I am only a few pages into this, but liking it so far. Quoting from Amazon:
‘If the 1960s were a wild weekend and the 1980s a hectic day at the office, the 1970s were a long Sunday evening in winter, with cold leftovers for supper and a power cut expected at any moment.’
A jaw-droppingly brilliant account of how the seventies was defined by mass paranoia told with Francis Wheen’s wonderfully acute sense of the absurd.
It is written from a British perspective but does have many references to the USA too.
Struggling with the image using both approaches. Probably something to do with using IE11 as my browser? Also finding I can only do a couple of edits, ie attempts, and then I can't do anymore. Anyway the book is Strange Days Indeed: The Golden Age of Paranoia by Frances Wheen
Thanks for the confirmation GP. I suspect now it also has something to do with the way that that particular cover is on Amazon, as it had a long string with jpeg in the middle. I seem now to have sorted out album covers
I just finished this. Would not be one I would normally choose, and sounds sensationalized on the cover, but I would highly recommend it. Told in a very down to earth way and a very moving story about the gradual recovery of a guy who for years was paralyzed and unable to communicate but fully conscious while nobody around him thought he was aware. Some dark stuff in here but in the end a deeply hopeful and thought provoking story.
Amazon images sometimes don't work in Chrome either, though if you google the image and copy it from the google results page it works, even if the link is to an Amazon image.
I'm curious about the Ishiguro. The review in the Sunday Times completely failed to use the word "fantasy" but it sure as heck sounds like a fantasy novel to me.
I needed something like to break up some of the heavy (Tin Drum), disturbing (The Sandman), and depressing (Buyout of America) books I'm currently reading.
I like the non-required reading series a lot; I'm finally reading this one closer to when it was current; usually I'm a couple years behind. But I read on my phone before going to sleep at night, and that's not always good bedtime reading, so I've been switching back and forth with the Philip K. Dick book; which, as always with him, I love. (Did anybody watch Amazon Prime's pilot for The Man in the High Castle? I hope they pick it up as a series).
And then, an honest to god paper book, which goes slow because I don't always have it with me:
@amclark I did the Man in The High Castle pilot. It seemed good. As with any book to movie/tv adaptation, I'm curious to see what they will keep and what they will shed or at least change.
A plug for my good friend Nigel Quinlan's children's fantasy "The Maloneys' Magical Weatherbox", which has just been published.
Neil and Liz Maloney's dad is a Weatherman - but not the boring kind that you see on TV. He's the person who makes sure the seasons change every year. This year, though, the Autumn hasn't arrived and the weather is spiralling out of control. Witchcraft is at work, but what do a magical tourist, a bog beast and two hags have to do with the mystery? And can Neil and Liz stop the chaos before it's literally the end of the world?
I've known Nigel for about 25 years, so on a purely personal level I'm delighted to see the book. But as an added bonus, it's a flippin' wonderful piece of work.
My first degree was in German and Russian literature, and I remember greatly enjoying discovering Leskov. He's less famous internationally than Tolstoy and Dostoevsky from the same period but highly regarded. Just started dipping back in in English (at this stage reading him in Russian would be very slow and involve much dictionary use, unfortunately). I recommend giving him a try if he is not a name you know. He is a great storyteller.
Good timing Doofy. I was planning to resurrect this thread today.
I'm a bit torn on this book. It's written as a series of memories (basically 1-4 pages) and the timeline is very difficult to track, so it's kind of an odd read, but those memories...wow.
She decides to learn to play guitar. Meets Sid Vicious and they start a band. Sid kicks her out of the band. She joins The Slits and he joins the Sex Pistols. The Slits tour in support of The Clash.
That all happened within 5 months. Oh, and during that time period she kept breaking up with and getting back together with Mick Jones (including aborting a child with him), Johnny Thunders injected her with heroin for what appears to be the only time she took it, she hung out with Johnny Rotten, Chrissie Hynde, Malcolm Mclaren, and countless other punk luminaries, and other craziness.
Highly recommend this for anyone who loves the album. Cooper does a fantastic job of tracing the craziness of the Elephant 6 Collective and how it culminated in one of the great albums of this generation. I tried to read the one about Fear of Music, but it was truly awful.
Been trying to finally tackle Joyce, Ulysses, but feel a quarter of the way through am wondering how committed I am. The prose is amazing in snatches, but the whole takes some effort.
Really enjoying:
Book Was There: Reading in Electronic Timesby Andrew Piper. Unusual book. It's about the print/digital shift, is very arts/humanities based, more allusive than analytical, gives each medium its due. It focuses its discussion around the physical experience of reading - what does it do to our sense of self when a millenium of the book fosters the sense that the patterned meaning of the world can be held in our hands, with handbooks and manuals that help us grasp things and clasps that hold books closed; what do 19th century theories that you can analyze a person's character from their silhouettes have to do with online profiles? And so on. A romp through lots of cultural paraphernalia with lots of suggestive connections, and for the most part nice prose.
Just finished a book called Sisters in War by Christina Asquith. It follows the stories of several women, Iraqi and American, involved in/affected by the war in Iraq, with the focus in Baghdad. The prose I would describe as adequate - it's solid journalistic prose, occasionally a bit too prone to awkward narrative devices ('As [Iraqi woman] looked out of her window she reflected that [narrate a bunch of things Iraqis would know but that American readers need to have explained]'. That said, I found it a valuable read. I learned a fair bit and thought narrating the war in terms of its complex effects on women a worthwhile angle. Worth a look.
Seeing my post above, reminded me that I finished this about two weeks ago
Whilst I enjoyed reading it, it isn't as good as Mocking Bird. I think that as I'd not long finished Mocking Bird it helped. My wife had read that years ago and she didn't rate Watchman at all.
Comments
I am only a few pages into this, but liking it so far. Quoting from Amazon:
It is written from a British perspective but does have many references to the USA too.
Thanks for the confirmation GP. I suspect now it also has something to do with the way that that particular cover is on Amazon, as it had a long string with jpeg in the middle. I seem now to have sorted out album covers
Another attempt
I needed something like to break up some of the heavy (Tin Drum), disturbing (The Sandman), and depressing (Buyout of America) books I'm currently reading.
On my phone:
and
I like the non-required reading series a lot; I'm finally reading this one closer to when it was current; usually I'm a couple years behind. But I read on my phone before going to sleep at night, and that's not always good bedtime reading, so I've been switching back and forth with the Philip K. Dick book; which, as always with him, I love. (Did anybody watch Amazon Prime's pilot for The Man in the High Castle? I hope they pick it up as a series).
And then, an honest to god paper book, which goes slow because I don't always have it with me:
Not very far in yet but very much enjoying it.
A plug for my good friend Nigel Quinlan's children's fantasy "The Maloneys' Magical Weatherbox", which has just been published.
Neil and Liz Maloney's dad is a Weatherman - but not the boring kind that you see on TV. He's the person who makes sure the seasons change every year.
This year, though, the Autumn hasn't arrived and the weather is spiralling out of control. Witchcraft is at work, but what do a magical tourist, a bog beast and two hags have to do with the mystery? And can Neil and Liz stop the chaos before it's literally the end of the world?
I've known Nigel for about 25 years, so on a purely personal level I'm delighted to see the book. But as an added bonus, it's a flippin' wonderful piece of work.
I'm a bit torn on this book. It's written as a series of memories (basically 1-4 pages) and the timeline is very difficult to track, so it's kind of an odd read, but those memories...wow.
She decides to learn to play guitar.
Meets Sid Vicious and they start a band.
Sid kicks her out of the band.
She joins The Slits and he joins the Sex Pistols.
The Slits tour in support of The Clash.
That all happened within 5 months. Oh, and during that time period she kept breaking up with and getting back together with Mick Jones (including aborting a child with him), Johnny Thunders injected her with heroin for what appears to be the only time she took it, she hung out with Johnny Rotten, Chrissie Hynde, Malcolm Mclaren, and countless other punk luminaries, and other craziness.
What a life.
Craig
Highly recommend this for anyone who loves the album. Cooper does a fantastic job of tracing the craziness of the Elephant 6 Collective and how it culminated in one of the great albums of this generation. I tried to read the one about Fear of Music, but it was truly awful.
Currently reading John Darnielle's novel:
Somehow I have never read this before. We saw a stage version a few weeks ago so I thought it time I read the novel.
Craig
It's a very well written history and treats Pol as fairly as he can probably be treated.
Now reading:
I've somehow never actually read any of Bangs' work. Enjoying this one so far and learning that we have a lot in common when it comes to taste.
Craig
Seeing my post above, reminded me that I finished this about two weeks ago
Whilst I enjoyed reading it, it isn't as good as Mocking Bird. I think that as I'd not long finished Mocking Bird it helped. My wife had read that years ago and she didn't rate Watchman at all.