London ILB - FAP?

Damn, weds not actually great for me - thurs better. Any chance of that? Royal Oak good though.

oh yeah fine with either. Thur it is :-)

Royal Oak, absolutely. Thursday fine, just need to remind myself to take the late shift on Friday not the one that entails me getting up at five.

i wonder what happened to mikey g.

Oh and for anyone who wants to come along Thursday and does not know what we look like I will have a copy of the ARABIAN NIGHTS on the table.

^Likewise, I will be the one in the corner with the vacant illiterate stare. Complete fraud going to this - my inarticulate fists can barely hold a book at the moment, let alone turn pages. I blame the ILM listening clubs.

One more thing: should be there between 6-6.30.

For those who were thinking of coming along, here, from six-ish -

http://www.fancyapint.com/pubs/pub1228.php

Kinda looking like it's just going to be me, xyzzzz__ and woof, any more? Stevie T?

def coming, get fucked up talk abt books.

South of the river (Mummy, I'm scared), but might come along, fancy a walk (and a pint)

Still not sure if I can come, but will be there around 8 if I can...

Got here early. Pint of mild and a copy of Eric van Lustbader's seminal work The Ninja, which I plucked more or less randomly off the shelves of the pub, in order to justify my appearance.

LYRICAL
in its tranquility
REMORSELESS
in its violence
STUNNING
in its sensuality (aye-aye)
HEART-STOPPING
in its suspense

apparently. Surely how this FAP is going to turn out.

Oh I say, apparently it also

EXPLODES THROUGH THE FRONTIERS OF MODERN FICTION WITH UNPRECEDENTED POWER

astonished I haven't heard of it before tbh.

Hmmm. Seems pretty conventional so far.

"What the hell am I doing with a Mercedes? he asked hi
Self rhetorically."

lol.

Might just liveblog this book if no one else arrives.

Ah, my game pie is here.

Game Pie? I wish I could've joined you chaps now. Liveblog the pie at least.

Game pie was good, not great. We've got a quorum now. Intense discussion about the finer points of literature as I'm sure you can imagine.

where is this FAP?

somewhere near London Bridge maybe?

Yes, Royal Oak. Borough. Link upthread?

Drink deep or taste not the Pierian spring, you fapping fellows.

The beer sounds good, on that link.

A pity, for me, I couldn't make it.

I have ended up destringing a guitar.

def coming, get fucked up talk abt books.

✓

Thanks to everyone for a wonderful evening.

Yep, was v enjoyable. The beer is good, pinefox. Still one of my favourite pubs in London.

Further to the FAP talk of a UK 20 under 40, just spotted this.

Slim pickings:

1 Chris Cleave (b 1973) His first novel, Incendiary, was about a terrorist attack on London and was published on July 7, 2005. The Other Hand (2008), a cross-national thriller set in England and Nigeria, became a word-of-mouth hit.

2 Rana Dasgupta (b 1971) Born in Canterbury, but now lives in Delhi. His first collection of stories was set in a Tokyo airport; his first novel, Solo (2009), was about a 99-year-old Bulgarian chemist.

3 Adam Foulds (b 1974) After writing his verse novel The Broken Word about the Mau Mau rebellion, he wrote his Man Booker-shortlisted study of John Clare, The Quickening Maze (2009).

4 Sarah Hall (b 1974) The author of four novels, the first two of which were set in the early 20th century in her native Cumbria. Her most acclaimed work is The Carhullan Army (2007), about a band of women rebels surviving in a Britain hit by environmental disaster.

5 Steven Hall (b 1975) His debut novel, The Raw Shark Texts (2007) – about a man who loses his memory and tries to create a new identity for himself – unusually lived up to his publisher’s hype.

6 Mohsin Hamid (b 1971) The Reluctant Fundamentalist – a literary thriller about a Pakistani man who may, or may not, be a terrorist – came within a whisker of winning the Man Booker in 2007.

7 Anjali Joseph (b 1978) Her debut novel, Saraswati Park, is published next month. Sharp yet lyrical, the novel, which is set in Bombay, shows the influence of Amit Chaudhuri.

8 Joanna Kavenna (b 1974) Wrote seven unpublished novels before her eighth, Inglorious, was published by Faber and won the Orange new writers prize. Described as “Dostoevsky meets Bridget Jones”.

9 Benjamin Markovits (b 1973) Part way through a trilogy of novels about Byron and his circle, this assured writer has also just published an autobiographical novel, Playing Days, about a professional basketball player in Germany.

10 China Miéville (b 1972) Inspired by horror writers such as HP Lovecraft and Michael Moorcock, his science fiction and fantasy books – including Un Lun Dun for young adults – have legions of fans.

11 Paul Murray (b 1975) His second book, Skippy Dies, a comic novel set in a private boys school in Ireland, was recently described in the Telegraph as “gigantic, marvellous, witty…heartbreaking”.

12 Patrick Neate (b 1970) Won the Whitbread (now Costa) novel prize in 2001 for Twelve Bar Blues, a picaresque novel about New Orleans jazz artists. His most recent work, Jerusalem, deals, like his first novel, Musungu Jim, with European encounters with Africa.

13 Ross Raisin (b 1979) This Yorkshire-born novelist’s first book, God’s Own Country (2008), followed the dark story of a teenage farmer’s son living on the Moors.

14 Dan Rhodes (b 1972) After his second book, Rhodes declared he wanted to give up writing. Luckily for us he carried on with Gold (2007), about a Welsh-Japanese woman living in a coastal cottage, and his most recent book, Little Hands Clapping.

15 Kamila Shamsie (b1973) The author of five novels, mainly set in the Pakistan of her birth. Her most successful work is her latest: Burnt Shadows (1999) follows two families from the Second World War in Japan to the aftermath of 9/11.

16 Zadie Smith (b 1975) Wrote the wildly successful White Teeth while still at Cambridge. Her writing has matured since then, most notably in On Beauty (2005).

17 David Szalay (b1974) Winner of a Betty Trask Prize, Szalay’s The Innocent is told from the perspective of a KGB agent in late Forties Russia.

18 Adam Thirlwell (b 1978) Clever All Souls fellow who published Politics at the age of 25 and since then the Milan Kundera-inspired The Escape (2009).

19 Scarlett Thomas (b1972) The End of Mr Y (2007) was a surprise bestseller about a student who discovers a long-lost Victorian novel.

20 Evie Wyld (1980) After the Fire, a Still Small Voice (2009) was a haunting first novel set on the Australian East coat.

The question is, for those who actually read books that have come out recently, is which author (and which book) shd I go for?

Rana Dasgupta sounds like the kind of thing I'd like. He mentions 'central European guys' and I'm usually all over that.

1 Chris Cleave (b 1973) His first novel, Incendiary, was about a terrorist attack on London and was published on July 7, 2005.

Don't read this. Eerily unprescient - bomb leads to chaos and riots etc, rather than people knocking off work early and going to the pub. Also, awful 2D characters.

I tried to think of something to say about that list, but it's been 3 days and nuthin. Uninspiring names, and I'm p ignorant. But HELL why should that stop me

SO, braindump: I don't mind Dan Rhodes, might read the new suicide-museum one, no probs with Foulds (but have only read poetry by him), vaguely intend to read Mieville one of these days and Sarah Hall's Carhullan Army at least sounded intriguing – 70s feminist SF redux maybe. Scarlett Thomas sounds like she has a taste for strange ideas? No, wait, "Her first three novels feature Lily Pascale, an English literature lecturer who solves murder mysteries," fuck it.

Markovitz maybe decent? Can't shake the illogical suspicion that his literary career is parallel to his sporting career: couldn't make it in the American leagues, came to play in Europe.

For the rest, mostly names talked up by people I don't trust, and fuck a Thirlwell; but hadn't heard of Dasgupta, that could be good.

(The fap was great fun by the way - thanks for suggesting it xyzzzz__)

So I got me a copy of The City & The City by China Miéville. Let's see how that flies. Will read the new Foulds at some point, was mildly impressed without being blown away by The Broken Word. Hated the tiny bit I read of his first novel.

I guess Paul Murray is interesting me there. A comic novel? Really? Guy's got balls. I bet you anything you like it's not funny, but still, I'm intrigued.

I bought the Paul Murray, but haven't read it yet--it was three books in a slipcase, like 2666, and the book design nerd in me won out over the usually disappointed reader of supposedly comic novels.

I think we should stage an ILB FAP in the first week of 2011.

If anyone is interested then let's discuss details.

You're a hard taskmaster, but reckon I'm game.

This affair shall be convenient only for those who occupy that there green and pleasant sceptred isle, right?

Possibly only for those in its decadent slum hell capital. Count me in! Anything but the 5th.

Liveblogging of this FAP on Guardian website for international audience. Page refreshes every time Gamaliel Ratsey picks up his pint.

Christ.

Any days are fine with me. For location, I do prefer it to be nr London Bridge (or surrounding areas).

we could still plan this

I can agree about London Bridge

Sounds good. How about this Thursday?

I think so!

Thursday, London Bridge is good.

The Royal Oak again?

fine by me.

Thurs and Royal Oak = all good.

def coming, get fucked up talk abt books.

― tetrahedron of space (woof), Thursday, 10 June 2010 15:43 (6 months ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Prob about 6.30 for me.

Probably won't be there much before 8 again :/

Not sure yet. It depends whether I go home first and change out of my wet cycling gear, you'll be thrilled to know. About half six if I come straight from work, half seven if I don't.

I was going to ask about this. OK will aim for 7 or after. Not sure I've been to the pub before, or then again maybe I have.

Can be a bit tricky to find if you're going for the first time, or not -

The Royal Oak, Borough

will be there twixt 6:30 and 7. ditched bike but trains a bit screwy. conductor has just said on PA 'I apologise everything's cocked up for you'. the fuck you say - I'm going to get drunk and talk about books maunder about stuff maybe slightly connected with books; couldn't be better.