose]

Duma - I really like Reynolds stuff because it's just very "proper" sci-fi with no pussying around diluting it for the washed masses.

have you tried Ken Macleod? The books I've read (Cassini Division, Star Fraction, Sky Road) were like a more hard-core Iain M Banks  - lots of nano-tech, AI, higher dimensions... and socialism.  Quite good - though  perhaps lacking the invention and engaging characters of Banks' best culture stuff.

[r-man]

Ursula Le Guin - Changing Planes - ("Unreal" fiction) various short stories offering tantalising glimpses

Ursuala Le Guin - fantastic stuff. Haven't read that one, but another great collection of short stories is The Compass Rose  (I think that's right). Some really interesting and inventive writing. Also The Disposessed is a fantastic sci-fi novel.

And then there are the Earthsea books if you like fantasy. One of the few fantasy creations considered to be "proper literature" by them what consider these things. Which irks me somewhat, being very into fantasy and also having studied english lit. at uni - I tore my hair out nightly.

Oh, and no-ones mentioned Tad Williams yet have they? Epic Sci-fi and brilliant storytelling with the Otherworld series. Really can't recommend this enough.

And Jack Vance. Damn good.

Enough for now, I'm just getting carried away.

[Duma]

oooh - we could have a ukb book club, just like they did on cocktalk!

What, the ukBBC?

[Yossarian]

Very catchy...

We could start with Fallen Idol, then maybe Brighton Rock or The Fall?

Actually, judging by my recent climbing efforts i think A Farewell to Arms might be more appropriate. Or even As I Lay Dying...

[Duma]

Something I read I while ago but just remembered it's genius: The Rum Diary - Hunter S Thompson, early mad adventures in Puerto Rico as a reporter, particularly nice bit about the festival craziness towards the end.

Currently in The Electric Kool Aid Acid Test - Tom Wolfe, amazing description of Ken Kesey (One Flew Over The Cuckoos Nest)and the Merry Pranksters and the rise of LSD, the Grateful Dead, etc. I like the meeting between the pranksters and Timothy Leary. However progress has been slowed dramatically by the arrival of my copy of Ru's new guide, and the detailed perusal thereof...

[Bonjoy]

Just finished David Sedaris - Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim, very funny observational autobiographical dark humour, one of the few books which made me laugh out loud on a regular basis.

[cofe]

one of the few books which made me laugh out loud on a regular basis.

Catch22 is still classic for this.

[Bonjoy]

Funny you should say that, Fi is reading C22 at the mo and i'll be onto it in a week or so when she finished.

[a dense loner]

i need to stop reading terry pratchett, but i can't

[SA Chris]

Stop reading pratchett now! I overdosed a few years back, read something like 7 books in a row. Can't be bothered now, just lost interest. Savour them.

[Fiend]

Dense, yes, you really, really do

[moose]

Terry Pratchett is the book equivalent of crack - you stagger, shamefaced, without pause from one squalid encounter to another (in the depths of my depravity I would wake up surrounded by dog-eared discworld novels I couldn't remember buying).  Thankfully the pathology's self-limiting - the habit dies as the extent of his self-plagerisation really starts to piss you off (and aren't those covers just really, really bad?).  

If anyone enjoyed Catch 22 it might be worth giving Something Happened a try - fantastic but very bleak (just read the first page).  It's sorta the C22 of  the horrors of everyday suburban life - the closeness makes it all the more deeply uncomfortable.  

Currently reading Junky by WS Burroughs  - pretty good, funny and sordid.

[Fingers of a Martyr]

Pratchett wants shot for ever putting pen to paper.

Junky is mint.

Currently reading Crash and Fear and Loathing In LV.

[a dense loner]

bearing in mind i only have a few pratchett books left to read. i only read 2 in a row tho, any more n you would have to end it all

[cofe]

couldn't be bothered to read the previous 5 pages but read da vinci code and man and boy, amongst others, last week while on hols. thoughts both were very good in differnet ways. had put off reading man and boy in case it was a bit too 'hornby'.

disappointed to read tom hamshanks will feature in the da vinci code film.

[Fiend]

Cofe dragging some culture back into the forum.

I have mostly been reading Greg Egan - Schild's Ladder which is his usual ultra-hard quantum sci-fi stuff and contains a few sections that I kinda skim over and trust it all makes sense in the end and as usual it's a fantastic yarn. This "explains" some of the science behind it so you see what I mean.

[Duma]

Cofe dragging some culture back into the forum.

not sure bout the da vinci code counting as culture :wink:

not fiction but try 'Hegemony or Survival' by Noam Chomsky to open your eyes to the horror of the modern world's politics - would be in scary page of the day but for it being a book and all...

[Fingers of a Martyr]

I read A Day in the life of Ivan Denovisich, excellent but sad. currently reading Empire of the Sun by Ballard and the fucking brilliant The Ticket That Exploded by Burroughs.

[Jim]

I'm with Cofe on not reading the previous 5 pages but defo worth a read is:
Magnus Mills - 'Restraint of beasts', followed by 'all quiet on the orient express' then '3 to see the king' and then 'scheme for full employment' in that order. the bloke is a genuis. easy reading and very strange.

Dense I have the cure for your illness (apart from the hives tablets) -  I'll tell Jo not to lend you any more pratchet

[a dense loner]

i've exhausted your supply, time for new friends methinks

[cofe]

currently half way through feeding the rat - al alvarez. pretty good so far innit.

[Falling Down]

Currently reading Richard Brodkey's 'The Runaway Soul' which is great but has been compared to Proust and Joyce so it gets hard going at times particularly when I'm tired.  So... when I need some light relief, I've been picking up the Ian Rankin 'Rebus' novels starting at the beginning and have been pleasantly surprised.

Iain M Banks' 'The Algebraist' provided good entertainment on holiday over the Summer.

FOAM (On Burroughs) I treated myself to a limited (1/10) silkscreen print by Ralph Steadman which is a montage of WSB and a large ragged target in the centre.  Burroughs then shot each print at his farm in Kansas in 1996 with a different gun, both artists signed each canvas and the series was entitled 'Something new has been added' - I have #7 which was shot with his magnum.. and it now hangs above my stereo in the lounge... I also got a couple of signed B&W photo's from the Beat Hotel of Burroughs and Gysin staring into the dream machine..