I think "There Will Come Soft Rains" is great simply because it predicts "smart home" bullshit and places it in the context of world-destroying nuclear war. Really intelligent and interesting writing.
― healthy cocaine off perfect butts (the table is the table), Saturday, 29 August 2020 18:27 (three years ago) link
Lol, peace, man.
― Two Little Hit Parades (James Redd and the Blecchs), Saturday, 29 August 2020 19:10 (three years ago) link
(Looking at Amazon for a paperback copy of the Bradbury short story collections for possible Christmas present and it's out of print and going for 75 quid)
― koogs, Saturday, 29 August 2020 22:04 (three years ago) link
https://www.abebooks.co.uk/servlet/BookDetailsPL?bi=6252125231&cm_sp=SEARCHREC-_-WIDGET-L-_-BDP-R&searchurl=kn%3Dray%2Bbradbury%2Bstories%2B100%26n%3D100121501%26sortby%3D17
?
― peace, man, Saturday, 29 August 2020 22:35 (three years ago) link
Emily Gould.
https://www.bookforum.com/print/2701/emily-gould-s-novel-of-music-and-motherhood-in-early-2000s-new-york-city-23943
― xyzzzz__, Wednesday, 2 September 2020 09:51 (three years ago) link
In a 1994 interview, Bradbury stated that Fahrenheit 451 was more relevant during this time than in any other, stating that, "it works even better because we have political correctness now. Political correctness is the real enemy these days. The black groups want to control our thinking and you can't say certain things. The homosexual groups don’t want you to criticize them. It's thought control and freedom of speech control."
― Tsar Bombadil (James Morrison), Wednesday, 2 September 2020 09:58 (three years ago) link
No surprise given his folksy 1950sness, but still.
― Tsar Bombadil (James Morrison), Wednesday, 2 September 2020 10:02 (three years ago) link
Tom Sharpe was a guilty pleasure for me as a Raymond Carver reading teenager in the 80s, and I've always thought Pratchett's books would have simlar vibe, but with added fantasy, so doubly off-putting.
― fetter, Wednesday, 2 September 2020 10:36 (three years ago) link
xp: Well, that's depressing!
― peace, man, Wednesday, 2 September 2020 10:47 (three years ago) link
Pratchett's not a leering douchebag, though.
― Tsar Bombadil (James Morrison), Wednesday, 2 September 2020 11:50 (three years ago) link
tom sharpe has always belonged in this thread
― mark s, Wednesday, 2 September 2020 12:01 (three years ago) link
as does bruce dickinson
https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/A1eW2U9v8GL.jpg
― mark s, Wednesday, 2 September 2020 12:02 (three years ago) link
Emily Gould
Yes, x1000.
― pomenitul, Wednesday, 2 September 2020 12:42 (three years ago) link
Margaret Atwood:
https://amp.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2020/sep/12/margaret-atwood-if-youre-going-to-speak-truth-to-power-make-sure-its-the-truth
― xyzzzz__, Saturday, 12 September 2020 11:09 (three years ago) link
Atwood is good not bad, I appreciated her speaking up against TERFS. I really wasn’t that into The Testaments, though, which was terrible as the original Handmaid’s Tale is a masterpiece.
― scampo italiano (gyac), Saturday, 12 September 2020 11:14 (three years ago) link
Yeah that was good, though the stuff on bots is terrible, and I'm allergic to most dystopias these days.
― xyzzzz__, Saturday, 12 September 2020 11:24 (three years ago) link
that = speaking up for trans rights
― xyzzzz__, Saturday, 12 September 2020 11:26 (three years ago) link
Hemingway and Miranda July both firmly on my must not read list
― hoos springsteen (qiqing), Saturday, 12 September 2020 20:30 (three years ago) link
Stay away from Atwood's frankenfood lectures called the maddaddam trilogy, as well as her comics. Otherwise she's written some good stuff.
tao lin, knausgard, osha, hitler
― wasdnous (abanana), Sunday, 13 September 2020 01:44 (three years ago) link
yeah, nothing about tao lin or knausgaard sounds appealing or interesting to me at all
― (The Other) J.D. (J.D.), Sunday, 13 September 2020 03:19 (three years ago) link
xp I read and liked Oryx and Crake earlier this year - it was pleasingly weird and disturbing and I then bought The Year off the Flood but haven’t read it yet.
― scampo italiano (gyac), Sunday, 13 September 2020 10:16 (three years ago) link
I would just humbly submit that people not become confused between Tao Lin and Tan Lin. The latter is one of best writers in the US afaic
― healthy cocaine off perfect butts (the table is the table), Sunday, 13 September 2020 11:41 (three years ago) link
Fuck
So JK Rowling’s latest Cormoran Strike book (which is 900 pages long! WTF!) is apparently about a trans serial killer. I think we all knew this was coming, though I personally thought that lead times would put this plotline off until book 6.— Abigail Nussbaum (@NussbaumAbigail) September 14, 2020
― xyzzzz__, Monday, 14 September 2020 19:13 (three years ago) link
ffs
― pomenitul, Monday, 14 September 2020 19:14 (three years ago) link
The thread (just reading it now) is an interesting discussion of Silence of the Lambs!
― xyzzzz__, Monday, 14 September 2020 19:20 (three years ago) link
it's good and i think gets the flaws in SofL right, except maybe for the authority issue? which is maybe somewhat um *complicated* by the fact that harris's deepest well of authority eats ppl he dislikes
*(a book i also have a lot of time for)
― mark s, Monday, 14 September 2020 19:52 (three years ago) link
Even if this was translated I think it will be difficult to find the time with multiple novel cycles :-(
Damion Searls told me about a book he wants to translate: "The Office" by J.J. Voskuil (7 vols, 5500 pages — triple Anniversaries, twice Proust, half-again Knausgaard), about 30 years of a man's life working at a Bureau for Dialectology, Folklore and Onomastics.— Dustin Illingworth (@ddillingworth) September 13, 2020
― xyzzzz__, Tuesday, 15 September 2020 09:08 (three years ago) link
I may read Silence of the Lambs, however (only saw the film once but it possibly obscures a ton from that book?)
― xyzzzz__, Tuesday, 15 September 2020 09:10 (three years ago) link
Film is pretty faithful to book iirc but book does a lot of getting inside the killer’s head and the film obviously doesn’t do much of a job of that. Book definitely more sympathetic but then the film was always controversial so not hard.
― scampo italiano (gyac), Tuesday, 15 September 2020 09:24 (three years ago) link
Demme, being an ex-Corman alumni, dials up the 'horror' aspects of SOTL a bit in terms of performance and (especially) the sets - whereas Lecter's cell in the Michael Mann version of Manhunter is all antiseptic white, in SOTL it's a shitty brown dungeon.
― Ward Fowler, Tuesday, 15 September 2020 09:40 (three years ago) link
Demme's sensibility is a lot closer to Harris's than Mann's though
― Number None, Tuesday, 15 September 2020 09:54 (three years ago) link
mann's launched will graham into the csi-o-sphere
also lecter is called lecktor for some reason
― mark s, Tuesday, 15 September 2020 09:58 (three years ago) link
ONLY good thing about Manhunter is the good Brian Cox
― how do i shot moon? (Noodle Vague), Tuesday, 15 September 2020 10:03 (three years ago) link
The bit where In-a-Gadda-da-Vida is playing is so bad my toes have still not uncurled since 198whenever
― how do i shot moon? (Noodle Vague), Tuesday, 15 September 2020 10:04 (three years ago) link
https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v03/n22/martin-amis/football-mad
(it's from 1981, just email boosted in their "diverted traffic" series of unlocked pieces from the past)
― mark s, Tuesday, 15 September 2020 11:33 (three years ago) link
lies
in any movie or tv show featuring william peterson there is also the good thing of keeping an eye out for his incredibly bandy legs
― you are like a scampicane, there's calm in your fries (bizarro gazzara), Tuesday, 15 September 2020 13:05 (three years ago) link
both red dragon (the book) and manhunter (the movie) are good
― mellon collie and the infinite bradness (BradNelson), Tuesday, 15 September 2020 14:14 (three years ago) link
Voskuil's magnum opus deserves to be translated into English. It's a lot but a lot of it is great.
― Monte Scampino (Le Bateau Ivre), Tuesday, 15 September 2020 14:51 (three years ago) link
LBI delivering as usual
― imago, Tuesday, 15 September 2020 14:53 (three years ago) link
lol <3
― Monte Scampino (Le Bateau Ivre), Tuesday, 15 September 2020 15:00 (three years ago) link
Amazed it hasn't been translated tbf. Dibs on an abridged Bildts version!
― Monte Scampino (Le Bateau Ivre), Tuesday, 15 September 2020 15:02 (three years ago) link
I'd like to know more! What's the experience of reading it?
― imago, Tuesday, 15 September 2020 15:08 (three years ago) link
― Monte Scampino (Le Bateau Ivre), Tuesday, 15 September 2020 bookmarkflaglink
It's longer than Proust, but yeah a volume would be good. Looking at this overview and his debut sounds good.
http://www.letterenfonds.nl/en/author/194/jj-voskuil
― xyzzzz__, Tuesday, 15 September 2020 15:40 (three years ago) link
Amazed it hasn't been translated tbf. Dibs on an abridged Bildts version!― Monte Scampino (Le Bateau Ivre), Tuesday, 15 September 2020 bookmarkflaglinkIt's longer than Proust, but yeah a volume would be good. Looking at this overview and his debut sounds good.http://www.letterenfonds.nl/en/author/194/jj-voskuil🕸
― No mean feat. DaBaby (breastcrawl), Tuesday, 15 September 2020 15:57 (three years ago) link
apologies for that, office life is getting to me it seems.
― No mean feat. DaBaby (breastcrawl), Tuesday, 15 September 2020 16:05 (three years ago) link
🚨Giveaway alert🚨 We have two proofs of Jon Fosse's I IS ANOTHER (tr. Damion Searls) to give away. Reply to this tweet with your favourite notable doppelgangers or twins and be entered to win a proof. Giveaway ends tonight at 6 PM BST. pic.twitter.com/kGvtndJRDa— Fitzcarraldo Editions (@FitzcarraldoEds) September 15, 2020
This series of books by Jon Fosse. Nothing I've read about it strikes me as something I'd like. Sounds like a post-Knausgaard cash-in tbh.
― xyzzzz__, Friday, 18 September 2020 09:51 (three years ago) link
Someone told me everything I have said about mental health is meaningless because it doesn’t continually address the class struggle. And I am thinking back to when I nearly fell to my death and genuinely believe a treatise on structural inequality would have been a bit too heavy.— Matt Haig (@matthaig1) September 20, 2020
― xyzzzz__, Sunday, 20 September 2020 14:58 (three years ago) link
wanker
― how do i shot moon? (Noodle Vague), Sunday, 20 September 2020 15:36 (three years ago) link
andrea long chu
― mellon collie and the infinite bradness (BradNelson), Sunday, 27 September 2020 21:42 (three years ago) link
Lockwood as novelist is probably going to be ok, but not as good as her tweets, which is where the magic happens
― xyzzzz__, Sunday, 14 February 2021 23:16 (three years ago) link