Samantha Irby. We missed a reading by her, so I picked up some essays, pretty funny

If I had to say one it'd be The Child in Time, but more purely for the writing than the story, although the writing in On Chesil Beach isn't far behind it. His style is almost the polar opposite of Amis's so it'd be interesting to know what you think. Personally for all his limitation and recent shift in focus, I'd take McEwan over Amis, even at his most annoying.

has anyone here ever used bookfreeswap.com or booklender.com? and if so how was the experience?

No, but I'm on the edge of signing up for bookfreeswap. The other is netflix for books and totally unnecessary for me.


Read it in a day years ago, so I remember nothing. Think I'll re-read it soon.

I have Atonement, Saturday and maybe Solar laying around, but whatever reason, never cracked any of them open. Skip them?

I'm doing Proust's behemoth - currently early into Budding Grove. It's a slow read but I am genuinely enjoying this long slog. I think by the time I am done, perhaps in 2029 or so, I can claim to have read it all 3x, because the nature of most Proustian sentences causes me to immediately re-read in order to capture/absorb. On the first try I am usually off-course, somewhat. This might not sound like fun, but the rewards for sticking with this are immense. He really was a fucking literary genius...and...funny as hell!!

a netflix for books is just what i need. i don’t wanna accumulate stuff and i’m far from the library now.

been thinking of buying books and reselling them after, but that could be a major chore...

i also have a ton of books to get rid of. swapping them would not reduce numbers though.

been racking my brain all day on this subject. how to supply the most reading with the smallest burden. no storage/no clutter.

i miss the library of congress

Lots of people consider Atonement his masterpiece so I'd at least give it a try, although personally I'm not a fan. Saturday is decent. I haven't read Solar but hear mixed things about it.

Have you read The Cement Garden? I suppose that's still his most essential book, in terms of the one that put him on the map.

Guess we have to pause everything to talk about Roth.

I've found his stuff best appreciated cumulatively. I have a hard time finding one masterpiece to recommend to people when they ask. But there are 8 or 9 I've re-read with pleasure over the years, and while none is entirely satisfying in itself, his powers eventually become undeniable.

He was a vulgar moralist whose style blended the literary and colloquial. I think I most respect this great artistic balancing act.

Turns out I have a digital version of Cement. Never read. I'll give it a try.

(I seem to have a lot from an author I've read only one thing by.)

Great American Novel is hilarious.

And so, with all that, the inevitable question: if you were to recommend one Phillip Roth, what one would it be?

I can list about a dozen to avoid, but there really isn't one must-read by him.

Gun to my head, maybe Counterlife.

Best bet would be to read all three "American Trilogy" books: I Married a Communist, Human Stain, American Pastoral. Individually they disappoint near the end, but taken together they are quite an achievement.


Oh yeah. I forgot. He's funny too.

OK thanks. I've only read American Pastoral, which I liked, but didn't know if there was one that's generally considered his defining masterpiece.

Almost done with the original run of Gaiman’s Sandman, which I’ve never properly read before (only got through the first three volumes, I think).

Goddamn brilliant. I think someone in this forum urged me on in this, knowing that I was a fan of Gaiman’s books. That person said Sandman ranks alongside his other works in terms of literary maturity, and damned if that isn’t true as fuck.

Still have the final volume of the initial run and the tie-ins like “Overture,” but I’m pretty blown away.

Watchmen who?

sandman is myth building and myth re-shaping. awesome


watchmen is critical hyperanalysis. awesome

sandman is the greatest comic book ever

for metafictions skip watchmen and go straight to borges

Again, wouldn’t call it a masterpiece, but Great American Novel is very funny and extremely readable.

Cool, thanks. Have to admire a writer with the balls to choose that as a title.

The Lucifer Effect by Philip Zimbardo.

Zimbardo is the psychologist who did the famous Stanford Prison Experiment. This was released in 2007 a little bit after the Abu Gharib scandal came out and he talks about how things like that can happen. How can seemingly normal people end up quickly (and in the case of the SPE within hours) becoming someone totally different.

I'm not gonna lie. It's depressing. Really, really depressing. Added to the fact that the last three books I've read have been this and two Cormac McCarthy books. No wonder I'm feeling so bummed out at the moment. Next book I read I'm determined to make an upbeat one. Any recommendations from you guys?

^^

don quixote. you’ll laff yuor ass off

virktor frankl’s search for meaning. the opposite of the lucifer effect

a day in the life of ivan denisovich. best cure for depression ever

tolstoy’s ivan the fool

gargantua & pantagruel

voltaire’s “candide”

whitman’s leaves of grass

henderson the rain king by saul bellow

russell hoban’s the medusa frequency

the odissey

milan kundera’s book of ridiculous loves

baudelaire’s la fanfarlo and prose poems

vicente huidobro’s altazor

el lazarillo de tormes

quevedo’s vida del buscón

clouds (nefeli!!!) by aristophanes

more stuff coming when i remember

love in the time of cholera

the decameron

portnoys complaint

fear of flying

severo sarduy’s de donde son los cantantes & cobra

henry miller’s tropic of cancer

something nasty in the woodshed what was the name have not read the book but yuoll liikely laugh

any oscar wilde except for de profundis

le malade imaginaire whats the name of that en ingles

memorias postumas de bras cubas / dom casmurro / o alienista

—

eta:id be wary of taking a confederacy of dunces as a funy book necessarily. i found it undendingly depressing because unlike the mainstream blockheads i identified with the protagonist. oh yeah. it’s a sad book read that way. no wonder the writer offed himself.

Funny you should mention Don Quixote. I'll do that one next. Thanks man. Gotta get through the rest of the book first. He's about to embark on talking about the Abu Ghrabi thing. Woo...

Confederacy of dunces is one of those books I read but can barely remember. Do remember absolutely HATING the main character. However, that doesn't mean I didn't like the character/book. Just I didn't like him as a person.

MARK TWAIN

anything by him

Honestly, never read it, but this can't be too depressing:

The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined by Steven Pinker

he's an interesting guy and a good lecturer. I've seen him speak a couple of times.

I just read a review of his latest Elightenment Now in Nation mag. They got it fairly wrong. He says the world is getting better, the reviewer seemed to think that discounts the efforts put in to make it so, which is a pretty flawed reading, IMO

That's actually on my reading list. I'll get round to that soon I reckon.

Sandman is indeed a great read.

Loved it. He almost flirts with satire at the beginning, but I soon cared for both characters and it ends up being a very moving tragedy.

His prose style isn't anything to really excite me, but the book doesn't call for any pyrotechnics. Anyway, it was brilliantly put together and he clearly has a talent for the craft.

No idea why they made a movie of it when it can be read in an afternoon.

Now I want more McEwan.

On a roll, I wanted to read this. I was sure I had a copy. Couldn't find it. Goddamn holiday and the library wasn't open. Not sure why this book is calling out to me, but it is.

Finished the history of early US literature, onto a book of contemporary Chinese short stories

Glad you liked it. If you want recommendations for more McEwan: Cement Garden; Child in Time and The Innocent. But his two collections of short stories (First Love Last Rites and In Between the Sheets) are also excellent. He seemed to mellow after The Innocent but, of his later period, there's some really great writing in Saturday but I'd still say OCB is his masterpiece from that era. Atonement gets all the acclaim, maybe because it's arguably his first really great story, but personally I found it far too long-winded and the theme and characters just never really clicked with me. I think I'm in a minority though.

If you liked On Chesil Beach you might also like Kazuo Ishiguro's Remains of the Day. McEwan and Ishiguro graduated from the same writing programme and there are definite similarities in their style and overall approach. But I think McEwan's real strength is his set-pieces. He sort of reminds me of DeLillo in that sense.

Adding to Symbol's list,

Steinbeck - Cannery Row
Nabokov - Lolita
Elmore Leonard - Swag
Dickens - The Pickwick Papers
Kingsley Amis - Lucky Jim
Carl Hiaasen - Tourist Season
PG Wodehouse - The Code of the Woosters
Evelyn Waugh - Scoop
David Lodge - Small World
Spike Milligan - Puckoon

Lolita?! Jeez man. Your sense of humour is different to mine.

However, Puckoon, any Wooster book, and Cannery Row I can agree with. Ordered Don Quixote so that should be here by the time I finish The Lucifer Effect.

Lolita is really funny. Laugh-out-loud funny.

I'm suddenly feeling all weird about that now. It is funny though, right? ... right? ... anyone?

Well what ever floats your boat...:D

yes language wise but the overall universe is bleak as fuck

denisovich is immersed in a bleak hole but he manages to... win lolol

connect with frankl

I'd like to re-visit this because when I was younger I gave it a go and it bored me. I'm really hoping I've matured since then. I've heard nothing but praise for it.


Sick fuck. Blocked. And I'm calling the police.

If I remember correctly, there WAS one really funny thing in Lolita, it was the drama teacher speaking, and Nabokov's use of a mixture of bold and italic words to show the way some of those teachers tend to exaggerate and stress everything, even though it ain't needed at all...


I've launched myself into reading Thomas Mann's Magic Mountain.
I've tried once before and failed half way through.
3 years ago a new translation's been printed.
I'm tiptoeing into the novel now.


And unfortunately, the soccer world cup is about to start. Won't be able to do both...

hey! join the fantasy league. h8kurdt just started one. come on!

you have 4 years after that to read thomas mann.