i'm doin' arthur c clarke short stories from the 40s and 50s. he is way better in long form. i'm beginning to think i don't like short stories in general. i liked 9 billion names of god and vonnegut's the barnhouse effect, other than that, i can't think of a single short story i've found significantly compelling.

i'm on michael chricton's "next". i appreciate his technical accuracy and use of historical fact, but it is painfully misogynistic. i don't remember his other books being like this, but almost every single female character gets a lurid, sexualized description, and uses her sexuality. not a single male character does. it's pissing me off.

if you want a really good short story read poe and hemingway and carver. in translation, maupassant, chekhov, borges and cortázar.

as for science fiction, william gibson’s “burning chrome” collection is where he worked out his universe before he poured it into novels. they’re a lot of fun.

and once i came upon a spanish translation book of stories in by jack vance and they blew my mind. have not read them in the original.

I love poe's short stories too, Isaac Asimov is also recommended. For instance: Insert Knob A In Hole B and also Bicentennial Man which is more like a short novel.

I hardly read at all, and whenever I do start reading a book, chances are very high that I will stop reading it at some point. Therefore I love reading short stories, because I'm pretty sure I'll make it until the end.

wowie. if you're looking for short stories, go here:
The Pulp Magazine Archive

(but it will be a pain in the butt to filter the good ones from the rest)

Just finished the autobiography of Cosey Fanni Tutti. Brilliant, brilliant, brilliant book. The stuff COUM and Throbbing Gristle were doing in the 70's you actually couldn't do now. Both because it's been done and therefore would be seen as too try hard, and the boundaries of feminism and sex/porn/stripping have actually gone further away than then.

Personally, this is the book Kim Gordon's should have been, but instead Kim's got bogged down in the Thurston drama.

EDIT:I know there are a couple of people who are into music books. Get it.

my brother hated reading when we were kids but one day he found clockwork orange in my room, borrowed it, and locked himself with it. it’s the only time i saw him read a book cover to cover and it took him only a few hours.

i guess what im trying to say is give clockwork orange a shot? ha ha ha. it’s a lot of fun.

RIP Philip Kerr...died a few days ago from bladder cancer at age 62.

I've enjoyed all his Bernie Gunther novels as crazy as they get...

I wrote an email to Rudy Rucker (cyberpunk author) wishing him a happy 76th birthday and telling him how much I love his books, and since I write a book review blog, if he could provide me with some reading suggestions.

he looked at it and wrote me back! shit yeah,

"Looked at your blog, nice and very thorough. Good work. Feeble review of the Lifebox tome, though. It's not hard to read! Is it? :)"

he also gave me some reading suggestions. Love how he ripped me for the weaksauce review of his Lifebox book. I laughed.

oh hell. his software + wetware novels are GREAT. have not ready the last 2 of that group but this reminds me i wanna.

great reply, that.

Yes! I just read it too. It's so much more than a Bio, almost a social history. Brilliant!

*hi-five* can't tell what made me more gutted. That I was at the atp festival they had to pull out of after Sleazy died, or that I missed the last Carter, Tutti, Void gig last year.

just finished "The Hellbound Heart" by Clive Barker.

Pretty similar to the filmed version, "Hellraiser".

Finished up Jason Zinoman's Letterman: The Last Giant of Late Night http://rxttbooks.blogspot.com/2018/0...d-last-of.html

and the best art is that Jason Zinoman retweeted my post about the review! shit yeah. "An online review from a former founder of a Church of Letterman. Love the kicker."

Just finished The Hidden Life of Trees. Fucking awesome. http://rxttbooks.blogspot.com/2018/0...s-complex.html

Finished Freeman Dyson's Disturbing the Universe. Cool stuff.

https://rxttbooks.blogspot.com/2018/...-life-and.html

Forgot to post that I finally finished my JRR Tolkien run. I moved next to "Tietem Brown" by Mick Foley, for my first re-read of this in many years.

Finish this yet?

ok so what's the deal with INFINITE JEST? should I read it? I will leave home for a month and thought "hey, it has many pages, maybe i will take that one with me so I won't have to take a bunch of books" but them I am scared I am too dumb for it and / or will get angry and frustrated and buy 38874 more books while away... err?

I tried it. dipped my mind in. Got about 20 pages in and realized I did not give a flying fuck about anything I had been reading so I put it down. Infinite over-rating? My fiction needs to be fun or else I dont give a fuck. i get my depressions out of non-fiction books.,