What was the last book you read?

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Nevadanteater
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What was the last book you read?

Post by Nevadanteater » Wed Sep 07, 2005 1:04 pm

Was it good?
Was it terrible?

Recommend it to everyone, or just the folks you hate?

----------------

me: A Staggering Work of Heartbreaking Genius (or something)

yeah, pretty good. i'm not 100% convinced on the name, but certainly recommendable. really captures the feel of the bay area (northern california) and makes me happy because the style is what i think i might write like - if i had any talent. very reminicent of the film adaptation - especially towards the end - knowledge of the writing as the writing continues adds an interesting viewpoint and gives the book a big boost.

go on - read it...
God is great.
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Jane
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Post by Jane » Wed Sep 07, 2005 2:58 pm

dostoyevsky - the idiot. i just finished rereading crime & punishment and then found this in the british heart foundation charity shop. they're both morbid, fantastical and genius. everyone should spend at least one sunny autumn day in a gigantic bed with pillows, wine, and the russians.
"We all tend to idealise kindness and tolerance, then wonder why we find ourselves infested with losers and nutcases." Sebastian Horsley

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beev
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Post by beev » Wed Sep 07, 2005 3:44 pm

Yes, Heartbreaking Genius was good. Loved the deliberatly self-conscious style of it.

The last book I actually finished was The Prometheus Deception by Robert Ludlum - enjoyable and surprisingly intelligent global spy yarn.

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Post by ravanwin » Wed Sep 07, 2005 8:15 pm

catch 22. joseph heller.
long live yossarian.
great book.

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Post by Nevadanteater » Thu Sep 08, 2005 3:31 am

^^^^^^^

yossarian lives!

a new tshirt for me to make
God is great.
Grass is gentler.

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Post by Chisholm » Sat Sep 10, 2005 2:19 pm

Ulysses, by James Joyce...

a work of elementary english...

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Rob
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philosophy and fable

Post by Rob » Tue Sep 13, 2005 10:44 am

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance - Robert Pirsig. I can never get enough of that book, but am still not sure if i agree (or fully comprehend!) with his ideas. And 'Shame' by Salman Rushdie which is an account of the History of Pakistan told in 'fiction' by the story of inter-family fueds - it is brilliant.

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Post by beev » Tue Sep 13, 2005 6:06 pm

Zen and the Art of MM is class. So is the sequel, "Lila: An Enquiry into Morals"

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Post by Rob » Wed Sep 14, 2005 10:21 am

I haven't read Lila. I haven't got any morals yet either.

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Jane
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catch22

Post by Jane » Wed Sep 14, 2005 10:32 am

i had the most vivid dream last night that i was reading a book by joseph heller. it wasn't catch 22 but it was AWESOME>>>really funny and done in the same kind of chapter style of characters. i wish i could remember the words. i'd write it down and become a bestseller.

does anyone have lila:an enquiry? i really want to read it.
"We all tend to idealise kindness and tolerance, then wonder why we find ourselves infested with losers and nutcases." Sebastian Horsley

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beev
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Re: catch22

Post by beev » Thu Sep 15, 2005 12:25 pm

Jane wrote:does anyone have lila:an enquiry? i really want to read it.
I lent mine to someone and never got it back. I saw him recently though. Tend to bump into him once every couple of years, so if you don't mind waiting a bit...

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Post by Magda » Mon Sep 19, 2005 7:43 pm

Kinski Uncut: The Autobiography of Klaus Kinski.

It's brilliant, insane, pornographic and very very entertaining. And probably completely made up. If you don't know who Klaus Kinski was, watch some Werner Herzog films.

Another excellent autobiography: "My Life, My Tapes: The Autobiography of FBI Special Agent Dale Cooper"

Magda

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Post by ravanwin » Tue Sep 20, 2005 10:50 am

Sweet Thursday by Stienbeck. It's the book after canary rd. which the young beev was good enough to give to me. A good book that fits in your back pocket.

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Post by robin » Tue Sep 20, 2005 1:06 pm

kinskis was a german cult actor.

harry potter at the moment. at instigation of potter crazy flatmates.

recently robert ludlum the bourne trilogy excellent thrillers, totally absorbing.

gave up on intellectual shit long ago.

r

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Post by Nevadanteater » Wed Sep 21, 2005 7:15 pm

it is all about non-intellectual ish...

currently reading a rotation of ender's game (orson scott card) and girlfriend in a coma (douglas copeland) - great sci-fi young adult book and morressey filled light fiction
God is great.
Grass is gentler.

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Post by Jimmy Bastard » Mon Sep 26, 2005 3:58 pm

The People's Music - Ian MacDonald

Chiefly known for his exalted labour of love-in back catalogue analysis of The Beatles (Revolution in the Head) gathered here are the author's extra-curricular jaunts in the music journalism canon.
The writing is of a type I would instinctually avoid, all the articles included here are explicit adult undertakings approaching academic.
There is an absence of either emotional involvement or crusading flair, we witness no fantastical flights of fancy coupled with the psychotic syntax of say, someone such as Lester Bangs. Instead MacDonald seeks to exercise expansiveness by setting the controls to the heart of the impenetrable, gaining access and exposing his subjects by uncovering evidence beyond the boxed sets.
So in effect what this amounts to are the seminal sleevenotes for the Johnny Completeist.
The book's chosen specialised subject is the sixties and the writing sometimes suffers when he chooses to stray but what amazes me is considering the amount of swivel we've all had to swallow about the said decade, it's a mark of the man's professionalism that he's never twatty.
All the set-texts are addressed (Beatles, Stones, Hendrix etc.) and some that slipped the syllabus (Laura Nyro) and each in turn receive and in-depth, trim and rigorous work over, the results always enriching and illuminatating.
However there are two stand-out tracts that bookend the anthology that warrant this relatively lengthy recommendation.
The first is an extended piece on Nick Drake whereby the author seeks to penetrate the thick fog of elusiveness by pursuing his subject psychologically. Taking a perverse pleasure in painstakingly breaking the code of Drake's personal system of correspondences betrayed through his lyrics.
Scholarly as ever, for once the author drops his objective guard and allows for more than a little of his own spiritual sermoning to sneak through. This doesn't detract however from a lucid appraisal.
Better yet, always timely and maybe more so as supplement to tonight's Scorsese documentary is his extended piece on Bob Dylan.
Type Bob Dylan in the Amazon book section and a list of 12,682 titles will be offered to you, with the evidence piled to the sky, MacDonald enters the fray with the eye of the forensic and the result is both studious and masterful.
Across the article he seeks to bring Dylan back down to Earth, to petition the man not the deity, nailing the enigma with three firm theories.
It's testament to the Dylan's divinity and not the author's mortality that after this execution, the stone rolls over, the artist arises again and walks away to the awaiting ascension.
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Post by Nevadanteater » Mon Sep 26, 2005 5:07 pm

Jane wrote:dostoyevsky - the idiot. i just finished rereading crime & punishment and then found this in the british heart foundation charity shop. they're both morbid, fantastical and genius. everyone should spend at least one sunny autumn day in a gigantic bed with pillows, wine, and the russians.
you don't need to spend a day in bed, just in the forest toilet!
God is great.
Grass is gentler.

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Jane
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Post by Jane » Mon Sep 26, 2005 5:53 pm

well, that was the inspiration

as of today:
an enquiry concerning human understanding: mr john locke
stephen houlgate on hegel's phenomenology of the spirit
david west's introduction to continental philosophy
james gleick: chaos.

busybusybusy....
"We all tend to idealise kindness and tolerance, then wonder why we find ourselves infested with losers and nutcases." Sebastian Horsley

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Post by ravanwin » Tue Sep 27, 2005 5:06 pm

don't read the sequeal to heller's catch 22. it ruins everything. die yossarian, die!
r

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Post by Jimmy Bastard » Mon Oct 03, 2005 6:14 pm

The Smarting of Selina - Yolanda Celbridge

(read on the return journey of a North Wales roadtrip)

Truck-stop erotica ordinarily bought by guys whose guts hang lower than their dicks, a niche market no more, one buy one score, we hit spank-lit paydirt.
Two hundred miles later my life (and others) had been irrevocably altered for better and for worse.
Sample paraphrased quote:
'Do you ever find that life is so gorgeous that you have to masturbate?'




* Soon to be made in a major motion picture starring Tom Cruise.
* Also serailised and read by Alex for Radio Motherfucker (MF-FM)
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beev
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Post by beev » Sat Oct 15, 2005 6:49 pm

J.M.Coetzee by Elizabeth Costello (or should that be the other way round?)

-Coetzee's novel about a novelist. Gets very good towards the end. Very philosophical generally.

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Post by ravanwin » Sun Oct 23, 2005 8:19 pm

Okay: I finished
CRIME AND PUNISHMENT! Awesome book. (but did anyone else think the ending sucked. because it did, right?)

then i read an issue of UNCUT Magazine. It was okay.

Next I'm going to finish Jon Stewart's Book: "Naked Pictures of Famous People" and Then and THEN:

WAR AND PEACE by Tolstoy.

Would anyone like to join me book club style in the reading of this long long tome? It will commence soon...
r

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The Manual

Post by thehemulen » Wed Oct 26, 2005 5:31 pm

The Manual by the KLF

its the only book i read and i am constantly rereading it. have read it five times this year already. (hasnt worked yet). almost know the whole thing of by heart.

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beev
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Post by beev » Tue Dec 06, 2005 8:49 pm

'The Algebraist' by Iain M Banks:
"The Dwellers held that the ability to suffer was what ultimately marked out sentient life from any other sort. They didn't mean just the ability to feel physical pain, they meant real suffering, they meant the sort of suffering that was all the worse because the creature undergoing the experience could appreciate it fully, could think back to when it had not suffered so, look forward to when it might stop (or despair of it ever stopping - despair was a large component of this) and know that if things had been different it might not be suffering now. Brains required, see? Imagination. Any brainless thing with a rudimentary nervous system could feel pain. Suffering took intelligence."

Also 'High Society' by Ben Elton: the best book about drugs I've ever read.

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Books me like to read

Post by Gandhi » Wed Dec 07, 2005 12:03 am

NO LOGO- Absolutely amazing book. Intellectual, inspiring and very frightening. Mind you Im preaching to the wrong crowd, as Im sure this book is pretty much a Forest dewllers Bible.

Oh and The Beach by Alex Garland- found it in the free shop, so thanx to whoever left it. I saw the film a few years ago and really enjoyed it. Read the book in like 3 days because its unputdownable. Just very funny, thrilling blah blah blah. Basically foooooking good, especially when you know that it was Garlands debut. Anyways after work today (I work in Christmas market in the little Kenyan Soapstone Freetrade shed at the end closest to the big wheel.....Just telling you so people can come say hi. Im working from 10-13.30 tomorow) I bought the DVD and watched it and it really is a fine example of how a book is so much better than the film. Still enjoyable but nowhere near as personal and complex. I am happy that it was only 6 quid. Anyways Im off to laugh at the foooooking genius of Chris Morris' NATHAN BARLEY. hilarious.
xxx

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Post by ravanwin » Tue May 22, 2007 4:58 pm

So.... in my quest to read only poetry and non-fiction for a year here are some top tips:

Vicky Feaver's Book of Blood: very good, think, fully understandable poems. There is a very good and sexy one about shooting a gun. hot, even for a vegitarian.

Bill McKibben: "The End Of Nature" a book written in 1988 about how... well, we have reached the end of nature. All environmentalists and out-door lovers should read this. It makes the case that we have effectively alterned nature to the point where it is no longer, in fact, natural. It is poetic and filled with facts that will alarm, depress, and make you turn off your lights more.

Michael Burkard: "Unsleeping": an amazing book of poems which I just read for the fourth time. It gets into your brain and changes the way you look and think about ordinary things. It is neither straightforward nor difficult. There is a 5 page poem about Kafka which is very good.

there is more.
r

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beev
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Post by beev » Tue May 22, 2007 11:33 pm

Did Bill McKibben consider the possibility that everything is natural?

I'm just coming to the end of an encyclopedic (and excellent) book about water called Water Wars: Is The World's Water Running Out? by Marq de Villiers.

The answer: no. But you should still turn off your taps when you're not using them. And giant condoms will transport the water of the future.

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Post by Gandhi » Wed May 23, 2007 10:58 am

"Blink- The Power of Thinking Without Thinking" by Malcolm Gladwell, a fantastic book about the human mind and the importance and relevance of first impressions and the subconscious...recommended.

"The Rum Diary" by Hunter S Thompson, read this years ago but am reading it again and absolutely loving it. Funny, witty, angry and sharp..everything you come to expect from the King of Gonzo.

and about to start reading "The Jokes Over" by Ralph Steadman. Ralph was the illustrator for Hunter S Thompson and was his biggest collaborator and one of his best friends. The book is basically the memoirs of Hunter S Thompson and I simply can't wait to start it. Its expensive and very hard to find so if people want to read it after me then let me know...unfortunately I'm way too selfish to be putting it in the Forest library. :D
It's like God's vagina!

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Post by ravanwin » Wed May 23, 2007 11:47 am

beev wrote:Did Bill McKibben consider the possibility that everything is natural?
yes. that does come up. he is philisophically rigerous with his debate.

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Jimmy Bastard
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Post by Jimmy Bastard » Wed May 23, 2007 3:44 pm

Kobo Abe - The Woman In The Dunes
maybe the ultimate anti-beach novel.
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Post by thehemulen » Mon May 28, 2007 11:27 am

c i a nights anthology
"If something is boring after two minutes, try it for four. If still boring, then eight. Then sixteen. Then thirty-two. Eventually one discovers that it is not boring at all." --John Cage.

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Return of the timewaster diaries

Post by danny » Wed May 30, 2007 6:54 pm

Awesome. Very similar comedy style to Ben Lancaster's reading at the last Golden hour where he wrote this long letter to the makers of Cheeto's cheese puffs disgusted by the lack of danger in their "dangerously cheesy cheese puffs".

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Post by Jimmy Bastard » Thu Jul 05, 2007 11:22 pm

Nick Touches biography of Jerry Lee Lewis entitled Hell Fire

token sample
'Jerry Lee had found his dirt: dirt upon which would rise a tale wilder and darker, bigger and badder, than any lived, told, or even dreamed by those who came before - a tale whose trailing, darkling embers would sting the very eyes of the Holy Ghost before falling, alighting, sinking, returning in quiet mystery to the Lousiana bottomland.
And Jerry Lee by now had found something else, too- something that in time would hew and cut the brow and fist of the tale. He had been taught more than new songs and fed more than words. There were fifteen-milligram Benezedrine capsules - magic little pill s.'

The whole book samples the same.
Extraordinary.
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James
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Post by James » Fri Jul 06, 2007 10:46 am

Jay Griffiths: "Pip Pip: A sideways look at time"

A interesting rolling rant about the western invention of time as a straight thrusting arrow, all the problems that causes, how other cultures and the fairer (better?) sex see time, and the way the world is going.

A copy will be in Edinburgh Libraries in a couple of days, when I return mine .....

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beev
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Post by beev » Fri Jul 06, 2007 7:36 pm

Bobby Fischer Goes To War by David Edmonds & John Eidinow

A surprisingly gripping account of the world's most thrilling (yes thrilling!) chess match...

1972: Bobby Fischer, a paranoid (and probably autistic) American genius takes on the Russians - who had dominated world chess for decades - in a match against Boris Spassky for the world championship title.

It's amazing how this book manages to be so full of suspense, even though the result of the match is in no doubt from the start.

It's also a fascinating insight into the world of chess, its personalities, and the politics of the cold war.

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Shannon
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Post by Shannon » Sat Jul 07, 2007 3:26 pm

Love is a Mix Tape by Rob Sheffield. Did you put that in the library, Dai?

Touching, moving, etc. but with enough geeky 90s music trivia to pull it all off without being overly sentimental.

It's reference only, but a quick read. Buy a big pot o' chai and spend an afternoon on a Forest couch.

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Post by Jimmy Bastard » Sun Jul 08, 2007 7:47 pm

Aye, I did donate it as part of the Forest Mixtape Society,
and it did bring a tear to my eye,
I especially liked his Jackie O obsession after his g/friend's death.
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Post by thehemulen » Wed Jul 25, 2007 10:51 pm

"Just For Fun" by Linus Torvalds. both entertaining and informative. second time i read it. theres no revolutionary quite like an accidental one.
"If something is boring after two minutes, try it for four. If still boring, then eight. Then sixteen. Then thirty-two. Eventually one discovers that it is not boring at all." --John Cage.

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beev
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Post by beev » Wed Jul 25, 2007 11:04 pm

Yes, that is a great book :)

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Post by Jimmy Bastard » Mon Aug 27, 2007 4:05 pm

JAPROCKSAMPLER: HOW THE POST-WAR JAPENESE BLEW THEIR MINDS ON ROCK'N'ROLL by JULIAN COPE
Image
The third installment in Julian Cope's excavation of lost and unchampioned rock'n'roll. No-one excavates a niche like this man can.

See also
Krautrocksampler (1995)
(currently out of print)
Danksrocksampler
(online: http://www.headheritage.co.uk/unsung/fe ... ocksampler )

A quite ridiculously thorough and meticulous undertaking, as to belie the book's subtitle, he chooses to plot his study, starting in 1853 with the US Navy taking anchor in Tokyo Bay, the text rollicks on, throwing up cultural and historical context alongside setting down the great, lost stories of all the frontier refuseniks that informed the current scene such as Acid Mother's Temple, The Boredoms etc. Usual fare then, happenings, street-drugs and plane hijackings.

His writing, immaculately pitched dead centre between Lester Bangs and John Sinclair carries so much crusading zeal and out-there metaphor that you know hearing the bands themselves will invariably disappoint.
That said, anyone wishing to take lend of this book, I'm in the process of tracking down online the author's top 50 listed and reviewed in the back of the book, I'll burn off all that I've got for anyone wishing to plug this blind-spot they didn't know they had.


Excerpt from a review of Speed, Glue and Shinki

Now it's obvious that someone like Joey Smith would attract the wrong kind of partner, and we discover this in a fairly big way on the second song 'Big Headed Woman'. The song starts off kind of hopefully and rocking, but soon gives itself to the sort of flaccid blues that causes dams to overflow. What a ghastly riff. What a woman you found for yourself, Joey. Get this for a lyric.

I got a bigheaded woman who talks about herself...
She drinks all my liquor
And she smokes all my stuff


What stuff is that Joey? Could you qualify, perhaps?

Yeah, she smokes all my dope.
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Post by Jimmy Bastard » Tue Sep 25, 2007 6:57 pm

Billy Childish My Fault
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Timely.
A rescue.
Elsewhere
just thought i bring this to folk's attention.
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Fucking pornographic.
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Post by stephengoodall » Tue Sep 25, 2007 10:01 pm

i work in a bookshop and we got a whole tabvle of these new fangled penguin books that try to use a classic aesthetic to sell new "modern classics" the clarkson one made me laugh out loud, and, what's more, it is selling the best out of them all.


I just read a book called "reading comics" its a critical-tone examination of comics with a focus on what the author dubs "art comics" and their inception. The book discusses the growing schism between these and the mainstream and has a good chapter about the pros and cons of superheros and their fans.

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The Timewaster diaries

Post by danny » Tue Sep 25, 2007 10:42 pm

This book rocks hard. Reminded me of one of Ben Lancaster's golden hour readings about the "Cheetos" where he goes on an epic rant about how these crisps do not live up to their "dangerously cheesy" advertising. Genius, pure comedy.
My next favourtie book is "FUCK this book", where this guy takes photo's of all the different places he's put up "FUCK" stickers. Fucking quality.

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Post by chombee » Wed Sep 26, 2007 10:15 am

King Rat by China Miéville. His first novel. Urban fantasy set in London, a modern take on King Rat and the Pied Piper, a series of gruesome murders, a detective, a cycle ride through London, long descriptions of jungle music ultra-cool consumerism which feel like brand placement but I don't think he was paid.

He writes dystopia's, sort of. Compared to the two novels that follows, King Rat is a much smaller and less detailed story, the characters are flat but I think it was intentional, something to do with the superheroes and supervillains thing he was going for. I would have liked more of the detective stuff.

I really recommend Perdido Street Station and The Scar.

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Post by Jimmy Bastard » Thu Oct 18, 2007 12:51 pm

Image
Sebastian Horsely - Dandy of the Underworld

The 'unauthorized autobiography' of a peacock without a cause, who lacking natural gifts to become an artist makes his life his art.
Debauchery ensues from the first page, retold with a Wildean flair, quips, twists, epigrams and aphorisms, most paragraphs carry a quotable line, the majority of which are stolen.
He maybe achieved his greatest infamy when he decided to fly out to the Philippines in order to get crucified, which in turn he also failed at, his Western bulk proving too weighty for the cross.

Here's a quick lift, where he describes our Edinburgh

'Edinburgh is the grimmest city on earth, it's all hills and steps and, at the bottom of the steps and hills, poverty. I can take great pride in my prejudice. The city is a centre radiating universal dullness. Rows and rows of houses the colour of atomic ash, so picturesque at a distance, so austere when near. The transition between Edinburgh and a graveyard would be unnoticeable.
Of course the city thinks it stinks of genius. In reality it is hops. It is cultural only in that nothing happens. For eleven months of the year it produces nothing but vomit. And then in August there is a welter of frivolity - the Edinburgh Festival. Suddenly entertainment starts at half-past eleven in the morning and parks itself on every street corner - a bit like the vomit. That they choose drama is understandable. The stage gets stuck with anything too boring to be shown on television. But why go to the theatre in Edinburgh? Theatre is just shouting in the evening. And the entire city does that anyway.
I have walked the streets of the world dressed like a prick. But from Trench Town to the Bronx there is nowhere more frightening than Lothian Road, Edinburgh on a Saturday night.'


A willful arsehole, like the man says,
'I only write to get my knob sucked - and the kind of girls I am attracted to are illiterate'
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Gandhi
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Post by Gandhi » Thu Oct 18, 2007 1:08 pm

hahaha
thats such an excellent extract. and I know how he feels about Lothian Road.
Can we please have that printed on A0 paper and put on a wall. genius.
It's like God's vagina!

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ravanwin
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Post by ravanwin » Thu Oct 18, 2007 2:20 pm

BAM: we have the theme of issue 100.

fuck edinburgh. / hotel city 3000

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Post by martinmckenna » Wed Oct 24, 2007 11:49 am

Great theme!

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chris
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Post by chris » Wed Oct 24, 2007 11:53 am

issue 100 should be a full colour pop out book, with free balloons and cassettes
Maybe it could work? But it will be a kaleidoscopic blend of mysterious shadows and rainbow hued-dreams seen through compassionate tears.

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thehemulen
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Post by thehemulen » Wed Oct 24, 2007 12:18 pm

anthology #3. forrec comp #3 + rerelease 1 and 2 in boxed set + dvd (exp car Vs rvw toons Or 4rest docu). tshirts, mugs, webcasts...
"If something is boring after two minutes, try it for four. If still boring, then eight. Then sixteen. Then thirty-two. Eventually one discovers that it is not boring at all." --John Cage.

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