Be Excellent To Each Other

Thanks for this. Just finished it. Fascinating stuff and a great follow-on from the railway book.

It reminded me of a BBC Four documentary from a few years ago, 'The Secret Life of the Motorway', which I've always considered to be one of the most esoteric yet gripping things the channel's ever shown.

I fucking loved that motorway documentary. So fascinating

Ooh ta, I'll see if I can find it on BoB. The book was strangely interesting - if you'd told me that I'd be looking up service stations to see what they looked like, I'd not have believed you. But I did.

I really enjoyed it. It's superb.

'Landscapes of Communism' by Owen Hatherley. Fascinating look at architecture, historical memory, and meaning in countries of the former Eastern bloc.

Not a book but a short story recommendation

http://www.vqronline.org/fiction/2016/03/cookie-jar

The Cookie-jar by Stephen King

Good read. I find King's short stories to be very different to his novels. No desperate need to add a conclusion

Kvothe? Patrick Rothfuss's books? Yeah, he really needs to get on with it.

Went onto the local library service's website today and reserved every single entry on the Booker shortlist so that I can finally start my New Year challenge! If nobody returns a book by next month, I might have to actually buy one or two of them.

New Jilly Cooper book out today!

The last of the Rutshire Chronicals (Wicked) wasn't very good, so hopefully this will be better. It's about horses, which is a good start.

I finished The House on the Borderland by William Hope Hodgson the other day. I enjoyed it although I must admit I almost lost interest half way through then it went and drew me back in.

Quite Lovecraftian in a way (and I believe H.P.L. was a fan of his) crazy to think it was written in 1908.

Just finished 'Stilleto', the second book of the Chequy Files, which are rather fun to read. The first book is called 'The Rook'.

It's a fairly familiar trope of there being a supernatural government agency that defends the country from weird threats, but it's done really well. The writing isn't always superlative prose, but it does action and intrigue very well, and the imagination going into the characters is superb.

Now reading 'The Girl With All The Gifts', as it is popular and about to be a big film and is written by Mike Carey who has done some great books (and comics) before.

A woman that Joans works with lent me this saying it was a bit weird, I quite liked it. I didn't realise it was going to be a film, that could be interesting.

A film partially filmed in the old Hanley bus station, fact fans. Cos when you want post apocalyptic, go to Stoke-on-Trent!

I assumed it would be odd given that his last series of books were about an exorcist who used a tin whistle for his exorcisms (and they were good, too).

Oh, is that the zombie girl? Didn't like it. They should have shot her in the face in the first ten seconds and were properly stupid for not doing so.

Spoilers!

Says it all. I feel like a survivor having got out!

Finished Paul Beatty's 'The Sell-Out'. Some laugh-out-load parts and many brilliantly worded ramblings but once you get past the humour and the whole shock value* the thing gets wrapped up pretty quickly. Some of the humour relies on detailed knowledge of American culture so I probably missed out on some of it. I'd never heard of the little rascals, for instance. I'll probably re-read it, or at least dip into it to relish and savour the author's turn of phrase.

Now to start the second book on the shortlist: Szalzy's 'All that man is'.

*

Read the first two sections (around 100 pages so far) last night. Really enjoyed the first two stories - looking forward to reading more of it and seeing how they intertwine.

The first one is about a couple of A-level students interrailing and brought back many memories of the joys and stresses of young adulthood and doing such trips. The second one, about a crappy package holiday that turns out well (by his standards) for the protagonist was pretty charming too.

Finished the Szalay. I really liked this one. Each of the nine stories is about a man at a different stage in life, from adolescence to old age, and all seem to be after something they might not be able to achieve whilst pondering about what the point of life is. Most stories seem to fade out rather than have a definite ending, and in a way that matches the novel's themes of the short and momentary nature of life. I'll have to re-read it at some point to see what it tells me about being male in the 21st century. My only qualm is that the author's repeated references to contemporary websites, gadgets, books, and other things might date it a bit too quickly.

Next up: Ottessa Moshfegh's Eileen.

Clearly you have forgotten that there's a new Jilly Cooper out.

What was wrong with the old Jilly Cooper?

She wrote about a school and it wasn't very good.

Also she wouldn't stop using the word "rugger".

Do you actually tead Gilly Cooper novels, Grim...?

Isn't she the one who writes about horses a lot, and sex? Isn't her writing aimed at 50 yr old women?

Yup. Yup. Yup.

I've nearly finished the new one. There's not really any sex in it, but that's okay.

Haha, that's brill. I love odd little nuggets of personality like that.

Plenty in here.

Booker challenge update: finished 'Eileen'.

In 1960s America a young woman living with a drunk abusive father and working in a borstal plots her escape. It was rather miserable throughout and the Hitchcock-esque denouement felt more like a frantic tying up of loose ends rather than a key piece of character development. 73%.

Next up: Thien's 'Do not say we have nothing'.

Booker challenge update: I read Deborah Levy's 'Hot Milk' when I was away. It's about a young woman trapped in a crappy Spanish resort caring for her demanding and hypochondriac mother. It really grew on me and I enjoyed the side characters, the narrative voice, and the various ailments the mother was having. As with most literary fiction, I think I'm going to have to return to it to start peeling away its various layers, especially the unattributed monologues from characters at the start of each chapter. I won't begrudge going back to it (but it's about to go overdue at the library so perhaps not now).

So, four and a half down, one and a half to go (I'm struggling through 'Do not say we have nothing').

Ah, they arrived.

Not enough spaceships

Oh godddddds

With foreword by Malcolm Fucking Tucker.

Booker challenge update: finished Graeme Macrae Burnet's 'His Bloody Project'. Oh boy, this was brilliant. It's a 'history' of a young crofter in 1860s Scotland accused of a grisly triple murder, told through witness statements, his own memoir written in his prison cell, an early form of psychology report, and a trial report, all written in the appropriate styles so if you read a lot of history and didn't realise it was in the fiction section you could easily be taken in *. I was hooked right from the start (a preface considering the authenticity of the work) and the tale of the down-trodden young man's dealings with an uppity village constable, his violent father, and his sexual awakening was a real page turner.

If I can sum up the courage to plod through another 200-odd pages of the tedious 'Do not say we have nothing' by Tuesday I'll be able to say I've read the whole of the Booker shortlist before the winner is announced, but even if I don't I've read more fiction in the past few weeks than in most years, so that's definitely a Good Thing and something to consider repeating for 2017.


* the veracity of the 'Flashman' papers are well-known and much discussed.

This one won.

It's very funny and very well-written. I'll definitely add it to the re-read list, but my original comments still stand (for the time being!).

His Bloody Project is gripping. Superb. Started it today. Loving it.

Just finished it this afternoon. Loved every minute of it.

Archibald Ross is a brilliant character. I am 3/4 of the way through, at trial now, and loving it.

Despite it being psychology and therefore Mere Tittle Tattle, Piffle and Poppycock, this is pretty good. I have learnt things, useful things, and some other stuff.

There's an audiobook version on audible! I'll check it out.

My friend struggles with those, due to a lack of pictures

Yes, do. It has some good stuff on avoiding being pressure sold to, and some really quite interesting g things on getting prisoners of war to collaborate. And i am only a few chapters in!

Cool, I've been really struggling getting prisoners of war to collaborate with me lately.

Convince me to read it. If you can't, it hasn't worked.

MaliA means his wife and kids

Why would I want you to be more persuasive?

It is an interesting read, I think it covers the culty stuff to start your malicool cult.

Association